one small story
Listen, I'm walking, (no, swaggaring...) around Bullwinkle's at 1am a few weeks ago. I'm leering at girls and swilling back piles and piles of beer. This feels right. This feels natural. It's natural, too, that nobody should speak to me. I feel I can ward off other people the way a crucifix can ward off evil. There's something to my shape, my size, the flare guns in my pupils...it's repellant. So people are walking by and I'm staring at them; some of them get loving gazes, some of them get hatefull looks, most of them get blank stares. I have a cigarette dangling from my mouth and my hair is a mess; I'm draped in a blue Italian dress shirt I bought three years ago and continue to wear, even though it has a cigarette burn on the back of it.
Rabble, rabble, rabble. Music is blaring and people are conversing; beer mugs click together and make that bell-like, shrill noise that always makes me wince. I keep smoking and drinking. People keeping talking and doing whatever it is they do when they go out together. Alot of guys have stripped polo shirts on and hair that looks flamable. As for me, it's just the cigarette, the beer, the lonely bar stool. And then I saw her...
But wait, here's what I was thinking about, in my lonely stupor, before I saw her: the clank of prison doors slamming together;the lonely, dust covered ambience of the toilet in the back of a greyhound bus; the way the snow used to feel as it fell on my shoulders as I walked to grade school as a little kid; the way heartbreak feels the worst when you are alone (years later), awake at 2am and staring over at a broken clock radio. There were other things, too. It's hard to remember what happened when you were drunk, much less what your Budwieser-induced reveries consisted of. I mean, it was mostly sad.
But, so, ok, that girl:
She's blonde and she's about an inch shorter than I am. She has these huge, brown eyes that look like glass eggs. She's cheerfull and happy, so I start making some jokes with her. She laughs. Yadda. This is how it works. I just tell jokes; you just sit there and laugh your little flower blossom laugh. It's always like that. And everything always turns out the same. What a nice girl. What a horrible, drunk man. And the jokes and the funny ha ha ha laughs. Somewhere in the distance I hear a kid vomiting into the floorboards in the corner of the room.
She takes me by the hand (Hollywood, Hollywood) and we walk up to that stupid second story of Bullwinkle's. The big, stupid moon is hanging over Tallahassee; I think about fake moon landings and vampires. It's up there, just dangling over our heads like a lunar disco ball. Pock marked as my face. We sit down on a bench and set our drinks in our laps; she having a whiskey and coke that I just bought for her because this is the way the sexual economy works. I'm still telling my jokes and she is still laughing her (at this point, almost annoying) little doll laugh. The stars shine, fireworks expolde, very Hollywood Hollywood Ho Ly Wo O O D.
Somewhere, another kid vomits in the distance.
So we are talking, rabble rabble; it's that drunken, debauched form of communication where her thoughts and my bad jokes get mixed up like splattered paint. We are talking, but not really talking. You know what I mean. We are mostly staring at each other. She of the big, brown glass eye. I of the drunk, bloodshot hate beams. Then she leans over and kisses me. Just like in 60's pop songs and bad love movies. Still, the lunar lampshade forcing its beam down on us. Still, the sound of prison doors clanging together in my head.
At first, I have a rush of vain excitement. Pretty girl kisses boy. Boy kisses back. Boy and pretty girl kissing. Pretty, pretty. But then it hits me: this is really making me happy. I mean, not a fake, drunk happy. But a warm, comfortable contentment. A real feeling of (small, but real...) joy. Something I haven't felt in a long time. Her tounge keeps fishing around in my mouth, and mine in hers.
But then another thought hits me: If the only thing in this sad world that can make me happy is the feeling of being wanted by this blonde girl, who's conversation I find dismal and who's name I don't even know, what's the point of living? And how many other fools have I suffered? And how long will it last?
And so I killed myself.
Just kidding.
Not yet, lovers.
-end
Rabble, rabble, rabble. Music is blaring and people are conversing; beer mugs click together and make that bell-like, shrill noise that always makes me wince. I keep smoking and drinking. People keeping talking and doing whatever it is they do when they go out together. Alot of guys have stripped polo shirts on and hair that looks flamable. As for me, it's just the cigarette, the beer, the lonely bar stool. And then I saw her...
But wait, here's what I was thinking about, in my lonely stupor, before I saw her: the clank of prison doors slamming together;the lonely, dust covered ambience of the toilet in the back of a greyhound bus; the way the snow used to feel as it fell on my shoulders as I walked to grade school as a little kid; the way heartbreak feels the worst when you are alone (years later), awake at 2am and staring over at a broken clock radio. There were other things, too. It's hard to remember what happened when you were drunk, much less what your Budwieser-induced reveries consisted of. I mean, it was mostly sad.
But, so, ok, that girl:
She's blonde and she's about an inch shorter than I am. She has these huge, brown eyes that look like glass eggs. She's cheerfull and happy, so I start making some jokes with her. She laughs. Yadda. This is how it works. I just tell jokes; you just sit there and laugh your little flower blossom laugh. It's always like that. And everything always turns out the same. What a nice girl. What a horrible, drunk man. And the jokes and the funny ha ha ha laughs. Somewhere in the distance I hear a kid vomiting into the floorboards in the corner of the room.
She takes me by the hand (Hollywood, Hollywood) and we walk up to that stupid second story of Bullwinkle's. The big, stupid moon is hanging over Tallahassee; I think about fake moon landings and vampires. It's up there, just dangling over our heads like a lunar disco ball. Pock marked as my face. We sit down on a bench and set our drinks in our laps; she having a whiskey and coke that I just bought for her because this is the way the sexual economy works. I'm still telling my jokes and she is still laughing her (at this point, almost annoying) little doll laugh. The stars shine, fireworks expolde, very Hollywood Hollywood Ho Ly Wo O O D.
Somewhere, another kid vomits in the distance.
So we are talking, rabble rabble; it's that drunken, debauched form of communication where her thoughts and my bad jokes get mixed up like splattered paint. We are talking, but not really talking. You know what I mean. We are mostly staring at each other. She of the big, brown glass eye. I of the drunk, bloodshot hate beams. Then she leans over and kisses me. Just like in 60's pop songs and bad love movies. Still, the lunar lampshade forcing its beam down on us. Still, the sound of prison doors clanging together in my head.
At first, I have a rush of vain excitement. Pretty girl kisses boy. Boy kisses back. Boy and pretty girl kissing. Pretty, pretty. But then it hits me: this is really making me happy. I mean, not a fake, drunk happy. But a warm, comfortable contentment. A real feeling of (small, but real...) joy. Something I haven't felt in a long time. Her tounge keeps fishing around in my mouth, and mine in hers.
But then another thought hits me: If the only thing in this sad world that can make me happy is the feeling of being wanted by this blonde girl, who's conversation I find dismal and who's name I don't even know, what's the point of living? And how many other fools have I suffered? And how long will it last?
And so I killed myself.
Just kidding.
Not yet, lovers.
-end