Burning Gen X at the Stake | by: E.M. Burlingame

The party’s half-dead, some TV flickering like a bad heart. Generation X slumped on the stools, us grizzled bastards, the 13th American tribe, born between strip malls and Vietnam’s ghost. Half of us already gone, locked up, broken or dead. We’re the ones who grew up with latchkeys and MTV, who learned early the world’s a mean drunk who don’t tip. Now, in the gray of our middle years, we’re supposed to save it? This shitheap civilization that spit in our coffee and called it cream.

I light a cigar, watch the smoke curl like a middle finger. We were never the shiny ones. Not the Boomers with their protests and pensions, not the Millennials with their hashtags and hope. We were the in-betweens, the feral kids of Reagan’s shadow, raised on Nirvana and Nine Inch Nails, on divorce and dial-up. We didn’t trust nobody—still don’t. Solitary nomads, we roamed, drunk on cheap whiskey and cheaper dreams, taking no shit from bosses, lovers, or gods. We carved our own paths through the concrete, jagged and lonesome, because nobody gave a damn about us. Not then. Not now.

But here we are, at the ass-end of our 40s and 50s, scars like roadmaps, livers like punching bags. The world’s on fire—our communities invaded, so the banks can get their rents, suits in boardrooms carving up what’s left. Human demons and freaks carving up kids, malevolent judges ruling against sanity, selling us all out. And somehow, it’s on us to fix it. Us, the ones who’d rather burn the house down than clean it. Lady Liberty’s looking rough, her torch flickering, her eyes tired as ours. She’s been through too many bad dates, too many betrayals. But she’s ours. Always was. We’re her last champions, not because we want to be, but because nobody else showed up.

It’s fitting, ain’t it? The 13th generation, cursed like those Templars, those old knights roasted on Friday the 13th for daring to stand tall. They went down defiant, spitting in the face of kings and popes. We’re the same. We don’t bow, don’t beg. We’ve been through too many bar fights, too many evictions, too many funerals, too many nights wondering if the next bottle’s the last. The world never gave us shit but a hard road, so why should we care? Because fuck it, that’s who we are. We save what’s broken, not for glory, but because it’s there, and we’re still standing. Because Lady Liberty called, and drunk as we are, we're the only ones who answered.

So here’s to, the graying punks, the loners who never fit. We’ll raise a glass to Lady Liberty, one last time, and wade into the mess. Fists flying, blood and guts spilling, the last flickers of life blinking out forever. Not for the world, not for the suits, nor the weak little shits, but for the idea of something free, something worth bleeding for. We’ll go down swinging, and on fire, just like those Templars, defiant to the end, because that’s the only way we know how. The jukebox's playing low, some old Replacements song, and I grin into my scotch. The good stuff, and why not, we'll be killing soon. The world can kiss our ass, but we’ll save it anyway, out of spite! Just fucking watch.