blow

two things to get straight from the beginning: I hate doctors and have never joined a support group in my life. at seventy-three, I’m not about to change. the mental health establishment can go screw itself on a barren hilltop in the rain before I touch their snake oil or listen to the visionless chatter of me half my age. I have shot germans in the fields of normandy, filed twenty-six patents, married three women, survived them all, and am currently the subject of an investigation by the IRS, which has about as much chance of collecting from me as shylock did of getting his pound of flesh. bureaucracies have trouble thinking clearly. I, on the other hand, am perfectly lucid.
note, for instance, how I obtained the SAAB I’m presently driving into the los angeles basin: a niece in scottsdale lent it to me. do you think she’ll ever see it again? unlikely. of course when I borrowed it from her I had every intention of returning it and in a few days or weeks I may feel that way again, but for now forget her and her husband and three children who looked me over the kitchen table like I was a museum piece sent to bore them. I could run circles around those kids. they’re spoon-fed ritalin and private schools and have eyes that say give me things I don’t have. I wanted to read them a book on the history of the world, its migrations, plagues and wars, but the shelves of their outsized condominium were full of ceramics and biographies of the stars. the whole thing depressed the hell out of me and I’m glad I’m gone.

from "notes to my biographer" by adam haslett