Good Grief

One of my favorite scenes of my favorite holiday special, Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown is when the old blockhead--whose improbable ability to survive extreme adversity I'll comment on later--goes to seek that bitch Lucy's psychiatric advice. After chucking a nickel into the greedy wench's tin can, she systematically goes through a bunch of phobias that Chuck may or may not have. Nothing seems to fit until she mentions pantophobia--

"Do you have pantophobia?"
"What's pantophobia?" Charlie Brown responds.
Lucy tells him. "The fear of everything."
...
"THAT'S IT!"

--and Chuck figures out what his problem is. Somehow, this young boy goes through life afraid of everything. Every social situation, every significant holiday, every menial task in life is a terrifying experience for Charlie Brown. He's got a terrible complex, and that's why he's such a failure. He's a god-awful pitcher, he has no sense of humor, he's got the worst Halloween costume ever made, and he lacks the cojones to tell Peppermint Patty that no, it's not fucking okay if she comes to his house for Thanksgiving dinner.

How Charlie Brown manages to keep himself from committing suicide is beyond explanation. Nobody like him, not even his dog or his sister or his best friend, Linus. Even in Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown, Linus tells him with disdain that Lucy is right--"Of all the Charlie Browns in the world, you're the Charlie Browniest." How does this kid go on with his life? He's like Rodney Dangerfield--he gets no respect from anyone, ever--except he's not funny or successful in any way.

The prime example of the world's hatred for Charlie Brown is in Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown when he brings back the timid little twig with the pine needles falling off it, his best excuse for a Christmas tree. Now, I don't blame him for going the natural route. Aluminum Christmas trees are probably the most soulless, hollow things ever created. Thank god for Charles Schulz, or we'd all have them in our living rooms right now.

But when Chuck brings back that "tree," everyone absolutely flips out on him. One of the semi-anonymous girls looks at the tree, looks at Charlie Brown, and says coldly, "Boy, are you stupid, Charlie Brown!" Right to his face! And he just stands there and takes it! Another says, "You're hopeless, Charlie Brown. Completely hopeless." Dear Lord! Has anyone reading this ever had such an embarrassing public mockery made of himself? But Charlie Brown just acts as though it's a minor setback in his life--"Rats!" he says. "Rats"? How is he not wearing a trenchcoat to school and tossing bombs at everyone?

Even when the "tree" is fixed, it's not by Charlie Brown. It's by everyone BUT Charlie Brown. Sure, he laid the basis for the tree, but when he puts a Christmas ball onto the tree and "kill[s]" it, he leaves it for dead. Only when everyone comes in and salvages the poor tree does it shine in all its glory. Everyone graciously yells "Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown!" for the happy ending, but what has this asshole done to deserve a happy ending? He's got no self-respect. How can anyone else respect him?

As depressing as this may come off, Charlie Brown is an inspiration to me. How he continues to suck the energy out of everything around him and somehow keep going on with his life is a testament to his determination. To steal a quote from Chris Weeden's Facebook profile, the great Dan Winklebleck once said:

"Ah, fuck money. And doing what you love. It's all about fighting and clawing just to live every last second you can, just to spite the world. I figure, every day the world kills me a little more, but I hope I'm killing it a little bit at the same time. Someone's gonna lose eventually. And with that, I'm going to bed, to continue the war tomorrow."

I think that must be Charlie Brown's motto. I don't necessarily subscribe to that credo, but the fact that Charlie Brown employs it is what keeps me going. If such a colossal failure can manage to kill the world a little bit every day, I must be doing okay. He may be completely hopeless, but he's a world-beater.

***

So, here's what inspired me to write about this: Charlie Brown has pantophobia. He's afraid of everything. And when he has that moment of realization, his energy is so excessive that it knocks that devil woman Lucy clear off her phony psychiatrist's stool. Well, I've got energy now because I know what I'm afraid of. Before tonight, I thought it was dolls. Dolls are fucking creepy, man. But I'm not afraid of them.

I'm afraid of being abandoned. This all adds up, I promise. I've never been abandoned by my parents, but when I get the feeling that I could be, it's devastating. The same goes for my friends. And I think I know why.

My best friends in kindergarten were Derrick Smyth and Tim Myers. I still have random memories with these guys, for some reason. One time in kindergarten, I told Derrick--who was running out of space on his paper to write his name--that my mom told me writing smaller would help you fit more on a page. What a fucking novel concept that was back then. I also remember playing Atari at his house, which was amazing because I'd never played Atari before, and I haven't ever since. We also played with Beetlejuice and Dick Tracy action figures. At Tim's house, we may have played the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles video game (the good one) and we most certainly had the cereal. I envied him because he had Cookie Crisp cereal, which my mom refused to buy for me because it was basically a bowl of miniature cookies. I guess that was crossing the line.

After kindergarten, I never saw Derrick again and Tim went to Prez instead of continuing at St. William's.

My best friend in first grade was Adam Rosinski. After first grade, he moved to Fox Chase and started going to St. Cecilia's.

Second grade, Bob (then Robert) Miles. He was a Cowboys fan and I hated the Cowboys. We were never in classes or on teams together after that until 8th grade, when we were again amiable. He was a cool dude.

As if trying to find a new best friend at school every year wasn't hard enough, my best childhood friends John Sours and Eric Semola, both of whom lived on Gilham Street with me, began to drift away. John's family moved off the street and he didn't go to Catholic school, so I didn't see him every day like I used to. This drift continued further when he started going to middle school and made new friends there. Once he hit high school, it was pretty much all over. Eric wasn't like that. He was a grade below me and just started hanging out with other people, so that sucked too.

After fifth grade, my friend John Higgins moved to Fox Chase and started going to St. Cecilia's. After seventh grade, my friend Steve Snyder moved to Pine Valley and started going to St. Hilary's. Once high school came around, my best friend Sean Reinsel started hanging out more with people from his school and we drifted apart. Granted, I stay in touch with Sean, but still. The same thing happened with Matt Higgins, Joe Laut, and Dave Heinz.

I made new friends in high school. But then I got a girlfriend, and after high school she got into a fight with all my friends. I chose the wrong side and lost all my friends. Then when we made new ones in college, we broke up and she kept most of the friends. The one holdover was my roommate, Josh Ferris, who I've regretfully drifted somewhat away from as well. This is how my life works. Make friends, lose friends. I think that's why I'm so good at patching up my problems--I can't hold grudges because I can't afford to.

This fear of abandonment comes out on a smaller scale, too. Last September, I was arrested for underage drinking and public drunkenness when I told my friends I wanted to sit down and proceeded to sit down on the sidewalk, Indian-style. They didn't hear me and kept walking. As I saw them walking away, I began to weep like a little baby girl. I thought my friends were ditching me, and I became an emotional wreck for the next few hours as the police officer arrested me, interrogated me, and let me go with my friend Alex (another guy I've failed to maintain contact with on a consistent basis).

The reason this fear came to my attention is that twice in the past two days I've told--or thought of telling--two of my friends to make sure they say goodbye before they leave me. I have a terrible fear that, at any given moment, one of my friends will leave me without telling me. And that's probably why, for all the times I've felt like running away from everything, I never have. If I know I can't bear the pain, I can't possibly inflict that on other people.

There's a silver lining to this, of course, as there always is with a Kevin Doran problem. Once Charlie Brown realized he had pantophobia, he was able to address it. The problem with Charlie Brown is that he's a colossal failure, and because of that he failed to fix his problem. Even after the chorus of children sang "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" as the closing credits rolled, Charlie Brown had yet to accomplish anything worthy of praise. And eventually, all those joyous children would realize that and continue despising the waste of cartoon space that was Charlie Brown.

But now, I know what ails me. I could be like Charlie Brown and fail to fix it, or I could be a success and fix it. I don't know which category I'll fall into, but at least I know what I'm fighting against. And as that catty twat Lucy put it, "The mere fact that you realize you need help indicates that you are not too far gone." And if Charlie Brown can beat the world, so can I.