Superfuck You—KICKSPLODEURBANACTION!

I was, what, sixteen? Seventeen? I don’t remember the exact age and I could find that out by looking it up, but that isn’t important. No, what’s important is that I was on the school bus. It was the afternoon and school was over for the day. That’s what’s important. Nothing else mattered. No more school for the day, you know? So I’m on the school bus, right, and on walks Dave and Nick. Or was it Dave and Chris? Nah, doesn’t matter. It was Dave and someone, right? So they come on the bus and sit in the seat behind me. I was in my seat: driver’s side, two in front of the back one. The seat with the heater under it. I’m from Canada, right, and that heater rocked come winter. That was my seat, understand me? My fucking seat. No one else got to sit there, unless I allowed it. You sat there, you got removed. Those are the rules of the game, boys and girls, don’t go crying to mommy. They’re in the seat behind my seat and they’re just talking meaningless talk like they always do. Might have been about wrestling. I used to watch wrestling back in those days, so I could keep up. Probably something about Stone Cold and The Rock having some bad blood, okay? But that’s not important either. Wrestling isn’t important anymore. Watch for six months and you know everything that’s happened and will ever happened. It’s cyclical in nature, wrestling is. Just need to see it go around the track once, really. They’re talking, they’re shucking and jiving and I’m thinking my own thoughts. Thoughts that aren’t what they’re talking. Probably thoughts about some chick in my classes. Back then, I had a big crush on this one chick, right? Pretty much all through high school, so it was probably her. Nasty, dirty, pornographic teenage boy thoughts were probably the thoughts. So they’re talking and I’m thinking and she’s naked and the driver is driving. The driver’s name is Max and he’s Russian or Polish or something with an accent. We call him Mad Max because he’s genuinely insane. My sister hates riding the bus in the winter because she’s afraid for her life when she places it in the hands of Mad Max. We’re doing twenty over the speed limit down Wonderland and we cut off a car and Mad Max’s response to the inevitable horn? Extend left arm out window, hold out left hand, raise left hand middle finger. I loved that guy. So did everyone but my sister. But she loved roller coasters for some reason, but not Mad Max. No, Mad Max scared her. But that’s not important either. We on Oxford I think, just after the first stop and the bus is now one-third full, because it’s mostly people at the first stop, not the second, which is also the final, stop. We all have our own seats at this point and the legs are extended across to the seat across the aisle. Just relaxing after a hard day of reading, writing and arithmetic, that’s the life, right? Dave and Nick are still talking and their talking still doesn’t correlate with my thinking, but that doesn’t matter. Dave and Nick are talking movies. That’s right, but they’re also not talking movies. Nah, they’re talking about what they did that weekend and Dave smacks Nick on the arm. Full on punch, actually. Closed fist, big of a wind-up and followed by a cry of pain. I notice this, but don’t think much of it. Guys are always hitting one another, right? Not this guy though. No, I’m not a big hitting others kind of guy. I’m more of the newer, modern, sensitive, sissy boy type. I like to read, write, listen, watch, talk, eat, sleep, go, come, kiss, hug, cuddle, but not cry. I don’t cry. I’m not quite that modern. I’ll choke up though. But not cry. I don’t hit or cry. I grew up on Ninja Turtles, Transformers, He-Man, The Cosby Show, Roseanne, Star Trek: The Next Generation and a shitload of other shows and they didn’t say anything about crying being okay, so don’t be telling me that is. Actually, I know it’s okay, I just never seem to have cause to do so. My life is pretty good all right. No tragedy in the life of Chad Nevett, no sir. But Dave hit Nick and then they sort of went back and forth with the hits all the while, discussing why they’re hitting. Well, actually they weren’t talking about it all. They couldn’t talk about it.

The first rule of fight club is you don’t talk about fight club.

The second rule of fight club is you do not talk about fight club.

Let’s jump forward a year or two, I don’t remember how far ahead really. We’re still on the bus though. Same place, different year, different seat, different Chad. I was a bit late to the bus because I was talking with some friends. We were probably talking about girls and how they didn’t like us. That’s how things were. We were the newer, modern, sensitive, sissy boy types, but girls didn’t like those types. They liked the opposite. We were the Non-Male Entities, but hey, that’s not important. The point was, I was late getting to the bus, so I didn’t get to sit in my seat. No, I was stuck in the very back, riding the aisle. And worse than that was my companion. She was someone I was oft stuck talking to in various places around the school, but this was not a good thing. If I was an American teenager and had access to a gun, London would synonymous with Columbine most likely because this annoying bitch. I don’t usually call woman the b-word, but that was Anna. She was a bitch. That is important. So I’m sitting there with my bag on my lap and I’m not happy. No, I’m not in my seat, I’m riding the aisle and I’m stuck next to Anna. Life was at its bleakest I’m telling you. Mad Max wasn’t driving. No, he was on another route now and we had Jose. Jose was a good driver though and we all liked him. But he wasn’t Mad Max. He wasn’t insane. He didn’t take corners that felt like the bus was going to tip over and I’d have a chance to be a hero. I had this recurring fantasy that the bus would tip over and I’d have the expert reflexes to grab hold of my window and hang on. Then, being the only one not injured, but knowing the bus was about to explode, I’d grab the hand of the hot chick in the seat that was across from me, but was then below me and we’d escape out the window and jump off the bus just as it explodes. Then she’d be eternally grateful to me and fall in love. Ah, to be young, horny and creative again. That day, though, I was hoping the bus would crash just so Anna would die. See, Anna is one of those chicks who thinks she’s hot because she’s got big breasts. I mean, you hear that some horny 14-year old jerked off to your tits and you think you’re Miss fucking America all of a sudden? Please. No, she wasn’t that ugly or anything, but wasn’t hot either. Don’t tell her that though, as she wouldn’t believe you and probably kick you. See this scar on my right shin? Yeah, that fucking bitch did that. We’re going to jump quickly, but briefly to another bus ride, okay? So I’m in my seat and my legs are stretched out. Just relaxing and imagining The Girl naked probably and the bitch known as Anna comes on the bus. Plenty of empty seats around me as it was early. Not like my feet were on her seat as she didn’t have a seat. She was one of those people who didn’t respect the sanctity of the seats. She decides to fuck up my bus ride home and sit across from me and demand that I move my legs. I’m all like, “WhatEVER.” And She’s all, “Oh no you di’n’t!” And I’m all like, “Puh-leez, gurl.” I’m a stubborn bastard, right? Don’t ever tell me to do anything, just ask. Ask nicely and I’ll do it. Tell me and I’ll see your punkass in hell, muthafucka. So my legs, they aren’t moving. She didn’t ask, she told, and I told back. So she lifts up her leg and brings down the heel of her fucking platform shoes on it and it hurts like a motherfucker, but check out my face. Cold, calm, smoooooooooth. There’s not a hint of pain on the face and I grin. Suffice it to say, my legs stayed out and she stayed on her side of the seat. I get home though and it’s hurting really bad and the fucking bitch cut me open. I shit you not, right through my pants, my shin was cut open. Later in life, when I’m in university, I’m taking the city bus to see my film class’ Monday night screening and the bus lurches before I sit and I nail the other shin and cut it open. But that’s not important. So I’m on the bus, in the back seat and I’m riding the aisle and I’m sitting next to Anna the bitch. She’s reading a book and I didn’t know there was that book. I’d just seen the movie, right? Good movie and all, but she’s got the book and we get to debating about it. I say it’s good entertainment and all, but if you’re looking to it for answers, you’re just another chump in a world of chumps and she takes the opposing side. And I feel like I’m back in that physics class where I’m debating people on the nature of a god. I’m saying shit like “What if I believed in a magical pink bunny? What if I worshipped it and talked to it and said it loves me and helps me out when times are tough? Would my faith be respected or would I be called insane. Guy up in the clouds, little pink bunny, same idea, folks. You all look the same to an atheist.” That’s what this debate is like. She’s quoting the book and she’s giving me the ideas that were given to her, missing the point entirely. She’s just doing what’s she told and claiming that she’s thinking for herself. That this is the way it should be. And I’m just smiling at her because I find it funny.

And that’s why I used Fight Club in this story.

Chad Nevett
Listening to Sam Roberts
June 24, 2003