"Memoirs of a Guido"
“I can’t fuckin stand bitches,” Tony yelled as he ran his fingers through his hair, spiking it with the gel he had been buying since he had dropped out of high school. “They’re so fuckin stupid.”
He put on his chain, flexed in front of the mirror, and headed for the bus stop. His car had been destroyed the night before when one of the many notches in his belt expressed her anger towards him. After refusing to call her back and calling her a whore to her face, Tony found out the hard way that girls could fight back. Jenna was no different than any other girl he had slept with, except that she was willing to stand up to him and call him out on his bullshit, even if it was a month later. He had led her on too much, and she made him pay for it.
Anthony finally got to the bus stop after what seemed like hours. He unzipped his jumpsuit a bit to show the thin patches of hair he had on his chest. He was in a hurry today. Despite his best efforts to remain calm, cool, and collected, Tony was affected by the actions of a girl for the first time he could remember.
His savior had come: the bus pulled up to the stop after ten minutes of Tony fidgeting with himself, something he hadn’t done in years. Now it was time to go to his favorite place in the world, where he could show everyone else how macho he really was.
As he stepped onto the bus, a smirk snuck onto his face. “I’ll just pick up one or two of ‘em when I do bench,” he thought out loud. The driver looked at him angrily and motioned for him to move along. “I can’t fuckin stand guidos,” the man thought to himself. Tony said “fuck you” with his eyes and headed for the back of the bus.
Tony sat at a pair of empty seats, and the rest of the bus filled up behind him. A few people standing were scattered throughout the bus, but none of them moved an inch when they noticed the vacancy next to Tony. “People fuckin suck,” he mumbled under his breath.
The bus passed by
“Are you fuckin serious? That was my stop you worthless son of a bitch!” Tony’s forehead was wrinkled more than an old man’s. Sweat ran down his face, and his hair began to lose its form. The gel was melting. As he stomped toward the front of the bus, a leg swung out in front of him. That was the final straw. Tony fell to the floor face first and stayed there for a moment. He looked around the bus, and everyone was staring directly at him with a look of disgust. Was the world really against him? That’s the way he thought. He pushed himself up off the floor and speed walked to the front of the bus.
“You realize you’re a piece of shit and your life doesn’t matter, right?” He asked the driver. “All you do is drive a bus around in circles all day. What good does that do anyone?”
“Last time I checked, you’re on this bus too, so it can’t be that useless,” the driver replied.
“Well you know what? Fuck you! Fuck all of you! You’re not getting anywhere in life! I drive a fuckin mustang! I got ladies all over me all the time! I’m jacked, and I’m gorgeous. Look at me! You’re all fuckin jealous. That’s what you are. Now let me off the fuckin bus…” His voiced tailed off weakly as he finished the last sentence.
With every word he had spoken, he felt weaker and weaker. He realized that everything he said was a doubt he had about himself. He may have been a ladies’ man, and he had a nice car, but that didn’t get him anywhere. That was okay most of the time though, because he had the gym as an escape. It helped beef him up literally and figuratively. Not today, or at least not now. The bus driver was depriving him of the only happiness he had in life. Girls may have temporarily satisfied his instincts, and they were an item he could brag about to all the people he thought were his friends, but that was where their utility ran out. He was as fake as a two hundred dollar bill, and he knew it.
Tony was lost. Every person who met him immediately assumed the worst of him. The bus stopped, and Tony fell off, or at least that’s what it felt like. He made his way back towards the last stop, where the gym was just half a block away. It would be a long walk, but at this point, he had no choice.
With every passing car, Tony jerked his head to take a look. He was worried one might hit him, even if he was eight feet from the road. Were the people looking at him funny? He walked slowly, his legs swinging like pendulums. His arms followed in the same pattern. Tony had never realized all the cracks in the pavement before. He always looked at the billboards around town, the bodies of attractive girls he saw, and the tops of skyscrapers along the street. He was not used to the area or his posture at the time; it was all unfamiliar to him.
As he meandered down the sidewalk, he could not help but think about what had happened on the bus. A man who was usually indestructible was now quite the opposite. He realized the problems of his life before this incident, and knew he had to change. Knowledge was not his issue; it was finding help that he could not figure out. As he continued his self-reflection, he discovered that there was no one to help him. He had to find a way to do it himself. He had been an independent man for his entire adult life, so it appeared that this would be an easy task. He reached the gym, and began his workout.
He increased the weight of the curl bars by an extra ten pounds. He usually only went up five, but he wanted to somehow connect his workout to his solution. He needed some sort of inspiration. He did the first half of the set easily, as he was running on adrenaline. Then a woman walked by and giggled. Tony noticed he was grunting as he lifted the free weights. The left bar got very heavy, and soon the right one felt the same. He tried to pull them back up. He needed four more lifts to finish the set. He took a deep breath and yelled as loud as he could, but it didn’t work. His right arm froze in place, and his left fell beside his thigh, and dropped the weight. Tony couldn’t continue with the workout. “Not today,” he said as he shook his head. “Not today.”
He headed back towards the bus stop, then changed his mind. There was a good chance that the same bus would come, and he would have to deal with the driver again. It wasn’t worth it. He looked for a cab, but they were all taken. “The one time I need one…” he stopped speaking mid-sentence and started walking again.
Oddly enough, the walk seemed like nothing at all. Tony sulked as he walked along the main drag, walking slower than he ever had before. He was in a daze, and he didn’t care much to come out of it. He dreamt of the day his mother took him to see his father for the first time. Mom had talked Dad up for months. It was finally Tony Junior’s chance to meet Tony Senior.
Little Tony got out of the car and waited for his mother on the sidewalk. Where is he? He said. “He’s coming soon honey,” Mom replied. Minutes passed and he didn’t come. Hours passed and he didn’t come. Tony was still waiting. Days and months and years had passed, and he didn’t come. After that day, the truth leaked out about his father. Tony sought out to impress his father rather than change the family reputation for the better. Tony did exactly what his father had done: build and maintain a great body, get rich, and sleep with lots of women. His attitude after that fateful day was “fuck you, world”, and it was finally coming back to bite him.
Tony Junior got back to his apartment and sat on the couch. It felt like bedrock. Not even his ten thousand dollar couch could comfort him anymore. He got up and went into the kitchen. He grabbed the ammonia from the cabinet under the sink and finished the bottle as if it were water. He took a rope and headed for the roof. He tied the rope securely around his neck, and tightened it even further. He took a deep breath and yelled as loud as he could, and this time, he was successful. The weight was dropping, but that was his goal. He couldn’t breathe, but he kept walking up the stairs. He stepped out onto the roof and continued toward the edge. He stepped up onto it, and fell.
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