Free Assholes Finish First by Tucker Max, Maddox Page B

oncoming cars to my presence.”
    SlingBlade “Well, why did you run across the street vomiting?”
    Tucker “If I understood why I do the things I do when I’m drunk, I’d be… rich… or less drunk… or something.”
    The Halloween Party
    The next day, we all bummed around and played video games until it was time for the party. About 7pm we started putting on our costumes, but SlingBlade just sat there.
    Tucker “Dude, what are you going as? A morose, underemployed video game nerd?”
    SlingBlade “I don’t have a costume. You think I spent even a millisecond thinking about that nonsense?”
    If he doesn’t get a costume, I know exactly what’s going to happen: Everyone will pester him about why he doesn’t have a costume, and he’ll spend the entire party sulking and pissed off, which will ruin any chance he has of having a good time. Not on my watch.
    On our way to the party, I made him stop at a costume store. Ever been to a costume store at 7pm on a Halloween weekend night? It’s like the Superdome during Katrina. The store was packed with all the people who’d missed Halloween being on the calendar for a whole year. The employees, who are completely bored 364 days, were freaking out, and there was basically nothing left except the picked-over carcasses of the shittiest costumes.
    We ended up with two options: a Batman costume—very sweet except that it was sized for a 10 year old—or a pirate costume that was nothing but a parrot, an eye patch, and poofy pants.
    SlingBlade “So I can either be a pedophile or a gay animal trainer? How about neither, thanks.”
    Then I had an inspired stroke of genius:
    Tucker “Dude, just take the parrot. Put it on your shoulder and use it to talk shit to people all night. It can be like your version of Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. I poop on your costume!”
    He seemed to like the idea. Well, more like he was indifferent and just wanted to leave the store, so I bought the parrot and we went to eat. On the way to dinner, the tide started turning in SlingBlade’s favor.
    SlingBlade was driving when, out of nowhere, a hot blond woman in a Mercedes accelerated past him and cut him off, then slowed down. She just brazenly pulled her car in front of his, forcing him to hit his brakes and swerve out of the way, and then had the temerity to continue on as if nothing happened. She didn’t give an apology wave or make even the slightest acknowledgment that she committed such a serious breach of highway etiquette. It was as if his existence was completely meaningless to her.
    Oh boy. If you know anything about SlingBlade, you know he has a finely tuned sense of justice. One time in San Francisco he saw a cop run a red light for no reason, and tried to pull him over to make a citizen’s arrest. Dude takes the law seriously. Add to this the fact that he despises entitled, uppity-rich-girl types, then mix in his current state of depressed self-loathing, and you’ve got the recipe for emotional Semtex. This incident became the detonator.
    He started flashing his high beams, honking, and finally, when she still refused to acknowledge him, stood on the accelerator of his beat-up eggplant purple 1993 Saturn. It took a few seconds, but eventually he got it up to 35 miles per hour and pulled up on her passenger side.
    He was red-faced, veins bulging out of his neck, as he screamed curses at her and jabbed the driver-side window with his finger. She didn’t notice him at first, then glanced over, saw the commotion, and from inside the safety of her huge luxury sedan, she gave him that type of contemptuous sneer that only the landed, Southern socialite gentry can muster. It was a glare that said, “You are beneath me, how dare you waste my time.”
    He got real quiet and, for a split second, I really thought he was going to swerve his car into hers. I started praying to every god I could think of (to hedge my bets) and braced for impact. But he had something even better in mind.
    He