I was cutting through our confederate park on my way to the library where I’d planned to spend the evening studying for my exams when I saw one of our local activist dopers having a sort of sparring match with some other goof ball. They were sort of slapping each other like babies and moving around in that overly loose manner that instead of indicating comfort and facility at your sport shows that you are completely out of your element. Even slapping another total goober who was as coordinated as a stink bug, the doper seemed to be at a disadvantage. It was sad. It was already a sad day since it was grey and gloomy and I’d lost my i pod down a bottomless pit where the city was digging out a blown gas line or something. I listened to that girl from Dark Dark Dark singing beautifully even after she was gone under muddy water. Oh it was depressing. I really needed cheering up so I went up to some gang banger who was jumping around and running his mouth extra loud about some dog he used to own before he turned into a crack head meth snorting something or other and told him that the doper said he would fight anyone in the park and pay twenty bucks if someone could beat him at boxing. The gang banger walked over to the doper and without so much as a howdy-do smacked him in the face and dropped him like a nut. I couldn’t believe it. That wasn’t what I thought would happen. I didn’t mind seeing the doper going down but I thought there would be a discussion of terms and so forth before any fighting took place. That’s what I wanted to happen. I wanted to listen to the two of them discuss the sordid thing that was going to take place between them. I love listening to things like that. That’s why I’m working on my psychology degree. I find that people are so interesting to listen to. But I feel strongly that they shouldn’t just talk about theoretical things. I think they should talk about beating each other up for no real good reason. The other goober who was conscious and standing under general Lee’s horse shaking visibly, looked down at his doper friend and I thought he was going to cry. I don’t know what happened right then but something hit me. I just felt so bad watching this guy standing there shaking right by general Lee’s foot which was in a stirrup the size of a human head. Look at the south now! A white doper man laid out flat by a black man right under general Lee’s foot while the other big goober stood quivering and a future psychologist stood becoming sadder by the second. What would the general say if he could see us? What would he think of it?! I felt like he would think that we were mice and not men. I was wearing a nine hundred dollar jacket from Neiman Marcus and I was cold! My i pod with 50 thousand songs on it was down in a sewer and I was bumming out. I honestly wanted someone to carry me to the library and read all my psychology crap to me while I lay on a couch eating grapes. I didn’t want to lie to myself. I was a monumental pussy and a lazy ass. I came from the worst generation on earth! All those dope smoking hippies I grew up with with their fuckin’ head bands and incessant complaining and singing and dancing! I couldn’t stand it! I looked at the gang banger, the doper, and the goober. I saw myself standing there at the site of a miserable instigation. If the four of us had been in the civil war we would have died from being pussies before we marched thirty feet. The doper started siting up and shaking his head while groaning lowly. The gang banger stood akimbo glaring down at the doper as if someone was to blame for something. What a fuck up! Who taught me to be like this? I started thinking that maybe it was that fuckin’ psychology teacher at VCU. But that was just the problem! Why did it have to be someone else’s fault? Because that’s my generation’s mantra: Someone else made me do it! We’re pussies, lazy asses, and fabulously adverse to responsibility. I felt myself snapping right then and there. My sadness was melting under the glow of epiphany. I reached down and grabbed the doper’s hand. I pulled him to his feet and said that I was no longer going to be an irresponsible hippy like him. I was going to imagine the hardships that Lee put up with in the civil war and compare them to my plight at any given moment in order to give myself motivation to behave better and be more responsible. The gang banger asked the doper where his twenty bucks was. I told him that I had lied about the twenty dollars and so the gang banger took a swing at me. I ducked under his fist and he went down on his face. Some college kids had shown up and were now standing around us in a circle. Some punk kid said, “You guys shouldn’t be fighting. You should talk it over.” I went up to him and poked my finger into his chest. I said, “Yes we should be fighting. We should be beating the crap out of each other. My generation because of their peace lovin’ dope smoking ways, has morphed into a bunch of grotesquely effete nimrods. Your generation is even worse. All you little pussies do is complain about what everyone else is doing while you sit around on facebook. Look at the general there!” I said as I pointed up to Lee’s statue, “Now that was a real grownup!” The circle of kids started mumbling and it became clear to me that they had no idea who Lee was. I explained it to them in great detail. Too much detail. They wound up pummeling me for being too erudite. I was pleased by that and reassured that psychology was my true calling. I went to the library and studied ’till my eyes nearly fell out thinking of Lee the whole time.
