endedben

I'm so emo your 14 year old sister is fucking jealous.


I'm sorry for anyone who reads this miserable journal about a miserable fuck.As I write these words you're reading right now, I am having a nervous break down.

Holy Shit in Heaven.
There was a time I didn't need to drink, or smoke weed or fuck myself in any variety of ways.
There was a time when I felt happy waking up and going about my day like a normal boy would.
There was a time I had friends and a community and perfect fucking hair and a sweet Volvo.

Now there's times when I hate myself so much I want to shred myself apart.
There's now times when I want to drink myself to death, but I don't even get drunk anymore so what's the point?
There's times when I want to make things that are fucking beautiful and lasting and perfect but I know I cannot.

Everyone is so good at living, why am I not?

The last time I was happy I was dreaming.

I dream of her again. And it makes me hate myself. I haven't moved on at all, not one inch in any direction. My friends have all told each other they've given up on me, knowing they cannot make me as happy as she did. I want to tell my mother, maybe she'd understand, but she has a new husband now and shouldn't be bothered by her idiot son. And these are things you can't tell your dad. Atleast I can't.

My best years are over. I'm waiting to die off now.

This modern love.


I guess I'll leave you with a story of fucking Glory:

Ben was 18 and ran his fucking high school. Completely untouchable, he roamed from class to class, imposing his will. He had a band of cohorts, hand chosen for their excellence:

Bobo. 6'5'' and maybe 130 pounds.
Brian. A leather jacketed republican scum bag.
Scott. A fat fuck who drove us around. But he had a cool car.

And I'm Ben. I was watching one of those MTV shows, I think it was Diary. It was on Chris Rock in any event, and it was the turning point of my senior year of high school. On the show, an impressionable young myself saw Chris Rock declare ''Sometimes, I just like to steal stuff!" and then proceeded to do so. Inspiration.

That Monday, around noon, we were sitting around some class room, shooting shit and doing god knows what. I looked at my crew of dirt bags: "Let's go steal stuff."

There wasn't a word spoken against this plan and we made good on it. Media Play, on Alpine, was our first stop. I walked right in like I always did and went for the first thing that caught my eye: A Bender Action Figure with wind-up action and a cigar. I walked out ten minutes later with about fifty dollars worth of loot.

"That was easy."

...part two......

No SWAT teams showed up at our houses in the middle of the night so we were in the clear. The next day at school everyone knew what we had done. It was a small school and Bobo and Brian liked to talk, especially to girls. Ben stole this, Ben stole that. Whatever Ben did, he liked the ease and sleaze with which he pulled these stunts off.

In the parking lot after school, I offered up a suggestion. Meijers, anyone? Meijers was the local Wal-Mart type place. They didn't have alarms or cameras and there were dozens in the Grand Rapids area.

But Scott refused to go unless we stole specific things for him. I promised him anything he wanted.

The entire James Bond matchbox car collection, he said. The ones with James Bond on the box! A deal's a deal.

And it was even easier the second time. Along with Scott's cars, I picked up some dumb Anime toys and some new Converse all-stars. I just put them on in the store and walked out with them, with my sandles in pockets. All while drinking a mountain dew I took from a display case and opened in the store.

.........part 3.........

And then we went nuts. We'd leave everyday, whatever direction we headed we would loot and plunder. We never stole from small stores, or from a store where we knew people. We nicked things for people, for their birthdays, for holidays, for no reason.

Random kids would walk up to me or Bobo or Brian and request books, or cds or movies or toys. Not a problem. You'll have it tomorrow. And that was it! We taught two kids, Jonah and Micah our craft. They first acted as lookouts or would drive the van (we eventually needed a van to keep everyone's stuff seperate and together). They then moved on up and started their own thing.

We would all meet or depart from Bobo's house. He had a cool basement room and his parents were never home. Eventually the walls were plastered with stolens posters, lifted right off of Blockbuster store windows. Whoever was cool at the time. I still have Sam Jacksons face in my basement.

Our biggest score was also our most well planned. It was the day we took over 600 dollars worth of shit in under 5 minutes.

................the big score.....

Brian drove the van. Bobo spotted for me. Jonah was the decoy. I was point.

Jonah walked up to the Meijers video game section and asked to see the Nintendo 64s, which were out of date and behind the Dreamcasts and the brand new PS2s. The old woman, who we had hand picked for this job, pulled out atleast five of each system to reach the N64s.

I was waiting across the way, watching the pile up. I put down my catalog and walked up and took one of each system and put them in a shopping cart being pushed in the opposite direction by Bobo. The old woman saw nothing, as she was buried under a counter. Jonah was long gone by then and she never knew what happened.

Boy it's hot...I said as I took my coat off and layed it over the two systems. I pushed the cart in a circle and asked the same oblivious woman if I could get 2 PS2 controllers and 4 dreamcast controllers. She asked if I wanted any games with that.

What do ya got?

Loaded up, I walked to the front entrance only to find 2 security guards and alarms. I was stunned for a half second, as I swore those weren't there before. I looked over to my left...

...the home and garden section! It was outside and only had a fence around it.

Tell Brian to bring the van around back. We're playing video games tonight by God.

I pushed my heavily laden cart into the home and garden center and politely asked the man if he had concrete bricks. They sure did! In the back, sir! Delightful! Right in that concealed corner, you say?

I threw my goods over the fence while Bobo and Brian scooped them up and carried them to the car. I then bought 1 concrete brick for the sum of 4.50 and exited the store. I got in the awaiting van and we took off, like we had countless times before.

............................the end.......

By this time, we had gotten just plain lazy. We would walk back into school with bags upon bags of candy and just pour them, literally, into classrooms. We'd come back with new shoes, new hats and new cds. Bobo once came back with an entirely new wardrobe, down to the underwear.

As usual, we went to Meijers on Alpine and took a bunch of stuff. Bobo said he thought an old lady was watching him the whole time. I said he was crazy.

Then, we decided to hit up the Plainfield Meijers. I spotted a pair of Reeboks and slipped them on, not noticing the older woman spying me. I had a couple cds in my pants, with some DVDs and a knife to open the CDs. That's right, I stole knives just to OPEN the CDs from their super crazy plastic casings.

I walked to the entrance and gave Bobo my shoes.

The old woman is back, Ben. Seriously.

I know. Play this shit cool and go to the car. I'll be out soon.

They didn't go for Bobo as he left the store. They had their eye on me. Five of them. And the old woman! I made my way to the entrance, my feet about as comfortable as they could get. They weren't taking these fucking shoes from me...

Excuse me, sir.

Fuck. A hand on my shoulder and I was surrounded. Two little kids walked past me with their mother as they frisked me. I smiled at them and they almost cried. They put my hat, my cds, my dvds and my sweet knife in a bag. They then took my wallet and threw it in there. They then gathered around me and the lady with the bag walked ahead of us and started dialing the cops.

Well, they may get me someday, but today wasn't that day. We walked, two huge men at my side and my stuff in a bag. I would need to get that bag back. So I took off running. You haven't seen fast, you haven't felt speed until you see me take off from authority. I came up behind the old woman and ripped the band from her hands.

He's getting away! Stop him!

Two cashiers came from their lanes to try and stop me. I side stepped the first one, and gave the secret a shove in the chest as I semi-leaped over him. He wasn't a day over 15 and I felt no remorse.

I came up to the automatic doors and gave the first one a kick. The second got my shoulder and I was free. Bobo was still in the parking lot, but as soon as he saw my running ass scorching down the road, he took off. They piled into Scotts jeep. I ran past them screaming: Meet me down the road! MEET ME DOWN THE ROAD!!

They picked me up a mile down Plainfield and no car ride was sweeter. A pack of cop cars flew past us as we went down the street, and we laughed and laughed. We had covered up the license plate so the parking lot cameras couldn't nab us. We were home free...except:

Scott had failed to inform us he had placed a FOR SALE sign in his window, with his phone number.

Back at school. A phone call was waiting for Scott. The cops had figured out he was driving and called his mom, who in turn called the school.

And he cried and talked and fingered yours truly.
''I'm sorry" he mouthed as I walked past him. No cops yet and I wasn't hanging around to find out. But first things first. I gave my shit (except the shoes) to the ghettoiest guy I knew, knowing he wouldn't tell the cops he took stolen goods. Against his probation.

I then took some scissors and cut off my hair in the bathroom. I hacked the shit out of my ear.

As blood poured down the side of my face, I told the office I needed to take off.

Is something wrong? Ben?...they asked, knowing full well what was up.

Not feeling good. Gotta go, was all I could manage and I hauled ass. I rode my bike about as fast as I could, because there was something I needed to do before I got thrown in the clink.

I went to my girlfriends house and we had sex. She was oddly turned on by my bloody ear and shorn head and it was fucking great. I kept my new shoes on the whole time.