In defense of Hell Part 6 (to continue)

A Story by Paris Hlad

But the point I was trying to make before I got all side-tracked is that chance plays a much smaller role in hell than it does in the Garden. I say that because there are no odds about whether I'm going to get high and stay high every damn day. No question about whether I'm going to do any of the crazy things I do here. Everything about my life is an absolute sure thing. Am I going to bully my entourage? Yes! Am I going to intimidate the newbies? For sure! Am I going to do some brainless bag-over-her-head hell chick? Absolutely. I mean, nothing gets in my way: No distractions, no unforeseen circumstances. I am free to do what I want to do whenever I want to do it!^{^[1]}

Still, I need to break away a little here because I feel that a certain point needs to be made. I mean, maybe to your mind I come across in some incredibly bad colors, like there isn’t one damn thing that’s good about me. And honest to God, I don’t like anyone having a wrong impression of me. I actually have done things in my life that a lot of holy roller types might call good, maybe even really good in some ways. In fact, I’ve always been sort of known for my sense of right and wrong, and I’ve always stood up for my friends when somebody pisses me off or interferes in one of my relationships. For example, when I was a punk kid, I had this friend named Richie Darby,^{^[2]} a little piss ant kind of guy who really looked up to me and was always willing to do the kind of things I liked doing when there was nothing to do. Well, Richie lived right across the alley from me, so most every day, I’d pop over so we could crawl together to school and s**t. But Richie’s mom was about the meanest and maybe the craziest b***h I ever knew, because every day (and I swear to God this is true), Richie’s mom would hand him his bag lunch, kiss him on the forehead, and then, for no reason in the world, give Richie a pretty good slug in the stomach - Not too hard you know because Richie could still get out the door and whatnot, but hard enough to double up the little guy and make him cry a little, too. I mean, at my young age it was the craziest thing I ever saw,^{^[3]} and I really didn’t know if maybe I should do something about it because Richie was my friend, not hers. But righteous young stud that I was, it just stayed in my head and sort of made me feel like she was punching me in the stomach and that made things decidedly personal �" Almost like that b***h was giving me the finger.

So, one day, I cut class early and paid Richie’s mom a visit. I told her that I didn’t like her punching Richie in the stomach, and if she didn’t want me to punch her in the stomach, she needed to lay off Richie. That got her all messed-up yelling at me and s**t, and I really had no choice but to back up my threat. But here’s the thing, when I finally hauled off and punched her in the stomach, I used the thick end of this baseball bat I sometimes carried around for the hell of it; and I guess I also hit her pretty good in the teeth too because I found out later, they had to call an ambulance, and the b***h ended up having to wear dentures. She’s probably somewhere around here now, maybe slugging some other poor soul in the stomach. People like her don’t change even if you knock their teeth out. They’re a lost cause, so to speak.

[1] Bobby enthusiastically embraces the Satanic commandment: Do as you will. To him, hell is paradise. But many things a person wants conflict with the desires of others. Worm-makers recognize and value that part of the credo. They derive their pleasure from the harm they do to others, not the good they gain from a free-wheeling life-style. Paris believed that when a confetti bee is ignorant of this principle, he is more likely to become a worm-maker’s victim.

[2] As a child, Paris witnessed the physical abuse of a friend for over a year. In earlier days, a child belonged to his parents, and the use of corporal punishment was widely accepted as a legitimate means of correcting a child’s bad behavior. Therefore, much of what would be recognized as abuse in the present age was regarded as straddling the line between propriety and excess in the 1950s. The poet felt sorry for his friend, but he was too small to intervene and accepted that his friend’s mother was within her rights when she slapped her boy around before he left for school.

[3] Even a congenital criminal like Bobby Casanova is bound to be surprised by a demonstration of an evil that he did not know could be done. The reasonably well-adjusted person internalizes and bleeds. The worm-maker learns a new way to express himself to others. Bobby does not defend Richie because he cares about him, but because Richie’s mom has encroached on his territory. Mrs. Darby represents the authority he hates because her son belongs to him, not her. It may interest the reader to know that Richie later became a celebrity of sorts, opening Minnesota’s first “Head Shop” on Hennepin Avenue in Minneapolis in 1967.