The Snitch

You   know what’s hard? It’s hard to do the right thing. To do what you know is best. For your friends, for you. When you’re walking up and down a thin dotted line called The Fence, (alternatively, Moderation). You’re teetering around wondering which side to put your foot down on.

Well. The problem is, your friends have already chosen a side. They know where they stand. They know they’re standing in the cursed space a million and one people will call The Wrong Thing To Do. They don’t see it that way. It’s not such a big deal, dude. Chill. Chill dammit, chill. Just leave them alone. They’ll sort their fucked up selves out. Somebody will make sure of that. Somebody else can rat. Somebody who’s not their friend.  But you can’t bring yourself to believe that. Unfortunately, you kind of know which side of the line you’d pick if your friends weren’t looking, watching to see what you do, if you’d tell. You’d stand safely in The Right Thing To Do, and say Hell, I did what I had to. I did the best thing I could possibly do.

Ah, but you didn’t, did you? You know that. You broke the loyalty code. The goes-without-saying-keep- your-mouth-shut-code. You’ve gone and landed yourself in a royal mess. You’ve spilt the beans on your friends. Let’s try that again. You’ve spilt the beans on your friends. Shit.

See? You know and they know that you did the right thing, but who cares? You gonna get bravery medals? Morals-in-the-right-place medals, perhaps? Yeah, you wish. You sold your friends out, you get nothing for that. You get a whole lot of bitching behind your back. Fake smiles. The cold shoulder. Why would they hang out with you, I mean, you can’t even keep a goddamn secret. They were just having fun and you went all, I can tell right from wrong…gotta stick by my moral principles on them. Who the hell do you think you are, anyway?

Suppose though, that someone else had ratted them out. Then what? Then, they’d somehow trace it back to you and suddenly the whole freakin’ world’s turned on you, pointing fingers and chanting you knew. You knew and you didn’t say anything.

Is it worth it? Really? Any of it? Is it worth losing your friends, worth the reputation of snitch? Is sticking by what you know to be right worth it? Even though it’s best for everybody in the long run? They’re not going to thank you, thirty years down the line. So what are you talking about? When will this shit you’ve put yourself through become worth it? When will it extend beyond the lukewarm fuzzy feeling in your heart that says At least I know; at least I know that I did what was good for everybody?  Considering that morally you did the right thing, shouldn’t there be a nice pedestal that you can mount? On which you can stand tall and confidently yell Hey y’all. I did the right thing.