BULLET IN THE HEAD

A friend once told me: “If you constantly tell your girlfriend she deserves better than you. One day, she’ll believe it.”

For years I’ve referred to myself as an idiot. I think people are starting to believe it and it’s pissing me off.

I’ve been trying not to preface a lot of what I say and write. It’s a habit of mine to protect myself when expressing my thoughts and opinions in case I’m wrong. I’ve always been afraid of saying or writing something ignorant. As a kid, I would listen to adults and try to join in on their conversations, but my parents would shut me up. I remember when I was around ten or eleven, my mother took me to a prayer group and I tried to participate by using football as an analogy for some religious message. While the other adults seemed intrigued and impressed, my mother stopped me and told me to be quiet. Afterwards, she yelled at me for speaking. I have several recollections of her telling me I talk too much, to think before I speak or don’t say anything at all.

I can’t remember being afraid to speak in public any time before that, and plenty of things happened afterwards.

I was at my father's restaurant listening to old black Tuskegee airmen talk about World War 2. The Gulf War was in full effect and I was amazed at the stories these men were telling about white American pilots challenging them to air duels and they had to shoot them down. Mr. LaDough had me hooked when he told me several American pilots weren't shot down by Germans, but crashed or was "accidentally" shot down in those duels. I opened my mouth to mention something; I don't remember what, and my dad told me to be quiet before I said something stupid. I gave my father no reason to think I had anything of value to say, but his comment hurt just the same.

In high school, I was partnered with Doc in a debate about birth control in third world countries and we were for it. It was a two-week assignment and we crunched out a report and debate material during our fifteen-minute nutrition break before class. And we would have won the debate, if not for me. One of the opposing team members asked if I was for abortion and I said no. The class thought I was hypocritical and voted against us. All their reports said I cost is the debate. None of them understood the difference between abortion and other means of birth control where the egg and sperm aren't allowed to meet. My thinking was simple: Use a condom the pill, the egg and sperm don't meet, there's no fetus and no death. Abortion is the opposite, it's the lack of birth control, and you get pregnant and kill the fetus. I knew what I meant. Doc knew what I meant. The fucking teacher knew what I meant. But everyone in the class said we lost and it was my fault.

Even when I'm sure of a topic, I've been burnt. One night Bloody Pencil, Merlyn, and myself were discussing Mark Millar's first Ultimates issue. Merlyn hated it and it's portrayal of Captain America. I liked it and said how great it was that someone finally got it right, showing Cap as the soldier he's always been. Merlyn immediately countered by saying Cap was never a soldier. He's been portrayed as such in recent times, but he was never originally a soldier. Merlyn took great pleasure in catching me off guard and laughing his ass off. But since that day, even in a comic store, I'm hesitant to speak my mind. The one thing I always thought I knew was comics and without knowing Merlyn had taken that away.

It’s not Merlyn’s fault. I was wrong and he called me on it.
It’s not my dad’s fault. He was joking and my family doesn’t abide with people having weak skin.
I don’t even blame my classmates who stole the victory from us. For over ten years, Doc has told me we should be thankful we got through it at all because we blew it off until the last minute.
I do blame my mother a little because she took a child to places he shouldn’t have been. But, at the same time, I do have a habit of talking without thinking first. And all this comes together to form a massive insecurity about speaking in public, sharing my opinions, and generally feeling like I’m a fool.

Now, I question everything I say. I run it through my head a dozen times before I utter a word. I think carefully about the subject matter and decide if I should speak at all. If I voice an opinion, I get nervous. I preface with: “In my opinion…” or “As far as I know…” And, my personal favorite: “I know I’m an idiot, but…” I also use that as a closing if I’m trying to be funny or become uncertain of what I’ve said during my delivery.

In elementary school, I remember talking to a friend as he watched a porn video. Our conversation wasn’t about the sex, but a scene where someone sang a song called “I May Be Dumb, But I’m Not Stupid.” In high school, I got into the habit of saying that often when someone seemed surprised at my level of intelligence or knowledge on a subject. Instead of berating them for thinking so little of me, or enjoying their flattery, I denounced their discovery by insisting I was ignorant, just not as ignorant as they thought.

I’m getting older and I’m starting to hate people for treating me like I don’t have clue. It’s not their fault; I’ve done it to myself. Even if I told them to stop, I doubt it would make a difference because they’ve grown too accustom to thinking that way. Trying to change things now would probably start a fight and I’m tired of confrontation. I’m not a coward, I just don’t like drama as much as I used to. I’m more of a connoisseur now. I only like certain kinds of drama in my life, like getting mixed up with a pretty med student, and anything else is not worth my time.

Ironically, the smartest man I know and ever met is the only person to treat me like I’m not a drooling moron. He’s the first to stop me when I put myself down. Here, I call him “Doc.”

I’ve known Doc going on twenty years. We met through a mutual friend, and though he had no idea who I was, I knew him before we ever saw each other. We attended the same elementary school, but he left before I arrived. And, as dumb kids will do, they saw me as Doc’s replacement and went out of their way to show they weren’t happy about it. Funny thing was, Doc told me his classmates were not warm to him either. So, when I told him about the whole he left, he couldn’t understand it.

Not to digress for long, but there is a weird transformation that occurs in students before a major transition, like going from eighth grade to high school, or graduating high school to college. Suddenly, everyone is your friend and they give a damn. It’s the most hypocritical thing I’ve ever experienced. People who never knew I was alive suddenly wanted my signature in their yearbook or asked me if I was going to prom. I remember going to senior prom and everyone shook my hand and gave me the nod. Well, not everyone. My date asked me to the prom only to make her boyfriend jealous, and he spent the whole night bumping into me on the dance floor, acting like it was my fault. Fucker. And fuck her to. I wanted my high school years to play out like a John Hughes movie, and it did…if John was a racist high on crack.

Soon after Doc and I were formally introduced we hit it off. In retrospect, how we became such close friends is beyond me. We couldn’t have been any more different. Doc comes from a respected and accomplished family. At fifteen, he already spoke two languages and familiar with writing in Japanese. He’d seen more of the world than people three times his age and just looking at him you knew he was going somewhere. I was still new to LA after living in Orange County. I’d just spent half a year among the worst kids imaginable who inflicted horrors upon me in the name of somebody I didn’t know and they didn’t even like. Most of those kids went to the same high school, so it all just carried over. I was a D average student who hated school. My family life was non-existent. And, I’d already avoided one fight my first week because I was a black kid wearing a denim jacket instead of Fila. Still, from the first handshake, we were tighter than… I don’t thing there’s any comparison.

Our roles were defined the first day we met. Doc already earned several colored belts in karate and when he asked I told him I knew a little. I didn’t. I didn’t know a damn thing. I was use to playing kung fu with kids in second and third grade. We all thought we knew kung fu from watching movies. We’d challenge each other on the daily basis and make up styles based on movies and animals. When a kid asked if you knew kung fu, you just assumed that he was full of shit and went along with it. But Doc was the real thing, and when he asked I had no idea he could back it up. We met after school at a park, him, his crew, myself and one other person, but I don’t remember who it was. I don’t think it was “Fitz”. Doc showed up in a karate gi and I knew I was in trouble, but I had no way out. He asked to see my kata and I had no idea what a kata was.

He said: “Let me see what you can do.” And I started my routine. I’ll say this for myself; I’ve been in some embarrassing situations, walking into things no rational person would dare get into, but I got through them. I endured them. I didn’t run or find an easy way out, I went head on into the fire, got burned, but survived the ordeal. Here was a situation I knew was bad. Doc was a real deal martial artist and I was full of shit. In front of his peeps and my one supporter, who believed I knew something, I was about to embarrass myself. I could have talked my way out of it. I could have just admitted to being full of shit. But there was no way in hell I was going to back down. So, I started my routine. I channeled every kung fu movie I ever saw, every Chinese comic I’d read, every anime I’d seen and did the funkiest thing… Man, it was bad. Doc fell to the ground laughing, and I’ve done my best to keep him laughing no matter what happens. Even when we split-up after three years of being inseparable, I still tried to make him laugh. I don’t remember why or how we split. Doc and I had our own small group of geeks we hung with. Doc will say I was the leader. If not for me, none of us would have gathered. But, I say whoever sits at the head of the table is the boss and that was Doc. He gave the rest of us clout. We weren’t just geeks, we were nerds, and there is a difference. Geeks are lowly weird people ignorant about everything except what they’re obsessed with, like comics. Nerds are smart, misunderstood, and turn obsession into lucrative careers; they legitimize it and go mainstream. I was a geek masquerading among nerds.

Before Doc, I was always Sherlock Holmes and my friends were Watson. I was Huck to their Tom. I was the cool one. But my friendship with Doc was the first time I felt like a sidekick and I put myself there because it seemed to fit. But after a while it got to me and I lashed out. I remember accusing him of being a racist. Of not wanting me to stand up to him and thinking I was beneath him. He didn’t think that, I did. I saw him excelling while I stood still. Things were fine, but I soon became jealous of all he had that I wanted. Everyone accepted him. He was a freshman in high school that hung around college students and adults. His mother would let him drink beer and attend an annual Christmas party with strippers. Just the fact he lived with is mother while mine dumped me on my father made me mad. And, one year the stripper was Asian. Doc liked Asian women and Asian women like Doc. I watched as this gorgeous Philippine woman worked Doc over and she loved it more than he did. I watched as people cheered, but when she came near me, she left before I could even smile at her. That night, as much as I loved Doc, I watched him surrounded by his mates drinking Corona’s and I hated him. Things eventually came a head and our friendship was “interrupted”.

Thankfully, things worked themselves out and we recovered. I told Doc about my inferiority complex and he told me about what his life was really like. We saw each other in two totally different ways. To me, Doc was Superman. He had it all and I wanted it. To Doc, his life was crap; he was barley getting by and saw me as a kick-ass warrior surviving on my wits. I reminded him how much he has to be thankful for and all he’s accomplished. He told me something that I’ve always needed to hear: “If you only applied yourself, there’s nothing you couldn’t do. You’re one of the smartest people I know, you just don’t have any confidence in yourself.”

From that point on our roles changed. I wasn’t a sidekick anymore. I was his peer. I think it was at that moment I actually saw myself as his friend and not his pupil. I look at Doc now with no envy or jealousy, just happiness. He’s still Sherlock to my Watson, but I play the part differently. I’m not the bumbling fat man without a clue. I’m the leaned doctor who puts forth his two cents. I help in the investigations, even if my point of view only helps Holmes think out of the box long enough to see what’s missing. I stand in the background, watching Doc from afar as he lights up the sky.

A rocket doesn’t take off all on it’s own. Someone has to design it, build it, do the maintenance and keep it working. Someone has to pilot it and get it out there and back in one piece. I play a small role in that and it makes me happy. And, a selfish part of me knows when Doc is teaching at a huge University he’ll give a lecture and somewhere in it mention my name.

Life is a play and we all have a part. God, could I be anymore cliché? But, it’s true. Unfortunately, it doesn’t mean we all play our parts well. Sometimes we get lost in them; we misunderstand them. By the time we realize our mistake, the show is over and the play is ruined. Other instances, we’re only meant to play a part for a short while, but we try to extend it. We get too used to a character and never go beyond that. Some of us just play every role the same.

We need to learn how to accept new roles instead of being typecast. That’s a problem I have. It’s hard for me not to take on a negative role once it’s become too comfortable. And, it’s even harder to change once I’ve learned my mistake. People hate for me to change my character because once I’ve accepted a part I’m damn good at it. If I’m the bumbling buffoon, then I’m a damn good buffoon and people like it. But, sooner or later I get tired. I want to change, try on a new look and go in a different direction. That’s when I get shot down and slammed back to where I started.

For a long time I played the part of an idiot on purpose and now people expect it of me. Hell, I expect it from myself. But, that’s not who I am. At least, that’s not who I want to be. Not anymore anyway. I want to play the genius, the know-it-all, the all-seeing oracle or the wise shaman. Of course, the more I try, the more I get slammed. My mother still sees me as her black sheep, the delinquent, and the kid who’d join a gang just to fit in. I think my father sees me differently now. I’m a father myself and he’s accepted and respects me for keeping my family together. I don’t think I’m the loser Actor thought I was. I hope Doc, Heller, and Bloody Pencil see me as Sam to their Frodo. And, I’d like to think Merlyn doesn’t see Arthur the squire anymore. When we met, I pulled Excalibur thinking it was just a sword, but now I know better. JG probably pictures me a mix of HST and Denis Leary with Ron Jeremy thrown in; I hope. Ironically, I don’t think my wife sees me any different than when we first met. I will always be her Elissar. And to my kids, I’m Gandalf.

I look in the mirror and have no idea who’s looking back at me. When the curtain falls, and play is over, who am I really? Am I any of those other people or none at all? I hope I'm just me, but I have no idea what that means.

I don't even know why I titled this entry the way I did.

JPG.