Hilarity Ensues - Hilarity Ensues Part 14
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Hilarity Ensues Part 14

I kinda stopped and stepped back to take stock of the situation. Either this girl is about to stab me and has the greatest poker face since Phil Ivey ... or she is feeling absolutely nothing right now.

Tucker "Uh ... sorry ... I didn't mean to raise my voice. But yeah, your husband got his face punched. By me. I think he's hurt."

EuroWife "OK."

Even though I'd hit her husband so hard his arms and legs had stopped working and all he saw was an Indian with an extra horse beckoning him into the woods ... she had no emotional reaction to it. Nothing.

Wow. This girl is a psychopath. It was like talking to Dexter. Thank God I fought her pansy ass husband and not her. She'd kill me without even blinking.

That was pretty much it for the night. After that they got in their boat and took off (and then took EuroTrash to the ER). Clayton was not too happy with me, so my girls and I left. Another night ruined (read: made awesome) by Tucker Max.

But the story doesn't end there. A few weeks later, I get this email: "Tucker, As you might have already heard from Taylor, the injury on my foot was severe enough to result in a fracture-dislocation on my midfoot, requiring surgical repair. I had surgery on my foot on July 9th, and am instructed not engage in travel or flying for the next 8 weeks. This caused me to miss an important business meeting in Washington DC, and my wife and I had to cancel our European holiday.

Attached are the receipts from the charges in incurred when I went in for surgery at Texas Orthopedics. There were a few charges that preceeded [sic] these, like the boot and x-rays/CT scans, but this was by far the largest. In all fairness, it does take two to tango, so I am asking you to consider paying for half of the attached out-of-pocket expenses.

I look forward to hearing from you.

EuroTrash"

He even sent me the receipts, and the X-ray of the screw in his foot: I almost fired off a quick email telling him to lick my ass, but thought better of it. Instead, I took a few days, contemplated the best approach, and then fired off this missive: "EuroTrash, This is a long email, so if you don't want to read it, I understand. Here's the executive summary: I'm not paying for shit.

This is the overlong explanation of why. Excuse my lack of brevity, but I'm a writer by trade. You know how we are.

Are you really saying that I hit you so hard in the FACE, that I broke your FOOT!?! Dude, if you wanna suck my dick, just come out and say it. No reason to be coy.

I have no idea if the incident that we were involved in actually caused you to break your foot. You could easily have kicked your dog in frustration over getting embarrassed in front of your wife and friends, and broke your foot that way. But I assume you have some way of proving this, as you don't seem to be foolish enough to just make something like this up. So let's discuss the primary reason I'm not paying for anything: What happened was-in both legal and moral terms-your fault. I am not sure how much you understand about the American legal system, so I'll try to explain why. But please bear with me-even though I have a JD from a top American law school, I am no expert. I spent most of law school drinking and partying and not in class (which ironically is why I am now a rich and famous writer, funny how life works). But I was awake enough to absorb the legal concepts of "assault" and "proximate cause," and I'll be happy to explain them to you in the context of what happened between you and me: Assault, generally speaking, occurs when one person commits, or threatens to commit, an act of violence against another. So when you decided to launch yourself off the boat at me and violently shove me, that was assault. From there, the events as I remember them were: me pushing you away from me, DipShit pushing me, me pushing DipShit away, you pushing me again, and then of course, me blasting you in the face.

That is not two people having a "tango." That is you and DipShit committing assault, and me defending myself. One of the key things to remember is that I only threw one punch at you (actually you probably don't remember that, as your brain was bouncing around your skull after the first punch and didn't register anything for awhile, but you can ask anyone, they remember). Your multiple assaults on me threatened my safety, and my single right cross made you a non-threat, so I didn't throw another punch. Had I continued to hit you as you staggered around the dock like a mortally wounded deer, any punches after the first would have been assault on my part. But I didn't do that. I just went upstairs and finished my game of beer pong.

This brings us to "proximate cause." It's kinda intricate, so I'll quote Wikipedia for the precise definition: "In the law, a proximate cause is an event sufficiently related to a legally recognizable injury to be held not just the actual physical and temporal cause, but also the legal cause of a given injury. This actual cause is the first phase of proximate cause, and that means "but for" the action, the result would not have happened. To get to the level of proximate cause, our analysis must move one step higher. The act causing injury must have been the but-for cause plus the end result has to be fairly foreseeable to the actor at the time she acted. Proximate cause adds this element of reasonable foreseeability to the but-for test to determine whether it would be fair to hold an actor responsible for the full consequences of the resulting harm."

Confusing I know, but what it basically means is that even though my fist slamming into your jaw was the "actual" cause of your broken foot, your assaults on me were the "proximate" cause. You pushing me twice was the triggering event for everything that happened afterwards, and what happened (me punching you in the mouth) was the predictable result of your actions (being a douchebag, pushing me, etc). In the plainest English possible, you are shit out of luck.

That covers the legal issues, which basically cover any sort of money issue. Yet, even if I were not legally obliged to pay you, if I felt morally responsible, I would still cough up the money.

But I don't feel the least bit of compunction. You got what you deserved. I don't know where you come from or what kind of life you've led, but where I come from, when you shove someone, that means you want to fight. I tried-very poorly, I admit-not to get into a physical altercation with anyone that night, and I take no pride in knocking out a clearly over-matched, lithe little European dude. I also genuinely regret the fact that it wasn't DipShit I punched in face-as he had also assaulted me and more importantly, deserved to be hit much more than you did. But unfortunately, you were the one who pushed me twice. So you were the one who got his jaw jacked.

And you are going to have to be the one to pay for it. Physically and financially.

Regards, Tucker Max"

Never got a response. I guess two ass whippings were enough.

MEET MY FRIEND HATE.

Occurred, Various 19982011.

Everyone thinks SlingBlade is my funniest friend, and that's understandable: He's a bottomless font of hilarious one-liners that just barely covers a reservoir of anger fueled by a lifetime of rejection in the face of a heartbreakingly childlike desire to be loved. I know-hilarious, right? Here's the thing: when I was actually in law school SlingBlade wasn't the guy who entertained me the most. That was my roommate, Hate.

THE BACKSTORY.

The most important thing to understand about Hate-and I can't emphasize this fact enough-is that he's a legitimately good guy. He's such a good guy, that to know him is to like him. Take law school for instance: if you ever meet anyone I went to law school with, and they tell you I wasn't cool or hilarious in law school-they're lying (probably because they're jealous that my life is awesome and their lives suck). BUT, if they tell you that pretty much everyone at Duke besides my friends hated me-that IS the truth. Even though Hate bore the stain of living with me and being one of my best friends, he was still so popular that he got elected Social Chair during our 2L year anyway (which is basically just a popularity contest).

In most ways, Hate is everything you'd want in a son or a husband or a friend. He's honest almost to the point of absurdity. He once returned $5 in extra change TO A WENDY'S, like some sort of modern-day Abe Lincoln. No shit, he got home, discovered the mistake, got back in the car and drove to the restaurant. FORTY MINUTES LATER! The Wendy's people were so confused, they didn't know what to do. They almost wouldn't accept the money, like they were worried they were being set up or something. I don't blame them-who does that?! Hate does.

His moral rectitude and conscientiousness doesn't stop at shitty fast food, either. I've never seen a guy treat women better than he does. He is the complete opposite of me in every way-all about respect and chivalry and all that stupid shit to the point of almost being a doormat. This girl once told me, "When law school started, we all thought Hate was going to be the dick and you were going to be the nice guy. Then we got to know you guys more, and we realized it was the opposite."

Of course, that begs the question: Why did everyone think Hate was going to be a dick?

If you didn't know him, like these girls didn't when we started law school, you'd say he looks pissed off all the time too. And you'd be right. He does look pissed off all the time, because deep down, he IS pissed off. Yes, SlingBlade is angry too, but he at least understands his issues and the fact that he is impotent to change them. The difference is that Hate used to be completely and totally unaware of his anger problem. Because he unconsciously holds his anger in, he was legitimately convinced that he was a chill, relaxed, normal guy. Don't get me wrong, he was ... sort of, but not really. If you know anyone who holds in negative emotions, you know that even if they can hold the rage down for awhile, it's never a viable long-term solution. It's GOING to come out.

Hate's suppressed anger issues begin with his height. He's short. Hate will tell you he's 5'6", but even Earl Boykins would be like, "C'mon, son." He's 5'4" on a good hair day. Making jokes about getting on rides at Six Flags and telling him to get on his tippy-toes because, "life happens up here" hits real close to home. He's not soft, though. He is a strong, athletic guy, built like an iron bowling ball. Picture an Angry Bird, or Gimli from The Lord of The Rings. Now picture him on a stepstool, trying to reach a glass in the cupboard above the stove. That's Hate.

Most short guys are defined by their height, and as a result, have a Napoleonic Complex. Because short kids usually had a rough go of things when they were young, they're hypersensitive to disrespect or perceived slights in adulthood. Typically, they express their anger in an outwardly focused, confrontational manner and start fights with anyone over anything, because they are compensating for their smaller stature.

That isn't Hate at all. He is the opposite of that. Hate was raised by good parents who taught him to follow the rules and always do the "right thing." Like a good little boy, he listened to them. And it was the worst thing he could've done.

The rules your parents teach you to live by are very different than the rules the world actually runs by. Most of the conventional wisdom is not only wrong, it's a lie told to us by people who want to control us. It doesn't help us, it helps them. Pretty much everything we're told as children (and adults, really) by the established power structures in our lives are made-up fairytales used to reinforce that control: Santa Claus (be good or no toys), the Easter Bunny (obey or no candy), the tooth fairy (give us your body or no money), fat-free frozen dinners, religion, and metering lights on the highway-the list goes on. It makes sense if you think about it; the only way you can truly control people is to lie to them.

Here's the thing: learning that the world is not what you were taught is usually just part of becoming an adult. The people who blindly follow the rules are getting fucked, and the people who don't can get away with theft and murder (and I mean this literally, e.g. Ray Lewis and Goldman Sachs). At some point, we all figure this out. Sometimes it's explicit, other times it's just a feeling in our gut.

How we react to this realization defines our lives. I reacted by accepting it as a reality, then getting pissed off and resolving, no matter what the consequences, never to be one of the sheep. SlingBlade cracks a bunch of jokes, then buries his depression in video games. Hate took the path most people take: He pretended this wasn't the case. He wanted to believe in the inherent fairness and equality of the system. He wanted to believe everything his parents and teachers told him. He was sincerely good so Santa would bring him presents. He took his vitamins and said his prayers because Hulk Hogan told him to. He didn't just buy into the bullshit; he went all-in. It was like he would tell himself, "No matter how bad things get, if I just keep doing the right things, being the good guy that I am supposed to be, then eventually things will work out."

The problem is, they never did. The older Hate got, the less things went his way. He kept doing the "right" thing, checking off all the boxes and doing everything you are "supposed" to do to be a success, and he kept getting fucked. All the while, the guy doing the wrong thing (me, for example) kept getting what he wanted. Sisyphus led a less futile existence than Hate: at least Sisyphus got in a workout. All Hate got was Bitterness and Resentment high-fiving each other over as they Eiffel Towered his exhausted psyche. THAT is why he was so mad deep down-because he believed in the system ... and the system ran train on him.

Unfortunately, Hate was no Tyler Durden. He could never muster the courage to reject this plight and join any sort of symbolic Fight Club. Instead, he became Hate's Raging Internalized Emotion. The harder he got fucked, the more energy he spent keeping it down. As anyone knows, you can't hold the lid down on a pressure cooker forever. It's eventually going to explode. By the middle of law school, he was so fucking pissed off at the world that any little thing, no matter how trivial, could trigger an explosion of anger.

Once our other roommate Credit and I figured this out-that Hate was a barely-contained ball of seething rage-we did what all twenty-something males would do to their good friend: we spent all of our free time figuring out ways to get the Hate Volcano to erupt for our amusement. The explosions were glorious in their magnitude and hilarity.

This story is about those explosions, and how Credit and I made them happen.

THE PIZZA INCIDENT.

Generally, Hate is a non-violent person. He is polite and solicitous, and saves all his aggression for the rugby pitch-or whatever you call the field where they play that 19th-century game of hot-potato smear-the-queer. I don't know how many actual fights Hate has gotten into in his life, but I'd be willing to bet 100% of them involved coming to the defense of other people. The first time I ever saw it happen, it seemed like a relatively minor incident. In retrospect, I should have seen it for what it was: a harbinger of how Hate's anger would impact our lives for years to come.

We were all out one night in Durham, and we'd gotten good and drunk on cheap beer. When the bar closed, we decided to go across the street to get a slice. This pizza place was a replica of every late night pizza joint in America: long glass counter, petrified slices under warmer lamps, greasy garlic knots and vaguely Middle Eastern employees with hard-to-place accents.

Brownhole and I make some stupid smartass remarks-they weren't funny enough that I even remember them-while Hate quietly examined each slice of pizza, looking for the perfect combination of freshness, cheesiness, and topping distribution. Even when he was drunk, Hate still cared about getting good value. Brownhole and I just paid and walked outside to talk to everyone else who was on the street.

We're talking and eating, when I see one of the girls' eyes go wide. She starts pointing into the pizza place and I turn to look. There, through the glass, I see a scene straight out of Do The Right Thing: One of the guys working behind the counter is waving around a huge knife and trying to climb over the counter to get at Hate. The only thing stopping him is the other counter guy. Hate is screaming at the top of his lungs, also trying to get over the counter. The only thing stopping him is genetics-poor little guy.

It takes me a second to react because, seriously, WTF??? I was just in there 30 seconds ago, joking with everyone. Everyone was happy. Now some dude was trying to stab him??? Once it registers that this dude really is WAVING A KNIFE at my friend, I drop my slice and rush inside.

Hate "OH I'M THE ASSHOLE? I'M THE ASSHOLE!!! FUCK YOU, YOU'RE THE FUCKING ASSHOLE!"

PizzaGuy "YOU FUCK, I KILL YOU!! YOU WANT SLICE? I GIVE YOU SLICE! I SLICE YOUR FUCKING EAR OFF!!!!"

Brownhole and I pull him out of the restaurant not one second too soon-just as the guy with the knife got around his hairy, unibrowed co-worker and emerged from behind the counter. This was not a joke. This motherfucker had murder in his eyes.

It took a minute to settle everything down, and once we did, we got the hell out of there. The American Bar Association frowns on being involved in involuntary manslaughter cases. Of course everyone was still kinda weirded out. The guys in the group didn't really care, per se, but c'mon: How the fuck do you go from ordering pizza to a knife fight in under 30 seconds? This isn't a Mexican bordertown.

The best part is, I'd been an asshole to the girls all night but by the time we got back to our place they'd completely forgotten about it because they were so upset with Hate. Never mind that for 99.9% of the night, he'd been this great guy buying them drinks and listening to their pointless whore prattle.

Girl "Hate, why were you acting like that?"

Tucker [just fucking with him] "I know, I really can't believe you'd do that, Hate."

Hate "IT WAS YOUR FAULT TUCKER!! That guy called you an asshole after you left-WHICH YOU WERE-and I was defending you!! That's what caused the whole thing!"

To this day, I honestly have no fucking clue what I said that started this. Why the fuck would I remember a passing remark to some terrorist sleeper cell pizza guys? Fuck'em if they can't take a joke, right?

Girl [sincere] "Hate, you shouldn't blame other people for your outbursts."

Tucker [still fucking with him] "Yeah, Hate. Violence and anger are so uncool."

Hate "OH WHAT THE FUCK!!!"

THE ITALIAN RESTAURANT.

This is probably not the best Hate story from law school, but it is my personal favorite: Credit was dating this one girl in law school, "Rachel." Both she and Credit are Jewish, so it was a match made in haggling, self-loathing heaven. One night she and a bunch of her female friends from their temple or Hillel or whatever decided to throw a dinner party at the one nice Italian restaurant in Durham. She told Credit to bring his male friends. He doesn't have any friends, so he brought me and Hate.

This was one of those dinner parties young girls have and pretend to enjoy, in order to show each other how sophisticated they are. Translation: it was really fucking boring. Plus, all these girls were in the same social circle, so all they did was gossip and talk about girls who weren't there. Since they were Jewish, I was at least hoping to hear details of their Zionist plots against Palestinians or stories about how they have their horns and tails cut off at birth, but no dice.

Normally, mixing me with alcohol and boredom is a recipe for disaster. The only known antidote is the possibility of immediate sexual contact. Fortunately for everyone not interested in hearing the harsh truth about the state of Israel, there was a pretty cute Jewish girl next to me at the table. And once she realized I was a naughty goyim she could secretly have forbidden sex with, I had my entertainment for the evening. As usual, Rachel was a bitch to Credit and he fawned over her, because they're a typical Jewish couple.

Hate was seated between me and this quiet, mousey girl. When Rachel introduced her to Hate, she perked up right away-Hate is not Jewish at all, but his last name is VERY Jewish-sounding. She talked to him for a few minutes, thinking she'd found a nice Jewish lawyer-to-be. And then he told her he didn't go to any temple because he was Protestant, and she had no use for him. This one was looking for a husband; non-Jews needed not apply.

Credit had sold Hate on coming to this thing by promising Rachel would sit him next to a cute girl who would be shorter than him and would be into him. He rushed home from rugby practice and quickly showered, all so this snotty little J.A.P. could immediately brush him off, just because he wasn't a Christ-killer. And he still had to pay for his lousy meal.

Compounding all of this for Hate was the fact that he was really hungry. This restaurant was supposed to be one of the best in Durham. If you know anything about restaurants, you know that small towns like Durham in southern states like North Carolina are lucky if any of the "nice" restaurants are better than Macaroni Grill. This place wasn't. Not only that, but they had awful service too. Everything took forever to get there. Hate is never late, ever, and because he'd just come from rugby practice and rushed to get to dinner on time, he hadn't eaten anything for several hours.

When the bread came, like ten minutes after we'd been seated, the waiter put it across the table from Hate. He asked Rachel to pass the bread, so she did what anyone would do, she took a roll and passed it from person to person. By the time it got to Hate, all the bread was gone. Remember that scene from Office Space when they're celebrating a birthday and everyone gets a piece of cake but Milton? Yeah, it was like that. There was nothing left in the basket but a pack of saltines. Which Hate ripped open and ate like we'd just picked him up off a lifeboat. He even dipped them into the butter. As buttery crumbs spilled from his mouth, the mousey girl shot him the most repulsed look I've ever seen. It was like she was watching the fine dining equivalent of "Two Girls, One Cup".

Ten minutes go by and still, no one has come to refill the breadbasket. Hate is frustrated. Finally the waiter comes by to take our drink order.

Hate "Can we get more bread please?"

Waiter "Of course."

Five minutes go by. Nothing. Hate is peeved. The waiter brings our drinks.

Hate "Did you get the bread?"

Waiter "Oh sorry!"

Ten excruciatingly grain-free minutes go by. Hate is getting visibly annoyed. The waiter comes to take our dinner order.

Hate "Do you have the bread?"

Waiter "Oh my God! I'll get that as soon as I take your order! So sorry."

The girl who had suggested the restaurant tells everyone that she has to leave, because she had plans to eat somewhere else. This girl also went to law school with us, and was possibly Hate's least favorite person in the school. Normally, her leaving would have made Hate happy, but 1. She suggested the spot that was sucking on every level, 2. She was now going off to eat, while he had to keep waiting for his food, and 3. She had taken the last two rolls right before the basket had gotten to Hate, and both were sitting there, with the only the soft middles eaten out.

On this point, I am fully behind Hate. What kind of greedy, selfish, entitled bitch takes not just two, but THE LAST TWO rolls from the roll basket when it's clear not everyone has gotten one, and then just eats the center out of both?? I could tell you what kind, but I'm tired of getting emails from the Anti-Defamation League.

This was a turning point in the night. Hate passed all his preliminary stages of anger, and sat ready to blow. He was so hungry, he'd eaten all the ice out of his vodka soda. But he's so polite that he wouldn't make a big deal out of it, or go get some bread himself. He just sat there, steaming at the indignity of being ignored and dismissed. The waiter comes by with our second round of drinks.

Hate "I asked for more bread, it never came."

Waiter "Oh sorry ... we just ran out."

At that point, we'd been in the restaurant about an hour. Hate was trying to hold it together, but he addressed the waiter in a voice that was equal parts desperation and frustration, and just a bit too loud for the situation.

Hate "Well, can I get an appetizer or something?? I'm starving!"

Waiter "Your entrees will be out in no time. If I order an app now, it'll just come out with them."

He let out a huge sigh and threw his hands up in the air, then sat there, staring off at nothing and muttering to himself, with his jaws locked in angry tension, like two tectonic plates on the verge of slippage. He reacted like a Celtics fan does when Kobe Bryant gets a bailout call-they want to get pissed at the unfairness of it, but they can't muster anything but resigned exasperation, because they knew it was coming. The girls, of course, were aghast at his embarrassing display. Every good Jewish girl knows that the appropriate response in this situation is excessive eye-rolling and withering passive-aggressiveness. Credit and me? We started giggling, hoping against hope to see the Hate Volcano blow.

Five minutes have passed since the waiter said the food will be "out in no time." Hate's nostrils are now flared like the bulging magma vents of Mount Kilhuea. Credit and I are periodically checking him for signs of seismic activity.

Ten more minutes pass. Hate has completely abandoned any pretense of socialization, retreating into his cocoon of rage. Credit and I are now flicking our eyes back and forth between our conversations and Hate so much, we look like we're watching the Chinese National Ping-Pong Championships.

Fifteen minutes pass. Hate has firmly grasped his knife and fork, and has begun staring a hole through his plate. It's becoming hard for me to contain my excitement. Christmas is so close!