Mucking in the swamp

He became dehumanized in the world. He realized people around him felt the same rages. The thought came to him how people were showing a thin veneer of civility that hid murderous hate. It sickened him. He felt trust only with animals. Most humans were predictable, rarely would one rise above original sin, too much effort.

Vinegar Years- Chapter 2

His naivete was gone. He realized people behaved in completely self-serving ways. The only time any person would show interest was if they smelled a way to make money or could manipulate others to do free tasks. Yet he found strangers who had no interest in screwing others and that fascinated and puzzled him. They were rare but when he came upon one it was like a fresh breeze smelling of cleanness. He realized people were basically lazy and cowardly. The lengths people would go to protect their personal fiefs and positions were infinite. Self-preservation was the strongest and over-riding human emotion. There were no rules, no lines of limit. People would lie, cheat, and invent damaging character assassinations to bolster their own positions. The successful ones at this game were utterly bankrupt morally. They were predators constantly probing for weaknesses, the same way wolves will follow a herd of buffalo or elk to pick off the very old, very young, or the sick. But human predators are innately lazy, they will quickly lose interest if they see they must make exertions. The only differance between a businessman and a common theif is government approval. He felt disgust each time he heard a businessman lament "I'm not making any money on this!" Yet he worked for such a specimen.

Vinegar Years- Chapter 2

He was in the general soup of American society now, a wage earner identical to millions of others, plodding away in a grind of payday to payday. He did not detest the actual job he did as much as the pecking order of management he was under. He quickly saw that his co-workers who sucked the boss's ass would advance themselves. The system was utterly rotten and corrupt. He found that competence was frowned on and mocked. It amazed him that people resigned themselves to the status quo. He soon equated the term "businessman" to the lowest form of human life. These bastards were devoid of anything admirable, existing solely to make money. They were to a man miserable specimens always irritable and short-tempered and quick with the sarcastic put-down. He despised his boss while he juggled the fear of losing the paycheck.

Vinegar Years- Chapter 2

He was now on his own, and was seeing the reality of his situation. He was seeing the American class system and where he ranked in it, which was at the bottom. Money was the gauge by which all was measured. He was puzzled at the extent at which everything revolved around money and the power it gave if one had it, and the utter contempt shown to one who did not. He was amazed how the rich could behave like arrogant and insulting rotten bastards and no one would complain. He realized quickly how the game was played, the clever and amoral people preyed on the moral and trusting people. It was all about power, aggressive and unfeeling. He found that total strangers would treat him like shit for no reason other than they could, for he was a poor nobody on his own. He saw American culture and society bared for what it was, completely selfish and greedy and fundamentally predatory. He saw with no doubts that he would be ground into dust if he tried to treat others in a Christian and kindly way, he would simply be taken advantage of. He was sickened by the realization that in the world he was now in that he would either be one of those who hang on the cross or be one of those who are banging in the nails. The rich and powerful that he observed were utterly remorseless in sticking it to others. He noticed the rich actually enjoyed and had enthusiasm for gouging others. Wealth and power for its own sake seemed to motivate the rich and those who wanted to be rich. He could not help thinking it was all like a jungle of predators and prey, each of which he had no desire to be. As far as he could tell there was not really much ground in the middle, one really was only one or the other. He now was neatly impaled on the horns of this dilemna, not sure what to do, only sure of what not to do.

Vinegar Years- Chapter 2

He left his parents house in the middle of the night while they were all asleep. He got in his van and drove 5 miles to a large wooded area and parked for the night. He had left. Now what? he thought to himself. He had taken the leap, but he did not realize what he had done. Now he was utterly on his own, with no way back. He would sleep and live in his van for the next 2 weeks until he rented a room in an old woman's house for $25 a week.

Vinegar Years- Chapter 1

He graduated from high school in June 1975, age 17. President Nixon lowered the legal drinking age to 18 in 1973. In December 1975 he could legally buy alcohol and he did. He found drinking beer dulled his rage. He followed in his father's footprints. He drank in his local bar nightly and stumbled home each night, but went to work every morning, albeit hungover. One night he came home drunk and his father ripped him a new ass. The father told him to move out. The end of June 1976 he packed his clothes and left. He ventured out on his own completely ignorant of the hard world he entered.

Vinegar Years- Chapter 1

He withdrew into himself and built walls around his emotions. People seemed to him to be ugly and predatory. His early teens were a jumble of bewilderment and confusion. His peers in school seemed to him stupid and distant. Rage began to grow in him. Hate for his father solidified into a rebellious attitude towards all adults. He grew cold and hard, for the hand that grips with an iron grasp begets a soul of iron in that which it grips. He began to pity his mother for the inescapable prison she was in. He lived in a desperation that was smothering him. He absorbed his father's prejudices and attitudes.