New stuff is everywhere. Brand new stuff. There is a brand new chandelier sitting on a brand new dining table. It’s not even in my dining room. I don’t even have a dining room. It’s in the center of my living room/bedroom on top a mock Persian rug that is so big it curls up the walls on both sides of my living room/bedroom. My apartment is literally overflowing with new stuff. There’s a surfboard that is like nineteen feet tall hanging about twelve feet out of my window, which is nice because it creates a shaded area for the new garden I won. Yeah, I won a garden. I didn’t know a garden was one of those things that you could win. I always thought you either had one or you didn’t and such was life. Apparently, this is not the case.
It’s been a week now since they dropped off all the stuff—the people from The Price is Right. They came with two trucks that looked liked they were used to transport families of elephants or some shizz like that and then straight up unloaded in my front lawn, which is, incidentally, a sidewalk. New stuff is everywhere! I have a jukebox in my kitchenette. There is a small couch sitting on top a regular couch. Seriously, straight up couch on couch. And that’s just inside. There is stuff outside, too. I won a Wave Runner. Not even a jet ski but a Wave Runner. It’s like a jet ski that fits like six guys, nice and sturdy boys too. It is bigger than my car. I have that mess chilling outside locked up to a telephone pole with a bike lock. Like it was a Huffy or something.
I got so much new stuff there’s stuff I didn’t even know was mine. Like yesterday, I went outside to see if the parking spot in front of my apartment was free but there was a car in it that had been parked there for a week. That shizz was mine! You would think someone would notify you when they park a car you won outside your place. Well, I guess they did. I received a list with everything I had won, but that mess didn’t say car. It said “Cube.” How am I supposed to know that “Cube” means a crazy azz car that looks like coagulating Swiss cheese? And plus, I burned that list two days ago. It was making me sick. Literally sick. After reading it, I threw up in the disc changer of the jukebox and never even cleaned it out. That mess is still there!
I get sick just thinking about it—the list of things I won. You see, everything on that list represents—I don’t know—a minus sign. Persian rug—minus sign. Small couch—minus sign. Regular size couch—minus sign. I mean I didn’t buy these things. There’s no transaction on my credit card that says on April 19th I bought a nineteen-foot surfboard and a big azz Persian rug. No, it says you owe us twenty-six bucks in overdraft charges. And that’s what it should say! I overdrafted. But I didn’t buy a jet ski on steroids that’s blocking the sidewalk in from of my house.
It’s dreadful really. I’m no longer myself anymore. I’m that guy who won all that shizz on The Price is Right. It’s the talk of the town. The same town that two weeks ago wouldn’t have been able to match my face and name together if the world depended on it or something. Now everyone’s all asking me, “What are you going to do now?” Like now that I’ve got two couches and an antique chandelier I can go and start a new life and give money to charity or some shizz like that. It’s dreadful. It’s like I’m sitting in a house full of stolen goods. There is this overwhelming guilt draped over everything in the room. It’s so dense. I feel it pressing against my chest. I lie in my bed, which is part of my new five-piece bedroom set mind you, and sometimes I can’t even get up. The sheets seem like they’re stitched with a 300-thread count of guilt pinning me to the mattress.
After sitting in this cesspool of minus signs for a week, trying to get used to the new things, trying to fit them in next to my old things, trying to see if I could blend them in with my old life, it became very clear to me—the reason for my overwhelming guilt. And you would think that after pinpointing the source of one’s troubles, they would tend to assuage. Nope. All it did was put a face on that guilt and make me look at it every morning.
You see, it’s not just the fact that I won that is killing me, but it’s the way that I won. Straight illegit. Straight devious. Straight Machiavellian shizz. I was heartless. Straight up King Leonidas’s wife in 300 kicking Persian messengers into arbitrary pits. And in front of millions of people, too. I mean, well, I just have to recap for you.
It was two weeks ago. A Wednesday. Straight up middle of the week. Straight up hump day. A bunch of people from my office were planning to go to the show. I had no interest in going to some show mind you. I mean you got tickets to Wheel of Fortune, I’m there, you best believe. But The Price is Right, I mean, whatevs. Anyways, I went.
I was sitting right in the middle of the audience between some diehards. Straight up fanatics. People yelling and screaming, wearing t-shirts with pictures of some old white guy named Bob Barker, who I guess is some legend price-guesser or something. I didn’t belong there. I mean I don’t belong a lot of places, but I definitely didn’t belong there. And you know, now that I think about it, I think that is more the problem than anything else—belonging.
Like I said, I don’t belong a lot of places. Belonging is a choice. You have to choose to belong. You have to choose to be, and then once you are, you belong. But I have never chosen to be anything, at least nothing that I determined. I’m the product of the collective choices of everyone I have ever met. I don’t decide upon anything. To decide upon something is to take responsibility of that choice and the consequences that follow. That mess is on you. Straight up blood on your hands Lady Macbeth-style. The problem is I’m trying to get blood off my hands from a murder I haven’t committed.
Choice is the greatest burden plaguing mankind. The whole thing is a choice. Life is a choice. And the thing is, rather than making decisions, we spend our whole life deliberating. It’s embarrassing. Animals are better off. You’ve never seen a dog in some rut over a decision. Well maybe a literal rut but not a figurative rut. The figurative rut will bite you in the azz. That’s my point exactly—azz! Azz is not a real word. I made that shizz up because I can’t get myself to curse. But I can’t get myself not to curse either. If I curse I would have to bear the responsibility of people thinking that I think cursing is fine. And if I don’t curse, these same people might think I’m all self-righteous or some shizz like that. I can’t handle it. I’m always walking this fine line so that it’s easier to latch on to decisive people on either side.
So that’s what the problem is, I can’t choose. And the game show illustrates this complex perfectly. So once again, I was sitting next to these fanatics, namely, Phyllis. She is one of those who pretend to be shopping online just to practice guessing prices and shizz. She always like, “Price is Right, Whoopdeewhoop!” and stuff like that. She should have won but she didn’t. I did. I didn’t even realize my name was called. It sounded so foreign coming out of the loudspeaker. It was like the voice of God. And I was like, “It’s me, God, your servant Moses.” That’s not my name, but it would be crazy if it were though, right?
All of a sudden, people were slapping me on the shoulder and about the face like I was covered in bees or something. “That’s you man! They’re calling your name!” they were screaming. I was the worse contestant ever. I didn’t jump up or shake my limbs violently. I just made my way through the aisle very politely, trying not to step on anyone’s feet and then started walking to the stage very consciously like there was a chance I might get lost. Once I got to the little booth I was supposed to stand at, the host—that one guy from that show with that other guy that now has a late night talk show—Drew Carey! Drew Carey started asking me all these questions and after each answer there was a startling applause from the audience. People applauding me for absolutely no reason, it’s disgusting.
At this time all was fine. I had no inhibitions about the situation I was in. I happened to win a lucky raffle of names. I’m okay with that. We’re all subject to luck once in a while. But then, the shizz hit the fan. There were four contestants and we were all forced to look at this furniture set of two end tables, a bar, and an armoire and then guess how much we thought it was. I was thinking along the lines of seven grand but then if someone told me it cost a hundred bucks it would have sounded perfectly reasonable. I was the fourth contestant to guess, and if you know anything about the show you know that that is the place to be. You can do some pretty shiesty shizz. Which I did. Which is why I can hardly walk through my apartment without feeling sick to my stomach.
The first to guess, if I remember correctly, was a frail-looking girl who, apparently, was never introduced to dairy products in her entire life. She said, “One dollar, Drew.” Smart move, but too early in the game honey, because the next guy, a rotund kind of pear-looking fellow, said, “Two dollars, Drew.” You see that’s a shiesty move. That totally wipes little lactose intolerant out of the runnings. But that move is justifiable. The one-dollar girl didn’t make an effort and therefore got squashed by paunch. The third contestant, a really cultured looking chap, who looked like he could have owned his own furniture business said, “Two thousand six hundred, Drew.”
The crowd, who a moment ago was screaming incessant numbers like they were being exorcised from a numerical demon, fell silent. They knew. I knew. That furniture set looked like it cost exactly two thousand six hundred bucks. That man was a genius. There is no doubt in my mind that he deserved to win.
It was my turn now. I had a decision to make. Out of all the numbers in existence, I had to pick a couple and say them out loud and attach my name to them. My name is Norman Fields and this is what I think. It was impossible. I have never made a decision in my life and my first time was not going to be on national television. So, after what seemed like a good twenty minutes, enough time to give old Carey a second to spit a couple off-the-cuffs, I said, “Two thousand six hundred and one, Drew.”
Yup, I’m that guy who said, yeah that sounds like a good answer, I’ll say the same thing but add one. And as you know already, it worked. I won. My little booth started lighting up startling the heck out of me. All my co-workers were screaming and jumping on their seats and shizz. It’s funny though, my price wasn’t even right. It was seven hundred dollars off. It was just less wrong then everyone else’s. But I guess thus is life. It’s not about who is right. It’s all about who is the least wrong. But the important thing is, which I know now, is that you want to be the least wrong on your own merits. I was the least wrong on someone else’s merits, plus a dollar. My whole life is plus a dollar. The only choices I’ve ever made were choosing whom to trust and adding a dollar. A piggybacker is what I am. I’m a piggybacker.
From that moment on, things started to escalate. I was winning left and right. I couldn’t help myself. And this all should have been fine. But the problem was, I didn’t have an original thought the entire forty minutes I was on stage. Drew would present an item, and I would look to the crowd and just repeat what the most knowledgeable-looking person was screaming. A bottle of bleach? Little homebody-looking lady in the third row looks like she knows what’s up. I’ll say what she says. Cordless power drill? I’ll say what that able-bodied chap in the far left is screaming. And it went on and on. I couldn’t help myself.
I literally could not help myself and it’s killing me. That’s why I threw up in the jukebox. That’s why I burned my list. I cannot help my self! It’s sickening really. It’s killing me really. That’s precisely it—I’m dying! I cannot choose and choosing is living. Therefore I am not living, so I must be dying, slowly and in the worst way—by choice. In my lack of determination I have chosen to forfeit my life. Who knew that the only choice I have ever made was the one that would lose me my life.
So John, in closing, I did not know I was going to send this to you at first, but now I feel I have no choice. Do not be alarmed. I am not an avid stalker. I was able to retrieve your information from a very nice lady at the show. John—that’s a strong name—you probably do own a furniture store and are very cultured. But I don’t mean to take up anymore of your time. I believe I have made myself very clear. There is no changing my mind so please do not try. It’s all yours, all the new stuff, and rightfully so. You made the least wrong guess and I added a dollar. That was the old me and I do not want these things around to remind me of my former self. I am sending you all of my minus signs in hope that I might break even. So enjoy the things, your things, John. I have made the choice of my life and can finally live with myself.
Sincerely,
Norman Fields
David Banks received his BA in Creative Writing from Azusa Pacific University and is awaiting his first term at Portland State University where he will begin his studies toward a Master’s in book publishing.
