BLEED

Urban Planning Killed My Cat

     "There's no dog." I said through a wad of bread slathered in relish mustard and ketchup with no hotdog between its yeasty folds.

"Whad'ya mean man course there's a dog! S'a hotdog stand ain't it? What you think I just be serving buns, I put all that relish mustard and ketchup and forgot to put the dawg in the hawtdawg? S'at what'ya trying to tell me?" The rather short, plump man spat at me, a fine mist raining from his lips down on the boiler pan below.

"Seriously man?" Honestly I was trying not to lose my temper, I had driven four hours just to be in the city, already running late for an interview I swore I'd of landed if I weren't already late and at this point I'm starving. I took the bun from its wrapper and spread it wide like a mortician performing an autopsy, it's open center looking particularly bare without the main ingredient wedged between its soft sides. 

     You'd hope standing next to a pot of boiling meat water would cut through that ever present ammonia blanket that New York lays out across the five boroughs, but no, all I could smell was this mans unwashed beater beneath his stained apron and streets of piss. Ever present, all encompassing piss. And I'd imagine it's because if you have to use the restroom in this forsaken concrete labyrinth  you have to walk six or seven blocks to find a public restroom, and you better pray to whatever God's you do that the son of a bitch is even operable, cause you're certainly not using a businesses restroom, hell no that's not for any joe off the street. 

      Not only were I a mess of hunger, sleep deprivation and promoted anxiety but I had to rock a pee so hard Poseidon awaited the results of the flow. But once again no, we'd have to deal with "Smelly Yelly Mister Forgets His Hotdogs" in his stupid buns, who was looking down at the exposed bread like I had just hung his mother by her toes from the nearest tree.  

"Where's the dawg?!" He exclaimed, a truth revealed to his ignorant eyes I had hoped.

"Whad'ya do with it?" And right out the window with any faith in resolving this quite literal oversight anytime soon. I should've cut my losses at this point, moved on with my soggy bun and just hammered that down on the way to my interview, I'd only be three or four minutes behind at that point, but alas I'm a stubborn man.
  
     Raised in South Florida under a constantly boiling sun, pathetic educational system and a sham of extra curricular activities masquerading as a groomers paradise. If I could survive that I wasn't going to be run over by the first New Yorker to give me some trouble, certainly not this greasy cue ball of a man.

"Listen bud you didn't put the dog in the bun in the first place, I'm starving, late to work, just put the fuckin dog on the bun so I can be on my way." I mean I kind of was late to potential work but whatever same truths.

"Woah woah woah bud you've gotta pay for anotha dog I'm running a business! Can't just be giving dogs away cause youse got butter fingers." He cracked a grin and immediately turned to the guy just behind my shoulder, "and for youse?"

    At some points in your life you're sure you're being messed with. As if you were on some terrible 2000s era prank show and Ashton Kutcher would come running out laughing and pointing at you for how he gotcha. They'd probably throw like forty pounds of weiners at me as the highlight clip or something as ludicrous as that.

    Instead after blinking in absolute disbelief at this man not only not giving me the hotdog, but just straight up moving on, a fly around his stand he shooed away, I found us both in the middle of the street. Boiling hotdog water surrounding us in a meaty misty atmosphere, minced beef, pork and chicken tightly gripped between my knuckles as a phallic wobbling gauntlet that I used to berate Smelly Yelly's round face with.

     I mean this did happen from time to time, I'd just get so frustrated that everything fades out and when it comes back in I'm not usually in the best of conditions. Nor is the other guy I'm likely standing over or laid out under, in this case I was luckily winning the fight when I came back to reality, albeit with a blood red haze clouding my vision. Did he get me good on the way into the street? I couldn't make out what he or the people behind us were yelling. But I'm pretty sure it had something to do with the lemon yellow Prius that was taking me into the air.

     You know, New York doesn't smell as bad when you're twelve feet off the ground flailing.