— Fiction —

Autobiography of a Douchebag: Epilogue, First Submission to the Editor

[Note to editor: left a few things in brackets for you to clean up, see you on the bestseller list.]

Epilogue: Whatever you do, don’t be successful like me.
[Alternate options: “You don’t have the stones to be like me” or “My life has always been amazing, but now it’s more amazing” or the theme song from Rocky.]

N THE END, the years I spent swimming in fantastic amounts of money [is it clear here that I actually dumped trash bags full of money in my swimming pool?], dating the most beautiful women in the world [recap the names one last time, yes or no?], experimenting with the most dangerous [wonderful?] drugs, and desecrating the things other people found value in were wasted [amazing?].

I prefer the simpler life now. Living in [insert place in Canada] and the outdoors with a little [outdoor activity] and especially [second outdoor activity].

I’ve been to hell and back. Sometimes hell doesn’t look like hell. Sometimes it looks like $5,000 bottles of Champagne and deep-fried foie gras from geese that were force-fed veal.

Sometimes hell is fucking delicious.

Anyway, were there exciting times? Exciting, exhilarating, breathtaking, captivating. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Sure there were.

I’ll never forget doing blow with Warren Buffet [or Jimmy? Not sure on this one] and paying bums to reënact scenes from Top Gun in cardboard boxes. “I’m not leaving my wing man!” – classic. Or hiring Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles to play a game of Ping-Pong against each other by sound [do I need to mention they’re both blind? your call]. Rest in peace, Ray. We miss you.

Those were good times—really, really good times that can only be experienced by people with inexhaustible reserves of disposable income.

But now I can see that I was always searching for something else. I found contentment in a place I didn’t even know to look [picture of pond or trees or something naturey].

When I’m sitting in the [place in Canada] wilderness, sharpening my [outdoor activity one] skills, and staring at [insert current Hollywood starlet]’s eyes, I feel a calming peace and sense of security combined with a borderline frightening level of contentment. Times like those make me realize that I’m done with the high-class hookers with flawless skin [Does an ethnicity help the imagery here? If so—definitely Asian]. I’m done drinking scotch that’s older than I am and hunting penguins from a helicopter with a crossbow [nine for ten, F.Y.I.].

[Hollywood starlet] understands all of it. She has faced her own demons and conquered them all. Whenever I feel weak, she can tell, and she’ll say, “[something profound, but also sexy, like a hot nun would say].” And I know she’s right, because she has the knowledge that comes from her experience with [dig something up here]. An experience that shook her faith in humanity but not her highly experimental sexual nature.

She also has great tits.

In the end, writing this autobiography has given me an even greater sense of closure and contentment than I thought was possible. The contentedness is ridiculous, like a freight train of contentment. I’ve also found writing to be extremely cathartic, so cathartic it almost hurts. Before this autobiography, the longest thing I’d ever written was a log of the names and positions of sexual encounters with a laundry list of celebrities and dignitaries [hello, appendix? or save it for the paperback? let’s talk].

Undertaking this project has shown me that the key to life is finding satisfaction in the simple things in life. Things like [simple thing one], [simple thing two], and [simple thing three]. I love the simpleness of them.

Luckily, my extreme wealth has allowed me the time to discover what simple things make me [low-key synonym for orgasm].

[Longish paragraph about love].

Like [Gandhi or Bruce Springsteen] said, “[Gandhi or Bruce Springsteen quote]”. I think that really sums it all up. When it’s all said and done, I don’t care about the amazing nights I spent in Mali with the Indian princess I won in a card game from Donald Trump. I care about [something to do with regular people], [outdoor activity two], and [simple thing three].

Yesterday I was an international playboy, but today, when I’m sitting on the porch of my massive, sprawling, picturesque ranch in [place in Canada], [outdoor activity number one-ing], and [Hollywood starlet] looks over and asks me [something hot, maybe a clearer nun reference], I put down my [tool used for outdoor activity one], look right back at her and say, “Baby, [something that sums up the whole book and also shows that we’re going to do it].”

I am extremely content.