Everybody

I was little, and playing some sort of army game with my two stepbrothers, whom I saw every few weeks when my father would pick me up and take me to his house for the weekend.

They lived together and had rules and protocol for this game, involving all of their stuffed animals and action figures, some of which served as soldiers for a given team and others played the role of POWs that needed to be rescued.

As the game started, I swooped in and grabbed up all of the prisoners to set them free.

They said my name, with annoyance, then "you can't just go and save everybody by yourself."

I still haven't learned. I'm still trying to just run in and save everybody by myself. I look back on my life and see an arrogant, pretentious kid, always wanting to take over and do "good", and never without a good dose of naiveté and plenty of people pissed off.