An attempt at Satire I did during high school.
How much is life worth?
Better yet, how much are you worth?
Lets not delude ourselves and answer with the cliché` of “Priceless.” In our day and age everything has a price tag on it though some tags are harder to see then others. Are you adding yourself up right now? Are you trying to pool together all your talents, all of your achievements, all of your joys, all of your soul into a monetary sum? Its not easy let me tell you. Worst of all, when you finally get to see that price tag that has been haunting you your entire life, it’s a disappointment.
Twelve dollars and forty two cents. That’s what I was worth. That’d be a ten, two singles, four dimes and two coppers. Believe me, when I actually saw what I was worth it was a big let down. But numbers don’t lie do they? Numbers can’t lie.
Don’t get me wrong, we don’t all start out as a blue light special. We don’t start as damaged goods thrown into the discount bin. When we are born we are as close to priceless as we will ever get. When we are born we are born with the amazing gift to shape the world around us, to become anything we want and to do anything we please. In other words we are born with a clean slate. No wrap sheet. No addictions. No sin.
Though we are born priceless we don’t stay that way. As we grow older we lose that special gift that is given to us as children, that special thing called potential. I have it on good authority that the moment we lose that gift, our price tag appears.
Now the funniest thing about these price tags that follow us throughout life is that we are the ones who create them. We are the ones who make up our own value as we go along. I guess its like each and every one of us is constantly marking ourselves down, dropping the price of our very being down a penny at a time.
We like to tell ourselves that each screw up is a learning experience. We like to fool ourselves into thinking that mistakes will make us wiser as we get older. Wrong, wrong, wrong! Each mistake is a dollar knocked down off your price. Its another dent that makes the product flawed. It’s that tear in the seams of that dress on the cloths rack. Its that crack on the face of that new watch.
Twelve dollars and forty two cents. That’s two fives, two hundred and two pennies plus eight nickels. How can someone-anyone-go from priceless to a figure less then the amount of a full tank of gas?
I was by no means perfect, but I didn’t really start knocking off the nines from my price tag until junior high. If you think about it, that’s when everyone starts downing their price, even you. Its like once we hit that age we will try to do anything possible to get sold, to beat any competitor’s price as long as it gets us off this godforsaken shelf and out of the store.
I knew that first cigarette didn’t knock too much off my price tag. I know the first time I drank didn’t mean losing anymore then what you drop in the tip jar at the coffee shop or sandwich place. I did have a feeling however, that by the time I was stealing wallets to get a rush my price was steadily dropping.
The thing they forget to tell you at school seminars, that golden piece of advice those cleaned up druggies leave out of their speech is that after your first pack or your first bottle the thrill is gone. You have treaded past the point of no return and that’s a point you only cross once. After that its just a matter of distance.
Twelve dollars and forty two cents. That’s one Hamilton, two Washingtons, one quarter, one dime, one nickel, and two pennies. By the time I hit high school my price tag must have read something like “Half-off.” What’s half of priceless? I don’t know, its more of a feeling then an actual number. Its sad, that feeling of being half of your original self. You cling to the pride that your still worth something, that you still have something to offer. Yet, despite that pride, you are willing to berate yourself with labels like “Bargain Sale” or “Fifty Percent Off!” or “All items must go!”
It was in high school that I learned that even though most of us don’t see our own price tags, we begin to see others. Oh, don’t kid yourself, we all do it. Judging others is one of our greatest guilty pleasures. Its like we are walking down aisles in a supermarket, just sizing up the products there. Instead of soap or laundry detergent, the supermarket known as school sold items like “C+ Student,” and “Future Dropout,” and the very rare but very tasty “Prison Bound Nobody.”
As for me, well I wore my labels like badges, trying desperately to cover up my discount price tag. I must have looked like some rotted piece of meat that some butcher was too cheap to throw away. Instead of tossing me out, they just slapped tag after tag upon me in desperation to cover up the worst parts of me. The labels distracted from the gray spots on that reeking piece of meat. The labels distracted from my crumbling future.
It got really bad. I mean, really bad. I realized that “Half-Price” didn’t seem so bad once my school teachers and guidance councilors stopped mentioning words like “Graduation Progress” and started mentioning words like “GED” and “Military.” I didn’t pay much attention to those words at the time because I didn’t know how far of a drop it was to the Discount Items Bin.
Twelve dollars and forty two cents. That’s one thousand, two hundred and forty two pennies. By the time I dropped out of high school I was lighting up anything that caught flame and drinking anything that burned on the way down. I was constantly marking down my price, just wanting someone to glance in my direction and think-if only for a moment-I might be worth something.
I could feel myself slowly getting pushed to the back of the shelf, new and more attractive merchandise taking the spotlight. Its amazing how those who are pushed to the back unite. I found people who were just like me, the kind of people who can see everyone’s price tag clearly. I’ll be honest, these were my kind of people. These were the ones shoved to the back, thrown away, brushed under the rug. We banded together in a pathetic attempt to hold onto something we had all lost a long time ago. We must have looked like those packaged deals you see everywhere; “Two for ten,” or “Five for twenty.”
You get the idea.
The first time I broke into a house with my fellow defectives, I began to forget about my price. Oh, every time I looked into the mirror I saw it. That unshakable number that reflected my worth. I saw that number in my greasy hair, my pale skin, my filthy clothes. The dark circles around my eyes from lack of sleep complimented the small dots along my arm where the needle had pierced my vein. Despite constantly seeing that number, the drugs, the booze, and the company offered a wonderful distraction from my personal value.
I finally found that rush again, after I had stolen my first car. It was the same feeling that I felt when I had smoked my first cigarette and washed the taste out with my first vodka. It was the same feeling of crossing the point of no return. Stupid school seminars, stupid cleaned up druggies. They always leave the good parts out. The part of how to rekindle that fire and regain that rush.
Twelve dollars and forty two cents. That’s…well, that’s my life. That’s my value. That’s my price tag’s final offer. I needed that rush so badly that I was doing anything for it. Every car I stole I immediately chopped up and sold. Every backdoor window I smashed to rip the guts out of some guy’s house was funding my need for distraction. The only sleep I was getting was in the form of unconsciousness induced by the new drug and booze mixture my fellow rejects had offered me. I needed that rush. I lived for it!
That need for a distraction, that wanton lust for an escape consumed me. I couldn’t stand a minute sober or a second without a buzz. Being sober and having a clear line of thought just reminded me how I was once priceless. How I was once worth something. It was pure hell. That’s why I stole that purse.
She was a somebody but I didn’t care. It was late, the craving for escape was so unbearable by the time I spotted her that it was making me physically sick. It was dark and she was alone, totally unaware I even existed. I ran down that street full speed, focusing only on that ugly brown purse on her shoulder.
I ripped that stupid purse off her shoulder in a blink of an eye as I passed her. I was so good at stealing by now that I didn’t even need to slow down to grab the strap and pull, but instead just kept my breakneck pace. I had it in my hands! The ticket to my next distraction, a few hours of not having that price tag shoved in my face!
I was so desperate for that purse that I hadn’t even noticed the cop turning the corner as I took the purse from that woman. I didn’t hear her scream for help, but I heard the sound of the gun firing. I sure didn’t feel her fear and panic as I stole her purse, but I sure felt the bullet tear through my chest.
It was some young cop, so I couldn’t really blame him even as I felt my warm blood leak down and stain my shirt. He was probably just after some glory, or maybe he just acted on instinct. Either way, he did me in. Punched my ticket. Sold me.
I collapsed nearly a block away, still holding onto that ugly purse. I didn’t even feel pain as I stumbled and hit the cement. Its kind of funny, how numb you get when your life is leaking out of you. Even as my blood began to pool around me I couldn’t get the thoughts of my next buzz out of my skull. With a shaky hand I reached into that ugly, ugly purse and pulled out its contents of twelve dollars and forty two cents.
