Chapter 6

When I was four, I was in preschool with a girl named Charlene
She was the first girl I was ever in love with

We both were in a play called "The Sly Fox"
I volunteered to do it because she did
The play was about a turtle and a bunny
Who find a piece of cheese
And are tricked out of it by the sly fox

As the sly fox, I helped the two split the cheese
Between them by biting it in half
However, every time I took a bite of one
The other's slice would be slightly bigger
And neither the turtle nor the bunny would be satisfied

So in an effort to give them equal pieces
I kept biting a bit from both sides until it was all gone
Clever, right?
It was all part of the sly fox's plan to eat all the cheese
As you can imagine

You'd think "hahaha" funny,
Joke's on the turtle and rabbit for being so petty
Lesson learned. Nope
During rehearsals, the adults gave me a tiny slice
Of cheese to practice with
And I delivered my lines flawlessly
I was going to be a star

However, at showtime, with an audience of a couple hundred faculty
Parents and students, the teachers replaced my thin cheese slice
With a big block of dry government cheddar cheese

I stood there mumbling my lines
Due to a mouth full of what felt like pencil erasers
And so the crowd laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed at me,
The poor little sly fox
Maybe the adults wanted to inspire a perfect performance
So they didn't tell me that my mouth was supposed to be full of cheese
And talking was supposed to be difficult
That that was the point

So there I was on stage, trying to chew faster
Swallow, to get my lines out
It just made it more comical
It took all of my four year old willpower
To not break down in tears right then
And there on that fucking stage

I had worked so hard to remember all of my lines
I wanted to impress everyone
Who thought I was so smart with my perfect delivery

No one so new to life should be contemplating
Something called "the worst moment of my life"
The turtle, and Charlene the bunny, laughed, too
At me, I thought
She couldn't help it
They laughed all of my confidence away
Laughs that echoed throughout my life

Joke's on me
A jester was born

Fast forward to near present day
I met a very specific woman
Brilliant
Beautiful
Up until then, Egoblivion and I had been
In a sense, sharing women
Discussing the intricacies and intimacies
He had absolutely no concept of
Or desire for-romantic love
And given our condition, that could be understood
Normally, he'd talk to all the women
But this time, I wanted to give it a shot
I felt stronger
He'd taught me a lot

For some reason, in a drunken
And and tail-end-of-a-coked up state of mind
I told her the sly fox story
And, of course, she laughed

But this time, so did I
Not only because a little preschooler trying to deliver his lines
With a mouthful of cheese is fucking hilarious
But also because it was funny
That it took me all these years to realize the point of the tale
The sly fox had to learn his lesson too
The story was a tragedy for all the characters
And if I had had the wisdom of someone much older
I'd have seen that I had actually succeeded
In entertaining the entire audience
That they all got it
I made them happy

And suddenly I wanted to make her happy

Egoblivion was my savior
So as you do, you ask your savior for their blessings
So I asked for privacy with her
To let me explore her without him

He was not laughing

Saviors are capitalists
In exchange for their blessings
They ask you for your undying devotion
Your sacrifice
To love them above all others

This was what you'd call a conflict of interest

So he turned on radio silence for months
Soon enough it was like he was just a dream
Of a former madman now cured
Perhaps I'd made him up all along

I turned my full attention to her
I didn't need her to fill the space Egoblivion had occupied
I was strong enough now to fill that space on my own

We talked of silly things, profound things
Mediocre things
She told me of her own insanities
Her own brokenness
It was my first true connection since that day in the bathroom
When I first put the gun to my head

Sometimes while we were having sex
I had fears that Egoblivion was right there
Inside her with me
But I shrugged the thought
He wasn't real, after all
Right?

One day she says
"Perhaps the sly fox wasn't the bad guy
Perhaps he was just trying to be the hero
And that was his first case as a rookie vigilante
Like Batman.
He just didn't do as well as he'd liked
But he'd grow into the hero he always wanted to be"

God, I loved her