Behold the human condition refined to its clearest form. All our unsolvable dilemmas, our tribal wars, our polarization, all our impossible moral equations can now be reduced to a single jpeg.
This is the sword and the shield, the culmination of centuries of struggle, of empires rising and falling. Sticks and stones. The fig leaf and the fall. Language invented. Warfare, politics. Magic begat medicine. Science begat technology. Technology begat the internet, which begat the cell phone, which begat the text bubble, and then—and only then—was the entirety of human yearning and misery focused like a laser into three simple letters. Two letters really, the l as racket and backstop, and the o as a ball forever bouncing between the two. An endless circle of mirth. Whatever you care about. Whatever offends you. Whatever morals or ethics or decency you hold dear.
l o fucking l.
Evan Himelman has spent his whole life looking for those letters. A way to bat it all away—every gripe and grievance, history’s epic feuds, the bills his generation was supposed to pay for the sins of their fathers and mothers. Genocide, poverty, racism, misogyny, climate apocalypse, blah, blah, blah. Like walking into the middle of a fistfight you didn’t start but are somehow expected to finish. The smothering weight of moral expectation. (((Jesus))) said Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, but they arrest you for finger-banging strangers, so…
Listen, if you flog yourself the way all those libtard social justice warriors demand, if you let them clamp on the ball-and-chain of responsibility that nobody asked for, then every white boy in America is a slave trader. It’s enough to make you turn on the gas oven and put your (((head))) inside. Because who on Earth can read all the millions of words written by the world’s wisest men and women, epic treatises and manifestos, meticulously laying out every nuance of every position. History and alternative history. Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Richard fucking Dawkins. When all along the answer has been right in front of us.
Genocide? lol
Racism? lol
Some Arab toddler facedown on a Greek beach?
Like the Joker used to say: Why so serious?
The Troll grew up Evan Bryan Himelman in Santa Monica, California. Land of fruits and nuts. That liberal Hollywood melting pot, where the Summer of Love never ended. It just bought a Tesla. Where liberalism was a birthright. Where your parents put a silver spoon and a copy of Obama’s first Democratic Convention speech in your crib. Phil and Linda Himelman. They recycled. They composted. They jogged. The Troll grew up in the back of a Volvo listening to Terry Gross. But he was a cuckoo in another bird’s nest. His radio heroes were Joe Rogan and Howard Stern. He rejected the fundamental principles. Give me the red pill or give me death.
In the beginning, he fought toe-to-toe. He made Reasoned Arguments. He joined the debate club. But then he found those three magic letters, and his true purpose in life came to him, like the sun through the clouds. He was a farmer of Liberal Tears, a trigger for social justice warriors, a nemesis to the woke.
14,88
BTFO
ICE puts Mexican kids in cages?
Some frat boy calls you a fat cunt?
Hands up. Don’t shoot?
All hail KEK, the God of Chaos and Darkness. Like the bumper sticker says, Life’s a bitch and then you die. So why not have as much fun as you can and then die in a hail of bullets? Fast cars, good drugs, underage pussy. Wash it all down with a nice tall glass of shut up juice, seasoned with liberal outrage. If you’re not part of the problem, you’re part of the solution, which, nobody wants that.
And then he met the Wizard, and the true purpose of his life became clear.
*
*
In the beginning, for Louise, the Troll was words on a screen. Somebody’s friend had a friend who could score weed or booze or pills or whatever. Or maybe it was a guy Davy worked with at the copy center whose older brother served with a guy in Iraq. The truth was, it didn’t matter and they didn’t care. They just wanted the high, and this was the handle they found through the magic of social networking. Gabby said Hart should ping him. Hart said Gabby should do it. In the end it was Louise, never afraid of a little hard work, who entered the digits into WhatsApp.
She wrote:
—Said the fish to the hook, feed me your worm. Said the hook to the fish, put me in your mouth. And she did. And was hooked.
She waited two days. Then a ping.
—What else will she put in her mouth? he wonders.
It came at night, after Grandma had gone to bed. Louise was in the middle of her lotion routine. First a heavy cream for her hands and feet, then a milder blend for arms and legs. Dry skin made her cringe, calluses and blisters, and with all the cleaning supplies she used—even with the yellow gloves—her skin needed constant care. It was a kind of vicious cycle, the first obsession drying her out, the second obsession greasing her up.
Ping, went the phone. And something in Louise jumped like a dog for a ball.
She sat on the windowsill, illuminated by the digital blue glow.
—What else will she put in her mouth? he wonders.
She wiped the moisturizer from her hands, but before she could type a reply, another ping.
—A big black cock? A jew schvantz? A Mexican prick?
Louise stared at the screen, uncertain. Then another ping.
—LOL
She typed.
—Who is this?
A beat.
—My name is Yon Yonson. I work in Wisconsin. I work in a lumbermill there.
Louise sat and looked out the window, trying to figure out if she had something to lose. Her grandma always said it’s the journey, not the destination, but then she worked in the post office, sorting mail to places she never went.
—I’m Louise, she wrote.
—No names, came the reply.
—Can we meet?
—Meet or Meat?
…
—You wouldn’t like me, typed Louise, I weigh as much as a house.