Double Negative

“Hey, Joe, do you remember that time you said you shot your old lady down by the river?”

“No, Bubba, I don’t remember anything like that! And if I did, I sure wouldn’t go around bragging about it. That’s sick, man. What makes you say such a thing?”

“I don’t know. I remember Jimi mentioned something about how you had a gun and some other craziness. How you had a gun and that you were going down to the river to shoot your old lady and then you came back and told him you shot her. You know how he used to make up all that weird stuff just to rile people up or confuse them.”

“I don’t remember any of that. All I know is I hear you making up stuff so I won’t think about how you just accused me of murder. How would you like it if I did that to you? I never killed nobody and I don’t intend to kill nobody anytime soon.”

“Well, that’s good, Joe. That Jimi could make up some pretty wild stories. I didn’t mean to make you mad and I’m real glad we’re still friends. We’re still friends, right?”

“You bet, Bubba. I wouldn’t not want you to not be my friend.”

Double negatives are so fun. I love them! Most people miss what you are really saying when you say them quick and smooth. I could tell Bubba had no clue what I said or what it meant for him in the very near future.

It’s not that I don’t like Bubba; he’s just like anybody else in the world, I guess. It’s just that so many people aggravate me. I read somewhere we’re supposed to forgive others and to turn our cheek if some whacko hits us in the face. Well, I don’t believe it.

So many of the problems in the world would disappear if the people who were mean or unnecessarily rude to other people disappeared. I get so mad at people like that. No trial, no fuss, just make them disappear. That’s my job, what I like to do. 

“Joe, whatcha thinkin’? You look like you’re getting real mad.”

“Bubba, I don’t really know. I’m mad about a lot of things. Did you know they found micro-plastics in clouds and they think that’s part of the climate change mess we’re in? Now, who do you blame for that? Who started it? Who keeps it going? Do you?”

Silly Bubba. He looked like I sucker-punched him in the chest. He kind of folded up and his eyes flickered around everywhere except at me.

“Joe, I don’t know anything about that stuff. I always throw my soda bottles and grocery bags in the garbage. I don’t litter, Joe. I swear! Don’t be mad at me.”

“I said I was mad at plastics making the climate change, not at you. Besides, what if I got mad at you? It’s my right to get mad at anyone or anything I want. It’s an emotion. We’ve all got emotions, Bubba. Even you!”

“Yeah, Joe, you’re right. It’s just that when you get mad, it seems that someone always gets hurt, maybe even dead. I don’t want to get hurt or dead, Joe. Not anytime soon, for sure.”

“Bubba, I’ve never hurt you. You’re my friend. And, what makes you say people end up dead when they make me mad? You make me mad sometimes and you’re not dead. I ain’t got no plans on making you dead anytime soon, that’s for sure. 

“Talking about making me mad, have you thought about those poet guys? They go around putting pretty words on paper making up weird punctuation rules to confuse people. They can’t make coherent sentences, so they just slop words all around on paper. Then they expect the rest of us to make sense out of what they slopped all over a page. Someone ought to do something about them.”

“What about those guys who write short stories, Joe? What do you think about them?”

“They’re worse than those poet guys! At least the poet guys only slop all over a page or two. Short story writers manage to mess up page after page after page until all I want to do is rip up the sheets and send them off to the great incinerator in the sky. Those guys write all kinds of nonsense. There was some nut who came up with rules for robots. Now, why would anyone waste their time writing about robot rules? What about that guy who wrote about a heart beating in the floor? Have you heard anything more ridiculous?

“They go on and on trying to make you feel bad or stupid. If you fall for any of the stuff they write about, you come off looking crazy or, worse, brainless.

“I don’t know, Bubba. It seems to me that something ought to be done about that entire breed. They want me to give them money to read the stuff they spew on paper. Why don’t they get a job or do something useful?

“Now, I can understand journalists. They have a purpose. They write stuff that other people can twist around to tell any story any way they want. That kind of writing makes sense. They aren’t looking to make me pay them for the honor of reading their drivel. Their magazine or newspaper or whatever pays them.”

“Joe, don’t writers help us understand each other a little better? Don’t they make us look at ourselves differently?”

“Bubba, I don’t need some fancy pants writer telling me how to understand me or anyone else. I know who and what I am. That’s all I need.”

“Joe, don’t you wish someone would help you see and maybe understand your mistakes? Maybe help you decide your penchant for exacting self-absorbed vengeance is not quite apropos in every case? Don’t you want someone to enable you to grasp your foibles and help you to decide not to not end your ridiculous diatribes against all that is not you?”

Of course, Joe couldn’t fathom that anyone would find as much pleasure in double negatives as he did. And he couldn’t believe that his backward friend Bubba would see through his not-so-veiled threats to release him from his mortal coils. Or that I had a backbone and a brain.

And, because he could not not end his ridiculous diatribes, I did it for him. 

I, Bubba, lover of literature, poetry, short stories and double negatives….