notanotherphony.

Jack Tait woke up in a panic and ran into his daughter’s bedroom.  she was screaming in pain.  sometimes people scream in ecstasy but this wasn’t one of those times.  Taylor had fallen earlier in the day during a game of basketball.  she loved basketball.  Jack never played the game but he always appreciated when someone had a passion for something as most peasants only have passions for dumb tv and dumb movies.  Jack consoled Taylor.  “are you okay Taylor?”  Jack asked his beautiful daughter.  “No Dad.  I am in pain.  It hurts.”  Taylor replied in obvious pain.  Jack woke Sarah up and off they went to the hospital.  They hoped it wasn’t going to be filled with the misfits of Orangeville.  the drunks.  the wife-beaters.  the drug dealers.  the jobless.  the heartless.  the toothless.  the brainless.  the hairless but hairy fuckers that usually occupy the Emergency Intake at every hospital in Canada.
Jack and the family entered the front doors and were immediately surprised at how quiet it was.  “There’s nobody in here.  We’ll probably be out in two hours.”  Sarah said excitedly.  “Yeah, it beats the six hours.”  Jack responded angrily.  he was always angry.  angry or horny.  one of the two.  he preferred horny but sometimes got angry.  twists and turns of life.  always complicated but never dull.
  Taylor went through Triage in pain and Sarah filled out the forms.  boring paperwork that never seems to go away even when school is but a distant memory.  Paperwork done and the family walked by the three people in the waiting room.  A Filipino family, a fat couple, and one old lizard.  They walked by them and through the yellow doors into the next waiting room.  so many waiting rooms.  so many people.  so many diseases.  so many lost souls and lost children.  no Mom’s.  no Dad’s.  struggling through a life that will never get better.  only older and more dull.  more painful.
Taylor, Sarah, and Jack sat down in the waiting room beside an old haggard lady with stringy hair and a stringy purse.  she looked up and smiled.  two missing teeth and a big tongue.  she then went back to her ipad game of Candy Crush.  “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU PLAYING MAAM?  ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS?  CANDY CRUSH???  HOW FUCKING OLD ARE YOU?  YOU ARE WASTING YOUR LIFE AWAY!!!  WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU READ A BOOK YOU FUCKING PEASANT???”
the haggard lady looked up stunned but dull and smiled.  she then went straight back to her game.  two minutes later her haggard looking daughter came out from some room.  she was haggard but still had hope.  nice body.  cute.  lost.  she will be her Mom in twenty years.  the blind always leading the blind.  a sad mom passing on her sad life to her daughter and the cycle goes on and on.
Half an hour later the doctor came and brought Taylor into the x-ray room.  Taylor was scared but Jack and Sarah had hope.  they hoped it was a sprain.  a strain.  Sarah looked at Jack.  “As long as we think positive thoughts everything will be okay.”  Jack laughed.  “what?  why are you laughing Jack?”  “Just as you were telling me that we should think positive thoughts I was wondering how many people are dying at this point in this hospital.”  Sarah gave Jack a death stare.  he didn’t worry as he had seen the stare many times before.  then Jack went back to his thought.  he really did think he was among the dying.  the sad family members left behind.  the sad sacks who will survive but have wasted their lives away so badly that they might as well be dead.  the hospital is a very odd place.  it looks like a sterile jail with it’s white walls and stale odour.  it is filled with average looking workers and Mongolian looking patients.  “do normal, rich people not get sick?” Jack thought.
Fifteen minutes later Taylor came out of the x-ray room.  she was still limping and still in pain.  she went to her Mommy and then they all went to the next waiting area.  so much waiting.  so many workers.  so much standing around.  eerily similar to a film set.  Taylor, Sarah, and Jack waited for the news.  more weirdo’s walked by.  more odd people.  odd hairdo’s.  odd shoes.  odd dresses.  everything seemingly odd in such a dull place.  Jack decided to wash his hands with that gel for the twentieth time as he couldn’t afford to get sick.  he had to drink and observe.  he also had to drink and fuck.  maybe even masturbate.  the waiting continued.  the observing continued.  everything continued but still Jack was thinking about how many people were dying as they were laughing.  such a weird stale place.  a much needed place but an odd place nonetheless.
After another twenty minutes the doctor came out and gave Taylor the bad news.  “You have a small hairline fracture in your wrist as well as in your ankle.  I will put a soft cast on your wrist and we will wait until the swelling goes down for the ankle.”  Taylor immediately began to cry.  tears streaming down her face.  sarah consoled her.  Jack did too.  they waited for the cast to be put on and then they left the building.  they left the lost souls.  they left the stale air.  they left the dying men.  dying women.  some even dying while living.  the worst kind.  wasted lives.  humans with no excitement except Candy Crush.  Jack wanted more but was getting less.  things needed to change soon.  he was struggling inside.  he was struggling outside.  he wanted to connect but was finding human connection harder and harder to find.  he went back home with the family and ate lunch.  he then kissed Taylor and told her how proud he was of her.  he then left the house and rode his tricycle away from Orangeville.  riding to nowhere.  he couldn’t think today.  too edgey and too beaten down.  “I hope tomorrow will be better.”
Goodnight.  goodnight.  goodnight Irene.

Jack Tait woke up with a sore elbow.  a swollen elbow.  an elbow that didn’t move the way it once moved.  he threw on his clothes and walked to the nearest hospital.  he hated going to the Emergency Room but this time he had no choice.  he hoped that it wouldn’t take five hours for the doctor to tell him to go home and put ice on it and come back in two weeks if the swelling hadn’t gone down.
he walked through the front doors of the hospital and approached the Emergency Room Intake.  a pretty girl of about forty years old asked Jack to sit down.  she smiled at Jack.  Jack smiled back.  she flirted with Jack.  Jack flirted back.  she took all of Jack’s info and she took it with a smile.  a pretty smile.  she then took Jack’s blood pressure and heart rate.  she also asked Jack to put his finger on some machine of some sort.  after about three minutes she pulled off all of the various machines that were hooked up to Jack and smiled a big smile.  “You have the heart of a twenty year old.” she said.  “Thanks.”  Jack said with a big, flirtatious smile.  he wanted to fuck her but then he realized that he was married.  Jack wanted to fuck many girls but he always remembered that he was married.  he wished people didn’t follow silly rules but Jack never liked hurting people and if people he loved followed rules then he had to respect that. 
After flirting with the one girl at Emergency, Jack walked through the yellow doors to the next area of intake.  “so many “intake” people for such a little injury” Jack thought.
Anyway Jack moved to the next room and approached the small cubicle.  he sat down and handed the girl his form that he filled out.  he also handed her his health card.  as he did this he noticed how pretty she was.  so many pretty girls in such an ugly place.  beautiful eyes.  beautiful breasts.  Jack Tait should get hurt more often.  the girl asked Jack a bunch of the same questions as the first girl and then he sat in the waiting area.  Normally he would sit for four hours in this spot but this time he was called within ten minutes.  very tired from the night before when he couldn’t sleep due to a racing mind and a pulsating elbow.  anyway he was called in and sat at the next spot.  three different waiting rooms for Jack.  he thought that there was an excess of waiting and maybe an excess of staff but today he didn’t want to fight that battle.  he realized that some battles were not his.  he would probably forget this soon but today he realized it.
after sitting for another twenty minutes the doctor approached Jack and sat down beside him.  she introduced herself and then asked Jack what was wrong.  Jack replied and then the doctor lifted and prodded Jack’s elbow.  “does this hurt?”  “yes.”  “does this hurt?”  “no.”  “what about this?”  “yes.”  “yes.”  “no.”  “yes.”  “no.”  it went back and forth like that for awhile and then the doctor told Jack that he had Bursitis and that rest, ice, heat, and some anti-inflammatories will fix the problem.  she even told Jack that he could play tennis again.  “No, I think I am only going to walk and cycle.  My body is falling apart doc.”  and with that Jack Tait walked out of the Emergency Room.  he walked out to his waiting wife.  his waiting life.  he jumped in her car and went home.  love always better than hate.
three hours later Jack decided he needed to go downtown.  he needed to beg for an acting gig even though he never acted.  he never wanted to sit in waiting rooms filled with desperate actors saying desperate things and looking desperate as they said their desperate things.  he hated phoniness but was sometimes surrounded by it and even immersing himself in it.  he was a complicated man that even complicated himself.
Jack Tait hopped on his blue tricycle and rode down hwy 10 towards Toronto.  he rode fast but not as fast as the speed limit.  he felt cars whiz by.  he felt the sun beaming down.  he smelt shit.  he also smelt dead animals and dead souls.  Jack Tait soon made it from hwy 10 to hwy 410.  a hwy filled with speeding maggots and smelly trucks.  Jack Tait knew he had to concentrate as nobody else did and he feared for his life.  cars whizzed by faster than hwy 10.  they drove by at speeds of 140 sometimes 150.  no cops around of course.  they were too busy busting people for driving ten over on a remote farm street in the middle of fucking nowhere where nobody gets hurt and nobody lives.
anyway Jack Tait was scared so he concentrated.  he was focused.  he didn’t want to die.  he wanted to live as long as he could.  he never understood all the maggots racing by in their shitty “souped up” Mazda’s doing 150 and racing to nowhere.  “ALL THESE FUCKING MAGGOTS ARE RACING TO THEIR SHITTY JOBS.  RACING TO THEIR SHITTY WIVES.  RACING TO THEIR SHITTY LIVES WHERE THEY DO NOTHING SUBSTANTIAL AND READ LITTLE AND TALK BIG.  LITTLE DICKS BUT BIG MOUTHS.  BIG MOUTHS AND LITTLE DICKS.”
Jack Tait enjoyed life with all of it’s ups and downs but he wondered what all these people thought about life.  daily car accidents.  daily deaths.  daily fender benders.  avoidable deaths that never seem to be avoided.  Jack Tait wanted to stop every single car that weaved in and out of traffic to try to make it to their shitty jobs ten minutes earlier than if they didn’t race.  he wanted to stop them and smash them in their dumb faces with his Louisville Slugger bat but he had better things to do with his life.  these people didn’t.  “our society is so fucking dumb that it makes me sick.”  rule followers getting themselves nowhere except run down hockey arena’s and smelly Tim Horton’s coffee shops.  bad tv.  bad music.  bad beer.  bad movies.  bad politics.  Jack Tait hated it all but these peasants took it all in.  Jack Tait continued to ride his tricycle as he passed three different accidents.  sirens.  ambulances.  fire trucks.  screaming people standing on the side of the road and then more speeding once the cars passed the accident.  as Jack rode his tricycle to his stupid audition that he had no chance of getting he suddenly wondered about all the girls that he had fucked over his lifetime and how many had passed away.  he then focused back on the road and rode.  his elbow still swollen and sore.
slow down and live.
why do people drive so fast?
why do muscle heads have small dicks?
why does life go by quicker as you get older?
why are we such a pathetic sad sack society filled with little substance and little minds.
followers.
there are so many irrelevant jobs and irrelevant careers that are not needed but pay well.
life.

Jack Tait sat in front of his computer and looked at an empty screen.  a can of beer to the right and Tom Waits playing in the background.  his eyes getting sleepy but his mind racing with thoughts.  racing with ideas.  his life just plain old racing.  thirty years old seemed like yesterday and now seventy years old seems so close.  speeding up.  slowing down.  living.  not living.  breathing.  psychologists.  psychiatrists.  pills.  booze.  exercise.  meditation.  Jack tried it all but nothing seemed to work on his busy mind.  busy but fragile mind.  life coming to an end for one more day.  a day closer to death.  closer to never seeing his family again.  kisses and cuddles turning to wrinkles and bad breath.  Taylor alone in bed.  Sarah alone in bed.  Jack alone on his computer but with his good friend Jack Daniels now beside him.  Love the most important thing in this world but it gets buried among flying shit and flying opinions about fucking politics and fucking food.  love lost in commuters’ dull cars and dull brains. herds of sheep in bank owned cars whizzing through construction and war zoned highways that lead the blind to the rich owners of rich corporations that bleed money and wipe their asses with the hard work and dumb brains of peasants that seem to smile but are really lonely and sad.  life whizzing by on dull highways and dull radio.  life wanting love but getting lust and getting rust.  love thy neighbour as thy love thyself is written in stone for the herds to follow but they prefer to follow Oprah and Ellen.  Trump and Hillary.  the blind always leading the blind while great thinkers such as Basquiat and Tom Waits are buried under old Playboy or Playgirl magazines.
Jack Tait looks to his right and feels his beer can.  empty.  he looks at his bottle of Jack Daniels.  empty.  he scratches his neck and tastes his breath which tastes like a rat’s ass.  Jack then wonder’s what a rat’s ass tastes like.  he ponders life and ponders what everyone has told him over the years.  most people trying to help him but “him” never wanting to help “himself”.  Jack’s eyes getting sleepier than before and they were already sleepy.  Jack thinks of his deceased Dad.  his elderly Mom.  his lonely elderly Mom.  he thinks of his brother.  his brother that he rarely sees.  he thinks of his best friends.  his many fucks.  his many dead pets.  he thinks of gravestones and he thinks of cancer.  he thinks too fucking much but then he winds down as the lights go dim.  he takes one big deep breath and then hears his daughter yell, “DADDY!!!  ARE YOU THERE???  DADDY???  I NEED YOU DADDY!!!!!!!!”  Jack Tait closes the computer and quickly stumbles upstairs to Taylor’s room.  “Are you okay Taylor?”  “Yeah Dad.  I had a nightmare.  It was so scary.  In it you died.  It felt so real.  I was so scared.  you died and it was only Mom and me left.”  “It’s okay Taylor.  I’m not going to die.  Everything is okay.”  Jack hugged Taylor tightly.  “Are you sure you won’t die Daddy?”  Jack looked at Taylor and saw her red eyes.  he hugged her tightly and said, “You have nothing to worry about Taylor.  I’m not going to die.”  And with that Taylor fell back asleep but not Jack.  He thought of his Dad saying those exact words to him forty years ago.  he thought of the excruciating pain he felt when he found out that his Dad had died.  He thought of the extreme struggles he had endured his whole life without a Dad.  without a hero.  he thought of all the other kids that lost parents.  lost friends.  but then he thought of parents who lost kids to an early and unexpected death.  he began to cry.  and cry.  and cry.  he looked down at his sleeping child and was overcome with emotion.  he could not stop crying but he didn’t want to stop crying.  the love that he had for this amazing kid was something that most people would never feel.  then the crying stopped and the mind took over again.  “One day I will not wake up and Taylor will be devastated the way that I was devastated when I lost my Dad.  Life is great but it moves fast and sometimes we forget to love.  but we need to love for love is all we really have in the end.  I will really miss Taylor when I die.”
and with that Jack turned off the bedroom light and fell asleep holding Taylor tight.  tighter than ever before.

Jack Tait sat on his shitty couch in a shitty town drinking shitty beer and shitty wine.  he listened to Bruce Springsteen and reminisced about the good times he once had.  the free times.  the lively times.  the fun times.  the drunken times.  the times of sexual debauchery.  times when he was free to do and be who he wanted to be.  not pulled down by depressed women with depressing lives but unwilling to do anything about it or refusing to do anything about it.
Jack was stuck.  he no longer knew what to do.  he held on to the notion of love and marriage but it was not holding onto him any longer.  he would rather be fucking twenty-one year old girls with no attachment and no bitterness.  girls who still had dreams and still had excitement.  who wanted to get fucked and wanted to get fucked hard.  life had yet beat them down the way it had beaten down Jack’s wife and many other well intentioned women.
Jack wanted out but he knew that he could never leave his beautiful, innocent daughter of ten years.  the true love of his life.  his true inspiration.  he was worried for Taylor as she clung to Sarah’s side.  he was worried that she was watching too many shitty shows that her Mommy watched.  he was worried that she was eating too much shitty food that her Mommy ate.  he was worried that she wasn’t living life to it’s fullest the way that her Mommy wasn’t living life to it’s fullest.  LIFE WAS MEANT FOR LIVING.  NOT FOR HIDING IN YOUR SHITTY HOUSE IN SHITTY ORANGEVILLE.  dull parents passing on dull ideologies to their kids and thinking that everything is okay.  wasted lives that do not need to be wasted if only they would all look in the mirror and make changes. but many people refuse to look in the mirror and  change.  they prefer to eat McDonald’s and watch The Kardashian’s.  Life whizzing by day by dreary day and Jack Tait needed out. 
He sat on his couch and pondered.  he sat on his couch and he drank.  he sat on his couch and he masturbated.  he sat on his couch and passed out.
The next day came and all was good again.  coffee.  news.  cycle.  read.  eat breakfast.  give Taylor a kiss.  get yelled at by Sarah.  silent treatment later.  “Just go.  We are happier without you Jack.”  Sarah spoke these same words loudly and she spoke them often.  then she posted pics on facebook of Jack and the family eating lunch at Johnny’s Burgers.  She then told Jack that they should look for houses in old Orangeville.  she also said that they should get a new car.  she said that they should go away to Mexico at Christmas.  then she said that Jack should leave.  “we are happier without you Jack.  You are a basket case.  what would you do without us?  You are a loser Jack.  C’mon Taylor, let’s leave Daddy alone drinking wine.  let’s go up and watch a movie.”  and with that Sarah angrily brought Taylor upstairs to watch a movie leaving Taylor’s Daddy alone on the shitty couch drinking shitty wine in the shitty town.  Before she went upstairs Taylor looked back at Jack with a look of love…and sadness.  Jack looked at Taylor with a look of love…and defeat.  Little kids always being thrown into the lives of depressed and angry parents that are incapable of love and incapable of looking in the mirror.  parents that waste their lives away and then waste their kids lives away.  a bunch of sad depressed ladies still looking for the perfect man that they see in shitty Hollywood movies.
phony shitty depressed dull and getting old.  worse than the wrinkles is the depression.  depression brought about by nothing lives.  no dreams.  no goals.  no love.  no humanity.  no family.  no hope.
sad.
dull.
lost.
unaware.
incapable of fun.
angry.
confused.
life.