22 September 2008
up for sale
the urgency to leave this town continues to snowball. the people ive spent the most time with over the past three years are the people i should have avoided from the start. i don't believe a thing they say,downtown, midtown, two blocks away, each in their own dome, they are all full of shit. i drove over train tracks and wished this saga would end once and for all and that i could heed my mentor's words before i lose another year of my life on the same assholes. drugs help a little but gin only makes it worse.
12 September 2008
3. Freedom Fries
"Today I worked an entire shift without eating any french fries."
-Lucy
Lucy waited tables at a local cafe near her university. To work there, you had to have a really big attitude, a really cool tattoo, or armpit hair. She only worked night shifts because she was attending classes during the day. Three men frequented the cafe painting the rainbow of alcoholism. First there was the nameless, homeless, drunken hobo with a cowboy hat. He would come in hootin' and hollerin' and cursing everyone to hell; the kitchen boys would have to kick him out of restaurant every time. Then there was Jim. He'd sit at the bar and drink 3 pitchers of Bud Light and order a plate of celery and and carrots. Jim would flirt with the waitresses and insult the customers.
"May I have a styrofoam cup so I can take my glass of wine to go?" asked Lucy's female customer.
"Sure" said Lucy, "I'll be right back".
"What a lush" mumbled Jim at the bar.
"SHHHH!!" said Lucy, "Someone might hear you".
Another night, Jim threw a wild card out for bait and Lucy asked him where he came up with such nonsense. Without hesitation, he answered "ether." Jim believed that we are all human and neither race nor religion surpassed humanity. He called himself a Darwinist and with all drunken conviction rallied for camaraderie as the underlying theme of evolution. Lucy played the devils advocate and asked "what about competition?" She was a biology major but she knew that Jim was onto something.
Larry came in every night at 6:30 since 1978 and drank two pitchers of beer. The first pitcher of Budweiser, the next one served as two halfway. He only drank out of a small cup so his beer wouldn't get warm. He sat right in front of the fan, except when it rained. Lucy would chat with him while Larry criticized the absurdities of Townsville before the dinner rush hit. Larry pointed out the escort service the fat capitalist was running out of his building next door. He stared in silence when the alumni strolled by in their alma mater "uniforms" of maroon and gold on their way to the football game.
"Why do they glorify a child? He's a kid, not a gladiator" Larry demanded to know.
"Because they need someone to believe in" said Lucy.
Until he was thirty, Larry drove potato chips bags in trucks across America . Then he became a nurse in the neonatal intensive unit in the Townsville Hospital. Larry and Lucy loved to talk about Kurt Vonnegut and Denver and the shortcomings of Caribbean Nights at the Cafe. Tuesdays were always dead because the Cafe fired their steel drum band and no one knew about their 25 cent wings. The kitchen boys would come outside and smoke a cigarette and complain about how they made the special sauce for no reason because the only asshole that would come into the Cafe on a Tuesday and order the most expensive thing on the menu was the owner of the restaurant. Meanwhile Larry would collect pistachio shells in his cap and dump them in the hanging plants on his was out. The juniper plant next to the fan enjoyed the same diet as Larry for 40 years, beer and pistachios.
-Lucy
Lucy waited tables at a local cafe near her university. To work there, you had to have a really big attitude, a really cool tattoo, or armpit hair. She only worked night shifts because she was attending classes during the day. Three men frequented the cafe painting the rainbow of alcoholism. First there was the nameless, homeless, drunken hobo with a cowboy hat. He would come in hootin' and hollerin' and cursing everyone to hell; the kitchen boys would have to kick him out of restaurant every time. Then there was Jim. He'd sit at the bar and drink 3 pitchers of Bud Light and order a plate of celery and and carrots. Jim would flirt with the waitresses and insult the customers.
"May I have a styrofoam cup so I can take my glass of wine to go?" asked Lucy's female customer.
"Sure" said Lucy, "I'll be right back".
"What a lush" mumbled Jim at the bar.
"SHHHH!!" said Lucy, "Someone might hear you".
Another night, Jim threw a wild card out for bait and Lucy asked him where he came up with such nonsense. Without hesitation, he answered "ether." Jim believed that we are all human and neither race nor religion surpassed humanity. He called himself a Darwinist and with all drunken conviction rallied for camaraderie as the underlying theme of evolution. Lucy played the devils advocate and asked "what about competition?" She was a biology major but she knew that Jim was onto something.
Larry came in every night at 6:30 since 1978 and drank two pitchers of beer. The first pitcher of Budweiser, the next one served as two halfway. He only drank out of a small cup so his beer wouldn't get warm. He sat right in front of the fan, except when it rained. Lucy would chat with him while Larry criticized the absurdities of Townsville before the dinner rush hit. Larry pointed out the escort service the fat capitalist was running out of his building next door. He stared in silence when the alumni strolled by in their alma mater "uniforms" of maroon and gold on their way to the football game.
"Why do they glorify a child? He's a kid, not a gladiator" Larry demanded to know.
"Because they need someone to believe in" said Lucy.
Until he was thirty, Larry drove potato chips bags in trucks across America . Then he became a nurse in the neonatal intensive unit in the Townsville Hospital. Larry and Lucy loved to talk about Kurt Vonnegut and Denver and the shortcomings of Caribbean Nights at the Cafe. Tuesdays were always dead because the Cafe fired their steel drum band and no one knew about their 25 cent wings. The kitchen boys would come outside and smoke a cigarette and complain about how they made the special sauce for no reason because the only asshole that would come into the Cafe on a Tuesday and order the most expensive thing on the menu was the owner of the restaurant. Meanwhile Larry would collect pistachio shells in his cap and dump them in the hanging plants on his was out. The juniper plant next to the fan enjoyed the same diet as Larry for 40 years, beer and pistachios.
06 September 2008
2. townsville, usa
" alfred is my roommate. we first met when i came back from working a night shift covered in dill and ketchup. i opened the shower curtain to hop in for a quick rinse and out of the curtain ran a hairy black spider, resembling a small tarantula with red lines on its back. i spent an hour looking for the fuzzy criminal in my apartment but he was nowhere to be found; i gave up looking for him because i wasn't sure if he was real or if i had imagined him so instead i named him Alfred. we agreed not to bother each other. my other roommate, karen, was never home because she had an internship on planet SIX2000 working for the Chief Adminstrator of the Bureau of Historical Accounts. karen managed the chief's files and brought him coffee until the sun went down and they would screw all night. i pretended not to notice because i enjoyed parading men through my apartment at will and using her dining room table for pouring cement and rolling joints.
i hated the couple that lived above me. i was learning how to play drums and i played the trumpet in my high school band. they hated me too, they would jump up and down on the floor and my ceiling would shake and the lights would flicker. my father phoned from the bo-OH-te3z0 galaxy where he was sailing the orbit of the Lockey comet. he was constantly afraid of danger. he wanted to know if i had become a rock star yet. i explained to him that i lived below two angry elephants and i could only practice my instruments when they were fucking and they couldn't hear above the headboard banging against the dry wall. he was outraged and suggested poison gas."
i hated the couple that lived above me. i was learning how to play drums and i played the trumpet in my high school band. they hated me too, they would jump up and down on the floor and my ceiling would shake and the lights would flicker. my father phoned from the bo-OH-te3z0 galaxy where he was sailing the orbit of the Lockey comet. he was constantly afraid of danger. he wanted to know if i had become a rock star yet. i explained to him that i lived below two angry elephants and i could only practice my instruments when they were fucking and they couldn't hear above the headboard banging against the dry wall. he was outraged and suggested poison gas."
02 September 2008
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