“So, do you have plans for the past?” she said to me as I sat in my broken down leather recliner. I got that thing at a thrift store for $35 and she’d never let me down. Sure, she smelled a little bit. The left arm had cracks in the leather, but overall, she was comfortable and certainly dependable. More than I could say about most things.
I cracked open another Miller High Life before delving into my latest companion’s attempts at saving me from myself. It never failed. Either I was trying to save them, or they were trying to save me. And really, since the only one who can truly save a person is themselves, I’m assuming we’re always fighting a losing fight.
“I don’t understand your question, honey,” I said before burping that last sip of beer. It was stale tasting. I’d gotten used to better beer, this was like a watered down version of Abita’s Amber.
“Yes you do, you fucking prick,” she said, slamming down her foot on the hardwood floor. That very same spot on the floor was where we shared a slow dance together about a year and a half ago. Three quarters of a bottle of Jameson first, mind you, but we did share a nice dance. The song was that Urge Overkill cover of “Girl, You’ll be a woman soon.”
And indeed I did know what she was talking about. It was what every girl found out about me eventually. I had a past, and I liked it there.
“You live in the fucking past. You stay there. And I really believe you want to be there!” she yelled.
“I don’t want to be there,” said. “I want us to be like then.”
That was stupid. Now it was her against her. The girl from the past. The one who broke my heart. The love of my life. I’d written those words so many times. I’d wrapped other people’s stories into her story and made them mine again. It was a losing proposition, but it was the only one I knew.
“Randy, you’ve got to get on with your life. It’s been over a decade now, and you still pine for her,” she said, starting to cry now. “I don’t think you know how much this is hurting me.”
I knew, exactly. Sometimes I think I wanted it to hurt. So maybe the one I was with could feel something akin to what I was feeling. Wrong of me? Certainly. But it just kept happening. Whether the relationship was fucking in the back of the stockroom at work every so often with the young reporter from Troy State, the girl I dated for six months and fell helplessly in love with way too fast and way too soon, or a crush that developed because a friend said “this girl’s got the same weird tastes as you” – and she was right, but just too much the same as she ended up hurting me.
“Listen, honey, I was honest with you from the get-go. And that’s a change of pace for me. I said I had a hang up, and she was it. I don’t want it to be that way. I try every day to leave her behind. But she stays. I yell at her. I curse at her. But it’s all in the wind. If I could see her today, I’d tell her to go fuck herself. And you know what? She wouldn’t care one bit. I guess that’s why it hurts. Still.”
“But that’s precisely why it shouldn’t hurt anymore, babe. Don’t you see that?”
I felt more and more like Jim Carrey in “The Truman Show.” Something always felt just a little off. Which is why I think I held on to a piece that was “normal.” A part of my life when everything went right. Even when it was wrong. Until it went to shit. In one night. All at once for me. Probably over months for her. Damn her for coming and acting like everything was OK for those two months we were together in North Carolina after all that time apart while she was in Florida. New Year’s eve was so special to me that it ranks up there as one of the top 5 nights of my life. Sadly, I do rank such things, and did so before I read about it and then watched it acted out in “High Fidelity.”
She looked at me, and sighed. She knew I was thinking about such random things. She was the first person who was able to get me to admit this. That when we were talking about serious things – bills, our sex life, insurance, houses, etc. – that most likely I was seeing pictures of Matt Damon in “Rounders” or John Laroquette in “Stripes” instead of real life. She grew to think it was cute, I believe, even if it was “fucking annoying.”
“You and I, we will be fine,” she said. “When you move to the present. Until then, we’re going to be like this. You drinking. Me crying. I just hope that’s enough for both of us forever.”
She got up and left. Off to the beach. I sat there in my recliner, thinking about the Ken Griffey Jr. Super Nintendo game. And about how hopelessly awful that was.
Showing posts with label miller high life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label miller high life. Show all posts
Friday, March 23, 2012
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Ol' Puddin'
Hanging out at the local dirt racing track, things sometimes take a turn for the better.
Me and Mitchell just got into line for some cold beers – Miller High Life bottles, of course – when Dick Dale’s “Misirlou” started blasting out of the shitty speakers surrounding the track. No one but us seemed to take much notice of it, instantly going into air guitar mode. A couple of ladies with Billy Ray mullets and old Iron Maiden and Warrant tour shirts started pointing and laughing.
“Wanna get laid tonight?” Mitchell asked.
“Yeah, but not like that. Too desperate and too easy.”
“So you say now.”
“Yes, I say now.”
We got our beers and ambled over to the parking lot. There was some kind of distraction going on near the bunch of El Caminos parked bumper to bumper at the area known as “El Rey” to the locals. We found this out later in the evening.
Some guy was talking about how lucky he was this afternoon.
“I was brushing my teeth in the kitchen when the water stopped working all of the sudden. You know, you turn it on and all you get is the sound of pipes shaking? Well, I had a mouth full of paste and I needed to get it out, pronto! (Giggles from the crowd). So I reached for the first bottle I had on my countertops. It, of course was a mason jar, as that’s where I keep all my booze. The legal stuff and the “homemade” stuff. If you catch my drift?
“Well, I open the lid and commence to sippin’ and garglin’ when I notice a funny taste. Now, all of you know my liquors can have a taste that takes some getting’ used ta, so this ain’t no surprise. Neither is a slight burn. But, this my friends won’t no slight burn. It was Devil’s Spit kinda burnin’.
“So I spit it out pronto. All over my kitchen, my shirt – which I just paid five dollar fur at the Roses – and just start cussing up a fit.”
“What was in that jar, Puddin’?” someone in the crowd asked.
“Let’s me tell ya what was in that jar, Smithson. It was freakin’ GAS-O-LINEY!”
The audience laughed up quite a cackle. Even Mitchell and I had a good gut laugh out of Puddin’s story. Hell, he knew how to keep an audience with him. Maybe politic-an would be a future endeavor for him, if he so choose that path.
We started to walk away when someone screamed.
In a flash, we turned around. Just in time to see ol’ Puddin’ running. And he was on fire.
And instead of the stop, drop and roll we all learned in sixth grade – probably a grade or two further than ol’ Puddin’ made it – he was running around “Like a damn chick with its damn head plum cut off!” as one of the amused audience members would later be quoted describing the scene on local television at 11 p.m. later in the evening.
No one was chasing poor Puddin’ with a blanket or anything. A couple of guys in mesh hats threw some beer on him as he passed them by. But ol’ Puddin’ seemed to have a destination in mind.
About 200 yards away was a duck pond. It was a duck pond simply because someone had placed some wildly painted duck decoys in it. So forever it was known as the duck pond by locals and race affciandos.
Anyway, Puddin’ made it to the pond and dove it. A loud sssssssssssssssssssssssssssss sound followed. Which we all figured was his skin singeing after hitting the water.
Puddin’ then let out a yell.
Soon after, an ambulance arrived. It was already on sight for the racers, but now it had a fan to take care of.
A lot of folks had their cell phones out and recorded Puddin’s run, as it became known on the Internet. “With gas so expensive these days, Ol’ Puddin’ decided he wouldn’t wash it out of his shirt until he’d gotten a little buzz off it.” Was just one of the t-shirts which ended up selling. Thankfully, no one auto-tuned Ol’ Puddin’s run. I think he didn’t scream enough for it to work?
As Mitch and I were leaving the race later that night, a local newspaper reporter came up to us and asked us some questions about Ol’ Puddin’. Neither of us knew him, we said, but we saw the whole thing happen. Well, except for ignition, as we turned away to drink our Miller High Lifes.
She asked some questions and we answered. Some serious, some not so serious. It was interesting to see what got into the paper when you got asked questions by a reporter. Being a former ink slinger, I knew a thing or two about the truth and how some choose to bend it.
Finally, the reporter, who looked all of 19 years old and very out of place in rural North Carolina, asked me: “One last question, Mr. Jones. What would be your one regret if you were to die like Ol’ Puddin’ did tonight?”
I scratched my beard and made it look as if this was the single most important question anyone had ever asked me. Finally, after a few moments of silence I said: “Not having sex in a car. Now, I had a girlfriend that promised me she’d do it. But she never did. We did just about anything else. We even re-enacted the train scene from “Risky Business.” I’ve done it in a Burger King bathroom, as Digital Underground instructed me to do in 1989. I did it in front of a hotel window on the top floor. Albeit in Rockville, Maryland over looking a parking lot, not in Las Vegas looking out at the strip like it is in my fantasy.
“But never once have a fucked in a car. It would be a damn shame to die that way. Especially, if it was to go like Ol’ Puddin’ went.”
She laughed, and said “Don’t think I can use that one.”
“Sure you can. Just take out the fucks and such.”
“Have a good night fellows.”
“It’s fellas. You ain’t from ‘round here are yeh?”
“No thankfully. No.”
“Same here darling. Moved from Northern Virginia, myself.”
“Really?”
“Yep, really. Manassas via Arlington.”
“I went to Chantilly High School!” she said, now a little bit more interested in us two – me in a Lucero shirt, him in a Zanadu one.
“Actually dated a girl who went there, way before you, but still…”
“Awesome,” here’s my card. “Give me a call sometime. Maybe you can show me what there is to do here?”
“Well, tonight, Ol’ Puddin’ put on the show. It wasn’t expected, but it was a good-un.”
She smiled and walked away at that.
Me and Mitchell just got into line for some cold beers – Miller High Life bottles, of course – when Dick Dale’s “Misirlou” started blasting out of the shitty speakers surrounding the track. No one but us seemed to take much notice of it, instantly going into air guitar mode. A couple of ladies with Billy Ray mullets and old Iron Maiden and Warrant tour shirts started pointing and laughing.
“Wanna get laid tonight?” Mitchell asked.
“Yeah, but not like that. Too desperate and too easy.”
“So you say now.”
“Yes, I say now.”
We got our beers and ambled over to the parking lot. There was some kind of distraction going on near the bunch of El Caminos parked bumper to bumper at the area known as “El Rey” to the locals. We found this out later in the evening.
Some guy was talking about how lucky he was this afternoon.
“I was brushing my teeth in the kitchen when the water stopped working all of the sudden. You know, you turn it on and all you get is the sound of pipes shaking? Well, I had a mouth full of paste and I needed to get it out, pronto! (Giggles from the crowd). So I reached for the first bottle I had on my countertops. It, of course was a mason jar, as that’s where I keep all my booze. The legal stuff and the “homemade” stuff. If you catch my drift?
“Well, I open the lid and commence to sippin’ and garglin’ when I notice a funny taste. Now, all of you know my liquors can have a taste that takes some getting’ used ta, so this ain’t no surprise. Neither is a slight burn. But, this my friends won’t no slight burn. It was Devil’s Spit kinda burnin’.
“So I spit it out pronto. All over my kitchen, my shirt – which I just paid five dollar fur at the Roses – and just start cussing up a fit.”
“What was in that jar, Puddin’?” someone in the crowd asked.
“Let’s me tell ya what was in that jar, Smithson. It was freakin’ GAS-O-LINEY!”
The audience laughed up quite a cackle. Even Mitchell and I had a good gut laugh out of Puddin’s story. Hell, he knew how to keep an audience with him. Maybe politic-an would be a future endeavor for him, if he so choose that path.
We started to walk away when someone screamed.
In a flash, we turned around. Just in time to see ol’ Puddin’ running. And he was on fire.
And instead of the stop, drop and roll we all learned in sixth grade – probably a grade or two further than ol’ Puddin’ made it – he was running around “Like a damn chick with its damn head plum cut off!” as one of the amused audience members would later be quoted describing the scene on local television at 11 p.m. later in the evening.
No one was chasing poor Puddin’ with a blanket or anything. A couple of guys in mesh hats threw some beer on him as he passed them by. But ol’ Puddin’ seemed to have a destination in mind.
About 200 yards away was a duck pond. It was a duck pond simply because someone had placed some wildly painted duck decoys in it. So forever it was known as the duck pond by locals and race affciandos.
Anyway, Puddin’ made it to the pond and dove it. A loud sssssssssssssssssssssssssssss sound followed. Which we all figured was his skin singeing after hitting the water.
Puddin’ then let out a yell.
Soon after, an ambulance arrived. It was already on sight for the racers, but now it had a fan to take care of.
A lot of folks had their cell phones out and recorded Puddin’s run, as it became known on the Internet. “With gas so expensive these days, Ol’ Puddin’ decided he wouldn’t wash it out of his shirt until he’d gotten a little buzz off it.” Was just one of the t-shirts which ended up selling. Thankfully, no one auto-tuned Ol’ Puddin’s run. I think he didn’t scream enough for it to work?
As Mitch and I were leaving the race later that night, a local newspaper reporter came up to us and asked us some questions about Ol’ Puddin’. Neither of us knew him, we said, but we saw the whole thing happen. Well, except for ignition, as we turned away to drink our Miller High Lifes.
She asked some questions and we answered. Some serious, some not so serious. It was interesting to see what got into the paper when you got asked questions by a reporter. Being a former ink slinger, I knew a thing or two about the truth and how some choose to bend it.
Finally, the reporter, who looked all of 19 years old and very out of place in rural North Carolina, asked me: “One last question, Mr. Jones. What would be your one regret if you were to die like Ol’ Puddin’ did tonight?”
I scratched my beard and made it look as if this was the single most important question anyone had ever asked me. Finally, after a few moments of silence I said: “Not having sex in a car. Now, I had a girlfriend that promised me she’d do it. But she never did. We did just about anything else. We even re-enacted the train scene from “Risky Business.” I’ve done it in a Burger King bathroom, as Digital Underground instructed me to do in 1989. I did it in front of a hotel window on the top floor. Albeit in Rockville, Maryland over looking a parking lot, not in Las Vegas looking out at the strip like it is in my fantasy.
“But never once have a fucked in a car. It would be a damn shame to die that way. Especially, if it was to go like Ol’ Puddin’ went.”
She laughed, and said “Don’t think I can use that one.”
“Sure you can. Just take out the fucks and such.”
“Have a good night fellows.”
“It’s fellas. You ain’t from ‘round here are yeh?”
“No thankfully. No.”
“Same here darling. Moved from Northern Virginia, myself.”
“Really?”
“Yep, really. Manassas via Arlington.”
“I went to Chantilly High School!” she said, now a little bit more interested in us two – me in a Lucero shirt, him in a Zanadu one.
“Actually dated a girl who went there, way before you, but still…”
“Awesome,” here’s my card. “Give me a call sometime. Maybe you can show me what there is to do here?”
“Well, tonight, Ol’ Puddin’ put on the show. It wasn’t expected, but it was a good-un.”
She smiled and walked away at that.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Sadie and the wind
(Edit: I changed the name to Sadie. Only because after I was done, realized that Maggie was a name in a Lucero song. When I started, there were no thoughts of the band, but with a reference, it became stupid. Maggie works better than Sadie, however...)
I stare at the bar lights after the door opens and closes. It’s windy outside, gusty even. The little time the door was open let in a big ol’ gust of wind. The dust in the lights attracts me like a moth to the headlights of your car while driving down a desolate back-country road.
“What keeps me here?” I say out loud.
“Me, honey,” Sadie, the other barfly here at 11 in the morning says to me with a crooked-teeth smile. I’ve had sex with Sadie three times. We’ve both been regulars here for almost three years. So, that works out to having sex with her once a year. Not exactly the tie that binds.
“Donna” by Waylon Jennings starts up on the jukebox. I think I picked that one about 45 minutes ago. Or two whiskeys and three Miller High Lifes ago. It’s not that bad of a day, I think.
“I’m serious, Sadie,” I say. Knowing full well that she’ll get her feelings hurt by that. Almost instantaneously she pouts. I look at her red dress. It’s nice. Plus, it has dandelions all over it. Maybe tonight will be No. 4.
“Now, Randy. Why you have to say something like that,” she moans. “You and me, we got something special. It’s taken us years to get to where we are.”
“Years?” the barkeep, Johnny, exclaims. “You two haven’t changed since the first day you both walked in here.”
That day was July 19th, 2012. I had just finished moving into my new apartment off of General Pershing. She happened to live next door. I was playing Lucero’s “Tennessee” on my front porch. God, how lucky was I to have a front porch? I could sit out here, listen to music, watch the people go by and not have to talk to any of them. I put an old foot locker out there with a good lock on it. I kept a crappy old lap top computer in there to write on.
“Paradise,” I thought to myself as Ben Nichols’ belted out the heartbreak of “Here at the Starlite” probably for the 2,007th time on my turntable. I loved this album. Paid a pretty penny for it too. But you tend to do that with things that are important. That record saved my life more than once.
She walked up just as “memories too close to home, for something that’s never coming back” screamed out of my JBLs, a gift from my buddy Mike, who shared a love of great music, drinking beer and holding on to the past for way too long.
Sadie, I would find out, used to be stripper in the Quarter. Not exactly my cup of tea, but hell, I hadn’t drank from the loving cup that Mick Jagger sang so damn much about in a long, long time. So, hell, that didn’t matter to me. That was, until her boyfriend at the time -- Mitch -- died in a knife fight on Decatur.
She said she cried for a complete year over that. He was “the one,” and all. But, Mitch, it seemed, had been hiding a secret from her for the three years they dated. Mitch used to be a ballplayer. A damned good one, too. Signed a $44 million dollar contract after he graduated from Arizona State. Then he blew his knee out and was out of football in less than three years. He never spent any of his guaranteed money. Died still driving a 1987 Ford Tempo with a bank account bulging with $27 million in it. He left it all to Sadie.
Mitch’s mother, however, didn’t agree with the will. The only one that Mitch ever drew up. He did it three weeks after seeing Sadie dance at the club. Two weeks after he asked her to quit dancing up on that stage. One week before they kissed for the first time. And one hour after they got married.
The lawyers, courts and such took an awful toll on Sadie, she told me one night. So, after six months of fighting, she gave up. Signed a piece of paper that gave the mom everything but the Ford Tempo and $300,000.
ESPN did a report on it. I remembered watching it with Josh. We both said, “damn, sucks for her” at the same time. I thought she was kind of cute. Josh’s wife said she looked like trouble. We were both right.
“Who is that?” Sadie asked about my favorite band in the world.
“The greatest band to walk the earth,” I said with a smile while reaching into my old Igloo cooler for an Abita Amber. I grabbed two and held out one for her.
“I really shouldn’t,” she said.
“Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.”
That produced a smile. The first one I’d ever seen from her. It stuck. Her lips had no lipstick on them. But they were red. Too red not to have anything on them. Her eyes were hazel.
We drank a case of beer and talked about Lucero for the next two hours. By the time the beer was gone I was burning her a couple of CDs and working up the courage to ask for her phone number. She didn’t give me a chance to ask, swooping down on me like a sea bird plunging into a school of fish on a cool September day. I woke up the next morning with an STD and a new obsession.
I stare at the bar lights after the door opens and closes. It’s windy outside, gusty even. The little time the door was open let in a big ol’ gust of wind. The dust in the lights attracts me like a moth to the headlights of your car while driving down a desolate back-country road.
“What keeps me here?” I say out loud.
“Me, honey,” Sadie, the other barfly here at 11 in the morning says to me with a crooked-teeth smile. I’ve had sex with Sadie three times. We’ve both been regulars here for almost three years. So, that works out to having sex with her once a year. Not exactly the tie that binds.
“Donna” by Waylon Jennings starts up on the jukebox. I think I picked that one about 45 minutes ago. Or two whiskeys and three Miller High Lifes ago. It’s not that bad of a day, I think.
“I’m serious, Sadie,” I say. Knowing full well that she’ll get her feelings hurt by that. Almost instantaneously she pouts. I look at her red dress. It’s nice. Plus, it has dandelions all over it. Maybe tonight will be No. 4.
“Now, Randy. Why you have to say something like that,” she moans. “You and me, we got something special. It’s taken us years to get to where we are.”
“Years?” the barkeep, Johnny, exclaims. “You two haven’t changed since the first day you both walked in here.”
That day was July 19th, 2012. I had just finished moving into my new apartment off of General Pershing. She happened to live next door. I was playing Lucero’s “Tennessee” on my front porch. God, how lucky was I to have a front porch? I could sit out here, listen to music, watch the people go by and not have to talk to any of them. I put an old foot locker out there with a good lock on it. I kept a crappy old lap top computer in there to write on.
“Paradise,” I thought to myself as Ben Nichols’ belted out the heartbreak of “Here at the Starlite” probably for the 2,007th time on my turntable. I loved this album. Paid a pretty penny for it too. But you tend to do that with things that are important. That record saved my life more than once.
She walked up just as “memories too close to home, for something that’s never coming back” screamed out of my JBLs, a gift from my buddy Mike, who shared a love of great music, drinking beer and holding on to the past for way too long.
Sadie, I would find out, used to be stripper in the Quarter. Not exactly my cup of tea, but hell, I hadn’t drank from the loving cup that Mick Jagger sang so damn much about in a long, long time. So, hell, that didn’t matter to me. That was, until her boyfriend at the time -- Mitch -- died in a knife fight on Decatur.
She said she cried for a complete year over that. He was “the one,” and all. But, Mitch, it seemed, had been hiding a secret from her for the three years they dated. Mitch used to be a ballplayer. A damned good one, too. Signed a $44 million dollar contract after he graduated from Arizona State. Then he blew his knee out and was out of football in less than three years. He never spent any of his guaranteed money. Died still driving a 1987 Ford Tempo with a bank account bulging with $27 million in it. He left it all to Sadie.
Mitch’s mother, however, didn’t agree with the will. The only one that Mitch ever drew up. He did it three weeks after seeing Sadie dance at the club. Two weeks after he asked her to quit dancing up on that stage. One week before they kissed for the first time. And one hour after they got married.
The lawyers, courts and such took an awful toll on Sadie, she told me one night. So, after six months of fighting, she gave up. Signed a piece of paper that gave the mom everything but the Ford Tempo and $300,000.
ESPN did a report on it. I remembered watching it with Josh. We both said, “damn, sucks for her” at the same time. I thought she was kind of cute. Josh’s wife said she looked like trouble. We were both right.
“Who is that?” Sadie asked about my favorite band in the world.
“The greatest band to walk the earth,” I said with a smile while reaching into my old Igloo cooler for an Abita Amber. I grabbed two and held out one for her.
“I really shouldn’t,” she said.
“Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.”
That produced a smile. The first one I’d ever seen from her. It stuck. Her lips had no lipstick on them. But they were red. Too red not to have anything on them. Her eyes were hazel.
We drank a case of beer and talked about Lucero for the next two hours. By the time the beer was gone I was burning her a couple of CDs and working up the courage to ask for her phone number. She didn’t give me a chance to ask, swooping down on me like a sea bird plunging into a school of fish on a cool September day. I woke up the next morning with an STD and a new obsession.
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