words through barsmoke
Sunday, August 25, 2002
23 possibilities concerning how a bra wound up in this alley drenched in a puddle and soiled.
1. it could have been a drunk couple. a guy with real class taking his date behind the dumpster for one from behind real quick.
2. maybe a garbage bag broke and it fell out. but then why isn't it surrounded by used paper towls, cigarette butts and milk cartons.
3. a girl alone, gnashing of teeth, flesh on bone, violent.
4. maybe a bum had it with his stuff, taken from a former wife's bedroom drawer and savoured for it's safe warm smell.
5. liberation just short of burning it.
6. it was born there and was now in the waning years of it's existence.
7. the lady upstairs saw it flutter down like an angel yesterday as she pulled in her line-dried laundry.
to be continued.
Saturday, August 24, 2002
HOW I WOKE UP SURROUNDED BY GOLF CLUBS
I. WHAT HAPPENS
1. The three men sift through their pockets at the same time. The bill has surprised them, credit cards are sought, offered, rejected. The men do not usually have need of cash. This is not their neighborhood, or the bar across from their office. This is Billy “Boy” Brenelt’s bar. Slumming.
2. Billy sits at home at a shiny linoleum table in white neon light and stares at his wife’s new breasts as she empties the rubbish, and thinks about how much he paid for them, and how they’ve been funded by a bunch of drunks who haven’t touched their wives in ages.
3. The bartender masturbates in the men’s room, thinking of Mrs. Brenelt.
4. Billy Boy’s – A homeless man walks in, heads straight behind the bar, (unbeknownst to the three businessmen), and collects the tips on the bar. He walks back out, brushing against Billy as he walks through the door.
II. THE PEOPLE
1. Three businessmen all wear expensive suits. They fish in their pockets, wallets, and turn up nothing but business cards. And plastic. Slumming at a dive bar. After strip-clubs, lunch at Hooter’s, and right before golf. These men dreamed of golf. A threesome exchanging sweaty palmed business cards in their handshakes, dreaming of tight, long, strokes.
2. The wife. A retired barmaid for tough guys in hard places. Currently rebuilding her image. Softer.
3. Billy – A boxer who never left Cleveland but once. He had a title shot in Chicago 15 years ago and lost, showing up drunk. Now infamous for the incident, he’s cashed in as a bar owner. (My boss.) The drunks come in to rub elbows with a legend. He uses their money to fix up his wife, house, and car.
4. The bartender. In this city nothing is appreciated, so his city is nothing. He wakes up late. He watches different women leave his bed before they realize he is awake. Rising, he gropes for smokes and empty Styrofoam leftovers. He has never been with an “older” woman.
III. CURRENT PRESIDENT OF THE UNTIED STATES OF AMERICA
Undecided.
IV. CLEVELAND
There are always jobs in Cleveland. A bar job is always waiting. Waiters are always waiting. 5-star, happy hour, diners, black dance clubs, gay bars, coke bars, breweries, waiting.
V. THINGS THAT HAPPEN
1. The bartender’s heart is racing. On the wall is an empty roll of toilet paper. Slimy hands. Slimy, sticky, stain-ready hands. In the bathroom at work. During happy hour. On the bar is a beer-laden rag. It will have to do. The distance between the men’s room and the bar is vast. He thinks of light years.
2. At the Brenelt estate. She smokes a cigarette, staring at her reflection in the sliding door to the garden. She is topless but not sagging. In her hand is an ominous note from Billy. Went to check on things, be ready to try those out when I get back. Light candles. In her bedroom bathroom blood soiled bras hang to dry near the sink, near the vials, near the mirror. She will drop the cigarette in the toilet without flushing, and wait with the water running. Warmer, softer, waiting.
VI. LATE NIGHT
The bartender will spend his last hundred dollars during an “industry night” promotion at a bar near his apartment. (I always do this.) A binge, a poverty celebration, as he asks his friends who’s hiring. He will think of the business men as he vomits, and picture their faces on the floor.
- Do you have any cash?
- Plastic.
- Me too. Are you sure they don’t take credit cards?
- They don’t even have an electronic register. I told you we should’ve went to the club.
Three businessmen all wear expensive suits. They fish in their pockets, wallets, and turn up nothing but business cards. And plastic.
Slumming at a dive bar. After strip-clubs. Lunch at Hooter’s, and right before golf. These men dreamed of golf. A foursome exchanging sweaty palmed cards in their handshakes, dreaming of tight, long, strokes.
- Hey mike, keep an eye on the bar for me.
- Sure thing boss. Get us another before you go?
- Same glass?
- Sure.
The bartender’s hard-on stiffens against the bar as he pulls drinks for Alcoholic Mike and his asshole friend Dorsey. He’s thinking of Mrs. Brenelt and her brand new tits.
- How do you like’em?
Billy “Boy” Brenelt sits at home at a shiny linoleum kitchen table in white neon light and stares at his wife’s brand new breasts as she empties the rubbish, and thinks about how much he paid for them. He smirks to think of how they’ve been funded by all those drunks at his bar who haven’t touched their wives in ages.
Billy “Boy” Brenelt. A boxer who never left Cleveland but once. He had a title shot in Chicago fifteen years ago and lost, showing up drunk. Now infamous for the incident, he’s cashed in as a bar owner. “Billy Boy’s Bar.” The drunks come in to rub elbows with a legend. He uses their money to fix up his wife, house, and car.
- What?
- I said, how do you like’em.
- I haven’t tried’em yet.
- Not now. Soon.
- I’ve gotta go check up on things at the bar. Be ready when I get back.
The Dishwasher
sweating grey dark stained
his shirt tight heaves
breathing and his hands
covered in ashen grease smears
layered to the elbow with leftover business meals
break time alley out back steaming brick
the echoes clang off silver and pan
kitchen layers waft past the blue tired milk crate
where he smokes near a tin can ashtray
heaving sighs of new cars and leaving.
going nowhere with this thought but wan’t to/should/will/am/talking about a man who buys you a drink while looking in your eyes and hating you. Looking you in the eyes and saying fucked up shit like “I bet that’s your favorite beer. Yeah, I bet you fucking like that alot.” And then I turn and walk away, this being the beer that I couldn’t afford to get, and this prick toughguy drunk, who always does this when I ‘m in the Harbor, is my only hope for a drink at last call. The fact that this guy was a regular and this happened a few times. The 1st time it’s a shock and i walked away thininking how fucked up and weird that was. The 2nd time just seeing if it was true. The 3rd time really needing a beer. The 4th time bringing a witness. Recently I’ve been just needing the beer.
Or the guy with the cowboy hat who acted like he knew me from somewhere just so that we’d always say hi to each other when we were in the bar at the same time. Which was pretty much often, but still was weird because I would have liked him if we had noticed that we were both regulars and started talking. We could have been friends but it just pissed me off that he invented us knowing each other somewhere previously, which we didn’t, but that assumed familiarity was unnerving. He was a harmless and nice man altogether but everytime i saw him i would innwardly say , -fuck. the cowboy guy.
Or Calvin, the semi-autistic greeter from the spaghettie chain across the street. That guy had more women all over him than his superfinite focused mind could fully comprehend. He looked just like Michael Jordan and had this obssevive mania about cheesy lines from 80’s movies, john hughes in particular. he’d just rattle them off non stop in every feasable order, fully holding a conversation with you, and you knowing every line. constantly. and the women from across the room, not those within earshot, would fall. they would drive him home, saving him from the bus, and fuck him in the car outside his parents apartment where he lived.
The business school bartender dating a black guy from a different college picking a different major. Art.
The Slovenian owner, a Vegas poker champion like those ones on ESPN at 3 in the morning, so flamboyant with money and old fashioned chauvinism. His wife is 7 years younger than his daughther. the king of slovenia.
Simon the door guy, a nephew or something that eventually became a cop. always talking about the drugs we did at his establishment, with his employees.
Kevin Crowe, the sleazy drug guy. Put him in with Marty, the clean cut major coke dealer guy who eventually becomes my neighbor. Then later gets Garvey arrested in Detroit.
Wally’s sister Elizabeth, older slovenian lady, cooks my lunches and think’s i’m cute. It always felt kinda nice to have her checking me out. she had to have known what i was like at the time. maybe make her like a confidante or a confessor in a way. an aspect of the mother figure.
Rick, the old fashioned homosexual, the classic restaurant bar queen. didn’t do drugs because it “dulled his hatred.”
Sonnya, danielle, kim, new trainees, always passed out girl, blond, eventually with kevin crow in my bedroom. (major scene-telling kevin crowe about lsd.)
The wolf man, the beer bottle tabletop collector. really looked like a wolf. that’s what we called him for a couple years and then frank one night finally talked to him. frank asked his name and the wolf man said “Just call me coyote.” classic. a coyote not a wolf, who knew?
the Harbor Inn.
We’ll always have our little lunchboxes of safety
Dangling from our arms
And we’ll carry the thickest book we have on us
Dictionaries tied with shoestrings.
We’ll always have our fridgerator fingerpaints
Swindling under our noses
And we’ll carry the widest look we have on us
Dignitaries tied with shoestrings.
20 minutes 8/16
i’m killing myself. Watching these kids run up and down the street makes me fade quicker. I should be with them, running. But i smoke and drink carbonated beverages that slow my metabolism. I poured the rest of my pepsi in to the porcelain drain and it fizzled, a diabolical battery acid chemistry class fizzle. Jesus christ, that’s what goes into my stomach all day. Or when i wash the ashtrays at work under the sink. The smell coming up makes me ill while at the open to smoke. I don’t exercise much, and it kills me to watch these kids from my porch trying to do running cartwheel and backflip combos. I get sucked into television programs about shit i already know everthing about. I only clean out of a sense of guilt. I only drink to kill time. But it’s time that kills, slowly, everyone. I’ve quit shaving. I haven’t grown an inch in a few years and fear that i may now be shrinking. I’m getting fatter and losing weight, so i must be shrinking. There are dirty ashtrays in every room of my house, i find them all over, even in rooms i don’t smoke in. cooking annoys me, delivery food satisfies. I am not sickened by grease, i may even have a taste for it. i’m trying to have kids and it’s all of this is crazy and no good. I should be like a californian, health nuts, and fiber, and running for no reason with a walkman in my ears blaring fifteen year old tunes. I should drink non-carbonated decaf organic liquids. I should at least listen to the radio instead of the television. I should work longer hours and be willing to help others. I won’t cover a coworkers shift, ever. I should have a goal, a future. Instead i’m in a program, on a visionless path wondering if i’ll be of any use once i get done jumping through all of the hoops. Even my dog wheezes. The cats recognize me by the smoke smell that permeates even my hair, and now their hair. Other cats probably no the as mine. But i’ve given up drugs, and i wonder if that isn’t dying a little bit too. My resistance is being swallowed by my comfort, and shit out in morning diarehea and coughing fits. i only really want to sleep, smoke and drink. Writing just seems to be a leftover. Maybe it’s time. Maybe i should stop and start over in a mental california. I might even develop a taste for water and soy products. I’ll quit smoking butts that fell into the ashtray, putting dead ashes to my lips in order to inhale more filth. If i could stop coughing maybe i could breath longer. The mornings are the worst. But the late nights aren’t any better. A god would be nice, or a purpose. I have too much now. Too many things that i’m going to need to be around for and to get done. I’ll try again, secretly. Goodnight.
JOE: ...AND ALL THOSE TV MOTHERFUCKERS WANT IS ANOTHER FUCKING TEENAGE TRAGEDY, ANOTHER PROLONGATED NEWS EPISODE TO MAKE THE POLITICIANS CHURN. I FOR ONE AM SICK OF IT!!! I DON’T WANT TO WATCH ANOTHER FUCKING SECOND OF ALL THIS BULLSHIT. I DON’T WANT MY SHOWS INTERUPTED WITH ANY MORE STORIES ABOUT HOW PARENTS SHOULD GET SUED OVER SOME KID GOING FUCKING BERSERK IN THE HALLWAY ONE DAY. I’VE HAD ENOUGH!!!
SAM: jeez joe why don’t you take it down a notch, i mean, i know that you mean what you’re saying but... i just don’t think that everyone wants to hear it now.
JOE: WELL FUCKEM! GODDAMIT THEY’RE SICK OF IT TOO, THE PUNY FUCKS.
SAM: jeez joe but the owners of this bar, see we don’t know these guys, and... well i just think that we should sit here, quietly, and finish up and go becau
JOE: OH! OOOOH! SO WE’RE GETTING KICKED OUT BECAUSE I DON’T WANT TO SEE ANY MORE BULLSHIT ON THAT FUCKING TV? TURN THE CHANNEL FOR CHRISSAKE! PUT ON SPORTS OR SOMETHING! THIS IS A FUCKING BAR ISN’T IT?!
SAM: (towards the bartender who is off stage) excuse me miss. if you would just turn the channel i’m sure my friend here would finish up peacefully, no harm. not that we, i mean he, could hurt you... or would...should we be going?
JOE: SAM! SAMM!!!! I’M OUT OF HERE. FUCK THESE PEOPLE!
SAM: (again to the offstage bartender) ok.. so... we’re leaving. um... i wonder if i couldn’t trouble you... no ...well then i’ll be going now.
JOE: GET HER FUCKING NUMBER ALREADY THE COMMERCIAL IS ALMOST OVER.
There’s something to be said for staying up all night. There’s a blueness to the morning that you can only get at twenty-two years old and barely employed. A time when you’re outside of yourself because being inside would just mean more of the same. Work, money and rent. There’s a way that you escape from it. When you just need time to see a blue late night sunrise with your friends. I’d swear there are times when it gets primal. There’s times like that when you might as well be cavemen inventing religions beneath all of those stars. The blue time of night, when the stars look like rice thrown on the blue construction paper you cut up as kids. There’s something to be said for that time in your life.
It’s not like that anymore.
You’d think that years later you’d be somewhere. You would be doing something, of value, or at least with effort, or planning. Something for real money, and rent, a real job like everyone else. But you’re a waiter. You’re nearly thirty years old and you’re a waiter. No one is a waiter. Just ask them. They’ll tell you what they’re about to be: lawyer, teacher, the next president, student, anything, but not a waiter. You’ve probably waited to long. You would’ve thought things would be happening by now. Nobody’s a waiter.
