Introduction - Mickey

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I'm never going to be anything. None of us are. Not now, not ever, not even when we die.

Oh, but Mickey, you're so smart. You could be whatever you want to be!

Bullshit. That's what they tell little brats in elementary school so they'll do their worksheets and not punch anyone at recess. Right? Right. By high school you know better. By high school you look around at the cornfields and the factories and the fact that your grandparents and parents and great-whatevers never left and you know. This is all there is.

That's why we drink and smoke and fight and gouge profound statements into the picnic tables of Mayhew, the Wisconsin town where nothing ever happens. Because we feel the weight of that nothing on our shoulders, pressing us into the ground we'll never be able to leave. Because soon we'll be living in little houses with babies and dead-end jobs while we try to dull the pain and this is all there is. This is all there ever will be.

It's pointless to fight it. I don't know why anyone does. Ooh, I'm going to go to college! I'm going to get a better job! I'm going to beat the odds!

No, you're not. Just watch. You'll be back.

You pretend and I pretend and we all pretend that we're okay, but we're not. We never will be.

Sometimes I don't know why we don't just die now and save ourselves the effort. 

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