The newest epidemic: Youthful Seniors

The youth has become a generation of senior citizens in training, all lying in wait for their AARP card and social security stipend. Perhaps I sound a bit alarmist but the whole scene reeks of a nightmare combination of stale piss and Aqua Velva.

When I was younger I had my fair share of run-ins with the elderly. Usually these consisted of either being chased off some fist-shaker’s lawn, or sitting on a couch with them watching either re-runs of old shows or listening to them talk about the same things over and over while a looping news program played in the background. I used to think, “How do these people do this? Are they senile?”

Looking back on it, they probably were, but they were old. Old people are allowed to get forgetful, crusty and boring; they earned it, after all. I just hoped that I never became that way.

The future hit sooner than I had ever dreamed. I was recently visiting an acquaintance and the day’s program consisted of watching a marathon of some hideous new television show’s episodes on a Netflix stream.

As I sat there wondering if I had anything better to do (sadly, I didn’t), I looked around and noticed the humble abode was chock full of people glued to the television set with stares not unlike one has while watching the dryer spin around and around at a Laundromat. At each episode’s conclusion, the watchers would whoop it up and talk about how enthralled they were, how “crazy” the episode was, before popping on the next one, rinse and repeat.

What has the world come to? Has the American youth always been this hideously boring?

Maybe, but I guess I never noticed it. In other places, the show goes on. I lived for a time in Beirut where much of the nightly goings-on would make Caligula blush. A good time amongst people my age surely didn’t consist of obsessing over the latest cultish television show.

I’m lost. A man without a country. I don’t fit into the senior citizen youth culture that has come to dominate. Conversations are increasingly dull.  People of my generation can drone on incessantly about whatever happened on the latest episode of a cable show, but ask them their opinion on something important like what’s going on in Afghanistan, or if they think Vladimir Putin is angling for a new Cold War, and all that comes out of that fruitless attempt at discussion is a blank stare followed by a quick return to raving about how bad ass Hal from Malcolm in the Middle is.

Maybe I’m too critical and should just resign myself to embracing the whole thing. Maybe I’m the curmudgeon. Maybe I’m out of touch.

Probably. I suppose it’s high time I strap on some Depends, lull myself into a state of Benzodiazepine warmth with a stiff Valium/Oxycodone cocktail while settling in on the couch to watch twenty-three episodes of “Game of Thrones” in a row. The high life if there ever were such a thing.

I believe Patrick Henry once said something like, “Give me Convenience, or Give me Death.”

If he didn’t, he should have. It’s a fitting motto for the Millenial generation.

You Only Die Once

The Kigali Airport was bathed in an aura of desperation. The decrepit facility was dimly lit and raucous with the squawks of foreign tongues. I pushed my way out the door through the sweaty hordes into the refreshingly humid and cool African night, where I was immediately was accosted by an emaciated, disheveled version of Arsenio Hall.

“Moto, my friend! You must take moto!” He shouted at me and motioned toward a dirt bike that resembled something from my youth on a Montana farm.

“How much?” I looked through the gratuitous pile of funny money that had just been acquired in the customs hall.

“Where do you need to go?”

“Kimihurura.”

“5,000” He said.

That totaled up to about a US Dollar.

You only die once. I threw on my Sheepherder’s jacket and hopped aboard. I was supposed to be back in the Central Valley at this very moment, doing whatever it is one does in the Central Valley, most definitely not riding on the back of a dirtbike through the slums and high-rises to a place with a bizarre name. This was living.

Arsenio kick-started the aged machine and we rocketed off. My head jerked back with a violent jolt; I held on for dear life, white knuckled, as we sped down the highway at a hideously irresponsible clip of speed. I reminisced about a time flying in a rusty Soviet jet just above the tree line in Guatemala. If that hadn’t killed me, this certainly wouldn’t.

My life had always been a bit bizarre but this was bordering on batshit crazy, even by my own depraved standards. Forty-eight hours ago I was on a couch in a wood-paneled living room listening to The Doors’ “LA Woman” album, and over a bowl of Leb Blonde and a glass of Japanese scotch, bemoaning the current boring state of my life. A bizarre, rambling phone call changed all of that. It was adamant that I come to Kigali, immediately. So I finagled a ticket from a shady back-alley travel agent in a North Beach Thai restaurant and flew Neglected Class to Rwanda.

After a harrowing moto trip that saw me nearly killed at least six times, I was dropped off at a rundown bar to meet my contact. The place looked like Esther’s Orbit Room; noisy, smoky, and crowded with throngs of people. I pushed my way to the bar and ordered a beer, my ass grabbed and my balls pawed by no less than five wild-eyed Nubian maidens along the way.

The Bartender who resembled Alfonso Ribeiro brought me a beer and gave me a strange look.

“White man,” the Carlton doppelganger said in a thick accent, “this is also for you.”

He forked over an envelope.

How did this guy know who I was? And why was he calling me “white man”? I snatched the envelope, looked around and realized I was the only Caucasian in this entire place. That answered that.

I ripped the letter open. Inside was a key and a note that gave me the address of a house I’d be staying at during my time here.

Something was rubbing my back. I turned to find a beautiful but crazy looking woman in her late twenties behind me that looked like Angela Davis, complete with a giant Afro. Her eyes said she was friendly but at the same time could kill me and think nothing of it.

“Do you want to take me home?” She asked matter-of-factly.

Strange. What could possibly go wrong with that?

“Sure,” I said, slurping down the remnants of my beer.

I grabbed her by the hand, got a taxi (no more of that moto shit) and gave the driver the address from the letter. My new lady friend started making out with me in the back seat.

We were soon dropped off in front of a walled compound. I pushed the gate open and started us toward the Mediterranean-style villa illuminated by the moonlight. She was all over me at this point, sucking and biting as I tried to open the door. Her affection made any action difficult. Once inside, I turned on the lights and told her to have a seat on the couch as I went to throw my stuff in a back room.

Upon returning, something was different. Angela glared at me from the sofa, her carefree spunk replaced by a face pained with paranoia. She leaped to her feet, let out an unholy howl that sounded like something from “The Exorcist”, and bit me hard as she sprinted out of the house, stealing my keys along the way. I ran after her. The possessed vixen burst across the yard; the screams got louder.

She leaped in a catlike fashion up onto the outer wall, and dangled my keys high in the air while continuing her conniption. Two guards from a neighboring compound trotted over.

“She stole my god damn keys!” I shouted, pointing at the insane minx perched above us.

They pulled out wooden sticks and slapped at her roost. After tap dancing to avoid the blows, she chucked the keys at my head and took off running and screaming down the street. The two guards gave chase after her.

As I watched the marauding shitshow disappear into the night, I wished I was still sitting in my wood-paneled living room listening to Doors albums.

Skinny Dipping

My raven-haired muse and I sauntered down a shadowy and largely abandoned Sands Beach.

She looked at me slyly and soulfully with her deep brown eyes. “Don’t you just want to do something crazy?”

“Of course, love,” I said, taking her hands in mine. “What do you have in mind?”

She looked longingly to the seas.

“You know what we really ought to do,” she said flashing a sinister grin. “We really ought to go skinny-dipping. It’s too nice a night not to.”

I looked at her not sure if she was serious or joking. She sure looked serious.

“I wholeheartedly agree,” I said.

She let out a laugh of approval. “All right! Let’s go put our stuff by the fire pit and do this.”

“And you can’t chicken out,” she said, giving me a terse look.

“Don’t worry. I won’t.”

Arriving at the fire pits, we found the spot next to ours was now home to a multitude of unkempt beach people and sea hags who were embroiled in some sort of alcohol-fueled, fire-worshipping Bacchanalia. We emigrated toward the unfolding chaos.

“Let’s throw a tree on!” a voice rang out.

With that, one miscreant produced a dried Christmas tree he’d apparently been saving for just this very occasion and tossed it onto the waning combustion. It reignited in a fury. Flames shot high into the blackened starry sky, and embers cascaded from a fiery fountain that peaked somewhere above the moon.

“Look at that,” my love marveled.

Enticed by the spectacular spectacle of one tree being engulfed in flames, the drunks proceeded to toss on another. And another. The inferno greatly intensified and shot seemingly within inches of our faces as we sat drawn to it like a couple of stoned moths.

As the blaze waned, Love turned to me.

“It’s time,” she said, as the reflection of the flames danced in her eyes. “Are you ready?”

I nodded, and we started our trek down the beach. I looked nervously at her, then the waves, then her, then the waves, then the stars, then her again. She seemed to do something of the same. I was exhilarated but somewhat terrified at the same time.

“Well,” she said. “Start stripping.”

I obliged. I started taking my clothes off. Soon I just had my underwear on. Love had gone commando.

“Everything means everything,” she instructed. “Take it off.”

“It’s cold.”

“Like you have much to hide anyway,” she teased.

I cackled and removed the last remnant of my clothing, flinging it onto the darkened sand.

“Let’s do this!” she yelled.

We charged into the icy waters. Or at least I did. I got up to chest high as a swell came in. I looked over, and Love was just standing up to her ankles in water, the surf lapping innocently against her. Did she chicken out?

“I chickened out,” she said.

“Ah well, next time,” I said.

We put our clothing back on and headed toward the fires. We took a seat next to some flames and tried to warm ourselves up. The cold waters of the Northern Pacific chilled the evening. We sat cuddled next to the flames.

“I have to do it,” she said.

“Do what?” I asked.

“I have to go all-in in the water. I can’t just chicken out.”

“Yeah,” I said. “You did come all the way here.”

“Will you do it too?” she asked.

“Of course, love,” I said.

Wild and nude, we charged headfirst into the icy waters like rabid bison off a buffalo jump. I dove into a rising swell and was washed over with a cold, salty brine.

I recomposed just in time to see Love emerge from the surf, a striking figure rising from the chaotic moonlit sea foam like Aphrodite herself, the waves dripping from her supple body. She shook the water from herself, gazed ahead with a lustful eye and giggled. We leapt into an embrace.

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

We trekked back to the fire pits, which were now abandoned. We sat next to the fire for a little while, warming up from our icy bath.

“Want to head down the beach?” she queried.

“Absolutely,” I said.

We walked down to the shoreline and then found a seat up on the loose sand above the wave break. I laid down next to Love and gazed up at the dark, starry tapestry above. Off to the side the lights of the city danced in the surf, and above, constellations glided effortlessly.

“Look,” I said, pointing. “It’s Orion.”

The celestial warrior lorded over us like the sentinel of not only this beach community, but time itself. The sound of the waves formed a crashing metronome, a sedative backdrop. Lulled into a state of euphoria by the elements, I turned on my side and cuddled up next to my habibti.

“I feel infinite,” she mused.

“Me too.”

We passed out under the stars, blissful and triumphant.

I was startled awake by a steady beating on my door. I felt like death, sicker than the proverbial dog, and hating life. I ached. I was congested. I rolled back over and shut my eyes. The beating continued. I staggered to my feet, and answered the knocking, my own self resembling a sort of homeless and disheveled owl. It was my landlord, apparently here for some sort of “random inspection.”

I sighed. I’d rather be skinny-dipping.