Assholity
Some years back, one of my friendships ended dramatically. Someone my wife Patsy and I used to be on very good terms with, a man who had helped us with several building projects at our place in New Hampshire, got smashed on dirty double martinis at a local restaurant and suddenly pitched a fit. I’d gotten out my wallet to pay the check, and had laid it on the table. The man picked it up, yelled “You’re an asshole!” and threw it across the room. His wife, who must have endured his drunken mood-swings before, jumped up and ran out.
The four of us had been having what I thought was a perfectly pleasant conversation before the man exploded. I knew the man was a right-winger, so I never brought up politics with him. But we had talked about many other things, from the town of Peterborough’s exorbitant property taxes through moose sightings to freaky weather, without butting heads.
However, that evening, somehow we had gotten onto the Roe v. Wade decision. Obama was president, but the Supreme Court had veered to the right due to appointments by his predecessor, and the decision was being reexamined. I said something about five old guys in robes deciding what a woman could and couldn’t do with her body, and the man blew his cool. He murmured something about little, tiny babies in a tearful voice, and went batshit crazy.
After calling me an asshole, he hesitated, as if he were trying to decide whether or not to beat the shit out of me (he was younger. bigger and stronger than I was). But a woman at the next table saw him start to draw a large hunting knife sheathed to the back of his belt, and cried out in fear. The restaurant owner started toward us, but before he had a chance to ask what was going on, the man left. I gave the owner our phone number in case the cops wanted to ask some questions about the incident. After I finally paid the check, Patsy and I went home.
Later that evening, a woman from the Dublin Police Department called. She asked if I wanted to press charges of attempted assault with a deadly weapon against the berserk man – apparently the lady who had been at the next table planned to. I said no, because the man hadn’t actually threatened me with his knife. “OK, if you’re sure,” she said, sounding disappointed, and hung up. I gathered there had been complaints in the past about the guy.
Needless to say, Patsy and I haven’t seen him since. I check the police blotter in the Monadnock Ledger-Transcript from time to time to see if he’s been arrested, but no joy so far. Either he’s gone through a major attitude adjustment, or he’s left town.
I’ve come to realize that the reason being called an asshole disturbed me so much was because I have indeed acted like one many times in the past. The Seven Deadly Sins are lust, gluttony, avarice, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride, and I’ve committed all of them in the course of my life. I’ve slavered over women I’m not married to. I’ve eaten and drunk far too much on numerous occasions. I’ve been greedy for money and loath to share it. I’m a lazy-bones who would rather lie in the sun than get my day’s work done. I have a volatile temper. I envy other people’s accomplishments and good looks. And I’m overweeningly proud of my writing, even though nobody wants to publish it. As Hamlet remarked about himself, “What should such fellows as I do, crawling between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves all.” And “knave” is an archaic term for asshole.
Assholity is a common malady, to be sure. I’d estimate that at least a billion people suffer from it. Most of them would deny their condition if it was diagnosed, insisting that they were decent, honest folks just trying to get along in this cold, hard world. But some of them, myself included, know their heads are up their asses. These sufferers desperately want to extricate their craniums, stand upright, and take a walk in the sun. Unfortunately, there is no permanent cure for the disease, despite the plethora of bogus self-help books written by other assholes, and the empty consolations of religion. But I’ve thought of something that might help the assholes who want to change their lives.
Alcoholics Anonymous is a worthy organization that has helped countless juicers get off the sauce. My father, a binge drinker for most of his adult life, was finally persuaded to quit after several black-out episodes left him horribly sick, with no memory of where he’d been during his spree. He went through a rough detox at home, and was persuaded by a friend and fellow juicer to join AA. But Dad didn’t buy the seven God parts of AA’s Twelve Step Program, since the only Higher Power he believed in was Lady Luck (he was also a compulsive gambler – they loved him in Las Vegas). He did go to AA meetings from time to time, but he never made them part of his weekly routine. And he went through several sponsors; he was a charming, silver-tongued devil, and he persuaded each one of them to fall off the wagon with him.
Finally a particularly harrowing black-out scared him sober. He wound up at a rehabilitation ranch outside Tucson, where he was by far the oldest guest, and the only recovering alcoholic – the other men and women were trying to break drug habits. He was very popular with both the young director of the facility and the drug addicts, a sort of wise-cracking, foxy grandpa who beat them at penny-ante poker and backgammon.
His last year and a half was good. He’d been a canny money manager when he was sober, and he helped the director straighten out his finances. In his prime, Dad had also been an expert rider, competing in horse shows, hunting to the hounds, and participating in point-to-point races. The ranch maintained a few docile horses, and Dad taught some of the recovering druggies to ride. At the time, equine therapy had not yet been adopted by psychiatrists and other mental health experts, but as someone who got through a rough adolescent patch with the aid of a Welsh pony, I feel sure that the companionship of horses calmed and steadied the troubled young men and women, and made them emotionally stronger.
Dad died of pancreatic cancer, which, like cirrhosis of the liver, is associated with alcoholism. So what he called Demon Rum (although he preferred Satanic Scotch) got him in the end.
His memorial service was held in Tucson, and Patsy, my brother Mike, and I flew out to attend it. We wore formal attire, expecting the sort of solemn commemoration that takes place in a church. Instead, it took the form of an AA meeting, and was held outside. Dad’s young friends, all casually dressed, told anecdotes about him and his charming, wicked ways. There was more laughter than sorrow. He would have approved.
There should be an organization that would do for assholes what AA does for drunks. It would be called Assholes Anonymous, and it would follow a similar Twelve Step Program:
1. We admit that we can’t help being assholes, and our lives have become unspeakable.
2. We believe that an egregious, all-powerful Asshole can, by comparison, make us feel we’re not so bad after all.
3. We turn our problem over to the Almighty Schmuck.
4. We make a searching and fearless inventory of our gaffes, mistakes, and flagrant acts of stupidity.
5. We admit to ourselves that we are total dorks.
6. We let our Omnipotent Imaginary Friend worry about our character defects.
7. We humbly beg to differ with our consciences.
8. We make a list of all the people we have offended, and take pains to avoid them whenever possible.
9. If we can’t avoid them, we apologize, except when doing so might piss them off even worse because they don’t believe us.
10. We create a computer file of all our errors and store it deep in the Cloud where we’ll never find it again.
11. We take up yogic meditation, using the mantra “Doofus”
12. We begin attending Assholes Anonymous meetings.
At these meetings, we introduce ourselves, using first names only. For example, I’d say, “Hello! I’m Toby, and I’m an asshole!”
The other recovering dipshits would respond in unison, “Hello, Toby!” Then they’d sing, to the tune of the old Doctor Pepper jingle, “I’m an asshole, you’re an asshole, anyone can be an asshole too!” That would break the ice, and we’d start swapping yarns about each other’s idiotic behavior until one of us took offense and stormed out of the room. His or her exit would signal the end of that evening’s meeting. Considerably cheered, we’d schedule the next week’s session. Most of those who actually showed up for it would congratulate themselves on not being utter shitbirds, but there would probably be a nitpicker who said that by priding oneself on one’s attendance, one was acting like an asshole. Someone would threaten the nitpicker with grievous bodily harm, and his or her outburst would provide the reason for meeting again.
It’s quite possible to carry on this way until the end of your days, attending Assholes Anonymous gatherings once a week, confessing your inanities, receiving glib consolations, and promptly making more bone-headed blunders. You’ll never stop being an asshole, but you’ll make a lot of interesting new friends and enemies. Your life will acquire more sparkle and zing, as internet trolls (assholes themselves, of course) find out about you and start putting you down. You might become a troll yourself, and make other assholes miserable. And when you die, the angels will snivel and sob for you, but the demons will chuckle and yell. Your gravestone inscription will read, “Here Lies A Complete And Total Jerk”. You might even achieve a measure of posthumous fame, remembered by those you have annoyed as the biggest asshole they have ever met. There are worse fates: at least you won’t be forgotten. There’s no such thing as bad publicity, as the legendary asshole P. T. Barnum said.