I have this thing where I get older but just never wiserMidnights become my afternoonsWhen my depression works the graveyard shiftAll of the people I’ve ghosted stand there in the room…
My 8th grade class at Wilbur H. Lynch Middle School in Amsterdam, New York had the usual cast of teenage characters – football players, cheerleaders, band members, slack-offs, fuck-ups, nerds, jocks, beauty queens, drama kids – the typical coterie of children masquerading as adults, just beginning to find our way and carve out identities of who we might be. Despite our varied interests and the panoply of society under one roof, we lacked one essential ingredient: a villain. Because of that, and despite the usual drama of teenage angst and budding hormonal avalanches, school was a rather dull and boring affair.
It was up to the one person with the flair for the dramatic and diabolical to set things into some semblance of half-interesting motion – and I was the only one wiling to do it. Did I sacrifice a certain mainstream popularity to do it? Perhaps. Did I throw away my chance at being voted Best Dressed Man when high school rolled around and those designations were really just votes on who was well-liked? Probably. Did I sink my teeth into the role with the relish and zeal of someone desperate for something – anything – to shake up the dull hallways of that school and wreak havoc with friendship circles? Better than anyone else.
I should not be left to my own devicesThey come with prices and vicesI end up in crisis (tale as old as time)I wake up screaming from dreamingOne day I’ll watch as you’re leaving‘Cause you got tired of my scheming(For the last time)
It’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s meAt tea time, everybody agreesI’ll stare directly at the sun but never in the mirrorIt must be exhausting always rooting for the anti-hero
Looking back, it was all so much silliness, but at the time how malevolent it seemed – and how terribly was it taken. I watched the maneuverings of the girls in my class, how they wrote notes to one another, passing them back and forth when the teacher’s back was turned. I saw their friendship circles and noticed the whispers they would adopt in favor of some and against certain others. I was a master at appearing uninterested and uninvolved, while all the time not one single side-eye or shifty gaze escaped my notice. I was also adept at sneaking these notes out of their bags when they weren’t looking, and reading what they wrote about everyone else.
It was a glimpse into a secret world I would later access through more benign means – at that time it was a brutal violation of their privacy, but what cares a villain for such codes of honor and simple human decency? Nothing would jolt our narrative or change the dull doldrums of Amsterdam unless I did it. And so I hatched my simple plan, stealing the notes of my classmates and putting them into the hands of the very people they were maligning. Words never meant for certain people were deposited by me as the secret villain – and I left a trail of hurt feelings, betrayal, and distrust in my undetected wake. Supposed friends turned against supposed friends, wondering at first how things came to unintended light, struggling to repair wounds, holding on to not being hated. In the justifications that I conjured as I gave myself over to such darkness, I reasoned that they had a right to know what others were saying, that truth and transparency were better than polite deceit and tolerance. In reality, I think I just wanted to fuck things up. Out of boredom, out of wanting to be part of something, out of sheer mean delight.
Sometimes I feel like everybody is a sexy babyAnd I’m a monster on the hillToo big to hang out, slowly lurching toward your favorite cityPierced through the heart, but never killed
Eventually I revealed myself as the perpetrator – and then the real fun began. When I managed to procure an especially juicy note, I held it over the writer as a form of power and persuasion. My reputation was earned and burned and sealed in stone right then and there – and though there would be redemptive movements and saving graces, I’d take that villainous persona with me wherever I went – even when I tried to kill it. Like most villains, my path would always and only end with my own internal consumption.
Did you hear my covert narcissism I disguise as altruismLike some kind of congressman? (Tale as old as time)I wake up screaming from dreamingOne day I’ll watch as you’re leavingAnd life will lose all its meaning(For the last time)
It’s been a long time since I felt that way, however, and the image of a villain has remained latent and silent all these years. Only when faced with certain pain and childish acting-out have I thought about revisiting such merry mayhem. Villainy has its benefits, foremost among them a freedom that comes only when you’ve given up all the fucks and are ready to let the world find out. Am I reveling in such an idea? Absolutely. It’s time I once again had some of the fun that everyone else has been having. Will I get called out on it? Unlike the others, of course I will. That’s the way it goes (see previous reference to having no more fucks to give). There will come a time when all grievances come to light, and while I won’t dare to judge anyone for it, the truth has always spoken louder than anything I could ever shout. When put down in words, the most atrocious acts are suddenly contained, and often that mere capturing of them somehow lessens their atrociousness. Or so the justification for villainy goes…
It’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me (I’m the problem, it’s me)At tea time, everybody agreesI’ll stare directly at the sun but never in the mirrorIt must be exhausting always rooting for the anti-hero
