Cock and Balls!

“Cock and Balls!”

I looked up from my stool to see why such things were being screamed. I didn’t really find an answer.

A short, stubby little red-haired girl was sitting at the end of the bar. She was drinking an Amstel Light. I fucking hate Amstel Light. It reminds me of Michelob.

I go back to watching “The Middle.” I want to say it reminds me of “Malcolm In the Middle” but it really doesn’t because I never watched that show. I started watching “The Middle” mainly because it was on when I got home from work. When I had a job.

Now, I drink less-than-shitty beer in my local.

Lately, this stubby little red-haired girl has been coming in. It’s making me reconsider my local being my local anymore.

She’s not ugly. She’s not pretty. She’s that in between that you just don’t understand. I dig her tattoo of a soccer ball being kicked by a crab. That’s what I have deduced about her and I’s potential for a long-lasting relationship.

And she yells “Cock and Balls!” quite often when no one is around.

Except for me.

You’d think maybe she’s talking to me. But I don’t make such jumps. It’s why I was a virgin until I was 20, and then I lost my virginity to a girl who told her friends “I’m going to have him tonight!” and well, she did.

It was great at the moment. But soon became a drag.

She was an awful person. And I’d probably hazard to guess she still is.

Of course, a lot of people would say that about me. And they’d be pretty damn correct.

Ryan Adams’ “Losering” comes on.

“Fuck,” I mutter.

“What?” says the stubby red-haired gal.

“I hate this damn song,” I reply, no knowing why I’m opening this line of dialogue.

“Reminds you of an ex, huh?” she replies.

“Nah,” I say. “It reminds me of sitting in my studio apartment drinking over my ex.”

“Touche.” And she goes back to drinking her Amstel Light and I go back to watching “The Middle.” It’s the episode where the mom is worried that the son, older one, isn’t texting her back.

I hate texting. I think. I also hate talking on phones. Fuck phones.

The world outside is wet, rainy and cold. I’m glad I don’t smoke cigarettes. Yet, I miss them. There’s always something wrong about sitting in a dingy bar and not smelling smoke. Now, you just smell it when some ass hat sits down next to you, smelling like an ashtray.

Smokers stink.

But so do people that just fucked in the bathroom stall of a Burger King.

I look at the TV. Charlie Sheen is smiling in a commercial. He’s got HIV, I think. I don’t have HIV, I think next. I’m glad I don’t have HIV, I think even more. Not exactly deep thoughts here, but they keep my mind from drifting too far into nothingness, which shitty beer and chicken wings can do.

I say that about chicken wings knowing full well I haven’t eaten a chicken wing in three years. They give me diarrhea. They haven’t always done that, but I’m 44 years old and they do now. I guess that’s what getting old is really about. Shitting liquid. I guess I expected more. Maybe. But probably not.

I look at the stubby red-haired gal. She’s got a chat pal now. Lost out again.

He’s wearing a ripped Bon Jovi “Slippery When Wet” shirt. I’ll give him no props for that. If he looked like the girl’s tits on the shirt, then I’d give him props. Instead, he looks more like Russ Morman, the former Chicago White Sox player. But 25 years older. Of course, I’m thinking of the Russ Morman from the 1987 Fleer set, so maybe it is Russ Morman sitting in this shitty bar hitting on a stubby red-haired girl that I was thinking about fucking but knew I never would so I just stayed up and watched “The Middle.”

Life is funny sometimes.

At least it is in the moving picture shows. I kind of wish I could afford to go see a moving picture show right now. Maybe trade in one of the 10 or so times I saw Pulp Fiction in my first bit of time living in Arizona. Nah. I enjoyed those times. Sitting alone in a theater, usually almost empty, with my box of popcorn and Coca-Cola. I’m sure I used to dream about some beautiful gal coming in an taking me away. And she probably wasn’t a red head.

And she probably did use the phrase “Cock and Balls!” a lot.

Game Boy

“Never buy your girlfriend a Nintendo Game Boy,” I said to the guy next to me at the bar.

He was wearing dirty camo clothes from head to toe. Probably was going to vote for Donald Trump. Of course, who was I kidding, he wasn’t voting.

“What’s a Game Boy?” he asked through his broken tooth grin.

I was amazed at how white his teeth were, however. My teeth had turned yellow quite early in life. I drank way too many Mountain Dews and Nu Grapes during my childhood for my teeth to have any chance.

Then, I didn’t go to the dentist.

Been five times since 1994.

Now a humblebrag as the Facebook police would say. But a statement of fact. Stupid fact, but fact nonetheless.

Sometime around 2007, I noticed just how yellow my teeth had gotten. I was looking at photos from my best friend’s bachelor part in Austin, Tx. I wanted to put one of them up on Myspace. But they were so damn yellow. So, I made it a black-and-white photo.

Pretty much every phot of me since I’m had this crooked grin. Mostly, covering up my ugly teeth.

This guy, however, had perfect fucking teeth. And he smelled like three-day old burritos soaked in piss.

But at least he’s got a paycheck, I thought to myself.

My last paycheck was cashed on Feb. 22, 2016. I got laid off two days earlier by the last newspaper I worked out. I took out student loans totaling just over $36,000 to get my journalism degree. Really, I took out loans to enjoy my mid-20s, by staying in school, but who is really telling this story. So, I will embellish.

“A Game Boy is a hand-held video game system,” I told Mr. Camo smells like pissed burrito.

“Why’d ya need that? Can’t you use a phone?” he smartly replied.

“That, sir, is why you are a better man than me,” I replied.

He tilted his glass of Keystone Light, yes, a glass of KL, not a bottle, can, etc… and gave me a wink and a nod. Then he wandered off to the bathroom.

I’d never see him again.

The last bit of thinking got me thinking. So I wandered over to the jukebox and plopped a dollar into it. I still hate the Internet jukes, but find me a bar with a 45s juke nowadays in this shit box of a town.

My town, Zebulon, North Carolina.

I did a quick search and hit play.

The Faces’ “Oh, La, La.”

Seemed to fit the mood.

The mood I’m always in now. Sad and pissed off. About a lot of things and about nothing.

I ordered another beer. I drank it. Ordered another.

“You got the money for these beers, Randy,” John, the barkeep asked.

“Probably,” I replied.

I actually didn’t know if I did. Unemployment checks didn’t come anymore. But the occasional royalty check from my one published book did. I know I cashed one recently, but couldn’t quite remember if I’d spent it all yet.

I opened my Velcro wallet with a rip, and looked real quick.

“Yep,” I said to no one. John had walked away. He was talking to some redhead at the other end of the bar. She was not attractive, but she was a redhead, which gave her a chance.

After my song was over, I stared at the TV. There was a Motorhead video on. Hard to believe Lemmy and David Bowie died so close to each other, I thought, then wondered if they went to heaven, hell or nowhere.

I tended to believe in nowhere, but didn’t want to fully pot commit. Kind of my M.O. over the years, never going all-in. And it costs ya.

Just fucking push the chips in. If you lose, you end up in the same place anyways.

At least that’s how it felt tonight.

And has felt for quite a few nights.

I wonder what my son is doing? It’s 2:51 a.m. He’s probably standing in his bed, calling out for one of us to get him a pacifier. I wonder what the love of a piece of plastic in your mouth really is. Suck, suck, suck. Drool, drool, drool. Seems like a Dead Kennedys song.

I stare at my arm. It’s bruised.

I can’t remember where from. I probably fell while sleeping again. Been doing that a lot lately.

It’s an attempt to see if my mom will show up like she did when I was 7. I used to throw myself out of the top bunk of my bunk beds with a thud. I’d hope someone heard. If not, I’d whip up tears.

Surprised I never broke anything.

Only think broken now is my heart. And that got broke a long, long time ago.

“Fuck a broken heart,” John said.

I smiled. But quickly realized he wasn’t talking to me. He was talking to the red.

He’d tell me tomorrow about how she squealed when he grabbed the back of her thigh. That got me through the next week of sleeping on a park bench. In fucking Zebulon, North Carolina. Better get moving if I want to make Key West by winter, I thought.

Always said if I ever ended up homeless, it would be there.

Drive by

I had to pee. So, I stood up from my computer, leaving the silly game story I was writing about a girls basketball game that I couldn’t even remember the score from to be finished whenever I was done.

Walking past the empty cubicles, I thought about the people who used to sit there. I never worked in this place when they were filled. The day I started, they were all empty. Never to be filled again. Yeah, every so often one of us sits in one of them. To chat, to grab election-night pizza, or to watch election returns on the television. But for the most part, the sit empty.

But that thought passes. I continue walking.

I notice that my vision is a little blurry. I’m seeing double a little. Nothing new, I think, just staring at that

computer screen too long.

I pee.

As I’m walking back to my desk, I stumble. Then I stumble again. Eventually, I have to use the wall to walk.

“This is strange,” I think, going back to me desk.

I sit there for a moment.

I get back up, stumble to the break room. I call my fiancée.

“What’s wrong?” she asks.

“I’m seeing stuff. I can barely walk.”

After a few minutes of chatting, she tells me she’s coming. It’s 44 miles from our house to my office. I drive this every day. I can’t think of a job when I didn’t at least start out driving 40-plus miles to work – one way.

Just sort of became what I do.

For girls, mostly.

For the beach once.

I go back to my desk and finish my story. Just like me. When I got laid off, I asked my by-then old boss if he wanted me to finish my story.

He said not to bother.

Still, the one I’d written the day before but had not run yet, it ran the day I was shit-canned.

Love the biz.

My fiancée arrived. She checked my pulse. She checked my eyes.

By then, I was feeling better. Not good. But better.

“You should go to the emergency room,” she said. Wise lady.

“I’m feeling better,” I said. “I think I just want to go home.

Unwisely, I drove home.

It was dark out. Being March and all.

We took the long way.

I made it home. Ate some food. Went to bed.

The next day, it was back to normal.

A few weeks later, I was at home. The same stuff started to happen.

I drove to Wilson. 44 miles away. And then I went to the doctor.

They sent me to the emergency room.

After a bunch of tests, I was told “Well, we know you didn’t have a heart attack. And you didn’t have a stroke.”

A few weeks later, my neurologist told me “you had a stroke.” This after telling me there was “no way” I’d had a stroke.

Doctors.

They sure as hell all didn’t mind billing me for their wrong diagnosis.

Should’ve sent some paper instead of money…

Instead, I’m more in debt.

I still eat frozen burritos.

I don’t eat frozen pizza as much.

I don’t go to fast food places. Except for Hardee’s for a hot ham ‘n cheese and Andy’s, now Highway 55, for a cheeseburger. Guess it’s good I don’t live in New Orleans anymore. I’d be dead.

If I’m not already.

Maybe watching “Raising Hope” is my hell. If it is, I know I’m dead, because it’s on right now.

Banality. Yep. That’s what this is.

The written word isn’t coming like I want it to. It’s just shit oozing out of a tightened ass. A tightened hairy ass, at that.

I wonder what that dude, can’t remember his name, from my Arizona days who shaved his ass is doing right now? Not that I really care. But for the first time in probably 15 years, I just thought about that guy. And his shaving his ass.

I couldn’t imagine shaving my ass. First, I’d probably cut myself. I cut off a mole shaving my face as a youth. Still use electric razors to this day.

And David Bowie is dead, and the people have already turned on him.

It doesn’t take long anymore. Hero today, shit bag tomorrow.

I now wonder if I truly do need to drink to be creative. I know I don’t, because I write for a living and sometimes, not all the time, but just some of the time, I do it pretty well.

Getting a phone call tomorrow in the A.M. from a temp agency. Never thought I’d utter those words. I’m considering working for a temp agency instead of trudging (or driving, whatever…) 44 miles to work. Could this be a new start? Or just another misguided stupidity fix?

At least I’m not paying rent on a house in Florida. For three years. That I got to spend at best 2 months in.

A house I drove past in 2009. Three-plus years later. And still cried.

I wonder what would happen if I drove past it today?

Who am I kidding…

David Bowie died.

David Bowie died.

I was sitting where I am tonight, staring aimlessly at the internet. At the same pages over and over again.

Not doing anything.

A week or two ago, that David Bowie was doing this at your age thing went around. I never clicked on it. I didn’t want to get depressed. Now, I think about it differently. I almost want to go and click on it. Just to see what the fuck he was doing at the age of 44 (soon to be 45). That was 24 years ago for him. He died at 69. So that was 1992.

I was a virgin.

I was in college, fawning over a girl that I would one day actually get a date with. A bunch of dates to be exact. Then, she broke my heart.

Nothing new there. Well, it was then, but now, not so much.

He was doing Tin Machine, maybe?

Still better than what I’m doing. Hell, I never gave Tin Machine a chance back in the day. It’s probably damn good. My good buddy Josh from the college days, he loved them. Preached their gospel all the time. I ignored it.

Did the same with Lucero. You see where that got me.

Anyways, all this outpouring of love and sadness over a celebrity that very few of us ever even got the chance to see perform, let alone meet, is usually looked at as silly.

People fill their Facebook, Twitter, Instagram whatevers with posts about dead celebrities every day.

This guy was different. I found myself crying about it. Not balling all over the place, but sniffling whenever another story came on the TV, or the radio, or the internet.

I listened to his new album ‘Blackstar’ on the ride to work. I wish I’d listened to it the day before. It wouldn’t have hit the same way.

It’s a goodbye. And it’s a damn good one.

I wrote my dad’s obit. It sucked.

I said a bit when we buried him at sea. That didn’t suck, but it still wasn’t perfect.

David Bowie did it perfect for us.

All of this has gotten me to think a lot today. I’ve been angry about things out of my control for a while now. Nothing new. Job, you know.

I don’t want to waste any more of my life.

I’ve got a great son.

A great woman.

A cool dog.

A sneezing cat.

And I don’t want to be so unhappy for 8-12 hours every damn day anymore.

Tomorrow (today, actually), I have to go in and talk with a management consultant in the office. I’ve been down this road before. Anyone who works at a newspaper 10 years ago and still is, has gone through this dance before.

They’re going to fire people. Or at least give you new jobs. New duties.

I hand-wrote my job description. It is filled with spelling errors and scratched out bad words … no not that kind.

I have no idea what I’m going to do tomorrow. I actually just found out I would be able to make the meeting time I signed up for due to baby-sitting issues. We always have baby-sitting issues. Another reason to get the fuck out.

I know I’ll be wearing my Pete Maravich socks.

And jeans that I have worn for six days in a row.

My shoes will have holes in their soles.

I will shave. That I will do. I will not wear a suit. Or a tie.

But I will wear clean underwear.

Then I will write a column. I’m thinking about writing one on why I can’t stand professional football anymore. How I didn’t watch a game this year involving my favorite team – the Washington Redskins – even the playoff game.

And you’re a sports writer?

Yep.

I still love writing stories. Telling them, I guess. I always thought I’d tell my own one day. Boy meets girl, girl breaks boy’s heart, boy drinks, boy dies.

But I took a left turn instead of right. Went East for a while before turning West again.

Now, it’s time to do what I’ve talked about for years.

Get the fuck out.

-30-

How am I supposed to get to 750 words. It seems this one will make it happen faster, harder, longer? Probably, not. But probably.

Eat a peanut. Drink a Yoohoo. Some day you’ll look at the sky and not see the stars anymore. The computer will be at fault. Silly.