Since he was going to be dead soon anyway, why not have his favorite food one last time? The train whooshed by as he reasoned it out: He still had money and God knew he wouldn't need it tomorrow. Yeah, why not have one last steak? And since it was going to be his last meal on earth, that was as good an excuse as any to splurge and go to D'Antonio's, the high end place he'd never had the occasion to visit.
And so he did, and it was good. Remarkably good. Maybe not reason-to-go-on-living good, but definitely good.
By the time he was finished, the trains were no longer running, so he decided he would do it the next morning. No need to set his alarm clock. Not like he had anything else he had to do that day.
The next morning came and he was a little hungover from the wine he'd had with his steak the night before, but after a couple of cups of coffee he was focused and on task.
On his way to the train station, he passed the used record store where that one indie snob he always hated from afar worked: the jerkoff with the skinny jeans, hipster-approved haircut and irritating column in the weekly "alternative" paper. The one who always had a condescending way of making you feel like a loser no matter what you were buying or trying to sell back.
They'd never met but over the course of living in that neighborhood he'd developed a genuine hatred of him. So much so that he decided to make a quick stop at the record store on his way to the train station.
He walked right up to hipster record store guy and ended his phone conversation by putting his fingers on the cradle of the land line phone he was using. Then he looked him square in the eye, unfurled his middle finger and said, "Fuck you."
Hipster record store guy just stared at him dumbfounded as he put his middle finger away and then swept his arms over the Employers' Picks shelf dedicated to his recommendations and knocking them all to the floor before leaving the store triumphantly.
And it felt good.
So good that he put off his trip to the train station a bit longer and stopped by the supermarket for a celebratory beer, splurging for a wine-sized bottle of a fancy lager from Europe which he split with a homeless guy he found feeding empties into the recycling machine.
Their conversation wasn't life changing, but it felt good to socialize, and he ended up buying and sharing a few more bottles of the European lager with the guy. As the beer flowed, he thought of a few more people he wanted to give the same "Fuck you" treatment he'd given to hipster record store guy before going out, but he didn't want to do it drunk. He didn't want people's last impressions of him to be as the guy who drunkenly told them off (out of the blue) before making a one-way trip to the train station. So instead he went home and made a list of the people he would tell off the next day:
- His sister-in-law
- His brother
- Pretty much everyone at his job
- And his last job
- The "Would you mind if I worked in a set here really quick" guy from the gym who always took forever and then never wiped his sweat off the equipment
- People who talked too loudly on the train
- Smokers
- People who spit in public
- Several others
It definitely took longer than a day to get through everybody, much longer. But once he got into a rhythm, he found the work to be very agreeable. Most people had no idea what was going on. One moment they were going about their day and minding their own business, the next this guy (depending on the person, a relative/friend/co-worker/acquaintence/complete stranger) was coming up to them, flipping them off, and saying, "Fuck you" before leaving just as suddenly as he'd arrived. If he'd bothered to think about it, he would've acknowledged that most recipients of his middle finger "Fuck you" treatment probably didn't understand what had prompted it, but he wasn't concerned about how they took it. He was focused on himself. This was for him. And just as it had with hipster record store guy, it felt good. Every time. It gave him purpose. And once he had gotten through everyone on his list, he felt more grounded. His vitriol had been sated and he no longer felt like going to the train station.
But at the same time, he didn't want to return to his old life. He couldn't. Although he'd never gone through with that fateful trip to the railroad tracks, in many ways his old self was dead. He was a new person now, reborn. Even still, he didn't want to be the "Fuck you" middle finger guy for the rest of his life, either. It had been gratifying while it lasted, but he was ready for something less spiteful. And so he made some adjustments. He kept the spirit of the "Fuck you" middle finger guy--calling people out for inconsiderate behavior (it occured to him later that this was what he hated most of the people on his list for)--but dropped the profanity and the middle finger (since profanity and middle fingers themselves were inconsiderate). His focus would be the same--ridding the world of inconsiderate behavior by calling out the people who perpetrated it--but his delivery would be more family friendly. Among his new catch phrases:
"Hey, don't be a jerk."
"Knock it off."
"Be nice."
None of which may have had the impact of "Fuck you" and a middle finger, but he liked them anyway, and used them every day.
It felt good to have a purpose.
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