The Breakup

Hi. Can we talk for a sec? See, I've been thinking about it recently, and I don't think we should see each other anymore.

You're really cool and fun beautiful and exciting and all, but there's something I need to take care of right now.

Remember when we met? I was going through a really rough time cuz my brother shot my dad back in 1963. They said that you had been hanging out with my brother before he went a little nutso, but I never believed that. I think it was your sister.

That sister of yours - she's very cute, isn't she? Didn't she marry that bear-lookin' guy across town - what was his name - Ivan Josef Nikita Yuri somethin? Yeah, she's really attractive, but the bear guy figured out in the 1980's just how much of an oppressive harpy she is, didn’t he? Really good-lookin', promises the moon and the stars, but she ends up taking and taking and taking ang giving nothing back. A real ball 'n' chain, too. And that bear guy still holds a torch for her. But I'm sure she'll hook up with some poor pathetic guy looking for somebody to make him feel better – she’s too good looking to pass up for most guys like that.

Remember how desperate I was, though, back then? The cops killed Lee right after he shot dad in the head. I didn't know where to turn. Then I found you. You made life exciting again. Shook things up. Made me question everything. I was totally up for that. We'd make love all night, sleep all day, maybe smoke a couple joints, drop some acid. Not a care in the world. The 60's and 70's were great. So much creativity and excitement. It was all about us - just me and you.

I got a little tired from all the excitement around 1980, but you stuck with me. While it occurred to me that I have Jefferson and Washington and all those guys to thank for the freedoms I enjoy, you really helped me enjoy those times. You helped me understand that it was still all about me – taking what I could get, riding the wave of patriotism and optimism. My mom finally remarried this guy, Ronnie, and he made me wonder if I should still hang out with you. He even called your sister, the one married to the bear guy, evil. You weren’t so bad, though. You made me feel really good about myself. So even though my stepdad helped Mr. Josef-Nikita-Whatever see how bad your sister was for him, so much so that he finally divorced her, you still meant a lot to me. She was a really bad influence on him – messing with Mohammed’s kids on the street next to him didn’t help him much. Things got so bad that Mohammed’s kids asked for some help, so I gave them a couple of guns. They made life difficult for Mr. Josef Nikita – some say that was the beginning of the end of his marriage to your sister.

Things really changed for us in the 1990’s. You made me question all of that selfish stuff that I had been doing in the 1980’s, especially whether or not I should be feeling so self-important. What happened to all of that free-love, change the world stuff? you said. After all, I had been cutting down all of those trees to keep the house warm, and you helped me realize that those trees weren’t going to last forever. So while things were going pretty well in this town after Josef Nikita divorced your sister - I didn’t have to worry about him giving his neighbors any trouble any more – you helped me realize that I shouldn’t be so selfish when it comes to using all of the trees in the neighborhood.

Well, now it turns out that a couple of Mohammed’s kids are even crazier than your sister is. One of ‘em blew a hole through the front door not to long ago, using the guns that I gave to him! You thought that was no big deal, didn’t you? Heck, you even thought I deserved it, because I didn’t give all of Mohammed’s family everything they wanted.

Mohammed’s crazy kids aren’t getting any less crazy, sweetheart. Things are really dangerous now. If somebody doesn’t do something to stop them, they’re gonna kill everybody and take over the town. They’ve got this weird idea that if they die while killing everybody outside of their family, they will spend eternity in paradise. By the time that’s all said and done, though, everybody will be dead – including the two of us. Is this what you really want? Wasn't it you who got me in to those Zen Koans? So I ask you now - If a tree falls in the woods and nobody is there to hear it, does it still make a sound?

Somebody has to stop those guys from killing everybody. I’m just glad I didn’t listen to you when you told me that you were scared of the guns in the house and that I should get rid of them – then we’d really be screwed, just like everybody else that got rid of their guns after Josef Nikita’s divorce.

So I’ve gotta leave you – there won’t even be anybody around to enjoy those precious trees unless I do something about it. Right now. Maybe we’ll hook up again in 40 years or so.