Fleeting Thoughts 9/29

Where the fuck you going?
Lately all I've seen is shit.
I've spoken to Mercury,
finished the Queen of the Sirens.
Remember those well-laid plans,
torched and burned by unladen
people
living a beautiful life.
Nod to those who do,
take those compliments;
really where is the heart of the oyster, kid?
Happiness is buried, died with a simple matador call.
A paycheck for accounting purposes
fucks you over happily; everything
slaughters the lamb.
I want to see better, cried Moses.
Time to go, screamed the indomitable voice. Bur the bar, save the Druid.
I tried to apologize at the door but
caught you too soon in the dismissive hello/goodbye.
Why can't people be honest and say love or hate?

Splinters

Is it possible to completely lose one's way, to stray so far from who they were and what they believed in, and still find a way back from the gutter?

I've been asking myself this question a lot lately. Far longer than I'd even like to admit. Sadly, my tagline isn't metaphorical prose but a despondent mirror image of this bitter, broken bard. In the early hours of the morning I toss and I oscillate in and out of sleep. But I never get rest, because what rest is there for the damned?

For much of my adolescent and adult life I've struggled with my mind. I've always spent more time in my head than out with the rest of the world. Some of this was a defensive mechanism... a means to cope with social anxiety and shyness. Much of it was a general disinterest in the seemingly mundane realities of life. I was always more interested in the 'What If' over the 'What Is.' I suppose mentioning that I'm fairly emotionally...scattered... is necessary. So a lot of factors caused me to behave as I did. And one of my greatest, if not my only, method of coping with myself and my place in the world was to write. From scribbling on cocktail napkins at 4:30am at the Liar to spending entire afternoons clacking away on my 1933 Smith & Corona just to feel the keys beneath my fingers... my only true addiction was to the page and the world.

Mine was not a passing fancy nor a causal habit, though. I was committed to the craft, to the practice, to the life. I made a many great sacrifices along the way to preserve that which I held highest... sacrifices which I still bear the scars for. It ruined friendships, ended relationships, and at times made me more isolated than I could ever imagine. And yet through all of it, as Green Day put it... it was worth all the while. Instead of spiraling out of control and dying young from excess and apathy, I was able to channel my demons and my saints into something other than myself. I could be surrounded by friends I'd never met;  I could travel back in time and revisit places and people; I could play god and shape worlds more hopeful than this bleak backdrop we move through blindly. And the most important part of this diatribe is how I keep speaking in the past tense.

Everyone who ever commits to putting words to the page in any creative manner knows what it's like to lose their flow. Whatever you want to call it... you know what it is: a gumption trap where your verve, your motivation, your inspiration, and your very hope just comes crashing down like shoddy scaffolding and leaves you bloodied and laid bare. Sometimes all it takes is reading a favorite author and a couple of days to pass; other times, it takes several weeks and gallons of your preferred spirit. Some intermittent insanity also helps. I've been there enough times to know.

But what happens when you lose the voice? When no matter what you do, the silence in your head just grows louder and louder till you want to break every knuckle on the concrete and scream till there's no more sound to be had.

I never thought that I could lose who I am... who I was. All that I ever was. Little did I know, my entire life could so easily be shaken and broken by one of the most important people to me. That sort of betrayal and heartbreak is something that can't be forgotten. Yet despite my very stern, finite nature I tried... several times... to be forgiving. Only to be perpetually rewarded with disappointment and pain. I took on responsibilities for other people, bearing burdens that should never have been mine in order to keep my loved ones afloat. I became the anchor... and while everyone remained afloat, I slowly drowned. Before I knew it... I had become someone, something I no longer recognized and utterly hated.

I recently spent time at one of my closest friend's place, with his fiancé, brother, and sister-in-law. I'd known the brothers since childhood and grew up with them. While they laughed and bantered with each other and respective partners... I festered in the corner, the social cancer that my circumstances had made me. And they weren't the exception: old friends reach out to connect, and I hear about how their lives are progressing. All the while, mine is simply passing. Each day I try harder to shut myself off from everything, lest I hurt anyone else.... and so I can't be hurt anymore.

This is a fucked up, self-pitying, narcissistic monologue, isn't it? But guess what: no one's got a gun to your head forcing you to read this! I mean... there might be a sniper scope with your forehead dead center... but best not to worry about these things. The reason I chose to write this, the reason I needed to impulsively write this is because I need to find my faith again. My life has changed drastically lately, and I'm struggling to understand and accept these changes. I don't believe in some white bearded misogynist sitting on a throne deciding fate; I don't believe in god's son/god itself/some abstract spirit redeeming me for sins I didn't commit; I don't believe in any heaven where everyone is a virgin. I believe in the power of prose, the impact of inflection, the magnitude between the margins. And while I slowly self destruct, held upright solely by my required day job... I'm trying to find my way back. My odyssey back to a better time, a better self. I have to believe I can rationalize the good and the bad of life through the page once more.

And while I'm waiting for faith... I take my sacrament in cheap vodka

Moving On

     It's hard to describe the feelings around finishing a novel. And I mean a real book... not some formulaic piece of detritus that's more than likely complied by rhesus monkeys addicted to cocaine, locked in a chamber (I'm calling you out, Ms. Picoult). No... I mean a real book, something that you've spent months of your life on. Because unlike certain charlatans, a novel isn't just a five-step process pumped out in a couple of weeks.
   
     No, a first draft of a manuscript is something so intimate, so personal... it's almost impossible to describe it with accuracy. You spend so much time locked away in your head and in your room (or wherever you work), spending countless hours with people that are only real to you. You develop relationships with them. You start to view your protagonist as a friend and your villain as... well fuck, a villain. Pretty straightforward, isn't it? But it's entirely natural. After all, if you're putting in the amount of time that your work deserves... then it's inevitable that you start to connect with these figments. You know absolutely everything there is to know about them, more than even potential readers will ever discover. They are your lovers; your siblings; your parents; your children. They are you.

     For a long time now, I've had a set tradition for when I finish a novel. I feel like that's one of the few stereotypical procedures in writing that I actually agree with. No matter what's going on in my life, whatever obligations I have... it's the same. I buy a bottle of Glenlivet 12 and I drink, usually alone, while I listen to early Bob Dylan. I can't honestly say how this tradition of mine started, but it's been around now for so long that I can't think of doing anything else at the end of the long road called writing. I can't really even explain why I do it. Yes, I love scotch... and Glenlivet is a personal favorite. And Bob Dylan is the greatest song writer of all time, at least in my world. But how those two came together? Who the fuck cares? They did and they still do, so let it go.

     What really matters is the ritual itself. I've tried explaining it before but it usually falls on relatively deaf ears. And I don't blame anyone for that: in fact, it's a strong probability that it's my inability to appropriately articulate my feelings at this point. The best I can do is provide a parable... a story from the past.

     It was several years ago and I was a relatively new arrival in the City of Angels. I hadn't met a lot of people yet and coming from years in the same place, New York... I found it distressing. A few nights before I finished the book I was working on, I spent a night at the Frolic Room in Hollywood. A remarkably old and unpretentious place situated on Hollywood Boulevard, it had served as a watering hole for countless names from Tinseltown lore. I was sitting at the bar, several martinis deep, when I had an idea for the last chapter. I pulled out my Moleskine notebook and started jotting down ideas, written in my hieroglyphics-meets-chickscratch shorthand. I was so consumed and distracted by the images and sensations passing through my mind that I oblivious to the young woman sitting next to me, asking me what I was doing.

     When I finally snapped back to reality, it turned out I had been effectively ignoring her for almost twenty minutes. Normally such an action would drive people away, but this chestnut haired bhikku wouldn't give up so easily: on the contrary, my obsessive focus seemed to increase her curiosity. Once I was part of the routine world once again, she pounced... striking up a conversation. She repeated her question, asking me what I was working on. I replied, demurely and dismissively, talking about the idea for the chapter. When she found out I was writing down ideas for a book, a crocodile grin spread over her face, her eyes alight.

     "You're working on a novel," she asked. "What are you doing in this town, then?"

     I couldn't help but laugh at the outburst. Turns out, she was a New York transplant who had come out to Los Angeles for college and had yet to find her way back. I remember making a joke about how I felt bad for her, leaving NYC... to which she laughed and simply said,
     "Any place is interesting, as long as you make it so." Despite the fact that I was older and had experienced a lot more in my life... those simply words put a pause in my mind.

     We ended up going back to my place where, unlike my usual encounters with women at a bar, all we did was listen to records and drink whiskey. We both fell asleep on my couch around the time the sun broke the horizon. We spent a lot of time together over the next couple of days: despite our incredibly adolescent friendship, I felt a spark of kinship with her. And so on the night that I finished the book I was working on, I called her and asked her to come over.

     She arrived soon after. I had waited on uncorking the Glenlivet, but the minute she was in my apartment I put on "Bob Dylan Unplugged: Series 4 - Live at the Royal Albert Hall, 1966" and poured two glasses of Glenlivet. We spent some time in silence, listening to music and drinking the scotch. But as the night progressed... I sunk into a melancholy.

     She couldn't understand why. She asked if I was unhappy with the book, if I was giving up on writing. Of course, the answer to both questions was a solid no. I just felt sad. She couldn't wrap her head around it; she kept telling me I should be happy and, more importantly... proud. I felt joy for finishing the piece, and I was immensely proud of it. But I had spent almost a year with those characters, walking in the world I had made for them. By finishing I felt as if I were losing dear friends. And thanks to the maudlin tones of Dylan and the effects of scotch on the brain, I started thinking about the life I had left behind in New York. I remembered every crazy night with my friends and family at the Four Faced Liar; I remembered afternoons spent outside the Music Inn, playing sitar with guitar toting troubadours; and I remembered all of the people that I had lost in those years, friends who were taken and lost to chance and consequence.

    That's the whole point of this, I guess. There is a bittersweetness in finishing a book, an action where you create a whole world and the people who inhabit it. They become a part of you, people you actually laugh with and who are crutches when your actual life becomes painful. When their time comes to an end and it's time for you to say goodbye... it brings to mind all of the lives you have lived, all of the past memories that you can never reclaim and the friends you can never embrace again. Finishing a manuscript is a metaphorical death, and as such... it reminds us of death. And the reaction is the same: we mourn all that we've lost... yet we also celebrate all that we've gained.

    At least that's how I do. Hence... Bob Dylan and Glenlivet 12.

'Twas a Miserable Night Before Christmas

’Twas the night before Christmas

and I was alone drinking gin,

Evicted from my apartment,

now at a Holiday Inn.

The bar room was empty

except for a lush,

and the bartender sighed

in an obvious rush.

I hunched on the bar, 

confounded with woe,

with nothing to do

and no place to go.

I paid my tab and

wandered outside,

not to see the world

but only to hide.

When out in the parking lot there

arose such a clatter.

I cautiously ambled to

see what was the matter.

I tip toed silently, sticking 

to shade,

in the hopes that I wouldn’t be seen or 

be made.

When what to my shock

did appear:

a Cadillac-driving pimp

drinking a beer.

An odd little fellow 

with a feather-in-cap,

he had a pet marmot nestled

in his lap.

He smiled at me and 

called himself Slinky,

and pushed up his yellow glasses

with a cocaine-nailed pinky.

From the motel his train of ladies,

they came,

and he whistled and shouted

and called them by name.

“Hey Angel, hey Autumn,

hey Zoe, hey Mindy…

Oh Desire and Summer and

Candy and Cindy!

Off to the bars and clubs,

to go find a john,

Now get away, get away,

don’t make me wait long!”

Then Slinky sped off like a bat

out of Hell,

where he was off to I couldn’t

quite tell. 

I moved back to the motel

in search of my room,

overcome by depression from this 

holiday gloom,

when I was ambushed by the junkie Jack

and his girlfriend named Jill:

who demanded my wallet with a gun,

and threatened to kill.

As I raised up my hands and was

turning around,

a humongous club-wielding biker

struck Jack to the ground.

He was covered in tattoos with

chains from his belt,

and fists the size of rackets

which junkie Jill surely felt.

His black boots were steel-toed

which he used to kick Jack,

until crazy Jill killed him with a shot

to the back.

His eyes, how they clouded,

as he bled out and died;

Jack and Jill they did split

while I sat there and cried.

The cops and paramedics on his big belly

did press,

but his life was long gone

and he was a killer no less.

I continued to my room in desperate need of a 

drink,

or a shot of morphine and a quality

shrink.

From the elevator entrance I could see from

afar,

the door to my motel room was splintered and

ajar.

I found inside a woman grinding a man’s lap,

but she secretly worked vice, was a cop,

the poor sap!

My shoulders were sagged as I left my

motel,

essentially convinced I was truly

in Hell.

When walking to nowhere I met a fat drunk bum,

dressed like Santa and pissing while guzzling

rum.

He smiled at me with a drunken delight,

My god he was filthy, his teeth such a fright.

Without warning he threw his bottle at my

head,

shattering and making me wish

I were dead.

The bum rolled me while down and then ran

up the street,

obviously facing a last call

he was eager to beat.

Before he departed he looked back to me that fat shmuck,

and said “Merry Christmas to you, 

you miserable fuck!” 

-Contemptible holidays, ye coke-addled freaks.

Shelter From the Storm

"Twas in another lifetime..."

Man... I've never heard more prophetic nor strangely fatalistic words in my life. And considering they were blaring out from my left leg pocket while wandering lonely nocturnal streets in an abandoned city and... well, I can't help but get introspective. After all, who else could muster such self-analysis and nostalgia as Bob Dylan?

It's been a long time since I've taken a stab at this thing called writing. I know what you're thinking and no... I have not been procrastinating; I have not been stalling due to lack of inspiration or creativity or any other bullshit aphorism that self-acclaimed "artists" utilize to rationalize their laziness; I haven't been tripping on LSD while setting up elaborate, 'Mousetrap'-esque obstacles for Barbary monkeys on Gibraltar; Hell... I haven't even been wasting my time strapped to an inverted crucifix while a leather-clad, red-headed maiden wielding a cat-o-nine tails.... well, I think you get my point.

No... I have not been skirting around the topic at hand. Instead, I've been standing aside... watching with a combination of a voyeur's gusto and a scientist's curiosity as the events of life continue to unfold. Whatever sardonic, self-flattering fuck decreed that life is but a play and we must all play our parts can go sit on a grenade and count daisies as far as I'm concerned. Because who is content to play the role assigned to them; to play the cards dealt? Just as I played the prodigal and anticipated chance turning my way and the dice to fall favorably, I was blindsided. Completely devastated. Broken beyond repair and redemption, if I can play the overly dramatic. The entire framework I had structured my life around had been blown to gooey bits like a goose through a 747 turbine. And that seemed to just be the first mile marker in a very long, very unfortunate, and very, very trying road  I've been walking. The only solace I could take from it all was that I was long since a goddamned whiskey-soaked cynic who expected the worse and said "I told you so" every time I was proven right.   Had I been an optimist... there would have been no chance of salvaging meaning, reason, and motivation.

But I won't deny that I was in some weird non-combat version of PTSD. Days were spent under the cover of a bed sheet and a hangover, nights lost to a kaleidoscope of fermented elixirs; sight became some cruel adaptation of a Rorschach test. I pushed away those who mattered most and squandered my time with the damned shadows and squeaking floorboards of isolation. After all, misery is its own best company. Or however that goddamned platitude goes.

The moral of it all is... how the fuck should I know? What am I? Some sort of stoic sage sitting under a bodhi tree? No... I'm a sarcastic jackass with the same amount of issues as everyone else and one method of coping: writing. Yet, during this tirade of tragedy... the little cabal of Indo-European voices that reside in my head and are considered muses went silent. And yes... I'm just being glib: as if I'd trust Indo-Europeans to guide my pen! I'm pretty sure the voices are some sort of Polynesian derivative. But I digress... again. Hey, if you don't like it, you can leave any damned time you like! Go ahead, see if I care!

Okay okay, let's not lose our cool. Every relationship has its quarrels.

Basically, I'm saying that I found myself in an abandoned parking lot in the middle of Utah, screaming till I coughed up blood and molars and pummeled the asphalt like I was high on PCP. And I was left voiceless: I lacked the will and way to manage the tribulations of my fucked up tragi-com life. When such a thing happens, it's only natural for us, as mildly intelligent and less hairy apes to question, doubt, and even resent the past.

And then my apartment buzzer shrieked out at 11:30 on a Monday night. It was a relatively new friend who, despite the brief duration of our relationship, had proven to be beautifully unique, marvelously wise, and immensely profound. She swept in so leisurely, as if no time had passed since our last encounter. As always, I was captivated as she slowly sipped a rocks only Scotch and pondered her current circumstances. We drank and we talked and we sat in silence; we shared our stories and exchanged our past griefs.

When she stood to leave, she paused and looked at me.
"I really regret my time in New York," she said, the apathetic shrug not present but completely implied. She then smiled as we entered the twilight wasteland of sleeping Somerville. It wasn't until I was heading back home that her words really struck home. "Regretting time," I muttered to myself repeatedly, causing two elderly women who had been walking beside me to cross the street and fall silent.

It was then that I realized: I wish I could regret my past. I wish I could hold onto my anger and my disappointment and my frustration. But life just doesn't allow it. In the past few months I have seen the extent to which life wiggles its chubby little fingers. I have watched families shatter and its members fall into ruin, I facilitated the union between two young, earnestly loving people and watched as they solidified bonds for eternity; and I have seen hope in the darkest dustpan.

Life is nothing we can anticipate. It isn't a roadmap that we so easily follow. Instead, it is a corn maze with no solution. But we can only learn from the wrong turns we make.

As for the relevance of this all? To quote myself: who the fucks knows?" All I know is that though we don't necessarily have to play our parts, we can certainly utilize our skills for the betterment of ourselves and well... I guess... mankind. My part is to bring entertainment, humor, sarcasm, and critique to all things. So goddamned it... you haven't lost my words. Even if, on occasion, I do...

...but not for long.

Interlude: Time

     Time is a funny thing. We exert so much damned effort to understand something we just never can. It’s just too abstract… too unknowable. We carry watches and cell phones and constantly check the hour, hoping we’re not running late. Every member of the human race with even the slightest ties to the modern world blindly obeys the axiom of the calendar… mapping and plotting out the days and weeks and months ahead. Despite the fact that the future is never guaranteed.

     We can’t understand because time isn’t a thing: it is not an item we can hold in our hands, trying to memorize its contours and characteristics. No, time is just a stream of sensations we hear and feel and speak and taste and touch… then try to categorize and file in chronological order. But in the end, we always fail.

     The only true way to experience time is through the emotions that follow each moment and memory: the electric awareness of a lover’s touch, the quiet joy of a day spent at the beach, the stabbing misery of losing those we love. Even the most innocuous and insignificant moments in our timeline resonate with sensations. After all, boredom is an experience itself… albeit an uneventful one.

     Think of seasons. And I don’t just mean the literal positioning of the planet in relation to our parent star. No… I mean seasons in our lives. The periods we live through, ever taking for granted all the little nuanced details in the day to day. So many of these moments hold palpable, almost ominous sensations around them like a tattered quilt. I think back to my last spring home before leaving: the noxiously sweet aroma of sap and pollen heavy in the May breezes, the entomological sounds droning in the trees, the last glimmer of sunlight over a frequented lake as the sun crashed into the horizon. Or watching a woman I loved walk down an airport terminal, her dainty shoulders struggling under the weight of an oversized shoulder bag, bound for a new place and ending a period of time in both of our lives.

     I think back to moments like these and I am overwhelmed. I can feel the wind on my face, the heartache in my chest, and I can remember every other detail… except for the time. I can’t recall time standing to the side, tapping its foot and giving me an irritated, impatient look. I only have those moments.

     Maybe that’s why some people write. It’s quite possibly an excuse for my foray into this madness. Writing acts as a way to remember all of the times without the emotional baggage. Most of the times at least. But I know that I spend so much effort trying to remember in order to put it to page later. I watch the staccato images of my life passing by and I remember the feelings. Walking with my parents on a sunny day by the Pacific; hockey games watched in poorly lit bars with comrades and crazies; lying awake in the early morning, watching a beautiful girl sleeping; my little cousin sprouting higher and higher as each year passes; the lines in my face growing deeper and deeper. Most of all, I remember the little things; I leave time at the door.

...But Somewhere in the Middle, It Gets Royally Fucked...

…”Well you’ve certainly topped yourself this time, Lou.” I took a swig from a bottle of cheap Mexican beer and scratched my head. We were sitting atop red velour bar stools, our backs against an exposed water pipe, and were facing a makeshift stage. Mediocre floodlights were pointed towards the platform, falling upon an oversized green kiddie pool. Which was filled with jello… and a scantily clad ‘Catwoman’ tearing the bikini top off a busty ‘Invisible Woman.’ A bearded, heavily tattooed ex-roadie in referee pinstripes and a black ski cap with the words ‘FUCK YOU’ sewn on the front hovered above the two women… a silver whistle dangling from his mouth. A crudely made banner fluttered overhead… constantly disturbed by the building’s ventilation: Marvel v. DC was stenciled on the façade.

 “What can I say,” he grumbled as he surveyed the room for a waitress. Facing futility, he took a generous pull from his beer; a few drops of beer spilled onto his black, tattered Van Halen t-shirt. “I enjoy the unusual places. You meet the most interesting people.

            “Most interesting… or most chemically imbalanced. And, judging from this crowd, quite possibly on parole.”

            “C’est merde,” Louie protested, swatting the air in my direction as if I had become some virulent insect from the nightmares of Hernan Cortes. “First off, if they’re on parole… obviously someone believed them to be rehabilitated, no?”

“Why not?”

“Exactement.” Louie downed the rest of his beer and put the bottle on the ground. “And, let us not forget, ami… you aren’t the most stable individual in the world either!”

“Isn’t this the pot calling the kettle black,” I asked, an amused smirk plastered on my face. And, most certainly, annoying the hell out of Louie.

“What,” he cried out loudly, gesticulating towards himself. “Me? I will have you know I am the perfect example of a well grounded individual.”

“Lou… no offense, but I think you’re out of your goddamn mind. You drink like the Mongolian army is on the march, you start fights pretty much every day, you insult people directly to your face, and you mutter to yourself constantly!”

“That last bit is a trait I learned from you my friend.”

“Granted,” I said with a shrug.

“And who are you to talk,” Louie protested, clearly on a tangent. “You come from a people who drink, fight, and fuck like intoxicated gibbons!”

“Greeks?”
            “Bostonians,” Louie shouted, standing on the leg supports and throwing his hands up in the air for full effect.

“Hey! Sit down asshole,” someone yelled from behind us.

“Go sodomize a cadaver you diseased son of a whore,” Louie shouted over his shoulder nonchalantly. A subtle smile broke across his face. “Es tu termine?”

“I’ve told you a thousand times you sociopathic French Canuck: I don’t speak French!” I downed the rest of my beer and left the empty on a nearby high table. “But yeah, I’m finished.”

“Hah! So you do speak French, you damned liar.”

“Sue me.” I abruptly locked eyes with our waitress, so I signaled for two more beers. She nodded and disappeared back into the crowd. “Okay I gotta know. How in the name of Herman’s Hermits did you find this fuckin’ place?”

“Isn’t it great?” Louie beamed with pride at his recently discovered obscure circus of strange.

“Not quite the word I’d use to describe it.” The waitress, a frizzy-haired brunette wearing horn-rimmed glasses and bearing two full Irezumi sleeves, materialized from within the crowd with our beers. She handed me one with a smile, then shoved the other into Louie’s hand with a scowl.

“Have you considered my offer of baptizing the ladies room with our combined fluids,” he asked earnestly, his eyebrows bobbing up and down.

“I’d rather have sex with a chainsaw you fucking creep,” she said, her expression the perfect manifestation of disgust.

“Just ignore him,” I chimed, trying to placate the poor girl. “He was dropped on his head a lot as a kid. And to make matters worse, he has this thing about autoerotic asphyxiation… so his brain doesn’t get much oxygen.”

“What the hell is wrong with you two,” she replied, shaking her head in utter disapproval before disappearing back into the swarm of hipsters and creep shows.

“You anti-Semitic monster,” Louie abruptly shouted, standing up once again; the vein in his neck started to resemble a garden hose.

“Sit the fuck down,” the familiar faceless voice called out once again.

“Shut your face you belligerent pedophile,” screamed Louie. This time he was lacking his playful smirk… instead replaced by spontaneous rage.

“Alright Eastwood,” I said, pulling him down by the shoulder, “you can go vigilante once I’m gone. For once, I’d like to hang without you starting a brawl.”

“C’est tout bon,” replied Louie. Though he resumed his jubilant expression, I could see his fury lingering in the shadows. We sat quietly for a moment, absorbed by the cacophonic roar of the eclectic crowd as they watched two risqué beauties brutally strip each other in a kiddie pool filled with jello. The ex-roadie ref enthusiastically examined the details of the match… though who knows what those details were.

“You were saying something,” Louie suddenly said.

“Was I?”

“I think so.”

“Oh right,” I said, slapping my knee like Andy Griffith. I still have no idea why I did that. “I was asking how you found this place.”

“Do you remember my friend Clyde,” asked Louie between sips from his beer. “You know, the guy with the boa constrictor?”

“That nut case with the horns tattooed to his forehead,” I inquired apprehensively.

“Oui… that’s him. So I was out with him and his cousin a few weeks ago. We were driving around, trying to find something to do. I suggested we go shoot pool, so Clyde’s cousin drove us into this neighborhood. We were playing down the street and had made a little money hustling. Clyde is actually quite good.”

“You don’t say.”

“Ferme la.” Louie chugged a third of his beer. “Clyde and I were outside smoking when we heard a loud crash from inside the bar. Before we could react, Clyde’s cousin came running out of the bar with a broken pool cue in hand. He just jumped in his car and peeled out. It was the strangest thing.”

“Lou...,” I started, but was quickly cut off by a dismissive hand.

“I guess Clyde’s cousin got into a heated argument with some chump and smashed him with the stick.”

“Did you really just say chump?”

“What? Are you troglodytes in New England unaware of that term?”

“Oh we know it,” I retorted, “but I don’t think it’s been used much since the nineties.”

“You are an ass.”

“I’m aware, Louie. You remind me quite often.” We clinked bottles and took swings. “So your freak friend’s cousin flipped and bailed. That doesn’t explain how you ended up here.”

“Oh,” Louie said, lightly slapping his forehead. “Clyde was banging one of the wrestling girls here, so he suggested we swing by.”

“Christ, Lou.” I buried my face in my hand and shook my head… somewhat baffled, somewhat entertained, entirely confused.

“What?”

“Your whole story had nothing to do with your answer! You could have just said your weird buddy Clyde was sleeping with one of the girls and brought you! I didn’t need to hear about the whole bit with his insane cousin.”

“I thought it made for better context in the story,” Louie replied.

“There was no context whatsoever!”

“Well, maybe you can use it for your book?”

“I don’t know if that’s quite up my alley, Lou.” Once more, I managed to lock eyes with the judgmental waitress: this time, she quickly averted her eyes and vanished. Which, in my opinion, was totally uncalled for. Sure, Louie had grossly misbehaved… but what about me? I was only trying to diffuse the situation through humor.

“Speaking of,” Louie said, cutting my introspective monologue short, “how are things coming with the new book?”

“Fine, I guess. Why do you ask?”

“You mentioned you were trying to work your way out of a slump, non?”

“Yeah, you could say that.”

“What is the problem? Writer’s block?”

“How many times do I have to tell you I hate that expression?”

“But it is a valid phrase, Strat,” Louie countered, his tone legitimately sincere. Louie’s ability to switch between irrationality to empathy always caught me off guard. “Anyway, in order to refrain from insulting your chosen lexicon… what is the reason for your troubles?”

“That’s just it, Lou,” I said after a quick sip. “Lately I haven’t had any trouble. Every time I sit down, I just pick up the flow again as if no time has passed. The difference is I’m finding less and less motivation to actually make the effort to sit down and write. So I know what I want to say and how to do so… but I just haven’t wanted to do it.”

“Let me get this straight,” the powder keg-Canadian mused as he began to chew on his thumb. “You are inspired, ready to go… have no mental impediments to stop you from writing. The only reason you haven’t is because you’re lazy?”

“Well I wouldn’t quite put it that…”

“Face it,” Louie shouted accusatorily, standing again. “You are lazy! And for a writer, there is no greater sin! You should be punished… sent down into some abysmal Hell where you are forced to write romantic dramas for Lifetime for the remainder of your existence!”

“I’d rather be forced to read Nicholas Sparks’s entire bibliography than do that!”

“Exactement! So start writing again, you bum.”

“If you’ll recall our earlier conversation,” I said after finishing my beer, “I was planning on writing tonight before you showed up.”

“And what of the ball and chain,” Louie asked in a whisper… almost conspiratorially. “How does she feel about you spending your precious weekends writing instead of socializing?”

“She’s fine with it, man. Despite your attempts at sabotage, things are going well with her and she’s wicked supportive of me writing. And don’t call her the ball and chain.”

“I don’t think she’ll find out,” Louie chuckled, “unless of course you’re wired!”

“What if I write it?”

“You don’t have the gall for such an act!”

Just then, scantily clad ‘Catwoman’ was launched from the kiddie pool… shrouded in a hail of jello globs. She landed face down on the stage, her raven hair covered in green goo.

“It looks like she just got slimed,” I said, almost laughing.

“Slimed?”

“I know you’ve seen Ghostbusters, dude, so don’t even start with me. Half the cast was Canadian: I’m sure it’s shown in your preschools up there.”

“Goddamn ignorant American,” Louie spat back deviously.

“I’d have it no other way, moose jockey.”

“Things are good with Sarah, then?”

“Yeah… I think so. We seem to work well together.”

“How sad.” Louie shook his head and made the ‘tisk’ sound associated with the vice-principles of America.

“Wow... thanks a lot you jackass. Glad to know my friends are happy for me.”

“Attends,” Louie quickly interjected. “I don’t mean it that way. I simply mean you are at your best as a writer when you are bitter, cynical, and mildly depressed. When you are like that, your work est excellent.”

“So you’re just trying to preserve my literary voice,” I asked skeptically.

“Oui! C’est vrai.”

“Nice try, Lou.”

By this point, ‘Catwoman’ had jumped back into the kiddie pool and held a fistful of ‘Invisible Woman’s’ hair extensions. What had once been a salacious tumble in jello had degraded into a full on rumble between two practically naked “performers.”

“It beats watching horse racing, non?”

“You are demented,” I replied. I couldn’t put it past him, though: Louie certainly knew how to get to the heart of weird in this unfair adoptive city we called home.

“Oui!” Louie hopped up once more, this time standing on the seat cushion. He then spread his arms out, mirroring a crucifixion victim, and howled: “JE SUIS DEMENT, ET JE SUIS FIER!” Amidst a tidal wave of bitter shouts and insults, a lone beer can came sailing out from within the confined, sweating masses… its amber contents streaking out behind it like a comet tail. It struck Louie smack dab in the back of the head, sending him sprawling forward: he landed right atop our less than amiable waitress.

“I told you to sit down you fuck,” shouted our ever unseen antagonist from the back. I jumped off my seat and helped Louie to his feet, then tried to help the waitress. Instead of taking my hand, she slapped it away and stormed off towards what I assumed was the manager’s office.

“Lou… are you okay?”

“Oui, yea, I’m fine,” he replied after a moment of slight wobbling. He then looked back in the direction of his assailant. A tall, scrawny, exceptionally pale man with a waxed moustache and disheveled hair looked back and, in an act more condemning than he realized, gave us the finger.

“We better get outta here, Lou. I think that waitress is pissed. Falling on her might have been the last straw.”

“Yes, I think that’s a good idea.” Louie dusted himself off, then leaned down and picked up one of his empty beer bottles. “Follow me, mon ami. I have a quick stop to make…”