Nothing to Say

I don't know if it's wise to post this here. But I figure like I should post it somewhere, somewhere public, somewhere where I will see it whenever I look through the archives, and remember, this is why you fucking listen to your conscience, this is why anarchy is bullshit, for all it's a pretty picture on paper. Everything looks nice if you have the right people talking about it. I'm not falling for this philosophy bullshit again.

I feel used, betrayed, lied to. Rational or no, that’s how I feel. Now, that would be bad enough, really. But I also feel guilty, horrible, like scum of the earth. So it’s… hmmm.

A friend stole from her workplace. In her mind, I believe, because the owner was a jerk, because the store was a part of the hierarchy she rebels against and hates (as do I, as do most people in one way or another), because she wasn’t treated well there, it was justified. This, I would not judge her for, though it goes against my personal code. Part of my code of life is not judging others by my own morals, ethics, what have you. It’s hard, but I believe it’s right. But, but, but, things are never that simple. She took food that would’ve been thrown away and distributed it, through us, to needy and homeless people in the city, along with the donations the group collected from supermarkets. I suppose if I had paid attention to any sort of detail at all, I would’ve known that she had no authority to do so. But she eventually left, and was subsequently banned from the store, for whatever reason, I didn’t pry. She told us we could continue to take expired food; we did. Start to present, this was about a year.

Yesterday, a new woman stopped us, called the manager, who told us that the man in charge of deli food had said no “in the past” to expired food being taken. Knowing the man, knowing that he’s been taken advantage of in the past, and knowing that he and our friend had never gotten along, I rather understood. Also, I’d always been fairly certain that the owner of the store didn’t know about the whole situation. I figured the chef had a newborn baby to take care of, his job was on the line, I wouldn’t press the issue. The woman told me to take it up with him on Monday. We left without food, except what I’d brought from my garden, some green beans and some basil, as well as a melon from my friend's brother. It was fine, there was plenty of supermarket produce, and we helped cook up a meal and handed everything out at the park (except the green beans, which didn’t find a place). I type up an e-mail explaining the situation to the entire group, and then spend the entire night worrying about the chef, whether or not he will hate me, if he will understand, if he will think I’ve lied to him or used him or tried to deceive him. This is irrational, but I like the guy, a lot, and don’t want to hurt him, or for him to be angry at me, only partially because he is sometimes moody and the very idea of him angry scares the shit out of me, partly emotion-wise, partly just because.

Monday morning, I wake up significantly pre-dawn, continue worrying for a few more hours in bed, and eventually get up and get coffee and see my dad off. With my little brother in tow (the library was in the works for after I got everything sorted out), I headed off to the plaza in which he and I work and the friend formerly worked, worrying the entire way, of course. I head into the store, and run into (not literally) the grocery manager, a man who I don’t know very well, but has a reputation from plenty of friends for being a mellow, very nice, very generous guy. He tells me that the owner and manager are angry, the weekend was bad, they never condoned the food donations at all, and are contacting the group over it, and so on. I wince, tell him I am sorry but understand; he is not happy either. My little brother pipes up “But it’s expired food—” I tell him to shut up. The grocery manager tells me that the deli food was not, in fact, all expired, which shuts me the hell up, too. I am stunned, shell-shocked, apologize, and leave the store a very, very confused person indeed.

After talking to my very good friend who I work with, my brother takes off to the library, I am stricken with conscience and guilt (far too late, I fear), and return to the grocery store to apologize to the chef. He is behind the deli lunch counter, asks me what’s wrong, had no idea I was involved in any way with the goings-on. Tells me he does not blame me, that it is really the friend’s fault, she has an attitude problem, she should’ve told us, I swallow. I am still her friend. I will not judge her. He says not to worry, they will take care of the judging for me. She was banned, you know. …She was what? Oh. Oh, um. I’m really really really really sorry. He tells me not to worry. I tell him I promise I never would’ve taken food that wasn’t expired; he knows that, don’t worry. He doesn’t think the manager or owner know about my involvement, he definitely didn’t, I am still welcome, don’t worry, just don't mention it to either of them. I feel like shit.

Fuck anarchy, fuck anarchism, fuck the higher good and high ethics and the greater cause and all the bullshit that’s kept me all high and mighty all last year. Fuck it all. I let ideology blind me to my own conscience, and that’s a mistake I won’t make again. I can’t believe I was so stupid to ignore everyone in my life who warned me about idealism, and living outside of reality. The worst part is, I knew they were right. But I figured, maybe someday I’ll look back on this stage of my life and laugh at the foolish kid I was, or maybe I’ll figure out a way to live by my conscience and make it work. I didn’t think I’d wind up stealing from someone I care about, or, for that matter, stealing full stop.

I walked to the library, feeling hurt, angry, stupid, guilty. I found my little brother, laughing under his breath at Stephen Colbert’s book, and dug up a Terry Pratchett book for myself, and proceeded to get lost in the life of Samuel Vimes, Night Watch. Good book. It was five-thirty before I put it down, having seen my brother off some time ago. I called my best friend and told her as much of the story as I could, in as much detail as I could muster, having called my sister on the way to the library, seen my other best friend at the store where I work during the whole ordeal, and having decided (after all this) to e-mail my other best friend the story later on. Then I walked back to the plaza, buying a bottle of glue and applying for a job on the way there, and also stopping for a bite and writing this: Fuck anarchism, fuck the greater good, fuck higher ideals and all the bullshit that comes along. Whenever I get suicidal, I take two options. One, look around, decide the world, life, is too beautiful, amazing; two, it’s the easy way out and I’d let people down. But right now I’m finding it hard to care about either. I concluded that if life was about conscience, appreciating beauty, working hard and loving with all you’ve got and so on, I could take it. I could take heartbreak, pain, physical and emotional, but I can’t take all the moral-gray-area bullshit that comes along. I can’t take fucking philosophy.

Anyway, I got to the store where I currently work as my friend was closing up, accidentally scaring the shit out of him in the process, and went with him to both stores he needed to go to, me radiating apathy and depression, and him trying to cheer me up in various ways, in varying degrees of success. As we left the second grocery store, I got a call from my sister telling me that my brother, a drug dealer who my dad had kicked out at the start of the summer, had broken into the house, and she’d found lights on all over, and the black plastic hat that had held about four months’ worth of my pocket change (at least ten bucks, probably closer to twenty) empty on my dad’s bed. I thanked her for the news, hung up. Walked home laughing, about as painfully close to tears as I ever want to be, laughing and unable to stop. I stopped in the park for a while, saw a bat flying around, apologized to my God and for what I did to both the owner and the chef and God only knows who else, lied in a tree and wished for death, jumped out and walked home, where I found that my brother had also taken with him about two meals’ worth of food, and kicked in the basement door. My dad surmises that it is me he truly hates, and I do know this to be the case.

But all I could do was laugh, figuring how can I hate him? What I’ve done is so much worse.

And that is why I feel like shit right now.