By Patrick Patterson-Carroll
Marko met up with Bernadette at the urban market behind the library. They had planned to meet at one of the usually sun-soaked round metal tables with the uncomfortable set of chairs, but it had rained the day before and the sun hadn't been around in a week, so things were still pretty wet, but brave the elements they did. They covered the chairs and tabletop with pieces of the town's independently distributed paper and sat tentatively, their collective focus torn between one another and their place in the universe according to the chairs and table. The wind was beginning to pick up and so they battled (only) briefly, then muttering "fuck it" to themselves and gathering the partially wet, partially fluttery paper and shoving it into the nearby trashcan.
"Now what?" Bernadette queried.
"I know a quiet place where we can talk. Come on."
They walked quietly west along the sidewalk, wide and empty; the traffic trickling in the street, running against them, eastbound. City busses appeared to lean on the corner like bums with their heads in dumpsters. Even farther in the distance, street preachers yelled the “word of god” as revealed by Christ, and panhandlers tested them in turn by requesting they make good on their exclamations in purely pecuniary gestures (after all, these Christians bandy about words like “charity” often). While people exhaustedly boarded the busses, Bernadette, unaffected by the urban spectacle ahead, commented on the dead air between them.
“I generally try to think before I speak. As my brain is occupied, so my lips are sealed,” said Marko.
“I do, too. I guess I’m being impatient.”
“I think you’re fine.”
“Good. Where are we going?”
There was a small park on the southwest part of downtown which was situated around a large serpentine sculpture that Marko had always found "ugly as fuck," but the benches were comfortable and obscured by trees. This, giving the clean green ground an intangible feel of intimacy, of easily traversed boundary, made him feel like an outdoorsman-- rugged, yet urban (or is it the inverse?), he could, in just a few steps, be his usual metropolitan self.
He gestured to Bernadette to sit. The wood of the bench damp but not wet, she dabbed her fingers at the ring-patterned surface, and then smiled and sat, crossing her legs ladylike. In the silence, he found himself being stalked by his libido. Blinking several times and trying to focus on a thought to make into words for Bernadette, he knew that the task was futile. His libido was fucking with him. Nude, pale, and poking its penis into a blow up doll that looked like one of the local weather ladies, this pathetic manifestation of his libido smiled and winked at him.
“I’m thinking of quitting my job at Neiman,” she said.
“Huh?”
“My job? I told you about it. I do retail for Neiman Marcus. It pays the bills, but I get so sick of all the snobby old hags that patronize the counters, ‘I want this, and this and this just like this dear, and if you would be oh so sweet, could you wrap it and put a nice bow on it... maybe spritz some perfume on it.’ Bitches. I wish I could shop all day and still make money. It isn’t fair.”
“I sit in a cubicle all day and twiddle my fucking thumbs. I make shit for it, too. I’d rather flirt with old hags than be a hamster in a cage. Spinning and spinning and sitting and sitting and monotony the only constant....”
Through the gusts of wind displacing her hair, Bernadette looked at him expectantly as if to plead, “Yes...? yes? There’s more, I know there is!” But he just stared at the belly of the sculpture, trying to ignore his libido as it thrust quicker and quicker into the doll. He tried to think of ways to recreate the sparks that flew the other night in the sports bar. His penis was beginning to knock on the door of the crotch of his jeans. Folding his arms into his lap, he said, “Have you ever known someone so attractive that the very idea of not being able to behold such a sight was heartbreaking?”
“No. I don’t care much about looks.”
“Hmmm. No... hmmm.”
“Yeah, I prefer guys with money,” she said, choking out laughter.
They were silent. The trees quivered with each bluster of air from the southwest. She settled her purse in her lap, opened it, and pulled out a shiny metal case. Inside were four cigarettes and one neatly rolled joint. Extruding the joint with a smile, she shifted her body-- legs still crossed-- toward him. Like in the bar with the cig, she pokes the joint in his direction, "Want a toke?"
"Nah. I'm already seeing weird shit." She crumpled her face, withdrew, and put the joint between her lips. Marko watched his libido. It was done fucking the doll and was smoking a cigarette. He could smell the marijuana smoke and he could faintly hear her making excuses for why she does it. Of course, he didn't give a fuck about her justifications. A little pot every now and then never killed anyone.
He turned and smiled at her. For a moment he considered reiterating his previous question. His libido was escalating the game by pissing all over the doll. Perhaps it was a bid for attention, or maybe a devolutionary swing toward fetishism, but all the same, in that space of time he wished he were high, drunk or dead.
"Let me hit that," he said, and she gladly handed it over. He drew from the joint and pondered what all the fuss was about. He turned to Bernadette and said,
"The way lawmakers talk about this shit, you'd think it'd be more interesting. This has got to be the most boring, everyman drug there is."
"Are you badmouthing my weed?"
"Eh."
Silence.
"There was this one guy," she said, blowing away some ash that had accumulated in the cherry's wake. "He seemed to me like the quiet, mysterious type. At first. Had this very Slavic look about him. Angular, edged face, blue eyes, light skin, one of those Owen Wilson noses, and was very solidly built."
"Hmm. So what was wrong with him?"
"How'd you know?"
"How'd I know what?"
"That there was something wrong."
He thought about her question for a moment and then told her that in his experience, young women made excuses not to stick with men whom, to their own specifications, were physically attractive, but had some kind of nagging, perhaps even trivial personal issues. She laughed at the suggestion, and told him that he watched too much fucking Seinfeld, which, to her mind, was a display of male pettiness and socially arrested neurosis.
“And don’t you dare bring up Elaine,” she added. “Females are outnumbered like, four to one on that penis fest.”
“Uh... I don’t watch that show. But your defensiveness is duly noted.”
“Whatever. Anyway, this guy. I used to follow him around. Stalk him. Kind of. Around downtown. Rides a bike, I know. So one day, I followed him into the coffee shop on Commerce and stood in line behind him. When he finally noticed me, he smiled...”
...
“And?”
“And I smiled back. He took this as license to sit with me by the window. We exchanged pleasantries, but the more we small talked, the more bored I became. I did the ‘uh huhs’ and stared into his beautiful eyes.
“Amazing thing is, I was back at work, leaning on the counter, daydreaming. I don't even remember walking back or even parting with the guy. You know? Like there was this large patch of time that I’d lost. Fell right into oblivion. I couldn’t remember anything of what he said. Not his name, what he does, or even what he thought about the weather. But I will always, always remember his eyes and his skin. And that nose. Mmm.”
Marko laughed at her swoon. The ridiculousness of that girlish expulsion of breath at the thought of a man’s large, crooked nose. He was a little annoyed, disappointed even, at the thought of the moments wasted in listening to her eventless story of aesthetic stimulus lost, and his libido only sat naked, Indian style in the grass, hoping to get a peek up her dress.
Initially he thought it bizarre, this hallucinatory manifestation of his libido, behaving as a seasoned fetishistic porn star one moment and in the next, as a child with a healthy sexual curiosity. But it made sense, because in his mind he was conflicted. He wasn’t quite sure how to view the woman sitting next to him. Possible on-again-off-again fling? One night stand? Unstable relationship characterized by frenzied, passionate sex with an underpinning of empty conversation and boredom?
The woman who at first so stunned him was beginning to, for reasons in that moment unbeknownst to him, grate on his patience. After a time, he blinked rapidly, hoping to shutter the pasty little fucker out of existence. Finally, she returned to his cognizance, offering him a cigarette which he declined as he stood up to stretch.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“Nowhere. Just stretching.”
She lit the cig.
“So... what’s your story?”
To mention Denica, for him, would’ve been to once again tramp the fields of lonely disappointment. Bernadette observed him with intent, with demand. He didn’t think her revelation deserved that kind of “blood,” but as prevarication wasn’t an option, he decided to tell her. Fuck it. There was nothing to lose, and even less to gain, he’d realized.
“Denica.”
“Denica?”
“That was her name. She was beautiful. I didn’t really know her. She was an aspiring model from Mexico. An itinerant, she spent some time in my apartment. We didn’t talk lots, but when we did, it had an impact on me.
“She always had the sweetest way of describing me. In Spanish. I never understood any of it. She could’ve been calling me an emasculated momma’s boy for all I knew, but it was beautiful. And so was she. I was depressed for weeks after she left.
"The busker dude downtown played a lot of Rod Stewart tunes. Shit’s depressing to me. I must’ve dropped thirty bucks in attempts to shy him away from that particular part of his catalogue.”
“Wow,” she said in a voice tinged with boredom, exasperation. The conversational welcome between the two appeared to have worn itself out. There grew a tension between them suddenly-- though it’d been developing slowly over the course of their interactions-- that was neither sexual nor rancorous; it was somewhat indifferent, but altogether discomfited.
In the silence, she unearthed one of those cell phones that do everything but perform oral sex and began fiddling with it. Marko watched his libido as it became more brazen, running its fingers along Bernadette's silken legs. He met eyes with the pallid form and they exchanged smiles. The libido licked her knee with its tongue and said that the best thing about fucking a new woman was that she'd have no idea what a shitty lover you were until after the fact.
©Patrick Patterson-Carroll (2009)
Showing posts with label Dallas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dallas. Show all posts
30.9.09
Flâneur Fiction: "Detouring Vol. 6"
“Detouring Vol. 6”
By Patrick Patterson-Carroll
I’m still pretty drunk as I sit here at the bar. I feel giddy. Happy. Effervescent. What’s more, I don’t even harbor ill will towards Steve, who tonight has his Mohawk spiked and dyed orange. The makings of your typical "mall-punk;" all the studs in his face arouse in me only laughter, but I‘m sure his actual intent was to somehow distinguish himself from the twenty other douche-bags who regularly stomp up and down Lower Greenville. Way to make a statement. Of course, Strange doesn’t understand why I always pick on him specifically. Why I have a problem with him. I say, “Maybe I’m just an asshole.” The only response I get is an impassive “probably.” Holy shit, I say. Is “the Strange” becoming burnt out on my negativity?
“Nope. It’s just that the amount of shit you talk far outweighs the times you’ve had your ass handed to you. Karma, she’s gaining ground on your pacifistic ass. I can’t protect you forever. Even if you are right.”
“Fuck the alpha-male mentality, man,” I say.
Yes. Fuck it. The alpha-male mentality. That’s the thing, though. I need a friend, not protection. A friend. He could’ve stood there earlier and let Steve pound the snot out of me and I wouldn’t have loved him any less. Shit.
The music provided by the house DJ is becoming ever more grating. This is weird for me because when I’m drunk like this, I usually tune out anything undesirable. That is, if it doesn’t make me want to dance or fuck, or if it doesn’t remind me of some off-the-cuff talking point, then I assign it non-existence. It’s really quite easy.
On particularly bad nights, I can go the entire hop without noticing any songs. I’ll focus on visuals (i.e. women) or on drink specials or on titillating conversation I might be able to overhear without being too much noticed. If a cabal of chatters seems amenable to my injection into the proceedings, then there’s little room for the music to impinge on my ears because one as passionately focused as myself when it comes to talking, lecturing, and socializing cannot be shaken by mere top 40 variety songs. No, no, no. It takes something I really enjoy. Something I can-- if only vaguely-- connect to an indefinable nostalgic memory. The kind of music that awakens the sentimentalist in me. Makes me think of a girl. Hearkens me back to better days. Sadder days. Days of the 400 Blows!
The songs playing tonight are typical jock rock bullshit. The DJ smiles wide and nods his head from track to track, so proud of his plebian tastes, somehow confirmed by the fact that no one is paying any god damned attention to him. No one fucking cares. He could just as easily let the night go on auto-pilot and it wouldn't sound any better. The difference would be nil.
I see Steve grab a beer and lean his ear into the cocktail waitress' face. This place is busy. I would say "busier than usual," but I am not usually around. I am thinking of stumbling back home. It's not like I can ride on Danger's tab all night. I need some sleep. I resolve to lift myself from the seat.
My legs tremble beneath my upper body as I stand. I'm a bit dizzy, but I think I'll be fine. Lately I've been getting really sickly drunk. Tonight, my stomach feels calm. I think that I might be hungry. I'll have to raid the pantry when I get back to the apartment.
Approaching Steve as if we're good buddies and not arch-nemeses, I ask him to tell Danger that I'm out. He gives me a brief glance and says "ok." Just like that. Giving the four letter, two syllable word the brevity it deserves. He doesn't look at me, expecting me to be verbally combative, abusive. Begging for an ass kicking that I rightfully deserve. Maybe it's not even worth it to him anymore. To indulge me in my drunken outbursts.
I don't know. There's something disingenuous about Steve’s persona. His appearance that so gently caresses the face of social conformity. His bullish, pseudo-protective stature that only seems to reinforce all societal stereotypes; reflecting upon him negatively as self-righteous bully. Yeah, he says he’s punk. He exudes aggression. But deep down he’s no different than those people who insist half of America should rightfully be in prison.
He’s a fucking phony.
This is not to say that I’m the only one that sees it; that I’m some kind of savant, revelatory, seeing through some kind of transparency that no one else recognizes. No. Everyone knows this. Everyone on this block accepts this. Strange knows it, too. He’s just too busy actually being a punk to notice it.
I step outside and I see a crowd of people stuffed in the door of the bar across the street. It’s The Peruvian. I’ve never been in there. In fact, I think it just opened. Like, they had a “ribbon cutting” ceremony, a “grand opening” very recently. Paying no attention to the traffic, I make my way across Greenville. People are shoving, fighting, yelling obscenities. Some are snapping photos with their cell phones. I can hear something about “fucking assholes” and “dickheads” and such.
Peeking through the crowd, I notice that there are several guys, some with the “twist-tie” handcuffs cutting through their wrists, others in plain black shirts, and still more with hats that have TABC emblazoned across the front.
“These motherfuckers! These fascist motherfuckers!” One of the guys yelled. There were some retorts to the effect of “shut the fuck up,” but they were responded with more profanities. A guy started talking to me. I am winding down to a state of tipsiness, and I feel very tired and sleepy, but we’re engaged in this conversation about cops and we’re both feeling the same way about the situation. You give these assholes any kind of authority and they abuse it. Hell, these TABC guys are nothing more than glorified security guards. Fucking rent-a-cops for the state of Texas. Basically, what they do is troll bars and clubs and streets for drunken violations. Their main function is to write tickets and assess penalties to liquor selling establishments, but of late they’ve been rather forceful and even more recently, brutal.
A while back they were in hot water over some aggression at a gay bar in Ft. Worth: lies, accusations, physical abuse, violations of civil liberties, etc.. I expect this to be in the papers and on the local news, too. The TABC finally makes the fatal mistake that results in its immediate disbandment: they fucked with the wrong white people.
I reach over the crowd to snap some pictures on my cell and go on my way. The cops should be around soon, and I’d rather not incriminate myself with an inebriated presence.
My mouth is parched and I feel like having a lie down on the sidewalk. However, I know that I must resist such urges, considering the propinquity to my apartment. Less than ten minutes. That's all I have to wait. Then I can suck down a few glasses of tap water and throw myself onto my unmade bed.
At the Ross light, I balance myself against a telephone pole and stare emptily into the distance, the headlights of vehicles blaring out from the abyss ahead. A voice calls my name. I turn my back and I see a young woman's head poking out of the driver side window of a Kia Rio.
“Vanessa!” I shout. She cries out my name and I make my way to her window. Car horns are honking behind her as the light has just changed to green. She begs that I quickly hop into the passenger seat, and unthinkingly, I do.
The AC blasts in my face. She’s asking me what I’ve been up to. I smile and shrug. “Are you drunk?”
“Yes. Yes I am. Is it obvious?”
“I don’t know. You are walking along Greenville at almost two in the morning.”
She makes a right on Live Oak, accelerating westward. It’s been a while since I’ve been in a car. It smells new. Definitely not the kind of smell one would encounter in a vehicle that has been made into a temporary love den. Oh how one’s dreams can weigh on one’s perception of reality!
“I have cigarettes in my purse if you’re interested. It’s at your feet.”
“Oh. Thanks.”
I grab her purse, look inside, and there they are, a pack of Marb Reds, nestled between her wallet and a tampon. It’s unopened. I pull the pack out and slam it against my palm a few times. The car stops at the light on Washington and Live Oak. The Jack in the Box to the right of us is dark, with all appearances lending credibility to the fact that despite the sign proclaiming its 24 hour availability, it’s closed, sitting on its concrete island in silence.
Trails of smoke billowing from my mouth and nose, I say, “We’re going to your place, huh?”
“Sure. Why not?”
“Oh. Cool. You live far?”
“Just a little further down on Live Oak. Pretty close to downtown, which is good because I work downtown.”
“What do you do?”
“Office work.”
As it turns out, her residence, a studio loft on the corner of Cantegral and Live Oak is one of the structures that I marvel at in passing on my treks downtown. As the car slows to a stop, she grins at me. I’ve been kidnapped, I think. It’s weird; kind of a thrill. Most of all because it isn’t true; it‘s not real. And though I’ve disabused myself of childish games and the melodramatic angst indicative of adolescent sexual development (or claim to have), I can see why “playing” can be so exciting.
We both slam the car doors and she steps onto the curb and holds her hand out to me. Crossing the threshold of the opened front door, we go hand in hand, her first (as per the chivalrous dictum that goes something like, "ladies first"), etc. and she slaps the wall, which lights up the entire room.
The place is immaculate, Spartan, the antithesis of "lived-in." I stand in the middle of the living room-- I think-- and if I say something, I believe the reverberation will overcome the both of us.
"Nice, right?"
Nice, right?
Yep. Indeed, I say. Indeed. I'm staring at the black leather semi-circular couch in the middle of the room. Wooden floors unadorned by carpeting of any variety. Walls barren and white/grey. The glass coffee table; the floor beneath, unobstructed by magazines or newspapers or books, taunting me with its empty middle class modernity. I motion to the couch as if asking for the privilege to sit. She says, “take a shower first.”
I laugh.
“Seriously,” she says.
The contrast between the bathroom and the rest of the loft is noticeable. Opposing. The bathroom is cluttered with beauty and hygienic products. Unmentionables are strewn about as if in the aftermath of a tornado. I have to hack my way through the jungle of lingerie to find the shower.
I strip down and step into the shower. The water temperature fluctuates then settles into a nice warmth as it plashes over my head. I start smelling the shampoos and conditioners. They're all very fruity. Feminine.
Sitting on the toilet, I towel myself off. I hate bathing. I hate getting my head wet. It gives my naturally curly hair reason to act up. The act of putting my clothes back on seems counterproductive. I mean, I'm clean now, but they are dirty; redolent of spilt alcohol and cigarette smoke.
In the living room, Vanessa is sitting on her couch as I enter. She is grinning at me. Scaring me. I say that I'm tired. She asks me to have a drink with her on the balcony. She promises the view of downtown is beautiful.
We are sitting quietly, drinking some really god awful champagne. I think of asking her how someone who "works in an office" can live like this. Instead I take in the sight, the neon lighted structures of downtown Dallas looming monolithically to the west, representative of the western world's contribution to architecture.
Why not? You know? It doesn't matter, this really is nice. A breeze blows in from the north and I feel a smile forming on my lips. I just hope she doesn't expect me to fuck her.
©Patrick Patterson-Carroll (2009)
By Patrick Patterson-Carroll
I’m still pretty drunk as I sit here at the bar. I feel giddy. Happy. Effervescent. What’s more, I don’t even harbor ill will towards Steve, who tonight has his Mohawk spiked and dyed orange. The makings of your typical "mall-punk;" all the studs in his face arouse in me only laughter, but I‘m sure his actual intent was to somehow distinguish himself from the twenty other douche-bags who regularly stomp up and down Lower Greenville. Way to make a statement. Of course, Strange doesn’t understand why I always pick on him specifically. Why I have a problem with him. I say, “Maybe I’m just an asshole.” The only response I get is an impassive “probably.” Holy shit, I say. Is “the Strange” becoming burnt out on my negativity?
“Nope. It’s just that the amount of shit you talk far outweighs the times you’ve had your ass handed to you. Karma, she’s gaining ground on your pacifistic ass. I can’t protect you forever. Even if you are right.”
“Fuck the alpha-male mentality, man,” I say.
Yes. Fuck it. The alpha-male mentality. That’s the thing, though. I need a friend, not protection. A friend. He could’ve stood there earlier and let Steve pound the snot out of me and I wouldn’t have loved him any less. Shit.
The music provided by the house DJ is becoming ever more grating. This is weird for me because when I’m drunk like this, I usually tune out anything undesirable. That is, if it doesn’t make me want to dance or fuck, or if it doesn’t remind me of some off-the-cuff talking point, then I assign it non-existence. It’s really quite easy.
On particularly bad nights, I can go the entire hop without noticing any songs. I’ll focus on visuals (i.e. women) or on drink specials or on titillating conversation I might be able to overhear without being too much noticed. If a cabal of chatters seems amenable to my injection into the proceedings, then there’s little room for the music to impinge on my ears because one as passionately focused as myself when it comes to talking, lecturing, and socializing cannot be shaken by mere top 40 variety songs. No, no, no. It takes something I really enjoy. Something I can-- if only vaguely-- connect to an indefinable nostalgic memory. The kind of music that awakens the sentimentalist in me. Makes me think of a girl. Hearkens me back to better days. Sadder days. Days of the 400 Blows!
The songs playing tonight are typical jock rock bullshit. The DJ smiles wide and nods his head from track to track, so proud of his plebian tastes, somehow confirmed by the fact that no one is paying any god damned attention to him. No one fucking cares. He could just as easily let the night go on auto-pilot and it wouldn't sound any better. The difference would be nil.
I see Steve grab a beer and lean his ear into the cocktail waitress' face. This place is busy. I would say "busier than usual," but I am not usually around. I am thinking of stumbling back home. It's not like I can ride on Danger's tab all night. I need some sleep. I resolve to lift myself from the seat.
My legs tremble beneath my upper body as I stand. I'm a bit dizzy, but I think I'll be fine. Lately I've been getting really sickly drunk. Tonight, my stomach feels calm. I think that I might be hungry. I'll have to raid the pantry when I get back to the apartment.
Approaching Steve as if we're good buddies and not arch-nemeses, I ask him to tell Danger that I'm out. He gives me a brief glance and says "ok." Just like that. Giving the four letter, two syllable word the brevity it deserves. He doesn't look at me, expecting me to be verbally combative, abusive. Begging for an ass kicking that I rightfully deserve. Maybe it's not even worth it to him anymore. To indulge me in my drunken outbursts.
I don't know. There's something disingenuous about Steve’s persona. His appearance that so gently caresses the face of social conformity. His bullish, pseudo-protective stature that only seems to reinforce all societal stereotypes; reflecting upon him negatively as self-righteous bully. Yeah, he says he’s punk. He exudes aggression. But deep down he’s no different than those people who insist half of America should rightfully be in prison.
He’s a fucking phony.
This is not to say that I’m the only one that sees it; that I’m some kind of savant, revelatory, seeing through some kind of transparency that no one else recognizes. No. Everyone knows this. Everyone on this block accepts this. Strange knows it, too. He’s just too busy actually being a punk to notice it.
I step outside and I see a crowd of people stuffed in the door of the bar across the street. It’s The Peruvian. I’ve never been in there. In fact, I think it just opened. Like, they had a “ribbon cutting” ceremony, a “grand opening” very recently. Paying no attention to the traffic, I make my way across Greenville. People are shoving, fighting, yelling obscenities. Some are snapping photos with their cell phones. I can hear something about “fucking assholes” and “dickheads” and such.
Peeking through the crowd, I notice that there are several guys, some with the “twist-tie” handcuffs cutting through their wrists, others in plain black shirts, and still more with hats that have TABC emblazoned across the front.
“These motherfuckers! These fascist motherfuckers!” One of the guys yelled. There were some retorts to the effect of “shut the fuck up,” but they were responded with more profanities. A guy started talking to me. I am winding down to a state of tipsiness, and I feel very tired and sleepy, but we’re engaged in this conversation about cops and we’re both feeling the same way about the situation. You give these assholes any kind of authority and they abuse it. Hell, these TABC guys are nothing more than glorified security guards. Fucking rent-a-cops for the state of Texas. Basically, what they do is troll bars and clubs and streets for drunken violations. Their main function is to write tickets and assess penalties to liquor selling establishments, but of late they’ve been rather forceful and even more recently, brutal.
A while back they were in hot water over some aggression at a gay bar in Ft. Worth: lies, accusations, physical abuse, violations of civil liberties, etc.. I expect this to be in the papers and on the local news, too. The TABC finally makes the fatal mistake that results in its immediate disbandment: they fucked with the wrong white people.
I reach over the crowd to snap some pictures on my cell and go on my way. The cops should be around soon, and I’d rather not incriminate myself with an inebriated presence.
My mouth is parched and I feel like having a lie down on the sidewalk. However, I know that I must resist such urges, considering the propinquity to my apartment. Less than ten minutes. That's all I have to wait. Then I can suck down a few glasses of tap water and throw myself onto my unmade bed.
At the Ross light, I balance myself against a telephone pole and stare emptily into the distance, the headlights of vehicles blaring out from the abyss ahead. A voice calls my name. I turn my back and I see a young woman's head poking out of the driver side window of a Kia Rio.
“Vanessa!” I shout. She cries out my name and I make my way to her window. Car horns are honking behind her as the light has just changed to green. She begs that I quickly hop into the passenger seat, and unthinkingly, I do.
The AC blasts in my face. She’s asking me what I’ve been up to. I smile and shrug. “Are you drunk?”
“Yes. Yes I am. Is it obvious?”
“I don’t know. You are walking along Greenville at almost two in the morning.”
She makes a right on Live Oak, accelerating westward. It’s been a while since I’ve been in a car. It smells new. Definitely not the kind of smell one would encounter in a vehicle that has been made into a temporary love den. Oh how one’s dreams can weigh on one’s perception of reality!
“I have cigarettes in my purse if you’re interested. It’s at your feet.”
“Oh. Thanks.”
I grab her purse, look inside, and there they are, a pack of Marb Reds, nestled between her wallet and a tampon. It’s unopened. I pull the pack out and slam it against my palm a few times. The car stops at the light on Washington and Live Oak. The Jack in the Box to the right of us is dark, with all appearances lending credibility to the fact that despite the sign proclaiming its 24 hour availability, it’s closed, sitting on its concrete island in silence.
Trails of smoke billowing from my mouth and nose, I say, “We’re going to your place, huh?”
“Sure. Why not?”
“Oh. Cool. You live far?”
“Just a little further down on Live Oak. Pretty close to downtown, which is good because I work downtown.”
“What do you do?”
“Office work.”
As it turns out, her residence, a studio loft on the corner of Cantegral and Live Oak is one of the structures that I marvel at in passing on my treks downtown. As the car slows to a stop, she grins at me. I’ve been kidnapped, I think. It’s weird; kind of a thrill. Most of all because it isn’t true; it‘s not real. And though I’ve disabused myself of childish games and the melodramatic angst indicative of adolescent sexual development (or claim to have), I can see why “playing” can be so exciting.
We both slam the car doors and she steps onto the curb and holds her hand out to me. Crossing the threshold of the opened front door, we go hand in hand, her first (as per the chivalrous dictum that goes something like, "ladies first"), etc. and she slaps the wall, which lights up the entire room.
The place is immaculate, Spartan, the antithesis of "lived-in." I stand in the middle of the living room-- I think-- and if I say something, I believe the reverberation will overcome the both of us.
"Nice, right?"
Nice, right?
Yep. Indeed, I say. Indeed. I'm staring at the black leather semi-circular couch in the middle of the room. Wooden floors unadorned by carpeting of any variety. Walls barren and white/grey. The glass coffee table; the floor beneath, unobstructed by magazines or newspapers or books, taunting me with its empty middle class modernity. I motion to the couch as if asking for the privilege to sit. She says, “take a shower first.”
I laugh.
“Seriously,” she says.
The contrast between the bathroom and the rest of the loft is noticeable. Opposing. The bathroom is cluttered with beauty and hygienic products. Unmentionables are strewn about as if in the aftermath of a tornado. I have to hack my way through the jungle of lingerie to find the shower.
I strip down and step into the shower. The water temperature fluctuates then settles into a nice warmth as it plashes over my head. I start smelling the shampoos and conditioners. They're all very fruity. Feminine.
Sitting on the toilet, I towel myself off. I hate bathing. I hate getting my head wet. It gives my naturally curly hair reason to act up. The act of putting my clothes back on seems counterproductive. I mean, I'm clean now, but they are dirty; redolent of spilt alcohol and cigarette smoke.
In the living room, Vanessa is sitting on her couch as I enter. She is grinning at me. Scaring me. I say that I'm tired. She asks me to have a drink with her on the balcony. She promises the view of downtown is beautiful.
We are sitting quietly, drinking some really god awful champagne. I think of asking her how someone who "works in an office" can live like this. Instead I take in the sight, the neon lighted structures of downtown Dallas looming monolithically to the west, representative of the western world's contribution to architecture.
Why not? You know? It doesn't matter, this really is nice. A breeze blows in from the north and I feel a smile forming on my lips. I just hope she doesn't expect me to fuck her.
©Patrick Patterson-Carroll (2009)
26.9.09
Flâneur Fiction: "Detouring Vol. 5"
"Detouring Vol. 5"
By Patrick Patterson-Carroll
The phone is ringing. Shit. Strange is expecting a call from a possible future employer and I'm supposed to pretend that I run a small mom and pop pizza shop; as a reference. Or something. The details were never clear, so the assumption is that he expects me to come up with something believable. Because the truth is that he is an employer's worst nightmare. He's flighty. He quits jobs and doesn't say shit to the people in charge. Leaves other hapless paeans in his wake; hanging, as it were. When questioned, he simply shrugs and calls himself a proletarian nomad.
Dilemma. Why? Because I'm beating my fucking meat, that's why. I stop and reach for my phone. The display is a number that is not logged in my SIM card. It suddenly stops ringing. The display reads that I have a missed call. No shit.
I regain my masturbatory mindset, gradually pacing myself back into a good frictional momentum, pumping my fist into my crotch quickly while the images on my laptop monitor provide me with the appropriate visual stimuli.
When I finally spill some seed into my hand, the phone rings again. I reach across my body with my left hand for the phone. My arm, however, isn't that long, so I have to slightly dip myself into the crevice of the couch made by the convergence of cushions in order to pick up the phone, which itself is resting in the fault line created by the middle cushion and the far right cushion. I can feel the semen that has oozed between the head of my cock and fingers getting cold.
Looking at the display, I see that it's the same number as before. This person is unrelenting. I press the green 'go' button and put the phone to my ear. "This is Benny Salvatore; Benny and Vinny's Pizza, whadduya want?” There is a silence here. Then:
“Hello... um... I’m calling regarding an applicant. Um... an Adam Rodriguez.”
“Oh yeah? Haven’t seen him in a month.”
“Well, I’m a manager at Profit Bar. We like to screen our applicants for references. What can you say about Mr. Rodriguez?”
“Who?”
“Uh... Adam Rodriguez.”
“Oh. Called himself Strange. Good guy. Can‘t usually trust Mexicans, so that‘s saying something. My brother Vinny hated him, though. His friends were obnoxious drunk fuckers, always come in and hit on all the lady patrons. But he worked harder than anyone, and if my brother wasn’t such a pussy, the kid’d still be working for us.”
“Oh. Well... um... thanks a lot... Mr. ... ?”
“Salvatore.”
The guy hangs up and between a dial tone and the cold, disgusting bodily excretion seemingly gluing together my flaccid cock and my fist, I feel very silly. I can’t believe I actually did the Italian American accent. I know it probably sounded fake and awful, but fuck it, I think I scared that guy shitless.
I go into the bathroom and wash my hands and my dick and begin searching for clothes that smell clean. My Nirvana shirt is on the floor. I pick it up and smell it. Nothing discernibly foul, and from looks, besides a few wrinkles, it’s good. I pull it on and then cover the lower half of my body with a horrendously ripped up pair of jeans.
While doing vanity exercises in front of my bathroom mirror, I feel the sudden urge to laugh at myself. In the past, girls have accused me of being more obsessed with my appearance than their younger teenage sisters. I laugh and say aloud to myself that they were right.
I hear the front door open. It’s Strange. He calls out. “Marco!” “Polo!” I echo back.
I see his head peek into the bathroom. He asks me what’s up. I tell him he got a call from Profit Bar. He smiles. I follow him into the living room. He says he has good news. I see a bottle of whiskey and a bottle of vodka on the table. Both 750 ml. The whiskey is Jameson. The vodka is something that I know he picked up for less than 10$.
“Well. My mom is throwing me some money. Grudgingly. So I can get a place.”
“Awesome,” I say.
“Yes. I feel kind of dirty. Like a middle class suburban bitch.”
“Anyone would take the money. Guilt free. They’re liars if they scream otherwise. Hell, even I can admit that my dad will probably drop me a few pounds this week.”
“Yeah,” he says. “Help me find a place around here. No Upper E shit, though. It’s only $500.”
We decide to “think efficiency.” Yes. It’s like living in a closet, but it’s better than sleeping in parks or beneath underpasses. “I might do that just for inspiration,” he says, laughing. We sit on the right and left cushions of the couch, staring into the wall ahead. He says that I should do something with my empty, boring wall.
"What? Knock it out? No thanks. I'd rather get drunk and pretend there's shit on the walls than have to look directly out into that nightmarish still life called ‘the porch‘ by management even though it is undoubtedly a courtyard."
"All I'm saying," Strange says, cracking open the bottle of vodka. "Is that arty renditions of naked women might spruce shit up some."
“That explains why your place was always so boner inducing despite the lack of promise...” I trail off.
Thoughts are conjuring themselves in my mind. I laugh. We both laugh. Drinking, passing back and forth the bottled spirits. But then I tell him that the truth is that that kind of stimulation is bad for me. Yes. It’s enough that I jerk off to internet porn as much as I do. I mean, shit. I can’t even operate without the imagery provided by my open laptop.
The days of rubbing one out in the shower or laying in bed, legs akimbo, blowing loads onto my stomach or fucking seldom worn dress socks are quite past me. There is a challenge-- a certain sacrament-- in having to push some buttons and wait for a wireless network I can surf and wank to ejaculatory glory. Walls adorned with fleshy feminine shapes would give me an ease of mental access that left zero room for ritual.
Strange lights a cigarette and leers at me a little. He laughs uncomfortably. We both do. All is quiet. The white wall ahead watches over our gluttonous imbibing, over my revealing revelation.
And amidst the quietude of the abated mirth-- discomfited as it was-- and through a gulp of whiskey straight from the bottle, I say, "So yeah, the Profit Bar called about references for 'Adam Rodriguez.' I pretended to be this transplanted New Yorker named Benny Salvatore. I think I scared the guy, but he might call, so just a heads up."
"Ha, he bought it?"
"Yeah. I even added that bigoted Italian American thing. You know, where they hate immigrants and minorities and shit."
“Cool.”
I ask him if he got anywhere with Vanessa. He says no. Not at all. I say that I had a dream that they were fucking in a VW. “She has a Kia Rio,” he says. “They started out making bikes,” I say, getting up. I go into my room and shuffle through a pile of books. I pick up Strange’s book.
He turns to watch me bring the book around the table and plop myself into the cushions of the couch. I grab the whiskey, throw back a gulp or two and then flip through the book. The cover is somewhat bent because it was jammed, sandwich-like, between two other books. Something called, A Freudian Interpretation of Dreams and Debord’s Panegyric. The only thing I remember about the former was a six page explanation about the significance of a silken white glove in dreams. Hint: it’s sexual. Debord’s book is a postmodern memoir of sorts. I remember some stuff about how he likes women. Other than that, all I can say is that the pictures are cool.
“What are you doing?”
“There’s a passage in your book that my dream reminded me of,” I say.
Of course, there was nothing exact about the relation between my dream and his book, except that in both cases there is this weird tunneling through of the REM wall that separates actual sleep from the environs in which said sleep takes place. There is certainly a scientific phrase for this phenomena, but fuck if I know what it is.
Anyway, when Strange took off with Vanessa, the idea of them walking to her car made me dream of walking. The previously built up sexual tension without release set up the vaginal and sexual imagery; a manifestation of a theoretical continuation due largely to my failure, in reality, to perform ’neath and ’twixt the sheets.
In the book, there’s a bit, which I begin reading aloud to him, where the narrator is dreaming through a haze of a malt liquor and marijuana that his female roommate is sitting naked, sweating, talking to him about her mother who has a parrot that says things like “fuck me! fuck me real hard!” and he questions her as to whether or not she taught the parrot to say it as a practical joke on her mother and she says, “are you kidding? I’m too much of a stoner to take the necessary time for that. My mom fucks all the teenage acne-faced boys in the neighborhood.” The narrator of course stirs himself awake, his underwear heavy against his flesh with perspiration, and realizes that his roommate is fucking her boyfriend in the adjoining room, screaming “fuck me! fuck me real hard!”
“My question, dear Adam, is where the fuck did the parrot come from?” I ask, laughingly, closing the book and swigging on the bottle of whiskey.
“When I was writing it I had this great tat mag that had a pullout section dedicated to tattoos of exotic animals, and this very beautiful girl had a huge tattoo of a macaw on her back. Amazing coloring. It seemed like something funny and interesting at the time.”
We sit around and continue to drink. It’s dark outside. Strange pulls out a piece of paper and hands it to me. I look at it. It’s a phone number. “Vanessa?” Yes. Vanessa. I crumple up the paper and toss it into the kitchen.
Inundated by a wave of spontaneity, he asks me if I want to walk down to Lower Greenville. I think about it briefly. We’re obviously more than a little drunk (hence the rashness). I say yes. Fuck it! Let’s do it. I stand to my feet, salute Strange, and take another nip of whiskey. Both bottles are dangerously low on liquids.
Even in our soused stupor, we realize that we’ll have to empty our pockets to see for ourselves that between us (remember I am flat broke) we have about $1.69, which isn’t enough to buy shit. At least not at bars on Lower Greenville.
Placing ourselves gently, in concurrent motion, back onto the couch, we sip at the remnants of the bottles, Strange with the vodka, and me with the whiskey. Then we swap.
“Well,” I start. “We’re already pretty lit, wouldn’t you say?” He nods. “Well then, lets just head out and see where the night takes us.”
“Could be promising,” he adds, belching loudly.
Outside the air is neither humid nor arid. This balance is somewhat staggering because it has been hot and dry of late. A beautiful, timely surprise really, especially with the warmth in our guts and heat on our faces due to the alcohol consumption. There is a breeze roving over from what feels like a northwesterly direction. It feels amazing. We begin our stumble through the parking lot toward Munger Ave.
Thoughtlessly, we drop trou in the alley and release some fluids against the newly erected wooden fence. No one sees us and we continue northbound on Munger. Strange starts talking about some of his ideas in relation to my blog. He wants us to collaborate on a massive happening campaign involving city council members, black dildos and jail time, if necessary.
“Think of it. Like... live art.”
“Spontaneous!” I shout.
“Kind of. I mean, it’s planned.”
“Calculated.”
“Yes! I mean, fuck city council. Look at our black leaders. Look at them! They throw around allegations of racism like they’re paid to do it, and then they run out any and everyone who might be willing to help the predominantly black neighborhoods that they represent yet don’t even live in! They do more harm than good.”
We cross Swiss Ave.. Without bothering to question or assume a position of “devil’s advocacy,“ I allow Strange to continue his drunken inveighing unabated as we pass the quiet mansions on the corners. It’s about giving voice to voiceless people, he insists. Because they vote for the representation who they assume, due to racial similarity (which is an interesting fallacy; hear: What’s Beef? by Black Star [Kweli and Mos Def]), will represent them justly and fight for their best interests, and what they get out of it is fuck all.
“So here, here’s your black dildo Mr. Councilman. You like to fuck your own constituents, here! Here’s an object with which to actually do it!”
This unusual grammatical precision, combined with uncharacteristically coherent annunciation makes me laugh. Normally he's very disjoint and unfocused in his drunken proclamations. As most are-- more so than most. In extreme cases, his language will devolve into grunting and other slurs of the tongue. But right now, as we trek toward Lower Greenville, penniless yet excitable, he's the most articulate I've ever known him to be in this state. Or maybe it's simply the fact of my own state, which is quite similar, commenting on his, filling in the blanks. Articulating automatically that which is in fact, not articulate at all.
We stop at the light on Live Oak and Munger and I start laughing for no particular reason. I feel light headed and nothing seems to have any weight about it. No solid, tangible qualities. This compels me to muse about the red hand commanding us to not walk. That we should just fuckin' cross because it's not like the red hand is really an authority. It is an inanimate object which must defer its very existence to our animate dominion.
“Now,” I reason. “One can argue that the hand is a symbol, suggestive of the authority of our governing body, which has so decreed that the only way for our streets to function is to force everyone to take turns getting from one point to another and to defy said decree can lead to many an unfortunate result. Like getting ticketed or being hit by a car, etc..”
Strange looks at me and the light goes green. We step into the street with faltering steps. “All that talking while you could’ve been walking,” he says, shaking his head.
“And why didn’t you go ahead and cross?”
“Because I wanted to hear your drunken bullshit. It’s only fair. You listened to mine.”
“That’s very sweet of you.”
“You’re the cautious one. I just walk. Those lights and signs are suggestions to me at all times. Not just when I’m drunk. You preach to the choir.”
“We do that all time with each other. Things like this, we fuckin’ agree.”
Lower Greenville, from this distance, seems fairly dead. With this in mind it should also be noted that it’s a Sunday night. We’ve crossed over to the east, northbound traffic side of Munger. There’s a big church to our right. Some mornings homeless folk can be found sleeping in the stairwells and in the grass near the back of the church. On the other side of the street is a quiet park with benches and picnic tables and 90’s style playground (plastic) equipment. During the day, it’s a family friendly gathering place. At night, old men partake in brown bag dinners on the benches. This is Strange’s vocabulary. He admits he has himself been guilty of this (see: routine). After work he'd pick up a forty across the street at the Valero and stop at the park en route to this apartment on Swiss. The one he’d roomed in with Danger.
Munger has turned into Greenville Ave. and we’re coming up on a deserted strip of former bars and clubs that now seem little more than obstructions due to the great difficulty of walking the sidewalks that border them. Ferns, pines and other flora protrude in vivid color, with the slight suggestion of something approaching zest, into the walkway, daring passersby to brave the gauntlet. After all, to get across to Lower Greenville, it’s impossible to avoid. Unless one drives or jaywalks.
We do neither. Nor. At least not normally.
The reason the northbound traffic side is easier is because of the nature of the intersection ahead. Ross and Greenville Aves. both fork at odd angles; Ross peals slightly southeastward while Greenville goes northeast. This leaves a blind spot on the corner of the southbound traffic side of the intersection.
There is a white sign with a crude pictograph representing a peripatetic human of some sort surrounded like a child in a bubble by a red circle with a line (of same color) slicing through the human depiction-- the universal symbol of negation-- on the north side of Ross in front of a small taco stand. No Pedestrian Crossing.
We are now crossing Ross onto Lower Greenville. Passing a tattoo parlor, Strange fumbles with his cell phone. He punches a button and puts it to his ear. He’s trying to reach Danger, I assume.
For some reason I’m thinking of Kundera’s euphoniously titled Unbearable Lightness of Being. Saying it over and over in my head. I like it. It sounds elegiac. Poetic. I’ve never read the damn thing, but the title alone is enough to merit a read one of these days. And I laugh. I’m laughing because the “lightness of being” I am currently experiencing is anything but unbearable. It is euphoric.
The Euphoric Lightness of Being.
I say it aloud as we approach Revolution ‘59. New Edition’s Candy Girl can be heard distinctively as people pass through the doors and onto the sidewalk or vice-versa: from the sidewalk up to the bar. For the longest I had assumed that it was a Jackson 5 tune. The guy outside the door asks us for our ID’s. We oblige and without incident or even comment, are ushered in.
“This is my kind of place,” Strange shouts to me over the music. It’s empty, but revolutionary paraphernalia abounds. The prevalent ubiquity of Ernesto “Che” Guevara-Lynch manifests itself rather forcefully and prosaically; the famous mural made t-shirt design for young pretenders everywhere to express their suburban/urban haute discontent. Hell Yeah (Pimp the System) by Dead Prez kicks in and I begin to nod my head with the beat as M-1 and stic.man begin invoking ‘hoods and cities in much the same manner epic poets of yore would invoke muses.
“I like this song,” I say. “But there’s a reason this place is empty.” I point to the sign.
Strange gives the sign a glance and then walks up to the bar. I follow. The tender has an undie mag. splayed out on the counter before him. He’s chewing gum and there’s a sharpened pencil tucked between his head and the soft fold of his right ear. From the looks of the magazine, he’s been giving the models moustaches and shit.
“What’s with the prices?” Strange strains his voice over the music.
“The prices?”
“Yeah. The prices. Who can afford this?”
The guy just looks at him. “I don’t fuckin’ know, man. I don’t set the prices, I just charge them.”
“And what kind of tips do you stand to garner?” I slur.
“Huh?”
“Nothing,” I shout.
The guy looks at me and then at Strange and then points to me. “I’m not serving him. He’s drunk off his ass.” I am not bothering to defend myself. I start for the door. Yes, I’m feeling it. The whiskey. The beer. Taking its toll. “The only thing revolutionary about those specials is how fucking expensive they are!” I shout. Strange grabs me and we head for the exit.
“Yo! Yo Strange!” I blather as we crash out the door together. “What is big, dumb, and less punk than Punky Brewster?”
He laughs. I stumble and point to Steve, who I see across the street. “That gargantuan motherfucker right there! Hey Steve! Steve! Stevie! Hey man, don’t hurt me, alright. I’m afraid of the pain. That, and if you slug me in the gut, I swear I’ll puke all over your pansy ass shoes.”
“He’s a dumb fuck, Steve, but don’t hit him,” Strange says.
“Wait a minute,” I say, really feeling the liquor hit my brain. “Hey Steve, man. I’m sorry, but I was thinking about Kundera earlier and... ever read that guy? Me neither, but I was inspired to write a story. Yeah, it’s called “The Unbearable Stench of Steve the Closeted Homosexual.”
He laughs. “You’re real funny, man. Look, I could beat you six ways to Sunday, but it won’t change the fact that you’re a broke fucking loser that needs to learn some self composure.”
“Composure? Oh, look at this Adam. Look! This fucking guy! Where’d you learn to talk like that Steve? Hey, I got a book for you to read...”
Strange smacks me.
“Shut the fuck up, man!”
I wake up at the bar where Danger works. Steve is smiling at me. I look at my phone. The digital clock in the corner of the tiny glowing screen says 12:53. I groan and ask Steve what happened. He leans in and tells me that he didn’t beat me up or I’d be in a hospital having my stomach pumped to retrieve my own teeth. I rub my head and fake a laugh. I tell him that I’m drunk as shit. He puts a beer in front of me. Says I’m on Danger’s tab.
“Can I get a shot of whiskey after this?”
“Don’t push your luck.”
I sit back in my chair and sip the beer. It’s a light beer of some sort and tastes like shit. Just as I begin to wonder where Strange has gotten off to, I get a text. In typical Strange fashion, it’s brief.
Seeing Danger for the first time in a few weeks, all I could think was to ask if he had any white pony. As we’re exchanging pleasantries, I out with it, and he looks at me very seriously and says, “No fucking way would I ever sell to you.” I laugh and thank him for the drinks. He says “no problem, brother. Any time,” and quickly cuts over to a girl he knows. Or doesn’t know.
The MILF looking lady nursing a neon colored cocktail next to me has a cig in her mouth and is looking through her purse for a lighter. I unsteadily flash mine in front of her. She inserts the tip of the cancer stick into the orange part of the flame and makes an audible sucking noise as she takes in the fume. In this process, her cheeks deflate against the bone structure of her face. I ask her if I can have one and she shoves her pack against my elbow, now digging into the counter.
Lighting my cigarette, I attempt to start conversation with her, but she tells me there’s a group waiting for her, and picks up her purse and cocktail and slides off the chair. Fuck it, I say to myself and knock back the rest of the beer.
©Patrick Patterson-Carroll (2009)
By Patrick Patterson-Carroll
The phone is ringing. Shit. Strange is expecting a call from a possible future employer and I'm supposed to pretend that I run a small mom and pop pizza shop; as a reference. Or something. The details were never clear, so the assumption is that he expects me to come up with something believable. Because the truth is that he is an employer's worst nightmare. He's flighty. He quits jobs and doesn't say shit to the people in charge. Leaves other hapless paeans in his wake; hanging, as it were. When questioned, he simply shrugs and calls himself a proletarian nomad.
Dilemma. Why? Because I'm beating my fucking meat, that's why. I stop and reach for my phone. The display is a number that is not logged in my SIM card. It suddenly stops ringing. The display reads that I have a missed call. No shit.
I regain my masturbatory mindset, gradually pacing myself back into a good frictional momentum, pumping my fist into my crotch quickly while the images on my laptop monitor provide me with the appropriate visual stimuli.
When I finally spill some seed into my hand, the phone rings again. I reach across my body with my left hand for the phone. My arm, however, isn't that long, so I have to slightly dip myself into the crevice of the couch made by the convergence of cushions in order to pick up the phone, which itself is resting in the fault line created by the middle cushion and the far right cushion. I can feel the semen that has oozed between the head of my cock and fingers getting cold.
Looking at the display, I see that it's the same number as before. This person is unrelenting. I press the green 'go' button and put the phone to my ear. "This is Benny Salvatore; Benny and Vinny's Pizza, whadduya want?” There is a silence here. Then:
“Hello... um... I’m calling regarding an applicant. Um... an Adam Rodriguez.”
“Oh yeah? Haven’t seen him in a month.”
“Well, I’m a manager at Profit Bar. We like to screen our applicants for references. What can you say about Mr. Rodriguez?”
“Who?”
“Uh... Adam Rodriguez.”
“Oh. Called himself Strange. Good guy. Can‘t usually trust Mexicans, so that‘s saying something. My brother Vinny hated him, though. His friends were obnoxious drunk fuckers, always come in and hit on all the lady patrons. But he worked harder than anyone, and if my brother wasn’t such a pussy, the kid’d still be working for us.”
“Oh. Well... um... thanks a lot... Mr. ... ?”
“Salvatore.”
The guy hangs up and between a dial tone and the cold, disgusting bodily excretion seemingly gluing together my flaccid cock and my fist, I feel very silly. I can’t believe I actually did the Italian American accent. I know it probably sounded fake and awful, but fuck it, I think I scared that guy shitless.
I go into the bathroom and wash my hands and my dick and begin searching for clothes that smell clean. My Nirvana shirt is on the floor. I pick it up and smell it. Nothing discernibly foul, and from looks, besides a few wrinkles, it’s good. I pull it on and then cover the lower half of my body with a horrendously ripped up pair of jeans.
While doing vanity exercises in front of my bathroom mirror, I feel the sudden urge to laugh at myself. In the past, girls have accused me of being more obsessed with my appearance than their younger teenage sisters. I laugh and say aloud to myself that they were right.
I hear the front door open. It’s Strange. He calls out. “Marco!” “Polo!” I echo back.
I see his head peek into the bathroom. He asks me what’s up. I tell him he got a call from Profit Bar. He smiles. I follow him into the living room. He says he has good news. I see a bottle of whiskey and a bottle of vodka on the table. Both 750 ml. The whiskey is Jameson. The vodka is something that I know he picked up for less than 10$.
“Well. My mom is throwing me some money. Grudgingly. So I can get a place.”
“Awesome,” I say.
“Yes. I feel kind of dirty. Like a middle class suburban bitch.”
“Anyone would take the money. Guilt free. They’re liars if they scream otherwise. Hell, even I can admit that my dad will probably drop me a few pounds this week.”
“Yeah,” he says. “Help me find a place around here. No Upper E shit, though. It’s only $500.”
We decide to “think efficiency.” Yes. It’s like living in a closet, but it’s better than sleeping in parks or beneath underpasses. “I might do that just for inspiration,” he says, laughing. We sit on the right and left cushions of the couch, staring into the wall ahead. He says that I should do something with my empty, boring wall.
"What? Knock it out? No thanks. I'd rather get drunk and pretend there's shit on the walls than have to look directly out into that nightmarish still life called ‘the porch‘ by management even though it is undoubtedly a courtyard."
"All I'm saying," Strange says, cracking open the bottle of vodka. "Is that arty renditions of naked women might spruce shit up some."
“That explains why your place was always so boner inducing despite the lack of promise...” I trail off.
Thoughts are conjuring themselves in my mind. I laugh. We both laugh. Drinking, passing back and forth the bottled spirits. But then I tell him that the truth is that that kind of stimulation is bad for me. Yes. It’s enough that I jerk off to internet porn as much as I do. I mean, shit. I can’t even operate without the imagery provided by my open laptop.
The days of rubbing one out in the shower or laying in bed, legs akimbo, blowing loads onto my stomach or fucking seldom worn dress socks are quite past me. There is a challenge-- a certain sacrament-- in having to push some buttons and wait for a wireless network I can surf and wank to ejaculatory glory. Walls adorned with fleshy feminine shapes would give me an ease of mental access that left zero room for ritual.
Strange lights a cigarette and leers at me a little. He laughs uncomfortably. We both do. All is quiet. The white wall ahead watches over our gluttonous imbibing, over my revealing revelation.
And amidst the quietude of the abated mirth-- discomfited as it was-- and through a gulp of whiskey straight from the bottle, I say, "So yeah, the Profit Bar called about references for 'Adam Rodriguez.' I pretended to be this transplanted New Yorker named Benny Salvatore. I think I scared the guy, but he might call, so just a heads up."
"Ha, he bought it?"
"Yeah. I even added that bigoted Italian American thing. You know, where they hate immigrants and minorities and shit."
“Cool.”
I ask him if he got anywhere with Vanessa. He says no. Not at all. I say that I had a dream that they were fucking in a VW. “She has a Kia Rio,” he says. “They started out making bikes,” I say, getting up. I go into my room and shuffle through a pile of books. I pick up Strange’s book.
He turns to watch me bring the book around the table and plop myself into the cushions of the couch. I grab the whiskey, throw back a gulp or two and then flip through the book. The cover is somewhat bent because it was jammed, sandwich-like, between two other books. Something called, A Freudian Interpretation of Dreams and Debord’s Panegyric. The only thing I remember about the former was a six page explanation about the significance of a silken white glove in dreams. Hint: it’s sexual. Debord’s book is a postmodern memoir of sorts. I remember some stuff about how he likes women. Other than that, all I can say is that the pictures are cool.
“What are you doing?”
“There’s a passage in your book that my dream reminded me of,” I say.
Of course, there was nothing exact about the relation between my dream and his book, except that in both cases there is this weird tunneling through of the REM wall that separates actual sleep from the environs in which said sleep takes place. There is certainly a scientific phrase for this phenomena, but fuck if I know what it is.
Anyway, when Strange took off with Vanessa, the idea of them walking to her car made me dream of walking. The previously built up sexual tension without release set up the vaginal and sexual imagery; a manifestation of a theoretical continuation due largely to my failure, in reality, to perform ’neath and ’twixt the sheets.
In the book, there’s a bit, which I begin reading aloud to him, where the narrator is dreaming through a haze of a malt liquor and marijuana that his female roommate is sitting naked, sweating, talking to him about her mother who has a parrot that says things like “fuck me! fuck me real hard!” and he questions her as to whether or not she taught the parrot to say it as a practical joke on her mother and she says, “are you kidding? I’m too much of a stoner to take the necessary time for that. My mom fucks all the teenage acne-faced boys in the neighborhood.” The narrator of course stirs himself awake, his underwear heavy against his flesh with perspiration, and realizes that his roommate is fucking her boyfriend in the adjoining room, screaming “fuck me! fuck me real hard!”
“My question, dear Adam, is where the fuck did the parrot come from?” I ask, laughingly, closing the book and swigging on the bottle of whiskey.
“When I was writing it I had this great tat mag that had a pullout section dedicated to tattoos of exotic animals, and this very beautiful girl had a huge tattoo of a macaw on her back. Amazing coloring. It seemed like something funny and interesting at the time.”
We sit around and continue to drink. It’s dark outside. Strange pulls out a piece of paper and hands it to me. I look at it. It’s a phone number. “Vanessa?” Yes. Vanessa. I crumple up the paper and toss it into the kitchen.
Inundated by a wave of spontaneity, he asks me if I want to walk down to Lower Greenville. I think about it briefly. We’re obviously more than a little drunk (hence the rashness). I say yes. Fuck it! Let’s do it. I stand to my feet, salute Strange, and take another nip of whiskey. Both bottles are dangerously low on liquids.
Even in our soused stupor, we realize that we’ll have to empty our pockets to see for ourselves that between us (remember I am flat broke) we have about $1.69, which isn’t enough to buy shit. At least not at bars on Lower Greenville.
Placing ourselves gently, in concurrent motion, back onto the couch, we sip at the remnants of the bottles, Strange with the vodka, and me with the whiskey. Then we swap.
“Well,” I start. “We’re already pretty lit, wouldn’t you say?” He nods. “Well then, lets just head out and see where the night takes us.”
“Could be promising,” he adds, belching loudly.
Outside the air is neither humid nor arid. This balance is somewhat staggering because it has been hot and dry of late. A beautiful, timely surprise really, especially with the warmth in our guts and heat on our faces due to the alcohol consumption. There is a breeze roving over from what feels like a northwesterly direction. It feels amazing. We begin our stumble through the parking lot toward Munger Ave.
Thoughtlessly, we drop trou in the alley and release some fluids against the newly erected wooden fence. No one sees us and we continue northbound on Munger. Strange starts talking about some of his ideas in relation to my blog. He wants us to collaborate on a massive happening campaign involving city council members, black dildos and jail time, if necessary.
“Think of it. Like... live art.”
“Spontaneous!” I shout.
“Kind of. I mean, it’s planned.”
“Calculated.”
“Yes! I mean, fuck city council. Look at our black leaders. Look at them! They throw around allegations of racism like they’re paid to do it, and then they run out any and everyone who might be willing to help the predominantly black neighborhoods that they represent yet don’t even live in! They do more harm than good.”
We cross Swiss Ave.. Without bothering to question or assume a position of “devil’s advocacy,“ I allow Strange to continue his drunken inveighing unabated as we pass the quiet mansions on the corners. It’s about giving voice to voiceless people, he insists. Because they vote for the representation who they assume, due to racial similarity (which is an interesting fallacy; hear: What’s Beef? by Black Star [Kweli and Mos Def]), will represent them justly and fight for their best interests, and what they get out of it is fuck all.
“So here, here’s your black dildo Mr. Councilman. You like to fuck your own constituents, here! Here’s an object with which to actually do it!”
This unusual grammatical precision, combined with uncharacteristically coherent annunciation makes me laugh. Normally he's very disjoint and unfocused in his drunken proclamations. As most are-- more so than most. In extreme cases, his language will devolve into grunting and other slurs of the tongue. But right now, as we trek toward Lower Greenville, penniless yet excitable, he's the most articulate I've ever known him to be in this state. Or maybe it's simply the fact of my own state, which is quite similar, commenting on his, filling in the blanks. Articulating automatically that which is in fact, not articulate at all.
We stop at the light on Live Oak and Munger and I start laughing for no particular reason. I feel light headed and nothing seems to have any weight about it. No solid, tangible qualities. This compels me to muse about the red hand commanding us to not walk. That we should just fuckin' cross because it's not like the red hand is really an authority. It is an inanimate object which must defer its very existence to our animate dominion.
“Now,” I reason. “One can argue that the hand is a symbol, suggestive of the authority of our governing body, which has so decreed that the only way for our streets to function is to force everyone to take turns getting from one point to another and to defy said decree can lead to many an unfortunate result. Like getting ticketed or being hit by a car, etc..”
Strange looks at me and the light goes green. We step into the street with faltering steps. “All that talking while you could’ve been walking,” he says, shaking his head.
“And why didn’t you go ahead and cross?”
“Because I wanted to hear your drunken bullshit. It’s only fair. You listened to mine.”
“That’s very sweet of you.”
“You’re the cautious one. I just walk. Those lights and signs are suggestions to me at all times. Not just when I’m drunk. You preach to the choir.”
“We do that all time with each other. Things like this, we fuckin’ agree.”
Lower Greenville, from this distance, seems fairly dead. With this in mind it should also be noted that it’s a Sunday night. We’ve crossed over to the east, northbound traffic side of Munger. There’s a big church to our right. Some mornings homeless folk can be found sleeping in the stairwells and in the grass near the back of the church. On the other side of the street is a quiet park with benches and picnic tables and 90’s style playground (plastic) equipment. During the day, it’s a family friendly gathering place. At night, old men partake in brown bag dinners on the benches. This is Strange’s vocabulary. He admits he has himself been guilty of this (see: routine). After work he'd pick up a forty across the street at the Valero and stop at the park en route to this apartment on Swiss. The one he’d roomed in with Danger.
Munger has turned into Greenville Ave. and we’re coming up on a deserted strip of former bars and clubs that now seem little more than obstructions due to the great difficulty of walking the sidewalks that border them. Ferns, pines and other flora protrude in vivid color, with the slight suggestion of something approaching zest, into the walkway, daring passersby to brave the gauntlet. After all, to get across to Lower Greenville, it’s impossible to avoid. Unless one drives or jaywalks.
We do neither. Nor. At least not normally.
The reason the northbound traffic side is easier is because of the nature of the intersection ahead. Ross and Greenville Aves. both fork at odd angles; Ross peals slightly southeastward while Greenville goes northeast. This leaves a blind spot on the corner of the southbound traffic side of the intersection.
There is a white sign with a crude pictograph representing a peripatetic human of some sort surrounded like a child in a bubble by a red circle with a line (of same color) slicing through the human depiction-- the universal symbol of negation-- on the north side of Ross in front of a small taco stand. No Pedestrian Crossing.
We are now crossing Ross onto Lower Greenville. Passing a tattoo parlor, Strange fumbles with his cell phone. He punches a button and puts it to his ear. He’s trying to reach Danger, I assume.
For some reason I’m thinking of Kundera’s euphoniously titled Unbearable Lightness of Being. Saying it over and over in my head. I like it. It sounds elegiac. Poetic. I’ve never read the damn thing, but the title alone is enough to merit a read one of these days. And I laugh. I’m laughing because the “lightness of being” I am currently experiencing is anything but unbearable. It is euphoric.
The Euphoric Lightness of Being.
I say it aloud as we approach Revolution ‘59. New Edition’s Candy Girl can be heard distinctively as people pass through the doors and onto the sidewalk or vice-versa: from the sidewalk up to the bar. For the longest I had assumed that it was a Jackson 5 tune. The guy outside the door asks us for our ID’s. We oblige and without incident or even comment, are ushered in.
“This is my kind of place,” Strange shouts to me over the music. It’s empty, but revolutionary paraphernalia abounds. The prevalent ubiquity of Ernesto “Che” Guevara-Lynch manifests itself rather forcefully and prosaically; the famous mural made t-shirt design for young pretenders everywhere to express their suburban/urban haute discontent. Hell Yeah (Pimp the System) by Dead Prez kicks in and I begin to nod my head with the beat as M-1 and stic.man begin invoking ‘hoods and cities in much the same manner epic poets of yore would invoke muses.
“I like this song,” I say. “But there’s a reason this place is empty.” I point to the sign.
Revolutionary Specials:
Draughts (Dom.)-- $4.50
Draughts (Foreign)-- $6.50
Bottles-- $3.50
Well drinks-- $4.50
Strange gives the sign a glance and then walks up to the bar. I follow. The tender has an undie mag. splayed out on the counter before him. He’s chewing gum and there’s a sharpened pencil tucked between his head and the soft fold of his right ear. From the looks of the magazine, he’s been giving the models moustaches and shit.
“What’s with the prices?” Strange strains his voice over the music.
“The prices?”
“Yeah. The prices. Who can afford this?”
The guy just looks at him. “I don’t fuckin’ know, man. I don’t set the prices, I just charge them.”
“And what kind of tips do you stand to garner?” I slur.
“Huh?”
“Nothing,” I shout.
The guy looks at me and then at Strange and then points to me. “I’m not serving him. He’s drunk off his ass.” I am not bothering to defend myself. I start for the door. Yes, I’m feeling it. The whiskey. The beer. Taking its toll. “The only thing revolutionary about those specials is how fucking expensive they are!” I shout. Strange grabs me and we head for the exit.
“Yo! Yo Strange!” I blather as we crash out the door together. “What is big, dumb, and less punk than Punky Brewster?”
He laughs. I stumble and point to Steve, who I see across the street. “That gargantuan motherfucker right there! Hey Steve! Steve! Stevie! Hey man, don’t hurt me, alright. I’m afraid of the pain. That, and if you slug me in the gut, I swear I’ll puke all over your pansy ass shoes.”
“He’s a dumb fuck, Steve, but don’t hit him,” Strange says.
“Wait a minute,” I say, really feeling the liquor hit my brain. “Hey Steve, man. I’m sorry, but I was thinking about Kundera earlier and... ever read that guy? Me neither, but I was inspired to write a story. Yeah, it’s called “The Unbearable Stench of Steve the Closeted Homosexual.”
He laughs. “You’re real funny, man. Look, I could beat you six ways to Sunday, but it won’t change the fact that you’re a broke fucking loser that needs to learn some self composure.”
“Composure? Oh, look at this Adam. Look! This fucking guy! Where’d you learn to talk like that Steve? Hey, I got a book for you to read...”
Strange smacks me.
“Shut the fuck up, man!”
I wake up at the bar where Danger works. Steve is smiling at me. I look at my phone. The digital clock in the corner of the tiny glowing screen says 12:53. I groan and ask Steve what happened. He leans in and tells me that he didn’t beat me up or I’d be in a hospital having my stomach pumped to retrieve my own teeth. I rub my head and fake a laugh. I tell him that I’m drunk as shit. He puts a beer in front of me. Says I’m on Danger’s tab.
“Can I get a shot of whiskey after this?”
“Don’t push your luck.”
I sit back in my chair and sip the beer. It’s a light beer of some sort and tastes like shit. Just as I begin to wonder where Strange has gotten off to, I get a text. In typical Strange fashion, it’s brief.
With a cute pnk girl. See ya tomorrow.
Seeing Danger for the first time in a few weeks, all I could think was to ask if he had any white pony. As we’re exchanging pleasantries, I out with it, and he looks at me very seriously and says, “No fucking way would I ever sell to you.” I laugh and thank him for the drinks. He says “no problem, brother. Any time,” and quickly cuts over to a girl he knows. Or doesn’t know.
The MILF looking lady nursing a neon colored cocktail next to me has a cig in her mouth and is looking through her purse for a lighter. I unsteadily flash mine in front of her. She inserts the tip of the cancer stick into the orange part of the flame and makes an audible sucking noise as she takes in the fume. In this process, her cheeks deflate against the bone structure of her face. I ask her if I can have one and she shoves her pack against my elbow, now digging into the counter.
Lighting my cigarette, I attempt to start conversation with her, but she tells me there’s a group waiting for her, and picks up her purse and cocktail and slides off the chair. Fuck it, I say to myself and knock back the rest of the beer.
©Patrick Patterson-Carroll (2009)
20.9.09
Flâneur Fiction: "Detouring Vol. 4"
“Detouring Vol. 4”
By Patrick Patterson-Carroll
I smell tobacco smoke as I awaken, eyes blinking rapidly, the hangover screaming at my ears like a nagging, self-righteous mother giving me the “what-for.” Sitting up, I hear noises in the living room, amplified by my condition, banging around dolorously in my head. A familiar heavy-set figure appears in the doorway.
“You’re awake!” says she, stating the obvious as people with pretensions to humor in situations embarrassing to anyone but themselves tend to do.
“Yeah, I’m awake.”
“You were unable to perform last night.”
“Who are you, again?”
She’s telling me that we met at the party on Live Oak last night. I know that. My last memory of her was watching her vomit into the shrubbery. Strange appears in the door behind her and laughs at me.
“I have all kinds of fucked up pictures of you.”
“That’s not surprising,” I say, lifting myself from the mattress. “Why the fucking congregation in my living room?”
"Trying to figure out how it was exactly that Jesus turned water into wine... and how it relates to our salvation."
Further, Strange explains that he tried to tell the heavy-set girl (note: in vol. 3 referred to as chubby) that these sort of sleep-ins were normal for people who binge on a regular basis, and that her response was that one day these kinds of binges lead to death; so they were discussing what to do in the event that I were to either stop breathing or begin vomiting. Naturally, they then go into a debate on whether or not I should be on my back or on my stomach while I sleep the sleep of the most devout of Dionysian devotees (my metaphor, not his).
I laugh and pick myself up; dizzy. My posture is, of course, a feint. I definitely want to stagger. To fall, even. But I have a reputation of hard drinking stamina to uphold. And all I can manage is to blurt out, “If you’ll both excuse me, I have to piss.”
My stomach is rumbling as the piss streams from the tip of my dick and into the bowl below me. I will probably end up on my knees, puking into it before all is said and done. I am not too proud, no. I figure that Strange has enough to lord over me as regards my escapades, and the heavy-set girl, well, she’s already made it clear she’s a novice when it comes to the ingestion of spirits; no, I simply didn’t want to fall from my bed directly onto my face, and I certainly didn’t want to crawl into the bathroom.
I tuck my penis back into the fold of my boxers and kneel to the throne. The tingle moves from my stomach and into my throat. The hairs on the back of my neck are raised, and I’m retching, even going so far as to shove my fingers into my mouth in an attempt to precipitate regurgitation. This works. By now I’m used to this sort of thing. I’m not accustomed to this activity in the same way that young women who counteract their binges with purges are, but I do have a liver that is dreaming of the day I become an ascetic teetotaler. Dream a little dream, dear liver.
Strange sips on a beer in the kitchen. No doubt it is the last one. I say nothing. I reach over him and into the cupboard for a glass. He says there’s no ice. It’s okay. I run tap water into the glass and chug it down. The heavy-set girl whose name is Vanessa comments on the fact of my dehydration with an annoying upward inflection indicative of a question, failing just as miserably in her second attempt at humor as she did in the first. I ask her if she’s always this poignant in her observational routines. This doesn’t register. I fill the glass again, gulp down more water and then set the glass noisily into the sink.
All three of us sit on the couch, smoking. Vanessa smells good. I think she may have used my shower. But it could be Strange. He’s finished his beer and is now peeling his jeans away from his crotch. Vanessa comments on this as typical male behavior. I’m starting to worry that sweet beautiful silence may never spend the day (or night) here again.
“So. Last night,” she says. Strange forces a chuckle.
“What about it?” I ask.
“I wanted to have sex, and you were too drunk.”
“It’s called whiskey dick.”
She asks me how old I am and if I see a proctologist regularly. I say that I’m twenty-five and that I don’t know. Turning the table, I ask her how often she sees her gynecologist. She says that she doesn’t because she has no healthcare.
“Fucking Republicans,” Strange interjects. “Those motherfuckers think everyone should bow down to their fucking OTB scam. ’Here insurance company, here’s my monthly fee, because I just KNOW that I’m going to get sick!’ I say FUCK MIDDLEMEN.”
“OTB means off-track betting. I think it has to do with horse racing,” I say.
“Huh?”
“OTB just doesn’t make sense, though I get the comparison. Sort of. I think.”
Vanessa is silent for a change as me and Strange banter back and forth. We are carrying on to the point where I know that I will have to pull out my laptop. And we’ll have to Google the term OTB. My assumption will be proven correct and he will concede victory to me. I will smoke a victory cig and then take Vanessa back into my room and do to her what I should’ve done last night.
However, the most that this will ever be is a fantastical succession of possible events lazing around in the back of my mind while I’m trying to convince Strange that it isn’t a big deal. Which is exactly what I’m trying to do. I’m telling him that I agree with the premise, it’s just that I’m not sure if the metaphor is apt. And does it matter? Not really. The point is that her asking me about my proctologic history is neither here nor there. It has nothing to do with the fact that I couldn’t get an erection. I’m not forty.
“Is it because I’m not skinny?”
“No,” I say. “I don’t care about that. I’m telling you, there is a ceiling to what you can do while being heavily intoxicated.”
“It sucks," Strange adds, "Lady Liquor can be a bitch like that. Sometimes she just wants to be the only lady in a guy's life."
I motion an "amen" in his direction. Always a good wingman. Vanessa stands up and gives us each "once-overs," finally demanding that I take her to my room and finish the job. After some laughter, I tell her to go and get ready. She smiles, curtseys to us both and runs into my room, slamming the door behind her.
"Got a condom?" I ask him.
He laughs.
"What happened last night?”
"You started giving girls piggy-back rides. Then guys. "
“That’s hilarious.”
"Oh, don’t doubt it, asshole. I have pictures. So you can Google it later, motherfucker."
Then he shows me the pictures. Photographic evidence of my much heralded stupidity. Yes, I’ve heard the stories. But this is the first time any real visuals have been provided. Pictures of me rolling around on the wooden floor, spilt liquor mixing with the dirt from peoples shoes, leaving colorful streaks; me licking it up. There’re pics of me hanging my dick out of my jeans while wearing the shittiest of shit-eating-grins on my face. Tousled hair. Slideshows of me lip-locking with every girl whose personal space I could charm/drunkenly invade my way into. A fat guy sitting across my back, likely the result of a piggy-back ride gone awry.
“Could’ve been worse,” Strange says, commiserating. “Could’ve been caught giving that guy’s asshole a moustache ride.”
“I wasn’t talking about how ‘throwed’ I was, was I?”
From his grin I deduce an affirmative answer. Fuck. The best one, he says, is the one he didn’t get. But everyone was talking about it.
“You pulled down your pants and took a shit in the bush.”
“That’s too bad. I would’ve gotten you a frame for that one.”
My social M.O. might not preclude benders and awkward sexual encounters at gatherings, but it doesn't normally include shitting in shrubberies. This most isolated of incidents could've been the result of anything. Perhaps in my clouded perception of things, I was expressing boredom. Boredom with routine. Partying, a routine in many circles, combines the same elements (with some variation) but coalesces different perceptive expectations. The good time vs. the bad time. Inebriation vs. sobriety. Sex vs. a landscape of copulative aridity due to a great many of variables: A gender ratio skewed in favor of the opposite sex/sexual orientation, one's own finicky aesthetic tastes, one's own displeasing aesthetic appearance, a lack or over-abundance of liquor (as per lack: causing one to be more inhibited, discerning; as per abundance: causing an inability to perform, sexually, socially), or more likely, one's unpleasant attitude; anything may or may not happen because the cut and dry is that routines can be planned, outcomes cannot. When I decided to step onto that property, it was to get drunk, talk a loud load of shit about journalism and literature and film, and maybe make out with/offend women (beautiful and not-so-beautiful alike), but I had no idea that things would end with a scatological act. To quote the hipster art gallery guy I once interviewed: “Totally fuckin’ drunken DADA, man.”
I didn’t want to break the man’s heart, but the qualifier cancelled out the word it qualified.
I enter my room and Vanessa is spot reading of the books that was laying on the floor. I ask if she’s enjoying what she’s perusing. She says yeah, because it’s straight up porno. I feel like maybe discussing the finer points of Henry Miller with her, but realize that that sort of endeavor would be comparable to me climbing the Himalayas. I.e., fucking impossible. “Yes,” I agree. Total porno. No substance whatever. But I enjoy it. I begin to climb onto the bed, but she commands that I bathe myself because she doesn’t want to be turned off by the pukey, shitty smell of my person.
“The hot water is out of commission,” I say, lying. Of course, she doesn’t believe me and checks for herself. Her suspicions are confirmed and she says that if I don’t want to fuck her all I have to say is I don’t. I argue that I don’t see the point in showering to do something dirty. It’s counterproductive, and more than that, as senseless as demanding that a girl shower pre-cunnilingus.
“But... you stink,” she insists.
So I climb into the shower, turn on the spout, and let the water rinse over me. The previous night’s should-be regrets circle the drain. I wash everything thoroughly. My nether-regions have never been so clean! Clean to the point that I start thinking to myself that there's a possibility that what I figured was a really bad tan was actually just an accumulation of dirt and grime due to my inconsistent showering habits.
Toweling myself off, I start to put on a fresh pair of boxers but reconsider. After all, I'm going to be naked anyway. Instead I cover the important parts in talcum powder and open the door. Vanessa is lying spread-eagled under the covers.
"You're clean," she says.
"And naked."
Underneath the covers we begin kissing. It doesn't last long because she realizes that I haven't brushed my teeth. She's just looking at me. Changing the subject of voiceless subtlety to the act at hand, I insert myself betwixt her thighs. She sighs and I begin to push dryly into her. We're both quietly discomfited. I try to get some juices flowing by grabbing her breasts and sensually squeezing and kissing them. But I can't keep from slobbering for some reason. As I expect, she tells me that it isn't working. Her breasts aren't that sensitive. At least not to loose saliva and poor hand technique.
"Well, I can't stay hard, anyway," I admit.
"Fuck it. I'll masturbate. Leave me be."
Strange is drinking a beer and eating some chicken. "You had money?"
"I didn't have money until I lifted this guy's wallet. Drunk. Loud. Talked way too much... what's that word you like to use?"
"Braggadocious.”
“Yeah, that’s it. Talked lots of shit. Found him passed out on a couch, ass pocket bulging. Snagged it easily. Only had about thirty bucks and a couple of credit cards. I wasn't so cruel, though. I left him his ID."
"I hope you bought beer for all of us."
He points to the fridge and mumbles something along the lines of "help yourself." I open the fridge and there are five beers left out of what was a six-pack of Modelo Especial sitting next to a carton of OJ and half a package of bacon. I grab a can and sit on the couch next to him. Steam escapes the lip of the can as I crack it open. As I begin my first sip, Strange asks me if I fucked her.
“No. She made me shower.”
“Oh. Yeah, you’re pretty fucking dirty.”
“I can be.”
“You shit in the bushes,” he says, sucking on a jalapeño. “It’s not illogical to assume that in the course of a drunken shit, you might forget to wipe your ass.”
Vanessa’s moans can be heard over the hum of the AC, which kicked on only minutes ago. Strange comments on the fact that I’m letting a strange girl pleasure herself on my bed.
“Well, I couldn’t get the job done.”
“Again? Shit. Let me do it.”
I’m not so sure that I want to confront seriously my manhood and its deficiencies, drunken or mental. Because I’m certain that I don’t suffer from ED. So certain in fact, that I am actually concerned. I’m too young, right? I’m not a drug addict-- booze and assorted pills, sometimes coke-- is that a factor? I’ll have to do some research on causes of ED, but I’m almost positive that I’m not a candidate. Vanessa emerges from my room with a satisfied countenance.
“Will one of you fine gentlemen walk me back to my car?”
“You have a car?” Strange asks. “I’ll walk you if you take me to the liquor store.”
“Sure,” she agrees.
Strange blows me a kiss as he and Vanessa head out the door. I finish the remaining gulps of my beer. The pack of cigs is next to my laptop on the coffee table. There are two left. I pull one out of the packet and light it. As I exhale, I follow the trails of nicotine fog as it floats away from me, gradually entering an oblivion that I couldn’t even begin to imagine to fathom. I continue smoking in the kitchen. Pacing somewhat, I take casual puffs of the cig between my fingers, talking to myself, wondering if the assholes at Artology are going to stick me with yet another bullshit interview. At this point, I’d rather do opinion pieces about the new DART Rail Station or the beloved Good-Latimer tunnel that no longer exists except on Flickr pages than interview hipper-than-thou gallery owners or up and coming artists who will say anything for cred even if it means subverting their own values which were clichéd or untenable at best to begin with.
I open the fridge and pull one of the beers out, tear into it and commence chugging. It’s all I know at this point. Because I always want to tell myself, to convince myself even, that I have so much integrity and that these artists, these gallery owners, they’re the problem. They aren’t taste making, they’re selling. They’re selling and they’re hoping we’ll buy. They aren’t out scouring the gutters or the schools for who has the most talent or promise; no, they want a gimmick and all that’s needed to drive gimmickry is ambition and a shit load of it.
But even that wasn’t true. I finish the beer and toss it into the sink. Open the fridge, pull out another and crack it open and chug. Now I have beer dripping from my chin hair and onto the floor. Some of it has gone down my neck, onto my chest, and down into my belly button. It wasn’t true because I know for a fact that given the first opportunity at some kind of exposure, I’d off and run with it. Simply put, one could say that I am a hypocrite. A hypocrite stewing in his own dearth of acclaim. A wannabe Thompson, Bangs, or Self, even more subtly, scholastically, a Robert Hughes at the height of his acerbic acuity, which he uses to deftly poke and prod at sanctified monuments of liberal and conservative thought alike. Shit, carving a niche of one's own becomes more and more of a depressing proposition the more one ponders it.
I finish the can and drop kick it into a corner of the living room. I go into the fridge and repeat the cycle. I’m beginning to wonder to myself if I should dispense with bad habits and sit down and write a novel or something. I’ve never really considered myself to be creative, even in my most calculated of deconstructive screeds against a great many artists and the like. There’s never been an afflatus to imagine or perceive in a manner befitting a writer or artist. But I’ve always been able to dissect, comment, and laud or pan or whatever. Quite effectively, in fact. Better than most other writers on the Artology staff. Putting aside the inherent silliness of astrology, as a Libra, I strive for balance. Even in my desperate toil for concision, I have been known to consult various thesauruses and lexicons when simple everyday vocabulary just doesn’t get the point home.
Then I start arguing with myself over the semantics of writing “professionally.” I’m getting mired in how to define objects and states, etc.. Such as: can one be a critic and still be creative with words? Should my Wordsmithery be viewed as an art or craft? Both? Art vs. Craft. Is one superior or do they exist on different planes of creation? And if so, do they ever converge? I’m drinking. I’m talking to myself. I’m half naked. Mostly naked, actually. I’m sporting wet hair and boxers. I finish the beer. I walk into the living room and pick up the pack of cigs, burrow my finger through the silver lining and extract the last cigarette. I put it to my mouth and light it. Maybe I should sleep, I say to myself.
Striding and puffing my way back into the kitchen, I open the fridge and peer in. One beer left. I decide to drink it because, fuck it, Strange is out getting liquor. Besides, my fridge, my fucking rules. I pull it out, crack the tab, and have my way with it. I drop the diminished cig into the can and set it in the sink with the other can I’d previously used and abused.
I throw myself onto the couch and close my eyes. After a time, I fall into a dream. A dream where I’m walking the streets of Dallas, hand in hand, with a flaccid, uncut, immaculately veined cock, seemingly representative of a map of the highways and byways of the Plastic City herself. And in front of me and this sad excuse for a member, an impossible to reach vagina, spread before us. The more we walk, the farther away the massive pudenda gets. I’m starting to sweat and so does the cock, accompanying this likewise perspiration an odorous emission of god knows what.
We walk. And we walk. Interminably, it seems. Briefly I awaken as a noise stirs me, but then I fall right back into the dream. Except now the vagina is draped in pubic hair in much the same way the old houses on Swiss Ave. are covered in twisting, verdant vinery. The penis now appears to me more rigid. Erect. Proud. Lacking that awful fancy dairy scent. This is better. This is more acceptable. We are walking east bound on Live Oak. We pass Strange and a fat girl, fucking in broad daylight in a luxury VW.
I shake myself from the reverie and sit up. My dick is poking out through the hole in my boxers. I stuff it back in, sit up, and realize that I’m bit light headed. I run into the bathroom and puke some more.
© Patrick Patterson-Carroll (2009)
By Patrick Patterson-Carroll
I smell tobacco smoke as I awaken, eyes blinking rapidly, the hangover screaming at my ears like a nagging, self-righteous mother giving me the “what-for.” Sitting up, I hear noises in the living room, amplified by my condition, banging around dolorously in my head. A familiar heavy-set figure appears in the doorway.
“You’re awake!” says she, stating the obvious as people with pretensions to humor in situations embarrassing to anyone but themselves tend to do.
“Yeah, I’m awake.”
“You were unable to perform last night.”
“Who are you, again?”
She’s telling me that we met at the party on Live Oak last night. I know that. My last memory of her was watching her vomit into the shrubbery. Strange appears in the door behind her and laughs at me.
“I have all kinds of fucked up pictures of you.”
“That’s not surprising,” I say, lifting myself from the mattress. “Why the fucking congregation in my living room?”
"Trying to figure out how it was exactly that Jesus turned water into wine... and how it relates to our salvation."
Further, Strange explains that he tried to tell the heavy-set girl (note: in vol. 3 referred to as chubby) that these sort of sleep-ins were normal for people who binge on a regular basis, and that her response was that one day these kinds of binges lead to death; so they were discussing what to do in the event that I were to either stop breathing or begin vomiting. Naturally, they then go into a debate on whether or not I should be on my back or on my stomach while I sleep the sleep of the most devout of Dionysian devotees (my metaphor, not his).
I laugh and pick myself up; dizzy. My posture is, of course, a feint. I definitely want to stagger. To fall, even. But I have a reputation of hard drinking stamina to uphold. And all I can manage is to blurt out, “If you’ll both excuse me, I have to piss.”
My stomach is rumbling as the piss streams from the tip of my dick and into the bowl below me. I will probably end up on my knees, puking into it before all is said and done. I am not too proud, no. I figure that Strange has enough to lord over me as regards my escapades, and the heavy-set girl, well, she’s already made it clear she’s a novice when it comes to the ingestion of spirits; no, I simply didn’t want to fall from my bed directly onto my face, and I certainly didn’t want to crawl into the bathroom.
I tuck my penis back into the fold of my boxers and kneel to the throne. The tingle moves from my stomach and into my throat. The hairs on the back of my neck are raised, and I’m retching, even going so far as to shove my fingers into my mouth in an attempt to precipitate regurgitation. This works. By now I’m used to this sort of thing. I’m not accustomed to this activity in the same way that young women who counteract their binges with purges are, but I do have a liver that is dreaming of the day I become an ascetic teetotaler. Dream a little dream, dear liver.
Strange sips on a beer in the kitchen. No doubt it is the last one. I say nothing. I reach over him and into the cupboard for a glass. He says there’s no ice. It’s okay. I run tap water into the glass and chug it down. The heavy-set girl whose name is Vanessa comments on the fact of my dehydration with an annoying upward inflection indicative of a question, failing just as miserably in her second attempt at humor as she did in the first. I ask her if she’s always this poignant in her observational routines. This doesn’t register. I fill the glass again, gulp down more water and then set the glass noisily into the sink.
All three of us sit on the couch, smoking. Vanessa smells good. I think she may have used my shower. But it could be Strange. He’s finished his beer and is now peeling his jeans away from his crotch. Vanessa comments on this as typical male behavior. I’m starting to worry that sweet beautiful silence may never spend the day (or night) here again.
“So. Last night,” she says. Strange forces a chuckle.
“What about it?” I ask.
“I wanted to have sex, and you were too drunk.”
“It’s called whiskey dick.”
She asks me how old I am and if I see a proctologist regularly. I say that I’m twenty-five and that I don’t know. Turning the table, I ask her how often she sees her gynecologist. She says that she doesn’t because she has no healthcare.
“Fucking Republicans,” Strange interjects. “Those motherfuckers think everyone should bow down to their fucking OTB scam. ’Here insurance company, here’s my monthly fee, because I just KNOW that I’m going to get sick!’ I say FUCK MIDDLEMEN.”
“OTB means off-track betting. I think it has to do with horse racing,” I say.
“Huh?”
“OTB just doesn’t make sense, though I get the comparison. Sort of. I think.”
Vanessa is silent for a change as me and Strange banter back and forth. We are carrying on to the point where I know that I will have to pull out my laptop. And we’ll have to Google the term OTB. My assumption will be proven correct and he will concede victory to me. I will smoke a victory cig and then take Vanessa back into my room and do to her what I should’ve done last night.
However, the most that this will ever be is a fantastical succession of possible events lazing around in the back of my mind while I’m trying to convince Strange that it isn’t a big deal. Which is exactly what I’m trying to do. I’m telling him that I agree with the premise, it’s just that I’m not sure if the metaphor is apt. And does it matter? Not really. The point is that her asking me about my proctologic history is neither here nor there. It has nothing to do with the fact that I couldn’t get an erection. I’m not forty.
“Is it because I’m not skinny?”
“No,” I say. “I don’t care about that. I’m telling you, there is a ceiling to what you can do while being heavily intoxicated.”
“It sucks," Strange adds, "Lady Liquor can be a bitch like that. Sometimes she just wants to be the only lady in a guy's life."
I motion an "amen" in his direction. Always a good wingman. Vanessa stands up and gives us each "once-overs," finally demanding that I take her to my room and finish the job. After some laughter, I tell her to go and get ready. She smiles, curtseys to us both and runs into my room, slamming the door behind her.
"Got a condom?" I ask him.
He laughs.
"What happened last night?”
"You started giving girls piggy-back rides. Then guys. "
“That’s hilarious.”
"Oh, don’t doubt it, asshole. I have pictures. So you can Google it later, motherfucker."
Then he shows me the pictures. Photographic evidence of my much heralded stupidity. Yes, I’ve heard the stories. But this is the first time any real visuals have been provided. Pictures of me rolling around on the wooden floor, spilt liquor mixing with the dirt from peoples shoes, leaving colorful streaks; me licking it up. There’re pics of me hanging my dick out of my jeans while wearing the shittiest of shit-eating-grins on my face. Tousled hair. Slideshows of me lip-locking with every girl whose personal space I could charm/drunkenly invade my way into. A fat guy sitting across my back, likely the result of a piggy-back ride gone awry.
“Could’ve been worse,” Strange says, commiserating. “Could’ve been caught giving that guy’s asshole a moustache ride.”
“I wasn’t talking about how ‘throwed’ I was, was I?”
From his grin I deduce an affirmative answer. Fuck. The best one, he says, is the one he didn’t get. But everyone was talking about it.
“You pulled down your pants and took a shit in the bush.”
“That’s too bad. I would’ve gotten you a frame for that one.”
My social M.O. might not preclude benders and awkward sexual encounters at gatherings, but it doesn't normally include shitting in shrubberies. This most isolated of incidents could've been the result of anything. Perhaps in my clouded perception of things, I was expressing boredom. Boredom with routine. Partying, a routine in many circles, combines the same elements (with some variation) but coalesces different perceptive expectations. The good time vs. the bad time. Inebriation vs. sobriety. Sex vs. a landscape of copulative aridity due to a great many of variables: A gender ratio skewed in favor of the opposite sex/sexual orientation, one's own finicky aesthetic tastes, one's own displeasing aesthetic appearance, a lack or over-abundance of liquor (as per lack: causing one to be more inhibited, discerning; as per abundance: causing an inability to perform, sexually, socially), or more likely, one's unpleasant attitude; anything may or may not happen because the cut and dry is that routines can be planned, outcomes cannot. When I decided to step onto that property, it was to get drunk, talk a loud load of shit about journalism and literature and film, and maybe make out with/offend women (beautiful and not-so-beautiful alike), but I had no idea that things would end with a scatological act. To quote the hipster art gallery guy I once interviewed: “Totally fuckin’ drunken DADA, man.”
I didn’t want to break the man’s heart, but the qualifier cancelled out the word it qualified.
I enter my room and Vanessa is spot reading of the books that was laying on the floor. I ask if she’s enjoying what she’s perusing. She says yeah, because it’s straight up porno. I feel like maybe discussing the finer points of Henry Miller with her, but realize that that sort of endeavor would be comparable to me climbing the Himalayas. I.e., fucking impossible. “Yes,” I agree. Total porno. No substance whatever. But I enjoy it. I begin to climb onto the bed, but she commands that I bathe myself because she doesn’t want to be turned off by the pukey, shitty smell of my person.
“The hot water is out of commission,” I say, lying. Of course, she doesn’t believe me and checks for herself. Her suspicions are confirmed and she says that if I don’t want to fuck her all I have to say is I don’t. I argue that I don’t see the point in showering to do something dirty. It’s counterproductive, and more than that, as senseless as demanding that a girl shower pre-cunnilingus.
“But... you stink,” she insists.
So I climb into the shower, turn on the spout, and let the water rinse over me. The previous night’s should-be regrets circle the drain. I wash everything thoroughly. My nether-regions have never been so clean! Clean to the point that I start thinking to myself that there's a possibility that what I figured was a really bad tan was actually just an accumulation of dirt and grime due to my inconsistent showering habits.
Toweling myself off, I start to put on a fresh pair of boxers but reconsider. After all, I'm going to be naked anyway. Instead I cover the important parts in talcum powder and open the door. Vanessa is lying spread-eagled under the covers.
"You're clean," she says.
"And naked."
Underneath the covers we begin kissing. It doesn't last long because she realizes that I haven't brushed my teeth. She's just looking at me. Changing the subject of voiceless subtlety to the act at hand, I insert myself betwixt her thighs. She sighs and I begin to push dryly into her. We're both quietly discomfited. I try to get some juices flowing by grabbing her breasts and sensually squeezing and kissing them. But I can't keep from slobbering for some reason. As I expect, she tells me that it isn't working. Her breasts aren't that sensitive. At least not to loose saliva and poor hand technique.
"Well, I can't stay hard, anyway," I admit.
"Fuck it. I'll masturbate. Leave me be."
Strange is drinking a beer and eating some chicken. "You had money?"
"I didn't have money until I lifted this guy's wallet. Drunk. Loud. Talked way too much... what's that word you like to use?"
"Braggadocious.”
“Yeah, that’s it. Talked lots of shit. Found him passed out on a couch, ass pocket bulging. Snagged it easily. Only had about thirty bucks and a couple of credit cards. I wasn't so cruel, though. I left him his ID."
"I hope you bought beer for all of us."
He points to the fridge and mumbles something along the lines of "help yourself." I open the fridge and there are five beers left out of what was a six-pack of Modelo Especial sitting next to a carton of OJ and half a package of bacon. I grab a can and sit on the couch next to him. Steam escapes the lip of the can as I crack it open. As I begin my first sip, Strange asks me if I fucked her.
“No. She made me shower.”
“Oh. Yeah, you’re pretty fucking dirty.”
“I can be.”
“You shit in the bushes,” he says, sucking on a jalapeño. “It’s not illogical to assume that in the course of a drunken shit, you might forget to wipe your ass.”
Vanessa’s moans can be heard over the hum of the AC, which kicked on only minutes ago. Strange comments on the fact that I’m letting a strange girl pleasure herself on my bed.
“Well, I couldn’t get the job done.”
“Again? Shit. Let me do it.”
I’m not so sure that I want to confront seriously my manhood and its deficiencies, drunken or mental. Because I’m certain that I don’t suffer from ED. So certain in fact, that I am actually concerned. I’m too young, right? I’m not a drug addict-- booze and assorted pills, sometimes coke-- is that a factor? I’ll have to do some research on causes of ED, but I’m almost positive that I’m not a candidate. Vanessa emerges from my room with a satisfied countenance.
“Will one of you fine gentlemen walk me back to my car?”
“You have a car?” Strange asks. “I’ll walk you if you take me to the liquor store.”
“Sure,” she agrees.
Strange blows me a kiss as he and Vanessa head out the door. I finish the remaining gulps of my beer. The pack of cigs is next to my laptop on the coffee table. There are two left. I pull one out of the packet and light it. As I exhale, I follow the trails of nicotine fog as it floats away from me, gradually entering an oblivion that I couldn’t even begin to imagine to fathom. I continue smoking in the kitchen. Pacing somewhat, I take casual puffs of the cig between my fingers, talking to myself, wondering if the assholes at Artology are going to stick me with yet another bullshit interview. At this point, I’d rather do opinion pieces about the new DART Rail Station or the beloved Good-Latimer tunnel that no longer exists except on Flickr pages than interview hipper-than-thou gallery owners or up and coming artists who will say anything for cred even if it means subverting their own values which were clichéd or untenable at best to begin with.
I open the fridge and pull one of the beers out, tear into it and commence chugging. It’s all I know at this point. Because I always want to tell myself, to convince myself even, that I have so much integrity and that these artists, these gallery owners, they’re the problem. They aren’t taste making, they’re selling. They’re selling and they’re hoping we’ll buy. They aren’t out scouring the gutters or the schools for who has the most talent or promise; no, they want a gimmick and all that’s needed to drive gimmickry is ambition and a shit load of it.
But even that wasn’t true. I finish the beer and toss it into the sink. Open the fridge, pull out another and crack it open and chug. Now I have beer dripping from my chin hair and onto the floor. Some of it has gone down my neck, onto my chest, and down into my belly button. It wasn’t true because I know for a fact that given the first opportunity at some kind of exposure, I’d off and run with it. Simply put, one could say that I am a hypocrite. A hypocrite stewing in his own dearth of acclaim. A wannabe Thompson, Bangs, or Self, even more subtly, scholastically, a Robert Hughes at the height of his acerbic acuity, which he uses to deftly poke and prod at sanctified monuments of liberal and conservative thought alike. Shit, carving a niche of one's own becomes more and more of a depressing proposition the more one ponders it.
I finish the can and drop kick it into a corner of the living room. I go into the fridge and repeat the cycle. I’m beginning to wonder to myself if I should dispense with bad habits and sit down and write a novel or something. I’ve never really considered myself to be creative, even in my most calculated of deconstructive screeds against a great many artists and the like. There’s never been an afflatus to imagine or perceive in a manner befitting a writer or artist. But I’ve always been able to dissect, comment, and laud or pan or whatever. Quite effectively, in fact. Better than most other writers on the Artology staff. Putting aside the inherent silliness of astrology, as a Libra, I strive for balance. Even in my desperate toil for concision, I have been known to consult various thesauruses and lexicons when simple everyday vocabulary just doesn’t get the point home.
Then I start arguing with myself over the semantics of writing “professionally.” I’m getting mired in how to define objects and states, etc.. Such as: can one be a critic and still be creative with words? Should my Wordsmithery be viewed as an art or craft? Both? Art vs. Craft. Is one superior or do they exist on different planes of creation? And if so, do they ever converge? I’m drinking. I’m talking to myself. I’m half naked. Mostly naked, actually. I’m sporting wet hair and boxers. I finish the beer. I walk into the living room and pick up the pack of cigs, burrow my finger through the silver lining and extract the last cigarette. I put it to my mouth and light it. Maybe I should sleep, I say to myself.
Striding and puffing my way back into the kitchen, I open the fridge and peer in. One beer left. I decide to drink it because, fuck it, Strange is out getting liquor. Besides, my fridge, my fucking rules. I pull it out, crack the tab, and have my way with it. I drop the diminished cig into the can and set it in the sink with the other can I’d previously used and abused.
I throw myself onto the couch and close my eyes. After a time, I fall into a dream. A dream where I’m walking the streets of Dallas, hand in hand, with a flaccid, uncut, immaculately veined cock, seemingly representative of a map of the highways and byways of the Plastic City herself. And in front of me and this sad excuse for a member, an impossible to reach vagina, spread before us. The more we walk, the farther away the massive pudenda gets. I’m starting to sweat and so does the cock, accompanying this likewise perspiration an odorous emission of god knows what.
We walk. And we walk. Interminably, it seems. Briefly I awaken as a noise stirs me, but then I fall right back into the dream. Except now the vagina is draped in pubic hair in much the same way the old houses on Swiss Ave. are covered in twisting, verdant vinery. The penis now appears to me more rigid. Erect. Proud. Lacking that awful fancy dairy scent. This is better. This is more acceptable. We are walking east bound on Live Oak. We pass Strange and a fat girl, fucking in broad daylight in a luxury VW.
I shake myself from the reverie and sit up. My dick is poking out through the hole in my boxers. I stuff it back in, sit up, and realize that I’m bit light headed. I run into the bathroom and puke some more.
© Patrick Patterson-Carroll (2009)
22.7.09
Unsolicited Criticisms
Unsolicited Criticisms
Hi, I’m Adam Strange and I’ll be your guide today.
Meet Dallas, the shimmering city on the prairie.
This richly diverse city offers leading arts districts (that only the pretentious go to), countless luxury accommodations that (no one can actually afford), professional sports teams (that are overpaid and have no heart) and trendy entertainment districts (where can have your choice of being stabbed by a bum or beaten by a skinhead)
Fact: Dallas is actually an acronym for D list LA.
Feel free to visit our many exciting neighborhoods each with their own special brand of entertainment. Such as…
Deep Ellum. Ya, there’s been nothing there since the Deep Ellum Foundation forced the city into driving out all the businesses to lower the selling price. But this place is all about the memories (and getting stabbed by bums or skinheads.)
Fact: Dallas leads in the nation in pre-op transgender prostitutes.
And as long as you’re in our wonderful city, don’t forget to check out…
The Bishop Arts District. Once the meeting place for homosexuals in the charming community known as Oak Cliff through out the 90’s, it has re-imagined itself as a posh arty neighborhood where you can enjoy a wonderful dinner and night out only blocks away the murder capital of Dallas.
Fact: Dallas’s own Lew Sterrett affectingly known as "LuLu” has received national attention as the safest county jail in the nation.
I hope you’re not tired because while here you can’t forget…
Lower Greenville. Located at the corner of Greenville and Ross, this tiny neighborhood sees more action in one night than every other neighborhood sees in a month. Whether it’s grumpy old men looking for a little statis in their old age (do I even have to say the asshole’s name) or the surprising number of white supremacists currently calling Billard Bar home, you are sure to have an action packed night. Remember just because he/she was cute at Taco Cabana doesn’t mean he/she will be cute when you wake up.
Fact: In 2007 Dallas was the first major city to elect a man with no penis.
And please while you’re here try also to make time for…
Knox/Henderson, Uptown and West Village. No reason to pick which one since they're all the same. If you have khaki’s and a polo shirt you can have your pick of any one of the beautiful Barbie-esque future trophy wives. Remember it’s only prostitution if you pay in cash.
Fact: There isn’t a single black city council member who hasn’t or currently in the process of selling out the black community.
For those of you, who are into more forbidden pleasures, don’t forget to check out…
Cedar Springs. Dallas’s long time gay district has been partying non-stop since the 70’s. Thank the cocaine. Here you can enjoy getting screwed in the bathroom AND on your tab. Don’t forget to enjoy the many pleasures of this thriving community. Like the Maple Projects, where you can buy crack off an authentic drag queen. And only here can you experience an authentic Texas Fag-Bashing; don’t forget your insurance card.
Well, that’s enough for one session. Please check out these wonderful destinations and remember the Dallas city motto.
“LIVE LARGE! THINK BIG!”
Ya, we don’t know what it means either.
Hi, I’m Adam Strange and I’ll be your guide today.
Meet Dallas, the shimmering city on the prairie.
This richly diverse city offers leading arts districts (that only the pretentious go to), countless luxury accommodations that (no one can actually afford), professional sports teams (that are overpaid and have no heart) and trendy entertainment districts (where can have your choice of being stabbed by a bum or beaten by a skinhead)
Fact: Dallas is actually an acronym for D list LA.
Feel free to visit our many exciting neighborhoods each with their own special brand of entertainment. Such as…
Deep Ellum. Ya, there’s been nothing there since the Deep Ellum Foundation forced the city into driving out all the businesses to lower the selling price. But this place is all about the memories (and getting stabbed by bums or skinheads.)
Fact: Dallas leads in the nation in pre-op transgender prostitutes.
And as long as you’re in our wonderful city, don’t forget to check out…
The Bishop Arts District. Once the meeting place for homosexuals in the charming community known as Oak Cliff through out the 90’s, it has re-imagined itself as a posh arty neighborhood where you can enjoy a wonderful dinner and night out only blocks away the murder capital of Dallas.
Fact: Dallas’s own Lew Sterrett affectingly known as "LuLu” has received national attention as the safest county jail in the nation.
I hope you’re not tired because while here you can’t forget…
Lower Greenville. Located at the corner of Greenville and Ross, this tiny neighborhood sees more action in one night than every other neighborhood sees in a month. Whether it’s grumpy old men looking for a little statis in their old age (do I even have to say the asshole’s name) or the surprising number of white supremacists currently calling Billard Bar home, you are sure to have an action packed night. Remember just because he/she was cute at Taco Cabana doesn’t mean he/she will be cute when you wake up.
Fact: In 2007 Dallas was the first major city to elect a man with no penis.
And please while you’re here try also to make time for…
Knox/Henderson, Uptown and West Village. No reason to pick which one since they're all the same. If you have khaki’s and a polo shirt you can have your pick of any one of the beautiful Barbie-esque future trophy wives. Remember it’s only prostitution if you pay in cash.
Fact: There isn’t a single black city council member who hasn’t or currently in the process of selling out the black community.
For those of you, who are into more forbidden pleasures, don’t forget to check out…
Cedar Springs. Dallas’s long time gay district has been partying non-stop since the 70’s. Thank the cocaine. Here you can enjoy getting screwed in the bathroom AND on your tab. Don’t forget to enjoy the many pleasures of this thriving community. Like the Maple Projects, where you can buy crack off an authentic drag queen. And only here can you experience an authentic Texas Fag-Bashing; don’t forget your insurance card.
Well, that’s enough for one session. Please check out these wonderful destinations and remember the Dallas city motto.
“LIVE LARGE! THINK BIG!”
Ya, we don’t know what it means either.
18.7.09
Flâneur Fiction: "Detouring Vol. 2"
“Detouring: Vol. 2”
By Patrick Patterson-Carroll
We are walking east now. We have crossed onto the south end of Live Oak, and have every intention of stopping by Danger's. I ask Adam if Romeo will be fucking Juliette any time soon.
"Maybe," he responds.
I start thinking about my blog. What little income I pull comes from doing articles for this magazine called Artology. I know fuck-all about art, but they like the pseudo-intellectual posturing, the prolixity, and verve of my style. Generally, I have no respect for visual art, and I hate writing for those golden-spoon in mouth troglodytes. But what they pay keeps me sheltered (if nothing else) in my poverty.
A couple of days ago, I got a call from Delaney about interviewing that guy who does all the body part shit. Let me say it: I hate interviewing people. Especially visual artists. Painters and Sculptors and shit. I hate smelling them, I hate hearing them breathe, and I especially hate talking to them. How many fucking times do I have to hear about Picasso or surrealism or expressionism, et al? Those are the ones who went to or go to school and feel that because they are so passionate about what they do and the history of it, that that must mean everyone else is. Wrong.
Then there are the “outsiders.” These talented but willfully ignorant assholes, one might say, are worse because they have a natural ability to convey their thoughts and emotions by way of visual communication, but they won’t go to school and apply themselves toward something more practical and lucrative.
But I shouldn’t be too critical about that. I dropped out of college. Delaney and a couple of the other editors have said several times that my ability as a writer is the only thing keeping me around, and if they thought they could find someone with a degree as experienced and dedicated as myself, they’d drop me like a clingy fuck-buddy.
On my blog I write about walking. Specifically, I write about being a Baudelairean flâneur. Except I don’t write poetry. Perhaps I’m Debordian? But I’m no revolutionary. I’m no philosopher. And I still don’t understand Howls for Sade. Rimbaud. He’s interesting. We share the same birthday. But I don’t write poetry.
Will Self.
I'm like Will Self. A sesquipedalian cum journalistic ambition. Eh, not even. He is a journalist. I’m just an amateur. I’m not even a good sesquipedalian. In person my vocabulary is limited unless I’ve spent time contemplating and mapping out responses.
For terse wit, that most Mametesque of verbal exchange, my vocabulary usually reflects that of the person who I am interacting with; drowning in colloquialism. Slang. Idiom. Cliché. Maxim.
“Really?” I think to myself.
“Nah.”
The longest distance I’d ever walked was from my apartment in East Dallas to the area of Oak Cliff where I grew up. According to Google Maps, the distance from my address to S. Hampton Rd. is slightly less than 11 miles. I don’t know. It was no London to New York City, that’s for certain.
We are walking away from the sun. It dips closer to the horizon and the clouds take on a darker hue. Adam pulls out his cell, transparent as its hot-pink cover has chipped away from abuse, attaches the number pad and dials. A sad state of affairs. I light another cigarette. The silence I was beginning to enjoy is now bugging me.
“I have an idea.”
“Danger’s not answering,” Adam says, tucking the phone back into his pocket. And then, “What?” A belated rejoinder.
“Let’s keep walking east,” I suggest.
“Why?”
“Why not?”
So the exchange goes.
Adam wants a cig. I acquiesce. He suggests we try knocking on Danger’s door. Again, I acquiesce. We step farther east, crossing Peak and turning south in the direction of Swiss.
Deep down I know that Danger will not answer. And why should he? He's probably splayed out drunk on his queen size bed while a nameless drunken barfly chick sits on the edge, a half empty bottle of vodka wedged between her ass and the incline of the indentation, snorting coke on one of those trendy coke mirrors one can purchase online or if so inclined: at Hot Topic. And of course, she won't answer because he implored her not to let anyone in, not even his mother, who she wouldn't know even if she saw her.
Bukowski-esque imagery aside, it's important to note that Danger himself is not a user. At least not anymore. He's now relegated himself to cigs and drink-- easy enough in his service oriented world; and the silence in answer to Adam's hammering fists upon the door are an ominous affirmation of the validity of my detailed supposition.
Adam looks at me and says, "Fuck."
We bear eastward on Swiss. We're broke, but not without hope. I ask Adam if he remembers the night we celebrated the 2008 presidential election. "Yeah," he says, "it all ended so quickly we had to take our sober asses to Elbow Room."
"Next time, we drink every time one of the candidates' names is mentioned."
"Next time it'll be over in half an hour if the Republicans put up who I think they will."
"No way they're that stupid," I add, now trying in earnest not to step on a crack, a difficult thing, considering the condition of the sidewalks on this particular stretch of Swiss before the Fitzhugh intersection.
"Remember the piss puddle race?" Adam asks. Laughingly, I say, “Wasn’t much of a contest. The streams ended up joining.”
“You giggle like a bitch when you’re drunk,” he said.
That much is true. We get to Fitzhugh and cut north to Live Oak. Adam tries to call Jameson (named after the whiskey). There’s no answer. Now he’s dialing random girls I’ve never heard of. We’re definitely looking to mooch. We need a hookup or we’re destined for Saturday night sobriety. Tragedy. Travesty. Prevailing travail.
I suggest to Adam that we make a stop at one of the bookstores I frequent. See who's working. He acquiesces, and we continue on our way. After the Munger intersection, the apartments that characterize many of the blocks on the west side of the street are replaced by large, looming mansions; open houses.
"If I had the cash...," Adam trails off.
"I'm getting a call," I say, digging in my pocket for my phone. I have 17 minutes remaining.
It's Jameson and he says that Adam's phone is a piece of shit, so he called me, and what do we fucking want because he's busy watching movies on his new big screen television. I relay to Adam. He laughs. "Daddy's boy."
Jameson tells me he's going to a party tonight and that if we're interested, he can come pick our broke, no car having asses up. I tell him that we'll consider it and get back to him. Now I have 14 minutes remaining. Such is the way of the prepaid phone.
We pick our heads up and follow the slight northeastern trend of Live Oak. The mansions and the leaning trees on either side of the street create an interesting fusion: man in the background of nature. The mansions seem dead or dying, longing for the inhabitance of human bodies, while the trees form a beautiful living canopy over the road so that when the sun comes out, a kaleidoscope effect is achieved.
On the southern side of the street, the first block we pass is Dumas St. It dead ends into Live Oak. Both sides, west and east, are bookended by fancy modern apartment homes. More prime real estate. Silence.
A little farther east, on the north side of Live Oak, Bryan Pkwy dead ends. Some more nice apartments, possibly expensive, with neatly groomed rows of shrubbery extending from both sides of the front doors to the sidewalk rest on the intersection.
“Fun,” Adam says.
“Fun?”
“Fun.”
I think for a moment.
“Oh. Yeah, being drunk and navigating that...” I start and then laugh. I pull out my cell phone and look at the time. My phone will start beeping soon as my battery bars are down to one. The next block is a light. Going south is Lindell Ave. and going north it is N. Beacon Ave.. The houses are older. Some of them are even deteriorating due to abandonment or negligence or both. The trees aren’t as prominent and the sidewalks look recently paved.
The next intersections are imbalanced and dead end as well: Hudson St. going north and Glendale going south. The sky is slightly darker, and we step cautiously across Live Oak and walk toward Ross Ave., which forks strangely, coming from the east there is an entrance going north, and an exit going west that comes from the north. Ross will eventually level into a east-west running street, but not before some jerky twists and turns.
We stand briefly on the grassy mound between the forks and he asks me about my story.
“I wish it was that simple. I have to interview the guy.”
“What’s wrong with him?”
“He’s fucking insane. They say the body parts are real. I don’t know. Jeff has refused to interview the guy. So they’re giving it to me.”
“You are the bitch.”
He’s right. I am Artology’s bitch. It depresses me. But what else is there for me? I’ve had worse luck than Adam on the publishing front. Tons of rejection letters. No money to self publish or start a mag. So fuck it. I’m getting frustrated. I want to keep walking. But now I’m not so certain I want to be in a bookstore; especially not one that is home to a local Writer’s Garret.
So we continue. A walk toward inspiration. There is a liquor store on the south side of Live Oak. At the next block, Live Oak will corner slightly to the northeast and become Skillman. A few shops up in this direction, and hidden by parking lots is a small street called La Vista. Tucked away in the back is a little bookstore.
We pull ourselves up the incline. There are boxes of tattered books along the sidewalk leading to the entrance. On the brick lined wall below dirty windows is poorly scrawled graffiti that reads: Buy your books here; learn how to read them elsewhere... we’re not your fucking teachers.
Rounding the corner, we are confronted with more boxes. Adam reaches into one of them and pulls out a MAD magazine. No price. Out in the open. He rolls it up and tucks it into his pocket.
"Is that the one where Alfred E. Neuman is featured prominently in all the cartoons?" I ask.
"Cartoons? This is art. Have you read MAD? Get your shit together."
In the immediate entrance, we are confronted by lavender walls, a staircase, elevator doors, stacks of books and racks of magazines-- tucked impractically between one wall and the right hand railing of the stairs-- events postings along the walls, and a solitary, dying rose in a vase on the in-table directly to the left of the door going into the secondary entrance.
The place smells of books. We both inhale deeply and exhale with relief. Adam disappears into the trade/paperbacks section, and I move forward to the counter. Milady is there. Literally. Her name is Milady. Hippie parents and such.
She recognizes me, and skipping the friendly smile, she jumps halfway over the counter to hug me. I laugh, we exchange greetings, and I ask her if her boyfriend is hiding somewhere amongst the gardening books, shelved behind me. Another laugh.
“I’m signing you up for open mic night sometime, I swear!” she exclaims.
“You’ll regret it.”
“So, what brings you here?”
“Just hanging with a friend. You?”
A glare. She asks me about this imaginary friend, and I make a smart remark about masturbation in the erotic fic section. Another glare. We talk about school; she’s taking a shit ton of classes and working at the bookstore on weekends. She asks about my latest female obsession (because I have a new one every time I see her).
“No comment,” I say.
“Must be serious.”
“You can say that. Here, let me introduce you to my friend. Strange! Get your ass in here!”
Her face strains with thought. Familiarity. Recognition. As if to say, “Strange?” Adam appears from around the the corner, and that is all she needs! She yells his first name gives him the same hug she gave me. Noticing the rolled up mag in his pocket, she tsks at him and he exclaims that it’s an Observer.
“Sure it is. Anyway, you guys wanna get some coffee or somethin’? I’m off soon,” she says, smiling.
“How do you know one another?” I inquire.
They met working at Elbow Room. Adam worked in the kitchen there for about a year. Milady was one of the several young women who waited tables briefly. Apparently he made several plays for her over the course of that time.
We shoot the shit across the street at that little convenience store on Skillman with the fancy tables and chairs in front of the entrance. She buys us coffee. We listen to her vent about her academic situation, her ridiculous boyfriend with ugly tattoos and natty dreds-- Adam’s description, not hers-- and her existential dilemma of what she wants to be when she grows up. She’s 29.
Adam is flirting with her. My opinion of her is sinking with every revelation. Not that I have any designs on her. She’s attractive, but I am more interested in having a female subject to bounce my personality off of as opposed to actually developing feelings for at this point.
Is this gratitude or torture? She buys me a coffee, so I have to listen to her carp and moan about things I care nothing about? No thanks. I’m getting antsy. I pull out my pack of cigs, offer both of them a smoke. She declines. Adam accepts. She tells me that she didn’t know that I smoke. They’re bad for you, of course. Thank you Raphaella Nader. Shit.
I’m looking at her differently. Like, I want to fucking kill her. Whine, whine, whine. On and on. Now she’s talking about how she’s personally happy that the city is cracking down on all those evil folk who enjoy a smoke now and then. Adam is becoming more and more silent. Probably realizing that he doesn’t know this woman at all.
A test.
“Ronald Reagan,” I say. “Discuss.”
© Patrick Patterson-Carroll
(2009)
By Patrick Patterson-Carroll
We are walking east now. We have crossed onto the south end of Live Oak, and have every intention of stopping by Danger's. I ask Adam if Romeo will be fucking Juliette any time soon.
"Maybe," he responds.
I start thinking about my blog. What little income I pull comes from doing articles for this magazine called Artology. I know fuck-all about art, but they like the pseudo-intellectual posturing, the prolixity, and verve of my style. Generally, I have no respect for visual art, and I hate writing for those golden-spoon in mouth troglodytes. But what they pay keeps me sheltered (if nothing else) in my poverty.
A couple of days ago, I got a call from Delaney about interviewing that guy who does all the body part shit. Let me say it: I hate interviewing people. Especially visual artists. Painters and Sculptors and shit. I hate smelling them, I hate hearing them breathe, and I especially hate talking to them. How many fucking times do I have to hear about Picasso or surrealism or expressionism, et al? Those are the ones who went to or go to school and feel that because they are so passionate about what they do and the history of it, that that must mean everyone else is. Wrong.
Then there are the “outsiders.” These talented but willfully ignorant assholes, one might say, are worse because they have a natural ability to convey their thoughts and emotions by way of visual communication, but they won’t go to school and apply themselves toward something more practical and lucrative.
But I shouldn’t be too critical about that. I dropped out of college. Delaney and a couple of the other editors have said several times that my ability as a writer is the only thing keeping me around, and if they thought they could find someone with a degree as experienced and dedicated as myself, they’d drop me like a clingy fuck-buddy.
On my blog I write about walking. Specifically, I write about being a Baudelairean flâneur. Except I don’t write poetry. Perhaps I’m Debordian? But I’m no revolutionary. I’m no philosopher. And I still don’t understand Howls for Sade. Rimbaud. He’s interesting. We share the same birthday. But I don’t write poetry.
Will Self.
I'm like Will Self. A sesquipedalian cum journalistic ambition. Eh, not even. He is a journalist. I’m just an amateur. I’m not even a good sesquipedalian. In person my vocabulary is limited unless I’ve spent time contemplating and mapping out responses.
For terse wit, that most Mametesque of verbal exchange, my vocabulary usually reflects that of the person who I am interacting with; drowning in colloquialism. Slang. Idiom. Cliché. Maxim.
“Really?” I think to myself.
“Nah.”
The longest distance I’d ever walked was from my apartment in East Dallas to the area of Oak Cliff where I grew up. According to Google Maps, the distance from my address to S. Hampton Rd. is slightly less than 11 miles. I don’t know. It was no London to New York City, that’s for certain.
We are walking away from the sun. It dips closer to the horizon and the clouds take on a darker hue. Adam pulls out his cell, transparent as its hot-pink cover has chipped away from abuse, attaches the number pad and dials. A sad state of affairs. I light another cigarette. The silence I was beginning to enjoy is now bugging me.
“I have an idea.”
“Danger’s not answering,” Adam says, tucking the phone back into his pocket. And then, “What?” A belated rejoinder.
“Let’s keep walking east,” I suggest.
“Why?”
“Why not?”
So the exchange goes.
Adam wants a cig. I acquiesce. He suggests we try knocking on Danger’s door. Again, I acquiesce. We step farther east, crossing Peak and turning south in the direction of Swiss.
Deep down I know that Danger will not answer. And why should he? He's probably splayed out drunk on his queen size bed while a nameless drunken barfly chick sits on the edge, a half empty bottle of vodka wedged between her ass and the incline of the indentation, snorting coke on one of those trendy coke mirrors one can purchase online or if so inclined: at Hot Topic. And of course, she won't answer because he implored her not to let anyone in, not even his mother, who she wouldn't know even if she saw her.
Bukowski-esque imagery aside, it's important to note that Danger himself is not a user. At least not anymore. He's now relegated himself to cigs and drink-- easy enough in his service oriented world; and the silence in answer to Adam's hammering fists upon the door are an ominous affirmation of the validity of my detailed supposition.
Adam looks at me and says, "Fuck."
We bear eastward on Swiss. We're broke, but not without hope. I ask Adam if he remembers the night we celebrated the 2008 presidential election. "Yeah," he says, "it all ended so quickly we had to take our sober asses to Elbow Room."
"Next time, we drink every time one of the candidates' names is mentioned."
"Next time it'll be over in half an hour if the Republicans put up who I think they will."
"No way they're that stupid," I add, now trying in earnest not to step on a crack, a difficult thing, considering the condition of the sidewalks on this particular stretch of Swiss before the Fitzhugh intersection.
"Remember the piss puddle race?" Adam asks. Laughingly, I say, “Wasn’t much of a contest. The streams ended up joining.”
“You giggle like a bitch when you’re drunk,” he said.
That much is true. We get to Fitzhugh and cut north to Live Oak. Adam tries to call Jameson (named after the whiskey). There’s no answer. Now he’s dialing random girls I’ve never heard of. We’re definitely looking to mooch. We need a hookup or we’re destined for Saturday night sobriety. Tragedy. Travesty. Prevailing travail.
I suggest to Adam that we make a stop at one of the bookstores I frequent. See who's working. He acquiesces, and we continue on our way. After the Munger intersection, the apartments that characterize many of the blocks on the west side of the street are replaced by large, looming mansions; open houses.
"If I had the cash...," Adam trails off.
"I'm getting a call," I say, digging in my pocket for my phone. I have 17 minutes remaining.
It's Jameson and he says that Adam's phone is a piece of shit, so he called me, and what do we fucking want because he's busy watching movies on his new big screen television. I relay to Adam. He laughs. "Daddy's boy."
Jameson tells me he's going to a party tonight and that if we're interested, he can come pick our broke, no car having asses up. I tell him that we'll consider it and get back to him. Now I have 14 minutes remaining. Such is the way of the prepaid phone.
We pick our heads up and follow the slight northeastern trend of Live Oak. The mansions and the leaning trees on either side of the street create an interesting fusion: man in the background of nature. The mansions seem dead or dying, longing for the inhabitance of human bodies, while the trees form a beautiful living canopy over the road so that when the sun comes out, a kaleidoscope effect is achieved.
On the southern side of the street, the first block we pass is Dumas St. It dead ends into Live Oak. Both sides, west and east, are bookended by fancy modern apartment homes. More prime real estate. Silence.
A little farther east, on the north side of Live Oak, Bryan Pkwy dead ends. Some more nice apartments, possibly expensive, with neatly groomed rows of shrubbery extending from both sides of the front doors to the sidewalk rest on the intersection.
“Fun,” Adam says.
“Fun?”
“Fun.”
I think for a moment.
“Oh. Yeah, being drunk and navigating that...” I start and then laugh. I pull out my cell phone and look at the time. My phone will start beeping soon as my battery bars are down to one. The next block is a light. Going south is Lindell Ave. and going north it is N. Beacon Ave.. The houses are older. Some of them are even deteriorating due to abandonment or negligence or both. The trees aren’t as prominent and the sidewalks look recently paved.
The next intersections are imbalanced and dead end as well: Hudson St. going north and Glendale going south. The sky is slightly darker, and we step cautiously across Live Oak and walk toward Ross Ave., which forks strangely, coming from the east there is an entrance going north, and an exit going west that comes from the north. Ross will eventually level into a east-west running street, but not before some jerky twists and turns.
We stand briefly on the grassy mound between the forks and he asks me about my story.
“I wish it was that simple. I have to interview the guy.”
“What’s wrong with him?”
“He’s fucking insane. They say the body parts are real. I don’t know. Jeff has refused to interview the guy. So they’re giving it to me.”
“You are the bitch.”
He’s right. I am Artology’s bitch. It depresses me. But what else is there for me? I’ve had worse luck than Adam on the publishing front. Tons of rejection letters. No money to self publish or start a mag. So fuck it. I’m getting frustrated. I want to keep walking. But now I’m not so certain I want to be in a bookstore; especially not one that is home to a local Writer’s Garret.
So we continue. A walk toward inspiration. There is a liquor store on the south side of Live Oak. At the next block, Live Oak will corner slightly to the northeast and become Skillman. A few shops up in this direction, and hidden by parking lots is a small street called La Vista. Tucked away in the back is a little bookstore.
We pull ourselves up the incline. There are boxes of tattered books along the sidewalk leading to the entrance. On the brick lined wall below dirty windows is poorly scrawled graffiti that reads: Buy your books here; learn how to read them elsewhere... we’re not your fucking teachers.
Rounding the corner, we are confronted with more boxes. Adam reaches into one of them and pulls out a MAD magazine. No price. Out in the open. He rolls it up and tucks it into his pocket.
"Is that the one where Alfred E. Neuman is featured prominently in all the cartoons?" I ask.
"Cartoons? This is art. Have you read MAD? Get your shit together."
In the immediate entrance, we are confronted by lavender walls, a staircase, elevator doors, stacks of books and racks of magazines-- tucked impractically between one wall and the right hand railing of the stairs-- events postings along the walls, and a solitary, dying rose in a vase on the in-table directly to the left of the door going into the secondary entrance.
The place smells of books. We both inhale deeply and exhale with relief. Adam disappears into the trade/paperbacks section, and I move forward to the counter. Milady is there. Literally. Her name is Milady. Hippie parents and such.
She recognizes me, and skipping the friendly smile, she jumps halfway over the counter to hug me. I laugh, we exchange greetings, and I ask her if her boyfriend is hiding somewhere amongst the gardening books, shelved behind me. Another laugh.
“I’m signing you up for open mic night sometime, I swear!” she exclaims.
“You’ll regret it.”
“So, what brings you here?”
“Just hanging with a friend. You?”
A glare. She asks me about this imaginary friend, and I make a smart remark about masturbation in the erotic fic section. Another glare. We talk about school; she’s taking a shit ton of classes and working at the bookstore on weekends. She asks about my latest female obsession (because I have a new one every time I see her).
“No comment,” I say.
“Must be serious.”
“You can say that. Here, let me introduce you to my friend. Strange! Get your ass in here!”
Her face strains with thought. Familiarity. Recognition. As if to say, “Strange?” Adam appears from around the the corner, and that is all she needs! She yells his first name gives him the same hug she gave me. Noticing the rolled up mag in his pocket, she tsks at him and he exclaims that it’s an Observer.
“Sure it is. Anyway, you guys wanna get some coffee or somethin’? I’m off soon,” she says, smiling.
“How do you know one another?” I inquire.
They met working at Elbow Room. Adam worked in the kitchen there for about a year. Milady was one of the several young women who waited tables briefly. Apparently he made several plays for her over the course of that time.
We shoot the shit across the street at that little convenience store on Skillman with the fancy tables and chairs in front of the entrance. She buys us coffee. We listen to her vent about her academic situation, her ridiculous boyfriend with ugly tattoos and natty dreds-- Adam’s description, not hers-- and her existential dilemma of what she wants to be when she grows up. She’s 29.
Adam is flirting with her. My opinion of her is sinking with every revelation. Not that I have any designs on her. She’s attractive, but I am more interested in having a female subject to bounce my personality off of as opposed to actually developing feelings for at this point.
Is this gratitude or torture? She buys me a coffee, so I have to listen to her carp and moan about things I care nothing about? No thanks. I’m getting antsy. I pull out my pack of cigs, offer both of them a smoke. She declines. Adam accepts. She tells me that she didn’t know that I smoke. They’re bad for you, of course. Thank you Raphaella Nader. Shit.
I’m looking at her differently. Like, I want to fucking kill her. Whine, whine, whine. On and on. Now she’s talking about how she’s personally happy that the city is cracking down on all those evil folk who enjoy a smoke now and then. Adam is becoming more and more silent. Probably realizing that he doesn’t know this woman at all.
A test.
“Ronald Reagan,” I say. “Discuss.”
© Patrick Patterson-Carroll
(2009)
13.7.09
Flâneur Fiction: "Detouring Vol. 1"
“Detouring: Vol. 1”
By Patrick Patterson-Carroll
The mattress and box spring I sleep on are never covered. They rest on the floor, the former covering the latter slightly diagonally. If one were to remove the ceiling to look down on it, there would no doubt be discovered symmetry. Symmetry that is not aesthetically pleasing, but symmetry nonetheless. The bed frame is leaned against the wall under the window. I'm missing a crucial support piece, so the chances of me having a real bed are slim to nil.
Books and clothing are littered randomly about the room. Boxes remain packed in corners. I've lived here for four and a half months. I usually sleep with my feet pointing southward and my head pointing to the window, which looks north into an alleyway. The alleyway separates the mansions on Swiss from our little favela on Gaston. That’s America for you. The moneyed aren’t content with protecting their riches, no. They want to see us poor bastards suffer our paycheck to paycheck existences, so they smile and wave to us as we move hither and thither-- from work to home and home to work, day in and day out-- with our apartment complexes only a monument to poverty.
On cold nights I wrap myself in a comforter and assume the fetal position. Most nights I drink myself to a slinky, rubbery consistency, try to read The Gift of Death or Crime and Punishment, fail, and go to sleep. Comatose. So it goes. The cycle.
Usually I wake up at noon, wrench my eyes shut to defend them against the rays of sun that filter through the slats of the horizontal blinds, get up on the left side of the bed, limp to the bathroom, take a shit, wash my face, brush my teeth, and if necessary, shower and shave. But on this particular morning I was rousted from dreamland by the urge to piss. Only hours before I’d taken two lithium, four ibuprofen, and drank a handle of Chilean plonk.
I stand under the cold, sobering spray of the shower and wonder to myself how the hell my bladder could penetrate two lithium tablets and all that fermented grape juice. Then I remember the girl who gave me the pills warning that polyuria is a side effect, so I shouldn‘t “worry my pretty little head about being pregnant.” Har-d-fucking-har. Combined with the wine guzzling, my actions were tantamount to taunting my bladder and liver thusly: “Hey, I don’t like you, and you don’t like me. So I issue to you a challenge. Wake me from a sound sleep for a piss! I don’t care! Do your fucking worst!”
Forthrightly speaking, perhaps pissing off my liver and bladder aren’t the smartest of actions given their biological necessity.
On the toilet I sit, my teeth clattering against themselves, drying off my frostbitten toes. Cold water + A/C = probable shock. I lean over to the hamper and pull out a pair of underwear. I’m not getting laid anytime soon. If Tracey Emin can proudly display her dirty knickers in an installation, certainly I can wear once worn unwashed boxer briefs. They’re at the top and aren’t entombed in dirty shirts and socks, they pass the smell test, and I have talcum. All bases covered.
I’m still feeling drunk. The shower was not sobering enough, apparently! I quickly cover my genitalia with powder, slip on the boxers, and put on the shirt and jeans that are leaning on the back of a seldom sat in chair. They‘re clean. I think. I check the clock. Fifteen ‘til one. Lovely. Breakfast consists of a Belgian waffle-- cold in the center-- and a glass of water. I’m positioned in front of the tube, pretending to watch television en español. They’re trying to sell “trocas” again. The eye candy in the orange top and skirt is cute.
“I know she’s a human being,” I say aloud to no one in particular, justifying to myself those hedonistic little thoughts that cause one so much inner turmoil. Ha, right.
Saturdays are the kind of days where one such as myself does little more than sit around and wait for an exciting proposition to come his way. Per usual, my friend Adam the Strange delivers. By phone. I have one new text from “the Strange,” the icon reads after a couple secs of vibration.
“En route. Get your shit together,” the message reads. Brusque.
Now, when Adam calls or texts to say that he’s on his way over, there’s no real way to determine exactly when he’ll show up. See, neither of us have vehicles. We proudly boast this to our friends, most of whom have cars or are smart enough to utilize the public transport that our glorious city affords us. Yes, those big yellow sardine cans manned by careless drivers only made confident by stupidity and the fact that they are in the biggest vehicle on the road.
The mystery of the ETA is sacred to us both as we are capricious individuals and sometimes we don’t think to notify the other person until we’re halfway there, or already there, or close by, but distracted by a woman or a bar or a woman we have followed into a bar. The point is: I don’t know when he’ll be here.
For awhile he lived with a woman whom we’ll refer to as his girlfriend. The day he moved in with her seemed as if perhaps it would be one of those oft bolded watershed events-- you know, it‘s usually a vocabulary word in history textbooks-- that change drastically the landscape of existence as it is known; a change none of us in his immediate circle of friends expected to happen.
But Adam the Strange is not a man to be tied down. “We weren’t built to last,” he confessed over a drink. “I can’t write. She throws off my rhythm. It’s almost like... well, she’s always around and familiarity through sex breeds a lot more things than just contempt.”
“Like what?” I asked, curious.
“Comfort. I‘m not used to such... everything‘s in its place shit.”
“Oh, well then, can I have a go?”
“She’d kill you. Seriously. You seen my back? You’re a pussy.”
He was right. Woman’s a beast. Best I could hope for would be mercy. And I wouldn’t get that. Besides, she’s fond of Mexicans with Mohawks, and it’s a mold I could never possibly hope to fit.
The spiral notebook sat under my glass. I set the drink aside and opened it. I read the first page that was legible. It was shit. Completely uncharacteristic shit. Undeniably awful. Unabashedly base. His self published This isn’t a suicide note... was so far away from the mess thrown onto those whiskey stained pages that I wanted to hug the guy.
Celebrity was local and brief for him. It was a nice little wave that died out way too soon for his liking. The girlfriend thing was a coping mechanism, which I guess is why it caught everyone who knew him by surprise. “'the Strange’ has a girlfriend? No way!”
“I know it sucks,” he said, looking me directly in the eye. He wet the tips of his fingers, as he does when his mind moves faster than his mouth. “The only thing that could make it more than nonsense is covering up the bullshit with a gimmick.”
“So, bury the bullshit in bullshit? I like it.”
He laughed.
We were walking south on Akard in the direction of his place. City Hall stood, lurching over the reflecting pond like a child admiring itself, teetering dangerously close to the edge, but never quite falling in; and just then Adam blurted, “let’s just get some of my shit and keep going.”
And that’s what we did. “Goodbye,” he said to the beautiful hardwood floor, “goodbye,” to the beautiful high ceilings, “goodbye,” to the beautiful gas stove, “goodbye,” to the beautiful view of Downtown Dallas from the communal patio, and least (and most) of all, “goodbye,” to the eccentrically beautiful woman who had taken him in and fucked all the talent out.
Of course, she was asleep. Passed out. I checked to make sure she was still alive. The woman did a lot of coke; even claimed to have had a heart attack when she was twenty four. She was breathing.
“At least she doesn’t snore,” I said, pocketing a small bag of coke and the rolled up dollar bill.
All I see now are scantily clad young women gyrating to Latin rhythms. I am enjoying it too much. Or not enough. I change the channel. Too much stimulation too soon makes me boring and one dimensional. At least that’s what the postmodernist loving lit major I dated said. She would read my blog and regurgitate phrases or words I used; always striking mockingly, never drolly. The tongue sharp but somehow witless. I curse her and her stupid observations.
Now I’m thinking about my blog. To update or not to update? That’s the question. The answer is that I haven’t brought my virus protection to current, and because I can’t afford a Mac (not an endorsement), I'm open to any PC STD out there. So there it is. My laptop sitting closed on the table in front of me. I'm still paying for the piece of shit.
I tap a fresh pack of smokes against my palm and walk to the door. The peephole is grimy and therefore an unreliable representation of the world immediately in front of my door. I glance down at the nicotine twenty in my hand, separated from the flesh of my palm by plastic and cardboard.
For a moment I struggle. Man against manufacturing. After some ticks of the second hand, the wrapping is off and the top is flipped. I sit back down, remove the shiny paper, extract a cigarette, place it between my lips and light it.
The metal knocker clacks against the door. Adam. He's the only one who uses it. I again shake myself free of the couch's metaphorical shackles and answer the door. He's smiling. "What the fuck's up?" I ask.
"I'm homeless!"
He steps in. I gesture for him to sit down. He demurs the invitation and asks for a cigarette. "If nothing else, you've got tobacco and booze."
"Regretting running away?"
"She's got an 'Amber Alert' out on me. Her friends, mostly assholes I don't even know, are texting me,” he says with a laugh. “But one of them mentioned a party tonight somewhere between here and Lakewood.”
“Well, we can’t miss that,” I say, suddenly perky.
We are both hungry, so we decide to pool our resources and get tacos from Jack in the Box. He has $2.76 cash and I have $2.16 plus something like three or four bucks in the bank. In wadded up tender and change, we have a total of $4.92, which is enough for six tacos (as per the 2 for 99¢ deal, which has been in affect for as long as I can remember), or four tacos and two small drinks. We laugh.
“That, I think, is as good as your math will ever get,” he says.
We do a couple of lines of coke and hit the door. A little boy with nothing but a diaper covering his ass runs past us squealing while his mother yells in Spanish. I say “aww,” lock the door and we head through the parking lot into the alley. The sun is slowly heading west and so are we. Not a creature stirs, nary a crackhead nor bum, just the Tejano music throbbing softly behind us.
Silence, compatible though it is with sedentary solitude, is incompatible when walking in company, so I say to Adam, "What were you thinking when you wrote that shit?" A couple of steps pass, and he stops. I stop as well. He looks at me and smiles.
"Man, I don't know. I wrote This is not a suicide note... when I was rooming with Danger. Our schedules differed to the point where we were rarely in the apartment together. With the girlfriend... all we did was go out and drink and come home and fuck.”
“Yeah,” I said. We walked on, turning northbound on N. Collett. “But in this economy, one shouldn’t give up pussy.”
Adam asks, “Swiss or Live Oak?”
“Swiss, I think.”
Selecting Swiss Ave. is a way for us to simultaneously address grievances while treating our aesthetic senses, and starting each sentence with “If I had the cash...” as each block westward disappears beyond our peripherals.
“How is Danger these days, anyway? Thought about crashing with him?” I ask.
“Still on Greenville. He told me I lost a step, too.”
“That writer’s block shit in the novel was self-fulfilling.”
He scoffs.
I persist, “No really, the narrator is you and you are him. Slim with the tilted brim...”
“It’s not a block. It’s just..." He realizes the reference. In the key of gangsta rap. "What’s my muthafuckin’ name?? Adam the Strange!”
“And you are not even drunk yet. I always liked ‘Adam the overly animated Mexican.’”
“Too long. Not believable.”
“You think Mexicans aren’t prone to excitement?”
“In Spanish, yes. I don’t speak Spanish.”
For the next couple of blocks, I am forced to admit I am more Mexican than him and Danger combined. “Remember that time we were at Fiesta and you bought all that Mexican candy?”
“It’s cheap and delicious, man. That’s my defense. If it makes me Mexican, so be it. I‘m more Mexican than you and Danger combined.”
A woman with a near perfect ass jogs past us going east.
“Irish, Mexican... it’s all the same,” he says. “That is the most distracting ass ever.”
“Yeah. You think Danger will lend us some cash? If we’re going to a party, we might as well make an effort to not show up empty handed.”
Crossing Swiss onto Fitzhugh, we are heading north to the next east-west street, Live Oak. Passing us, going south on Fitzhugh is a metro-sexual looking guy walking two small dogs. One is a poodle, the other is a Yorkie. Fuck it. The terrier is tiny. The guy, with his head up and nose pointing slightly to the heavens, is wearing shades-- those big, annoying bug-eyed ones that ugly chicks always wear for the fact that they cover up 60% of their face-- that give him what he might perceive as an air of cool, but the general consensus concerning these type of guys is that they‘re all pricks. Adam laughs.
“Gay or punk?” I ask. No laughter this time.
“Probably more punk than that guy Steve.”
Good one. Steve was a huge, really scary punk asshole who bounced bars on Lower Greenville. He beat the shit out of me once. I was drunk, hopped up on coke, and apparently I hit on his girlfriend. The worst part was that he was already pissed at me for starting rumors about his “anything antithetical to homosexual” façade being a means to cover up his raging desire to suck every cock in the vicinity.
The back-story to that is the whole fiasco where he got macho with me because I became slightly indignant over him manhandling my driver’s license. Examining it, bending it to the point of alteration. Words were exchanged. From that point forward I was personae non-gratis at the particular bar where he bounced.
“What’s big, dumb, and less punk than Little Richard?” I would chirp drunkenly, tactlessly at whomever I thought was listening. Honestly, I thought everyone was. This went on for a few weeks. I would lob cute little barbs at Steve’s reputation, and there would be no response.
But that particular night my good friends: coke, alcohol, and my big mouth-- not to mention my undersexed penis-- got me beat up.
The story is that I was homesteading in front of the bar his girlfriend was tending at the joint next door (where he bounced many a disagreeable and belligerent motherfucker down the road for a living), and lacking the cash necessary to settle my tab, I offered to take her out back and “eat her out.” Naturally, she was revolted by my proposition and the cheekiness that accompanied it, grabbed me from over the counter, and slapped me several times about the face while yelling. Steve’s attention had been successfully aroused. His rebuttal was neither swift nor graceful.
Drunk and loose as I was, I couldn’t get away from the fucker. Understand: I’m 6’1. That guy had at least five inches on me. That didn’t include the nine inches of spiked Mohawk lined perfectly from his widow’s peak to the nape of neck. And man did his maulers pummel into whatever part of my body faced him! Good show for the patrons. Weeks of pain and numbing euphoria for me (oh the glory of non-prescribed Meperidine A.K.A Demerol!). But that’s how it always is. Inebriation keeps the pain at bay until sobriety rules the day.
Even now, I take shit from my friends for it. At Fitzhugh and Live Oak we stop at the light. “Think that guy could take Steve?” I question with a chuckle.
“Yeah. I do. You were a drunk asshole about it, but it was just a bullshit fad to him. You listen to more punk than that guy,” he trails off and then mutters, “Sex Pistols... gimme a fuckin’ break.”
"He still kicked my ass. But I'll take the street cred."
"You got your ass kicked. Street cred means shit. Just think about it like this: who was more drunk?"
“I was pretty wasted,” I admit.
The light changes. We cross Live Oak and continue west. The skyscrapers of Downtown Dallas can be seen in the distance. The blocks we tread going west pass with little verbal exchange, which means no grandstanding. Every time we open our mouths it’s to impress ourselves or intimidate those around us, so this is out of character. But frankly, I’m tired of talking about the night I got my ass beat, with good reason, by a moronic goliath. Right now, I just want to count my steps. I want to enjoy being sober.
N. Carroll Ave.. Because we’re hungry, the only thing that grabs our attention is the olfactory stimulation from the Burger King that sits on the northeast corner of N. Carroll and Live Oak. We know it’s too rich for our blood. We’re coming up on Peak. It’s the next light. I say to Adam, “Maybe we should see if Danger’s got money, and then find somewhere better to eat. I’m not so sure I want tacos now.”
“Let’s save extravagance for liquor,” he says.
"Do you know exactly where the place is?”
“What fun would that be? Follow the noise, I always say.”
Westward on the north side of Live Oak we walk, Downtown Dallas magnifies ahead of us with each step. Some older black gentlemen are sitting under one of the DART (Dallas Area Rapid Transit-- not always apropos, but not always oxymoronic either) bus shelters. These shelters were conceived to protect waiting riders from the elements, but in reality do little to accomplish such a thing. Rain never comes down from a single angle and cold and heat are allowed several entry points (through hollowed out dot-matrix type entrances-- or if there’s glass, it varies-- through cracks and empty panels), hell the metallic material the fucking things are made of conduct both elements! Clearly, these men would be fucked were it not for the beautiful spring day.
They solicit us for cash as we pass. Adam pulls the linty pocket lining from his jeans and shrugs as if to say “I’m more broke than you are. Don‘t fucking ask.” One of the guys mumbles “God bless you“ while the other waves us off disappointedly. We keep walking. “Look at that,” he says. “They didn’t want to put a tape measure to poverty.”
The Jack in the Box exists comfortably on a concrete bed at the corner of Live Oak and Washington Ave. At this moment we have run out of grass. I notice the concrete bench with “DART” etched into its sides. In front of it is a metal pole-- sprouting from more concrete-- that has a sign made of something I think is much like fiberglass affixed to it. It also reads “DART.”
“I guess they make up for Exall Park’s inexcusable overabundance of grass!” I exclaim. “The park has more than enough fucking grass! It’s Texas, everyone loves sun, what bigger lover of sun than concrete!”
Adam shakes his head.
Inside we are greeted by an empty restaurant. Most of the employees are fooling around: the manager is texting and grinning to himself, the fry cook is flirting with the prep station girl; all of them are doing absolutely nothing to keep their awful jobs-- and in any other situation would likely be summarily fired-- save for the pale girl at the register who is smiling at us, playing well her part, anxious to serve.
Adam sees the slight outlining of one of her tats drooping underneath the hem of her shirtsleeve. He points to it. She smiles and lifts up the sleeve. It’s a cross. He cringes and says, “Nice. Can I get six tacos and two cups, please?” He turns to me. “Water’s cool, right?”
“Sure,” I answer. “Water is the source of life.”
“Really? I thought it was sex.”
“That too,” I add with boredom.
The girl smiles at us. “That’ll be $3.14,” she says with a voice that’d glow if it could be seen. I scramble through my pockets, pull out the two wadded bills. Adam reaches back into his wallet and retrieves two crisp bills, gently laying them in her hand. I can’t believe it! He’s flirting!
She gives us our change and thanks us. 86¢. Three quarters, a dime, and a penny. We sit down and wait on our order. I spin the penny on the table. I think about saying something I always say-- sounds something like, “plastic salt shakers, too bad they don’t have them here... blah, blah, blah”-- I think better of it.
The dining area around us is split into three sections, each one with a ceiling fan turning at medium speed, quietly above. As most of the restaurant is glass, what little wall space there is, is covered with "humorous" send-ups of classic paintings and photos that feature the chain's "mascot" or "commercial identity."
"I don't think half the people who dine at this place get the intended humor of these posters," I say.
"I don't even get half of them," Adam mumbles. His attentions are focused on the girl behind the counter. She's staring at the front door, waiting for the next customer.
"She's ugly, dude. And a Christian."
"Christians have vaginas, too."
"What about ugly girls?"
"The same. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder."
I am ignoring his usage of a cliché because our tacos are ready. I get up and walk to the counter. She says, "Want hot sauce?" Of course I want hot sauce. Hot sauce is the best part. I nod. She dumps several packets in and then rests her elbows on the counter, propping her head up with the palms of her hands.
I drop the tray onto the table between us. Adam tears into the bag. One of the napkins has a series of digits poorly scrawled in ink on it. I point this out to him. He picks it up and reads her name and number aloud. Her name is Juliette. Juliette the pale tattooed Christian.
(2009)
©Patrick Patterson-Carroll
By Patrick Patterson-Carroll
The mattress and box spring I sleep on are never covered. They rest on the floor, the former covering the latter slightly diagonally. If one were to remove the ceiling to look down on it, there would no doubt be discovered symmetry. Symmetry that is not aesthetically pleasing, but symmetry nonetheless. The bed frame is leaned against the wall under the window. I'm missing a crucial support piece, so the chances of me having a real bed are slim to nil.
Books and clothing are littered randomly about the room. Boxes remain packed in corners. I've lived here for four and a half months. I usually sleep with my feet pointing southward and my head pointing to the window, which looks north into an alleyway. The alleyway separates the mansions on Swiss from our little favela on Gaston. That’s America for you. The moneyed aren’t content with protecting their riches, no. They want to see us poor bastards suffer our paycheck to paycheck existences, so they smile and wave to us as we move hither and thither-- from work to home and home to work, day in and day out-- with our apartment complexes only a monument to poverty.
On cold nights I wrap myself in a comforter and assume the fetal position. Most nights I drink myself to a slinky, rubbery consistency, try to read The Gift of Death or Crime and Punishment, fail, and go to sleep. Comatose. So it goes. The cycle.
Usually I wake up at noon, wrench my eyes shut to defend them against the rays of sun that filter through the slats of the horizontal blinds, get up on the left side of the bed, limp to the bathroom, take a shit, wash my face, brush my teeth, and if necessary, shower and shave. But on this particular morning I was rousted from dreamland by the urge to piss. Only hours before I’d taken two lithium, four ibuprofen, and drank a handle of Chilean plonk.
I stand under the cold, sobering spray of the shower and wonder to myself how the hell my bladder could penetrate two lithium tablets and all that fermented grape juice. Then I remember the girl who gave me the pills warning that polyuria is a side effect, so I shouldn‘t “worry my pretty little head about being pregnant.” Har-d-fucking-har. Combined with the wine guzzling, my actions were tantamount to taunting my bladder and liver thusly: “Hey, I don’t like you, and you don’t like me. So I issue to you a challenge. Wake me from a sound sleep for a piss! I don’t care! Do your fucking worst!”
Forthrightly speaking, perhaps pissing off my liver and bladder aren’t the smartest of actions given their biological necessity.
On the toilet I sit, my teeth clattering against themselves, drying off my frostbitten toes. Cold water + A/C = probable shock. I lean over to the hamper and pull out a pair of underwear. I’m not getting laid anytime soon. If Tracey Emin can proudly display her dirty knickers in an installation, certainly I can wear once worn unwashed boxer briefs. They’re at the top and aren’t entombed in dirty shirts and socks, they pass the smell test, and I have talcum. All bases covered.
I’m still feeling drunk. The shower was not sobering enough, apparently! I quickly cover my genitalia with powder, slip on the boxers, and put on the shirt and jeans that are leaning on the back of a seldom sat in chair. They‘re clean. I think. I check the clock. Fifteen ‘til one. Lovely. Breakfast consists of a Belgian waffle-- cold in the center-- and a glass of water. I’m positioned in front of the tube, pretending to watch television en español. They’re trying to sell “trocas” again. The eye candy in the orange top and skirt is cute.
“I know she’s a human being,” I say aloud to no one in particular, justifying to myself those hedonistic little thoughts that cause one so much inner turmoil. Ha, right.
Saturdays are the kind of days where one such as myself does little more than sit around and wait for an exciting proposition to come his way. Per usual, my friend Adam the Strange delivers. By phone. I have one new text from “the Strange,” the icon reads after a couple secs of vibration.
“En route. Get your shit together,” the message reads. Brusque.
Now, when Adam calls or texts to say that he’s on his way over, there’s no real way to determine exactly when he’ll show up. See, neither of us have vehicles. We proudly boast this to our friends, most of whom have cars or are smart enough to utilize the public transport that our glorious city affords us. Yes, those big yellow sardine cans manned by careless drivers only made confident by stupidity and the fact that they are in the biggest vehicle on the road.
The mystery of the ETA is sacred to us both as we are capricious individuals and sometimes we don’t think to notify the other person until we’re halfway there, or already there, or close by, but distracted by a woman or a bar or a woman we have followed into a bar. The point is: I don’t know when he’ll be here.
For awhile he lived with a woman whom we’ll refer to as his girlfriend. The day he moved in with her seemed as if perhaps it would be one of those oft bolded watershed events-- you know, it‘s usually a vocabulary word in history textbooks-- that change drastically the landscape of existence as it is known; a change none of us in his immediate circle of friends expected to happen.
But Adam the Strange is not a man to be tied down. “We weren’t built to last,” he confessed over a drink. “I can’t write. She throws off my rhythm. It’s almost like... well, she’s always around and familiarity through sex breeds a lot more things than just contempt.”
“Like what?” I asked, curious.
“Comfort. I‘m not used to such... everything‘s in its place shit.”
“Oh, well then, can I have a go?”
“She’d kill you. Seriously. You seen my back? You’re a pussy.”
He was right. Woman’s a beast. Best I could hope for would be mercy. And I wouldn’t get that. Besides, she’s fond of Mexicans with Mohawks, and it’s a mold I could never possibly hope to fit.
The spiral notebook sat under my glass. I set the drink aside and opened it. I read the first page that was legible. It was shit. Completely uncharacteristic shit. Undeniably awful. Unabashedly base. His self published This isn’t a suicide note... was so far away from the mess thrown onto those whiskey stained pages that I wanted to hug the guy.
Celebrity was local and brief for him. It was a nice little wave that died out way too soon for his liking. The girlfriend thing was a coping mechanism, which I guess is why it caught everyone who knew him by surprise. “'the Strange’ has a girlfriend? No way!”
“I know it sucks,” he said, looking me directly in the eye. He wet the tips of his fingers, as he does when his mind moves faster than his mouth. “The only thing that could make it more than nonsense is covering up the bullshit with a gimmick.”
“So, bury the bullshit in bullshit? I like it.”
He laughed.
We were walking south on Akard in the direction of his place. City Hall stood, lurching over the reflecting pond like a child admiring itself, teetering dangerously close to the edge, but never quite falling in; and just then Adam blurted, “let’s just get some of my shit and keep going.”
And that’s what we did. “Goodbye,” he said to the beautiful hardwood floor, “goodbye,” to the beautiful high ceilings, “goodbye,” to the beautiful gas stove, “goodbye,” to the beautiful view of Downtown Dallas from the communal patio, and least (and most) of all, “goodbye,” to the eccentrically beautiful woman who had taken him in and fucked all the talent out.
Of course, she was asleep. Passed out. I checked to make sure she was still alive. The woman did a lot of coke; even claimed to have had a heart attack when she was twenty four. She was breathing.
“At least she doesn’t snore,” I said, pocketing a small bag of coke and the rolled up dollar bill.
All I see now are scantily clad young women gyrating to Latin rhythms. I am enjoying it too much. Or not enough. I change the channel. Too much stimulation too soon makes me boring and one dimensional. At least that’s what the postmodernist loving lit major I dated said. She would read my blog and regurgitate phrases or words I used; always striking mockingly, never drolly. The tongue sharp but somehow witless. I curse her and her stupid observations.
Now I’m thinking about my blog. To update or not to update? That’s the question. The answer is that I haven’t brought my virus protection to current, and because I can’t afford a Mac (not an endorsement), I'm open to any PC STD out there. So there it is. My laptop sitting closed on the table in front of me. I'm still paying for the piece of shit.
I tap a fresh pack of smokes against my palm and walk to the door. The peephole is grimy and therefore an unreliable representation of the world immediately in front of my door. I glance down at the nicotine twenty in my hand, separated from the flesh of my palm by plastic and cardboard.
For a moment I struggle. Man against manufacturing. After some ticks of the second hand, the wrapping is off and the top is flipped. I sit back down, remove the shiny paper, extract a cigarette, place it between my lips and light it.
The metal knocker clacks against the door. Adam. He's the only one who uses it. I again shake myself free of the couch's metaphorical shackles and answer the door. He's smiling. "What the fuck's up?" I ask.
"I'm homeless!"
He steps in. I gesture for him to sit down. He demurs the invitation and asks for a cigarette. "If nothing else, you've got tobacco and booze."
"Regretting running away?"
"She's got an 'Amber Alert' out on me. Her friends, mostly assholes I don't even know, are texting me,” he says with a laugh. “But one of them mentioned a party tonight somewhere between here and Lakewood.”
“Well, we can’t miss that,” I say, suddenly perky.
We are both hungry, so we decide to pool our resources and get tacos from Jack in the Box. He has $2.76 cash and I have $2.16 plus something like three or four bucks in the bank. In wadded up tender and change, we have a total of $4.92, which is enough for six tacos (as per the 2 for 99¢ deal, which has been in affect for as long as I can remember), or four tacos and two small drinks. We laugh.
“That, I think, is as good as your math will ever get,” he says.
We do a couple of lines of coke and hit the door. A little boy with nothing but a diaper covering his ass runs past us squealing while his mother yells in Spanish. I say “aww,” lock the door and we head through the parking lot into the alley. The sun is slowly heading west and so are we. Not a creature stirs, nary a crackhead nor bum, just the Tejano music throbbing softly behind us.
Silence, compatible though it is with sedentary solitude, is incompatible when walking in company, so I say to Adam, "What were you thinking when you wrote that shit?" A couple of steps pass, and he stops. I stop as well. He looks at me and smiles.
"Man, I don't know. I wrote This is not a suicide note... when I was rooming with Danger. Our schedules differed to the point where we were rarely in the apartment together. With the girlfriend... all we did was go out and drink and come home and fuck.”
“Yeah,” I said. We walked on, turning northbound on N. Collett. “But in this economy, one shouldn’t give up pussy.”
Adam asks, “Swiss or Live Oak?”
“Swiss, I think.”
Selecting Swiss Ave. is a way for us to simultaneously address grievances while treating our aesthetic senses, and starting each sentence with “If I had the cash...” as each block westward disappears beyond our peripherals.
“How is Danger these days, anyway? Thought about crashing with him?” I ask.
“Still on Greenville. He told me I lost a step, too.”
“That writer’s block shit in the novel was self-fulfilling.”
He scoffs.
I persist, “No really, the narrator is you and you are him. Slim with the tilted brim...”
“It’s not a block. It’s just..." He realizes the reference. In the key of gangsta rap. "What’s my muthafuckin’ name?? Adam the Strange!”
“And you are not even drunk yet. I always liked ‘Adam the overly animated Mexican.’”
“Too long. Not believable.”
“You think Mexicans aren’t prone to excitement?”
“In Spanish, yes. I don’t speak Spanish.”
For the next couple of blocks, I am forced to admit I am more Mexican than him and Danger combined. “Remember that time we were at Fiesta and you bought all that Mexican candy?”
“It’s cheap and delicious, man. That’s my defense. If it makes me Mexican, so be it. I‘m more Mexican than you and Danger combined.”
A woman with a near perfect ass jogs past us going east.
“Irish, Mexican... it’s all the same,” he says. “That is the most distracting ass ever.”
“Yeah. You think Danger will lend us some cash? If we’re going to a party, we might as well make an effort to not show up empty handed.”
Crossing Swiss onto Fitzhugh, we are heading north to the next east-west street, Live Oak. Passing us, going south on Fitzhugh is a metro-sexual looking guy walking two small dogs. One is a poodle, the other is a Yorkie. Fuck it. The terrier is tiny. The guy, with his head up and nose pointing slightly to the heavens, is wearing shades-- those big, annoying bug-eyed ones that ugly chicks always wear for the fact that they cover up 60% of their face-- that give him what he might perceive as an air of cool, but the general consensus concerning these type of guys is that they‘re all pricks. Adam laughs.
“Gay or punk?” I ask. No laughter this time.
“Probably more punk than that guy Steve.”
Good one. Steve was a huge, really scary punk asshole who bounced bars on Lower Greenville. He beat the shit out of me once. I was drunk, hopped up on coke, and apparently I hit on his girlfriend. The worst part was that he was already pissed at me for starting rumors about his “anything antithetical to homosexual” façade being a means to cover up his raging desire to suck every cock in the vicinity.
The back-story to that is the whole fiasco where he got macho with me because I became slightly indignant over him manhandling my driver’s license. Examining it, bending it to the point of alteration. Words were exchanged. From that point forward I was personae non-gratis at the particular bar where he bounced.
“What’s big, dumb, and less punk than Little Richard?” I would chirp drunkenly, tactlessly at whomever I thought was listening. Honestly, I thought everyone was. This went on for a few weeks. I would lob cute little barbs at Steve’s reputation, and there would be no response.
But that particular night my good friends: coke, alcohol, and my big mouth-- not to mention my undersexed penis-- got me beat up.
The story is that I was homesteading in front of the bar his girlfriend was tending at the joint next door (where he bounced many a disagreeable and belligerent motherfucker down the road for a living), and lacking the cash necessary to settle my tab, I offered to take her out back and “eat her out.” Naturally, she was revolted by my proposition and the cheekiness that accompanied it, grabbed me from over the counter, and slapped me several times about the face while yelling. Steve’s attention had been successfully aroused. His rebuttal was neither swift nor graceful.
Drunk and loose as I was, I couldn’t get away from the fucker. Understand: I’m 6’1. That guy had at least five inches on me. That didn’t include the nine inches of spiked Mohawk lined perfectly from his widow’s peak to the nape of neck. And man did his maulers pummel into whatever part of my body faced him! Good show for the patrons. Weeks of pain and numbing euphoria for me (oh the glory of non-prescribed Meperidine A.K.A Demerol!). But that’s how it always is. Inebriation keeps the pain at bay until sobriety rules the day.
Even now, I take shit from my friends for it. At Fitzhugh and Live Oak we stop at the light. “Think that guy could take Steve?” I question with a chuckle.
“Yeah. I do. You were a drunk asshole about it, but it was just a bullshit fad to him. You listen to more punk than that guy,” he trails off and then mutters, “Sex Pistols... gimme a fuckin’ break.”
"He still kicked my ass. But I'll take the street cred."
"You got your ass kicked. Street cred means shit. Just think about it like this: who was more drunk?"
“I was pretty wasted,” I admit.
The light changes. We cross Live Oak and continue west. The skyscrapers of Downtown Dallas can be seen in the distance. The blocks we tread going west pass with little verbal exchange, which means no grandstanding. Every time we open our mouths it’s to impress ourselves or intimidate those around us, so this is out of character. But frankly, I’m tired of talking about the night I got my ass beat, with good reason, by a moronic goliath. Right now, I just want to count my steps. I want to enjoy being sober.
N. Carroll Ave.. Because we’re hungry, the only thing that grabs our attention is the olfactory stimulation from the Burger King that sits on the northeast corner of N. Carroll and Live Oak. We know it’s too rich for our blood. We’re coming up on Peak. It’s the next light. I say to Adam, “Maybe we should see if Danger’s got money, and then find somewhere better to eat. I’m not so sure I want tacos now.”
“Let’s save extravagance for liquor,” he says.
"Do you know exactly where the place is?”
“What fun would that be? Follow the noise, I always say.”
Westward on the north side of Live Oak we walk, Downtown Dallas magnifies ahead of us with each step. Some older black gentlemen are sitting under one of the DART (Dallas Area Rapid Transit-- not always apropos, but not always oxymoronic either) bus shelters. These shelters were conceived to protect waiting riders from the elements, but in reality do little to accomplish such a thing. Rain never comes down from a single angle and cold and heat are allowed several entry points (through hollowed out dot-matrix type entrances-- or if there’s glass, it varies-- through cracks and empty panels), hell the metallic material the fucking things are made of conduct both elements! Clearly, these men would be fucked were it not for the beautiful spring day.
They solicit us for cash as we pass. Adam pulls the linty pocket lining from his jeans and shrugs as if to say “I’m more broke than you are. Don‘t fucking ask.” One of the guys mumbles “God bless you“ while the other waves us off disappointedly. We keep walking. “Look at that,” he says. “They didn’t want to put a tape measure to poverty.”
The Jack in the Box exists comfortably on a concrete bed at the corner of Live Oak and Washington Ave. At this moment we have run out of grass. I notice the concrete bench with “DART” etched into its sides. In front of it is a metal pole-- sprouting from more concrete-- that has a sign made of something I think is much like fiberglass affixed to it. It also reads “DART.”
“I guess they make up for Exall Park’s inexcusable overabundance of grass!” I exclaim. “The park has more than enough fucking grass! It’s Texas, everyone loves sun, what bigger lover of sun than concrete!”
Adam shakes his head.
Inside we are greeted by an empty restaurant. Most of the employees are fooling around: the manager is texting and grinning to himself, the fry cook is flirting with the prep station girl; all of them are doing absolutely nothing to keep their awful jobs-- and in any other situation would likely be summarily fired-- save for the pale girl at the register who is smiling at us, playing well her part, anxious to serve.
Adam sees the slight outlining of one of her tats drooping underneath the hem of her shirtsleeve. He points to it. She smiles and lifts up the sleeve. It’s a cross. He cringes and says, “Nice. Can I get six tacos and two cups, please?” He turns to me. “Water’s cool, right?”
“Sure,” I answer. “Water is the source of life.”
“Really? I thought it was sex.”
“That too,” I add with boredom.
The girl smiles at us. “That’ll be $3.14,” she says with a voice that’d glow if it could be seen. I scramble through my pockets, pull out the two wadded bills. Adam reaches back into his wallet and retrieves two crisp bills, gently laying them in her hand. I can’t believe it! He’s flirting!
She gives us our change and thanks us. 86¢. Three quarters, a dime, and a penny. We sit down and wait on our order. I spin the penny on the table. I think about saying something I always say-- sounds something like, “plastic salt shakers, too bad they don’t have them here... blah, blah, blah”-- I think better of it.
The dining area around us is split into three sections, each one with a ceiling fan turning at medium speed, quietly above. As most of the restaurant is glass, what little wall space there is, is covered with "humorous" send-ups of classic paintings and photos that feature the chain's "mascot" or "commercial identity."
"I don't think half the people who dine at this place get the intended humor of these posters," I say.
"I don't even get half of them," Adam mumbles. His attentions are focused on the girl behind the counter. She's staring at the front door, waiting for the next customer.
"She's ugly, dude. And a Christian."
"Christians have vaginas, too."
"What about ugly girls?"
"The same. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder."
I am ignoring his usage of a cliché because our tacos are ready. I get up and walk to the counter. She says, "Want hot sauce?" Of course I want hot sauce. Hot sauce is the best part. I nod. She dumps several packets in and then rests her elbows on the counter, propping her head up with the palms of her hands.
I drop the tray onto the table between us. Adam tears into the bag. One of the napkins has a series of digits poorly scrawled in ink on it. I point this out to him. He picks it up and reads her name and number aloud. Her name is Juliette. Juliette the pale tattooed Christian.
(2009)
©Patrick Patterson-Carroll
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