Revenge.
When I was much, much younger (read: a way shittier human), a bunch of my friends were in a play together. There was this kid named Scott who was involved in the play in some capacity – was he an actor? A musician? Part of the stage crew? Who knows, I can’t remember. Actually, I can’t even remember what the play was. Or whether I was involved in the play. It’s possible that I was helping to paint sets, or was selling tickets, or had volunteered as an usher. Or maybe I was just sitting in the audience? I really can’t remember. Are you sensing a theme? The contours of my memory have all been dulled by time, and all that I know is that there was a play, and this kid named Scott was involved in some way or another.
Anyway, Scott did something that made me and my friends very angry. Were we even angry? It’s possible that we were just really annoyed by him. I have no idea. But if I try to think really hard about it, I’m pretty sure that he didn’t commit some specific crime against us. I think he was basically just an everyday, run of the mill asshole, and we were sick of it. The end.
So just to recap: I can’t remember what the play was. I can’t remember what I had to do with the play. I can’t remember what Scott had to do with the play. I can’t remember what Scott did to offend me and my friends. So now, after all these years, the only thing that remains in my memory is what we did to this guy. The act of revenge.
This is what happened. After the play, my friends and I went outside together to smoke cigarettes, and maybe make out, and to decide what stupid suburban thing we were going to do for the rest of the night. As we walked past the rows of cars outside the theater, we saw Scott’s car parked beneath a streetlamp, completely unguarded in the still evening air. Not only was Scott a giant, human-shaped turd, but he was also rich. While the rest of us were borrowing our moms’ old Ford Tauruses, Scott, of course, had his own brand new car. It was an SUV, which was VERY exotic in the 90s. And it was gleaming white under the streetlamp; Scott always kept it in perfect condition.
At that moment, as we all strolled down the street from the theater and saw his shithead SUV (which he did nothing to EARN), parked on the side of the road, we were filled with a kind of collective rage at the injustice of it all. Here’s this absolute fucker of a person, who treats everyone like shit, driving this immaculate new vehicle that none of us could ever even dream of owning. Scott would need to learn a lesson about being a dickhead, and we were obviously the ones to serve it to him.
I have no idea who came up with the idea, but within a minute my guy friends had surrounded the car and were unzipping their pants. In an instant, a shower of urine was pouring down all over his car. We made sure to get the driver’s side door handle especially wet so that he would get a handful of pee when he tried to open the door. Not to be outdone by the boys, I climbed with another girlfriend up onto the roof of the SUV, dropped our jeans, and squatted down. The urine dripped down the windshield while everyone erupted with hoots of laughter. This fucker was going down.
Afterwards, we probably went to a diner and drank coffee and ate French fries. Or maybe we went back to someone’s house to watch The Princess Bride in a dark basement. If it was a good night, maybe someone managed to procure a bottle of booze, either by stealing it from a parent’s liquor cabinet, or convincing an older sibling to buy it for us. I remember being incredibly pumped from the adrenaline of what I thought was pure, unadulterated, punk rock badassery. But what came next? Who knows. I don’t think I ever even knew whether or not Scott figured out what happened.
The point is, I have no idea what this guy did. Maybe he deserved it? Probably not. The only thing that remains in my memory is that I climbed on top of this dude’s SUV and pissed down the windshield while a bunch of other people cheered me on. While Scott may have been a serious jerk, guess who’s the asshole in this memory?
Ho hum.
That’s right.
It’s me.
***
In the past year and a half, I have admittedly thought a LOT about revenge. Every single time my ex does something terrible (and he continues to do terrible things all the time), I think about ways to get him back. When I get sad and worked up and think about how much he has destroyed in my life – all the money wasted, and the time taken from my kids, and the anxiety he has caused me – I think about ways to fuck him over. In quiet moments, driving the car or standing under the water in the shower, I dream about how to make him pay. I dream about slashing his tires, getting him fired from his job, destroying his relationships, throwing bricks through his windows, giving him COVID. You name it, I have fantasized about it.
Sometimes, I’m like a twisted up Buddhist, and I tell myself that I don’t need to do a damn thing to him because karma will be the sweetest revenge of all. I think, fucker is gonna BURN in this life and a million lives after this one.
But there’s no peace in that thought, really. And so far, it seems, things are going pretty darn swell for that guy.
Here’s the thing I’m trying to remember. I could hurl a million bricks through his windows. I could make up elaborate stories to make him lose his job. I could slash his tires and syphon his gas and graffiti his car with a giant spray-painted “ASSHOLE” on the driver’s side door. (I fantasize about that one just a little too often). Hell, I could climb on top of his SUV and piss down the windshield.
But I have done that before. And I have learned a thing or two about revenge.
Instead, I’m going to focus my attention on the sweetest revenge of all. Because I’m pretty sure that the best way to tell Homie to kiss my ass is simple. It’s by having the best fucking life imaginable. To let him be nothing more than a shadowy memory, its contours lost somewhere to the foggy recesses of time. And to make myself the best fucking version of me that I can possibly be.
And, well, fuck it. If I can’t do that? Well, I can always pee on top of his car. It didn’t fix anything the last time but who knows, maybe I just need to try, try again.
Love,
Amy Blair
p.s. Good kissers need no other revenge. Boo ya.
p.p.s. I took a little break from doing any additional newsletters for paid subscribers because of COVID-19 and the toll that was taking on everything. We’re still fucked. Not much has changed, and maybe things are even worse? But we’re used to it now, which is not really a bright side but at least we’re sorta getting by. Anywaaaay.
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