The War Against the Assholes Read Free

eyes. Drifting around, wearing her brown-and-white habit. “When he wakes up he might do that anyway,” I said. “You know he won’t,” said Hob, “and anyway you snuck up on him.” “A moral arbiter,” I said. “I’m not judging you for it. That guy’s a total fascist,” said Hob. He had a point. Gilder was, spiritually speaking, a Nazi. I had no problem imagining him at a rally brandishing a torch. I didn’t say anything, though. I couldn’t believe Hob Callahan had the upper hand. You never want to believe that. Especially when it’s a guy you think you can beat up. Again, that’s the nature of morality in adolescence. In adulthood too.
    â€œJust take it,” he said, “seriously. It’ll change your life.” He was sincere, I saw. Which almost made me laugh. It’ll change your life : that’s another piece of dialogue. Nobody’s life ever changes. “So I read this book and that’s it,” I said, “then you drop the issue.” Hob nodded and blew out two slow streams of smoke through his large, well-formed nostrils. He stifled a cough. “What are you smoking, anyway,” I asked. “Old family recipe. Does a body good,” he said. Gilder moaned at my feet once more, and I gave him another kick. No matter how much instruction you provide them, people never learn anything. Not even the most basic cause-and-effect relations. “How do I know you won’t ask for more,” I said. Hob grinned. The brown cigarette traveled to one corner of his mouth. “I saw what you did to Gilder,” he said, “and I’m not stupid.” He had a point. It must be a leaf, I thought, that this cigarette was wrapped in. Veins glinted on the surface in the lamplight. “Tell you what,” said Hob, “I’ll give you a fair chance. You have a quarter?” I handed him one. He danced it across the backs of his fingers, hand to hand; clapped his palms around the coin; and showed me two fists. “Which one,” he said. “Jesus, are you kidding me,” I said. “It’s that or the book,” he said. I picked left. He opened it. Nothing. Then he opened his right. More nothing.
    That’s how we ended it. Hob waving at me. Protected by the yellow lamplight and the fact that a cop car was now driving east along the edge of the park. The smoke from his cigarette hanging. Charcoal and spice. I passed out on the train. From exhaustion, from I don’t even know what. I woke up with my mouth dry and the green book in my hands. Still cold, though the train car was hot. Otherwise refreshed. I was only one stop past mine. I figured I would read a few chapters, bluff Hob, maybe threaten him, and he’d forget about everything. I was still sure he was going to work his way around to asking me out. Cold and moonlight. Our doorman, Henry, was sleeping at his desk. He kept an artificial poinsettia near him, no matter the season. Its leaves rustled and trembled in his breath. You make divisions. They’re arbitrary. This I know now. I did not know it as a boy. Henry slept on. My healthy blood continued to pound stupidly through my veins. You’ll never recapture that headlong speed. That I also know now. My parents were watching a show about apes when I got home. Or monkeys. They climbed up into trees to drop rocks on coconuts. I kept my hand in my pocket so they wouldn’t see the cut and said good night. “Late practice,” my mother called. “There’s lamb, if you want to eat,” my father said. I told them I was too tired, but thank you anyway.
    No time like the present to embark on servitude, if servitude is your fate. Hob said the book would change my life. Possibly it was the bible of a cult. Or maybe one of the many tenth-rate books adolescents claim have changed their lives. The cover was about the color of a professional card table, that deep, flat