The Cave

“What is it that you do?”

“I write and I go to school.”

“What are you ever going to do with that?”

“I’d imagine the typical things that people do.”

“Are you trying to be snooty?”

“Snooty? That sounds fun! I’d like to be. How can I get more snooty?”

“This conversation is over.”

“So soon? It’s been really nice talking to you.”

“Yea, maybe for you!”

She got up from the barstool with her back to my face.  Her posture slightly hung forward exposing a curve to her spine.  I was happy to see her go. 

The sun warmed my face as it rested behind the horizon, its time to shine had passed. 

I sipped my beer and wanted to leave, but I had no where to go, so I drank more.  I drank and thought about people who lead their lives for better or for worse.  I stumbled towards the exit.  “Yo, where do you think you’re going?”

“Huh?”

“Matt, you need to pay your tab.”  I paid my bill, left a good tip and stumbled out.  I always liked restaurant bars because waitresses and bartenders have flexible morals, which I enjoy.  The professional servitude in America comes with a side of breasts, legs, and greed.

So, I made my rounds.  I’m not an attractive drunk and in turn was not very successful with the ladies.  I was however very successful at getting drunk, driving drunk, walking drunk, talking drunk, and passing out drunk in the only spot of grass I could find.

I slept like a baby elephant.

The sun woke me with her rays of warm embrace.  I felt surprisingly good as I got to my feet to start to find my way home, because I was still drunk. 

I crawled into bed underneath the icy sheets.  A horn revelry good enough for the marine core masked itself within my headache. Then the cat jumped on my face and I started to cry.  I blamed those kaleidoscope blue eyes that never seem to love me back for my drinking and I ran to the bathroom to empty my insides.  All I wanted was something cold to drink, all I had was beer.  So I did what came naturally and put down the first of five frosty cold ones.  Whoever thought of beer was a genius. 

I could finally sleep.  I turned my air conditioner on full blast.  The coolness of the A.C. juxtaposed the flu like symptoms and liquor sweats that I was experiencing.  The grass I had passed out on hurt my back. I felt it now.

I woke up about three hours later.  My sheets were warm and damp and I could not stop thinking about the women I met the night before.  After going to town on myself, I began to feel sick again.  “Should have just manned it through.”  I hated me now. 

I reached into my pocket, drew my cell phone and held down the three-button as I waited for the pizza delivery guy to answer, but he never did.  In fact, I had no signal within the cement walls of my one bedroom apartment.  I want to leave, but I feel too ashamed to step outside.  Besides, it’s so cool and wet, there’s no reason to leave.  I have another beer and my decision again, feels like a good one.  

The damn clock, watching its minutes morph into hours, hours into days.  I’m wrapped in alcohol like a whiskey time machine.  My stubble has grown into a beard and my life is ideas locked only in my imagination of what could be.  Once I’m convinced that I’m successful, I courageously set out for a night on the town. 

I pull into the Am/Pm for a pack of cowboy killers.  There’s people waiting in line to check out, reaching all the way back to the chips.  A man who looks to be in his forties, Irish pale, wearing a blue fishing hat is speaking with a hispanic woman off to my right by the ice cream.  The woman is yelling at him, “you need to get a second opinion.”

“I did,” the man replied.

“And!”

“He said it was serious”.

“You need to have faith.  Have them biopsy it again.  Do the surgery and treatment that they tell you.”

“I did the surgery,” the man said matter-of-factly.

“And!”

“I’ve already tried to explain to you, it’s serious.”  There were still about five folks in front of me in line.  I started sweating a nervous, hot sweat. I had a racing heart.  My lips were chapped and stuck together.  The five people in line in front of me were all together and suddenly it was my turn!  Nothing came out when I tried to speak. I wiped my lips with my shirt and tried again.  I needed to make up what I wanted because I had forgotten what I come for; oh yeah, that’s right, smokes.

I left the Am/Pm and stepped out into the hot as a dog fart Southern California air.  All I wanted was to become a child again.  I floor it, peeling rubber when my wheels meet the road.  Lighting my cigarette with one hand, shifting gears with the other and steering with my knee, I slalom through the lanes on my way to the bar.  My single solitary soaked cancer stick was unable to be smoked from my clammy hands, so I stuffed it in the ashtray. 

I make it to the bar, sit by myself and drink, a lot. Swimming in a pool of booze I avoid a repeat of the previous night, and actually make it home, to the cool, safe, comfort of my cave.