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I'd pissed away several years of college, and now I was pissing away whatever comes after that. A surreal feeling, because I had in my early 20s had daily premonitions of my own death in some horrible accident. But now I was here in my late 20s and still alive, living on stolen time. Sometimes I wondered, though. "Am I dead, Frankie?"
"Well if you are, I guess I am too."
The sky was overcast but bright, such that the concrete and big cement block buildings were saturated with pale light. It only enhanced my sense of being in some purgatory between worlds. At least the light rain hitting my forehead made me feel something. We were downtown on a street under the train tracks, headed off from that entertaining intersection I mentioned before. The shouts were still audible. I passed around a junkie. He was standing right on the corner, swaying back and forth with his gaze fixed on nothing, completely unaware of the people waiting for the crosswalk. And they pretended not to see him.
My own place was or had been nearer the outskirts of the city, but I'd always wanted one of those apartments that looked right out onto the train tracks, the bright red lights and constant rattle of subway cars; mostly so I'd have an excuse for why I couldn't sleep at night.
This was back before cell phones, so it was pretty easy to just fall off the map and hide from the people who cared about you. I'd had an answering machine back at my place, but it had this great button on it labelled 'Erase' that just deleted every message without even playing them. Though at this point, like I said, the continued existence of my living space and all my stuff was an academic matter at best.
There was one particular hotdog stand that I liked, and that's where we always went. The guy had prime real estate, right under the steps to the train, just down the street from a shitty park where some nutcase played electric guitar and sang songs about Armageddon washing away the blood of sinners. Hotdog stand guy was making a killing on the foot traffic, yet you could see that he hated them all. Whether they stopped for him or walked on by, his eyes were slitted and suspicious. He said $2.50 like it was a curse word, and if you asked for relish his hatred was hot enough to warm your hands over. I always asked for relish. Just knowing that he wanted to hurt me made my skin prickle.
The blackouts were getting worse. I was so good at it that I could skip large chunks of time just by drinking a couple beers. The little hints of existence that poked up through the haze were like the dreams I had when I slept: I didn't know or care what happened in them, I only knew that they were better. Aside from the robotic needs of my body, my only desire was to eliminate consciousness. The air in the other world was clear and bright. I was weightless. There were no headaches. No limits to time and space. But the best part was that it wasn't real.
It was the same when we sat for hours in the cafe and I stared at Jane. I could see her and even touch her finger, but she wasn't real. She was weightless, clean, bright, and I could imagine beaten down in exactly the way that I was. In my mind, her anger was epic. I could feel immense power building in it, energy that would soon burst from her eyes and fists and mouth in a firestorm big enough to consume the city. She was a fucking superhero.
Tuesday, March 20, 2018
Thursday, March 15, 2018
wastrels p.3
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"There is no meaning in the world!"
"What does that even mean, Yak?" His name was Jakob which he said with a Y, so we called him Yak.
"I can't tell you, because there is no meaning!"
"Good talk." I tried to ignore whatever else he wanted to say. His full name was Yak Sand, I guess. He was always in the cafe, always smoking cigarettes, shouting out of his mouth, and not ordering anything. I liked to imagine that Jane hated him more than she hated me because that made me happy. "What do you think, Jane?"
"You both make some good points." She stood waiting for an order, holding her pencil like a dagger.
"Ah, you're just saying that."
"I _am_ just saying that." She had a temper yet it was her job to be nice. She vibrated from the constant effort of holding it in, a vein pulsing on her neck, a twitch in her right eye, a package full of glorious bloodshed that she wouldn't be able to hold in forever. Beautiful. I wanted to be there when she finally snapped.
"Frankie, let's go on an adventure. I'm bored." We were still at the cafe. Or maybe we were there again.
"How do we do that?"
"I dunno. Let's get shit-faced."
"We did that yesterday."
"Well how did people used to go on adventures? Strike out into the wilderness?"
"Off the edge of the map."
"Get press-ganged?"
"Get cholera."
"Shoot animals?"
"Shoot natives."
"Invade a country?"
"Discover a civilization."
"Can we do that stuff now?"
"Not really."
"Whaddawe do, Frankie?"
"We could go to a different bar than usual."
Blackouts were my primary mode of travel, and filled with phantom hours that I could only assume I had enjoyed. "That'll do. Jane! Check, please. I'm getting the dry-shakes over here."
"No, you've been drinking coffee all day."
Frankie lurched to his feet. "My God, she's right, Roger. We need downers, stat! I feel horribly lucid." He held his filthy hands before his face, stared at his own palms in horror. I couldn't have agreed more. I was starting to see the shapes of people again. A woman at the counter showing her spine. A man whose eyes slid beneath folds of skin. His rat-monkey children were shrieking and scratching themselves. The younger one still had a second set of teeth hiding in his face.
"Let's get out of here."
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Current Page:
"There is no meaning in the world!"
"What does that even mean, Yak?" His name was Jakob which he said with a Y, so we called him Yak.
"I can't tell you, because there is no meaning!"
"Good talk." I tried to ignore whatever else he wanted to say. His full name was Yak Sand, I guess. He was always in the cafe, always smoking cigarettes, shouting out of his mouth, and not ordering anything. I liked to imagine that Jane hated him more than she hated me because that made me happy. "What do you think, Jane?"
"You both make some good points." She stood waiting for an order, holding her pencil like a dagger.
"Ah, you're just saying that."
"I _am_ just saying that." She had a temper yet it was her job to be nice. She vibrated from the constant effort of holding it in, a vein pulsing on her neck, a twitch in her right eye, a package full of glorious bloodshed that she wouldn't be able to hold in forever. Beautiful. I wanted to be there when she finally snapped.
"Frankie, let's go on an adventure. I'm bored." We were still at the cafe. Or maybe we were there again.
"How do we do that?"
"I dunno. Let's get shit-faced."
"We did that yesterday."
"Well how did people used to go on adventures? Strike out into the wilderness?"
"Off the edge of the map."
"Get press-ganged?"
"Get cholera."
"Shoot animals?"
"Shoot natives."
"Invade a country?"
"Discover a civilization."
"Can we do that stuff now?"
"Not really."
"Whaddawe do, Frankie?"
"We could go to a different bar than usual."
Blackouts were my primary mode of travel, and filled with phantom hours that I could only assume I had enjoyed. "That'll do. Jane! Check, please. I'm getting the dry-shakes over here."
"No, you've been drinking coffee all day."
Frankie lurched to his feet. "My God, she's right, Roger. We need downers, stat! I feel horribly lucid." He held his filthy hands before his face, stared at his own palms in horror. I couldn't have agreed more. I was starting to see the shapes of people again. A woman at the counter showing her spine. A man whose eyes slid beneath folds of skin. His rat-monkey children were shrieking and scratching themselves. The younger one still had a second set of teeth hiding in his face.
"Let's get out of here."
Tuesday, March 13, 2018
wastrels
Part 1
Current Part:
I was committed to a relationship with a girl named Jane, though she didn't know it. She worked 6 or 7 days a week at a cafe by the park, which we frequented on Frankie's dime. She had straight, black hair and a prominent nose. She wore an apron over her skirt. She had that dead look in her eyes of a woman who believes nothing can harm her anymore.
"Jane, another coffee please."
Her frown would deepen. "You got it." She had to wear her first name on her chest, so she couldn't really stop me from acting familiar with her. I could tell it bothered her.
I couldn't stop watching her. The only thing that drew my eyes away was the pack of pigeons shitting on the outside of the window sill. The coffee was terrible, but I'd never really cared about that. Everything tasted of ashes.
In the summer we sat near the open door so Frankie wouldn't stink up the place. "Don't embarrass me, Frankie," I'd say.
"You embarrass yourself."
---
I got a job at the same Walmart I used to steal from, which was convenient. But God the people there. I worked the freak shift, the witching hour. Which was great, because those customers never wanted to talk to anyone. They were deformed, sad proto-humans; blobs in electric wheelchairs; women with sickening face injuries. There was a manager on duty, but she never left her office at night. I mostly just wandered the aisles with a mop, drifting in the fog from my own nostrils. Sometimes Frankie came to visit me in the stock room, to haul away any damaged merchandise in his shopping cart.
One time we got robbed. I was in the back, though. I walked up to the cashier later and she said, "Someone took all my money." She opened the drawer to show me. It was empty.
"Did he have a gun or something?"
"Nah, he just reached over and took it."
"Did you tell security? That guy with the big neck, right?"
She didn't seem to hear me.
Anyways, the liquor store was in the same parking lot, so it was easy to just hit it up with my paycheck. Check to cash places are everywhere. I always got RC Cola as a mixer cause my initials were on it.
I shared the results with Frankie, and then he'd say, "I found a bag of grass under the bridge man." Then we'd just sort of float off down the highway. The lights were bright like a football stadium, glowing billboards everywhere.
We couldn't see the stars from anywhere near the city but just the same I could look up and wonder. Obviously, there were other planets up there with other (ever freakier looking) people on them, but I wondered if there was another me, someone I could really relate to, even more than I could to Frankie. A total loser. A wastrel.
---
The weekly tradition was for the boss to call me upstairs when I came in for my shift, before he left for his daywalker life. His tie and skin were both glossy. "Siddown Robert."
"Thanks."
"You know what your problem is, Robert?"
"What, sir?"
"You don't want to participate."
"Sir?"
He would turn to the window that looked down on the clothing department and cast his voice into the distance. "People like me have built this glorious civilization..."
"Yessir."
"And people like you just want to tear it down because there's no place for you in it."
"Yessir."
"Fortunately!" He'd turn back to me then and remove his sunglasses with a flourish. "You're too weak and choleric to do any real damage."
"Yessir."
"So people like me will continue to provide your kind with food and shelter for whatever modest labor you can provide with that husk of yours."
"Thank you, sir."
He liked my attitude. "I like your attitude, Robert. Good talk! You may leave me now."
"Enjoy your evening, sir." I'd shuffle down to my mop, most weeks too blazed to remember what he'd said to me up there.
---
"Frankie, we're getting out of here."
"Howzzat?"
We were by the highway again, lying on the pavement. I think it was morning already because I could see the clouds. "Stick up your thumb. We'll hitch a ride." We stuck our thumbs up to the sky.
Sometimes we did hitch a ride, but it was just to downtown. Everything was too expensive, but we could ride the subway around for a while or stand on the street corner. One intersection was great because the people there were always shouting at each other. Horrible, hateful comments. "Do you think they know each other, Frankie?"
"I can't tell." He'd found a ratty armchair and a bag of popcorn somewhere. "Doesn't sound like it."
I always thought I'd see violence there, but instead they'd curse each other breathless and then sort of stumble away. "Let's go see Jane."
"Okay." Frankie never made a decision. He would just wait for someone else to make him stand up and go. "I could sit here forever, though."
"I know you could."
Current Part:
I was committed to a relationship with a girl named Jane, though she didn't know it. She worked 6 or 7 days a week at a cafe by the park, which we frequented on Frankie's dime. She had straight, black hair and a prominent nose. She wore an apron over her skirt. She had that dead look in her eyes of a woman who believes nothing can harm her anymore.
"Jane, another coffee please."
Her frown would deepen. "You got it." She had to wear her first name on her chest, so she couldn't really stop me from acting familiar with her. I could tell it bothered her.
I couldn't stop watching her. The only thing that drew my eyes away was the pack of pigeons shitting on the outside of the window sill. The coffee was terrible, but I'd never really cared about that. Everything tasted of ashes.
In the summer we sat near the open door so Frankie wouldn't stink up the place. "Don't embarrass me, Frankie," I'd say.
"You embarrass yourself."
---
I got a job at the same Walmart I used to steal from, which was convenient. But God the people there. I worked the freak shift, the witching hour. Which was great, because those customers never wanted to talk to anyone. They were deformed, sad proto-humans; blobs in electric wheelchairs; women with sickening face injuries. There was a manager on duty, but she never left her office at night. I mostly just wandered the aisles with a mop, drifting in the fog from my own nostrils. Sometimes Frankie came to visit me in the stock room, to haul away any damaged merchandise in his shopping cart.
One time we got robbed. I was in the back, though. I walked up to the cashier later and she said, "Someone took all my money." She opened the drawer to show me. It was empty.
"Did he have a gun or something?"
"Nah, he just reached over and took it."
"Did you tell security? That guy with the big neck, right?"
She didn't seem to hear me.
Anyways, the liquor store was in the same parking lot, so it was easy to just hit it up with my paycheck. Check to cash places are everywhere. I always got RC Cola as a mixer cause my initials were on it.
I shared the results with Frankie, and then he'd say, "I found a bag of grass under the bridge man." Then we'd just sort of float off down the highway. The lights were bright like a football stadium, glowing billboards everywhere.
We couldn't see the stars from anywhere near the city but just the same I could look up and wonder. Obviously, there were other planets up there with other (ever freakier looking) people on them, but I wondered if there was another me, someone I could really relate to, even more than I could to Frankie. A total loser. A wastrel.
---
The weekly tradition was for the boss to call me upstairs when I came in for my shift, before he left for his daywalker life. His tie and skin were both glossy. "Siddown Robert."
"Thanks."
"You know what your problem is, Robert?"
"What, sir?"
"You don't want to participate."
"Sir?"
He would turn to the window that looked down on the clothing department and cast his voice into the distance. "People like me have built this glorious civilization..."
"Yessir."
"And people like you just want to tear it down because there's no place for you in it."
"Yessir."
"Fortunately!" He'd turn back to me then and remove his sunglasses with a flourish. "You're too weak and choleric to do any real damage."
"Yessir."
"So people like me will continue to provide your kind with food and shelter for whatever modest labor you can provide with that husk of yours."
"Thank you, sir."
He liked my attitude. "I like your attitude, Robert. Good talk! You may leave me now."
"Enjoy your evening, sir." I'd shuffle down to my mop, most weeks too blazed to remember what he'd said to me up there.
---
"Frankie, we're getting out of here."
"Howzzat?"
We were by the highway again, lying on the pavement. I think it was morning already because I could see the clouds. "Stick up your thumb. We'll hitch a ride." We stuck our thumbs up to the sky.
Sometimes we did hitch a ride, but it was just to downtown. Everything was too expensive, but we could ride the subway around for a while or stand on the street corner. One intersection was great because the people there were always shouting at each other. Horrible, hateful comments. "Do you think they know each other, Frankie?"
"I can't tell." He'd found a ratty armchair and a bag of popcorn somewhere. "Doesn't sound like it."
I always thought I'd see violence there, but instead they'd curse each other breathless and then sort of stumble away. "Let's go see Jane."
"Okay." Frankie never made a decision. He would just wait for someone else to make him stand up and go. "I could sit here forever, though."
"I know you could."
Friday, March 9, 2018
I'll bet it was about 4:30 am in a Walmart
I'll bet it was about 4:30 am in a Walmart where I'd gone to purchase a series of jackets when I started to noticed people popping and exploding around me. The soup cans in the canned soup aisle were covered in pink slime with a consistency between jello and cake frosting. Bits of grey matter had glommed to the shelving, still twitching with the vitality of baby octopi. Two aisles down, a fat woman's neck was eating itself. She panted and gurgled in pain as she bent over for a 40-pack of snot-colored sport drink.
---
Frankie Bacon was my best friend but not for any length of time. I'd met him the Tuesday before in a park, where he was wringing the neck of every pigeon he could get his hands on. Then they went into the pile hidden behind a couple bushes but still sure to be discovered. Everything out of Frankie's mouth made me smile then laugh then cry, even his toxic breath. "Roger," he'd say, "do you think people will ever stop dying?"
"What do you mean?" I'd say. "What people?"
"All people. They just keep dying. Like all the fucking time. When will it stop?" Then I'd notice the tears leaking from his eyes.
"I dunno. Once there are no more people, I guess."
So he'd take a snort from the vial hanging around his neck, the one labelled 'Smelling Salts' with a sharpie, and grin: "That's right, isn't it!?"
I was in love with Frankie for a lot of reasons, but chief among them was that despite looking like and being a bum, he always seemed to have just enough cash to cover whatever we were doing. A crumpled twenty forgotten in his coat pocket or a thick roll of singles. Myself, I think I had a job or something, but whatever they paid me went quickly to bottles of everclear and hotdogs. I hadn't been to my apartment in long enough that I couldn't really prove that it was still there. But the idea of its continued existence was comforting.
The other thing I loved about Frankie was that he was ugly as shit. He was short, fat, and wrinkly. He could've been the lovechild of John Belushi and a rat. His hair started halfway back his scalp and from there lived the life of a rowdy teenager; curling, poofing, starting up punk bands, and sometimes catching on fire. Just by standing there, he made me feel handsome and young.
---
Frankie Bacon was my best friend but not for any length of time. I'd met him the Tuesday before in a park, where he was wringing the neck of every pigeon he could get his hands on. Then they went into the pile hidden behind a couple bushes but still sure to be discovered. Everything out of Frankie's mouth made me smile then laugh then cry, even his toxic breath. "Roger," he'd say, "do you think people will ever stop dying?"
"What do you mean?" I'd say. "What people?"
"All people. They just keep dying. Like all the fucking time. When will it stop?" Then I'd notice the tears leaking from his eyes.
"I dunno. Once there are no more people, I guess."
So he'd take a snort from the vial hanging around his neck, the one labelled 'Smelling Salts' with a sharpie, and grin: "That's right, isn't it!?"
I was in love with Frankie for a lot of reasons, but chief among them was that despite looking like and being a bum, he always seemed to have just enough cash to cover whatever we were doing. A crumpled twenty forgotten in his coat pocket or a thick roll of singles. Myself, I think I had a job or something, but whatever they paid me went quickly to bottles of everclear and hotdogs. I hadn't been to my apartment in long enough that I couldn't really prove that it was still there. But the idea of its continued existence was comforting.
The other thing I loved about Frankie was that he was ugly as shit. He was short, fat, and wrinkly. He could've been the lovechild of John Belushi and a rat. His hair started halfway back his scalp and from there lived the life of a rowdy teenager; curling, poofing, starting up punk bands, and sometimes catching on fire. Just by standing there, he made me feel handsome and young.
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