[Originally posted on the No-Lyfe Journal]

At the end of every Friday night, assuming that I'm sober enough to drive, I drive down to Seabrook and sleep at my parents house so that I can get up early on Saturday morning and have breakfast with my father. So, naturally, when I'm woken up, I assume it's him. I mutter something about being ready for breakfast in about ten minutes.

Second: I'm not waking you up for breakfast.
Third: bdbdbdhuh?
Second: Come on.

He pulls me out of bed and gives me less than a minute to wake up. He pulls me into the computer room, except that it's not the computer room that has existed for the past few years. Come to think of it, I wasn't sleeping in the bed they put in my room when I took my old one to my apartment. I was sleeping in the bed now at my new residence, a few dozen miles away. The First is sitting at the keyboard, taking sips out of a Spiderman cup.

Third: What are we doing here?
Second: We're watching something.
Third: We're watching The First at the computer keyboard. No offense to him or your interest in this intended, but this isn't not very exciting. In fact, it's going to put me to sleep. In fact, that's where I'm supposed to be right now!
Second: Just watch.

First: No! Dammit!

Third: What's his... my problem?
Second: He's talking to Ora online.

I look at the Spiderman cup, which is accompanied by a bottle of Jim Beam bourbon and a pitcher of lemonaid. Suddenly, I remember this scene all too well.

Third: Okay, so I know where we are and what's happening, but why are we here?
Second: We're witnessing my birth.
Third: Your "birth"?
Second: Yes, it's here where The First finally let go.

First: No!

Third: Was I really yelling at the monitor?
Second: Of course. She wasn't actually there for you to yell at. You wanted to have this conversation in person, but she insisted on knowing what was on your mind. You told her and ruined everything.
Third: It was inevitable. I was going to make my move to tear her away from Nick, she was going to stay with him, and I was going have my heart broken. What does it matter that this all happened online instead of in person?
Second: It's emblematic. Consider how much time you spend online back then.
Third: Okay, considered. I still don't see the point.
Second: Conversations with her that you should have had in person you had online. This is merely the apex. You took this all so seriously when it wasn't. It wasn't real. It was people typing at a keyboard.
Third: Oh, give me a break. It's not like she and I never saw each other or that she was in Manitoba. She was 45 minutes away and I actually didn't fall for her until we met.
Second: Doesn't matter. What matters is that while you should have been going out with people from Clear Lake High School, you were going out with people from Sharpstown or Katy-Taylor. Like I said, it's emblematic.
Third: You know as well as I do how much I hated Clear Lake High School. The fact that I never dated anyone from there is a mark of pride.
Second: That's the sound of someone who was rejected one too many times. You didn't like Lake because Lake didn't like you.
Third: I didn't like it because it was chalk full of rich snobs.
Second: Do you have something against the wealthy?
Third: Only those that see something wrong with being anything else.. Maybe our family wasn't poor, but we weren't of their ilk. The same thing happened to David. Once he got to UT, his social life took off.
Second: Being wealthy is a mark of social status.
Third: You're still upset that I never went to law school, aren't you?
Second: Not necessarily.
Third: ... and you still haven't explained why we're here.
Second: Look [points at First as he buries his head in his hands]
Third: If you think I'd somehow forgotten about all this, you're mistaken. I just don't hold it so close to my heart anymore. I let it go a long time ago. That's a good thing, isn't it?
Second: Not necessarily.
Third: So I should just go around being heartbroken and say, "Woe is me! Woe is me! When I was a kid I had my heart broken! Woooooooe is meeeeee"
Second: [warningly] That's enough.
Third: Then why are we here?
Second: We're here because this is where it all began.
Third: Isn't that how half of movies start? Like in those old detective ones? [impersonation] "It all shtarted with this dame, y'shee..."
Second: I wasn't refering to that. Ora is of only tangental importance. What is important here is that this is when you discovered that you didn't have to be this way.

First: [Muttering...] I will never, ever let this happen again.

Second: And you didn't. Not while I was in charge, anyway. You took what could have made you bitter and instead it made you better.
Third: That's not what I remember. Do the words "emotional coma" mean anything to you? Or are you still too oblivious to see it?
Second: I'm not talking about that stupid vow to never allow us to be hurt again.
Third: Oh, so you admit the vow was stupid.
Second: Stop talking about the vow. I'm not talking about the vow.
Third: Then what are you talking about?
Second: I'm talking about Eddie.
Third: Eddie Vee?
Second: One and the same.
Third: Okay, so what about him?
Second: Remember when we woke up the morning after this? Remember how though we knew things would never be the same, we didn't know how they would be different. So we looked to Eddie for inspiration. We aspired to be as much like him as possible.
Third: Yeah, but we weren't Eddie. We never will be. We fall short in some areas, but we're better in others. We can't live our life trying to be someone else.
Second: Says who?
Third: Says me. Why should I want to be Eddie? I'm smarter than he is. Don't get me wrong, I loved the guy to death, but, well...
Second: I didn't say that you should try to be Eddie. I just said that you learned something from that experience. Over the next year, we became more sociable. We became the most popular person online. Bar none.
Third: Only because Eddie was breaking up with Blare and he wasn't online so much.
Second: That's beside the point. Even if we couldn't be as popular as Eddie was, I was more popular than he [pointing to The First] ever was. More popular than you are, too.
Third: So you're saying I should try to be Eddie. I should continually ask myself "What Would Eddie Do?"
Second: No, I'm not saying you should be like Eddie. Eddie was a mark of the times. He put everything into his friends to the point that he couldn't hold a job and couldn't even make car payments. That's not an acceptable gauge of where you should be at this point in your life.
Third: So then what should I be?
Second: It's a good question and one worth exploring. There are many aspects of Eddie that it would be worthwhile to incorporate. He's still, bar-none, the most sociable person you've ever known. More sociability would be a good thing. The missing link, though, is to become someone that everyone respects. Embrace your job or find a better one. Don't spend the money on a video camera, spend it on nicer clothes and a better car. Get a maid. Live your life so that any given person you meet will consider you a success.
Third: A success at what?
Second: Life, I suppose.
Third: You make me sound like a failure. I'm not one. I've written two novels over the past year. I contribute to a handful of online journals that are read by scores of people.
Second: I didn't say you were a failure, merely that you're using the wrong gauges of success. If you meet a given person, they may be impressed by being as prolific a writer as you are, but they won't understand it or relate to it. Therefore, they will never truly appreciate it. A Camaro... now that they'd appreciate.
Third: Except I don't want a Camaro. I think my Escort is pretty cool. It gets me from Point A to Point B anyway. That's not what's important.
Second: Of course it is. People deem it important and thus it is so.
Third: So I should gauge my success on what others think of me?
Second: It's as good a gauge as any. Better than most, actually.
Third: Wow.
Second: Hmm?
Third: I don't remember ever being that shallow.
Second: Oh please, you weren't. I'm not. You will always find time to be you. I'm just suggesting that you don't devote your life to that end. The less you do that, the more you'll actually get what you do want.

First: [pours more boubon-aid] Fuck!

Third: Can we talk about this somewhere else?
Second: Is he bothering you?
Third: Somewhat.
Second: Then you're exactly where you need to be. You need to remember what it feels like to not be enough.
Third: If you're trying to rub salt in the wound, it's not working because the wound is long-since closed. It doesn't hurt anymore.
Second: No, I'm trying to illustrate a point. Take a look at him... and who you used to be. He was true to himself at the expense of everything else and look what it cost him.... everything else.
Third: What a delightful thought.
Second: Well, it illustrates my point quite clearly.
Third: What point is that?
Second: He has no future. This is the last day of his life. When he wakes up tomorrow, it won't be him anymore. It will be me. Within a year life will be at our fingertips. We're not here to depress you. We're here to celebrate. In two years, Ora will come back to Houston and want more than anything to be with me and we will hurt her as much as she ever hurt us.
Third: [blink]
Second: Yes?
Third: Is this supposed to make me feel better?
Second: Yes.
Third: It's not working.
Second: [shrug]
Third: I never wanted to hurt Ora any more than she wanted to hurt me.
Second: Granted. The point is not that we got to hurt her, the point is that we were in a position to. I could have had what he [points to First] wanted more than anything. That's significance.
Third: But you didn't want it. You had Anna. Even if we hadn't had her, you still would have deferred.
Second: The fact that we didn't want her made it us all the more appealing. The more that we have and the less we need people, the more people we'll have around us.
Third: [sarcastically] Which is, of course, the most important thing in the world.
Second: It's as good a goal as any.
Third: Which brings me to precisely what your problem is. You have no goals. You didn't actually want anything. That's your catch-22. You can have anything as long as you don't want it. Wanting something would have cost you your faux-easygoing nature. When the going got tough, all you ever did was internalize it or run away from it. That was the mess I had to deal with when I took over for you. You talk about goals, but the only real goal you ever had was to never fail and never be scared.
Second: No, it's not fear.
Third: It's the only thing I can think of that explains why I kept myself so bottled up for so long. Say what you will about the eleven months I wasted on Audrey, at least I've learned how to accept my limitations and... and....
Second: Accept failure?

The First turns off the computer and stands up. He starts pacing back and forth, trying to figure out life and the universe... or at least how he got there. I can see him mouthing the words of the questions he's asking himself. The questions I once asked myself. He's not going to be able to answer any of them tonight. In fact, for the next two weeks he's going to be a zombie. He's going to cut off Ora tomorrow. Within a week, his friends will be so angered at his reaction that more than one of them will threaten to give him the silent treatment that he's going to give Ora. The battle lines are drawn and when they divy up their mutual friends, she's going to get most of them. They liked her better anyway. It will take at least three months for things to get patched up... when The Second takes full command.

Second: You know as well as I do that the Ora situation couldn't have ended any other way. It wasn't what you did wrong, it was who you were. It was your limitations. Are those the limitations you wish to accept? So is that the failure you wish to accept?

[Part Three]