More beer please; the booze got me fortified, gave clarity to insights, which then provided temporary confidence and focus. It also removed most coordination, as in I was stumbling now. Other residents in The Vista, my building, have often told me I transform into even more of an asshole when I'm drunk. I believe them. A solid drunk turns me into the Skid Row Creature (SRC). I get hunched over, scurry along, bump into things. I get this fiendish grin, which I swear means absolutely nothing, except I'm feeling who I really am, I'm feeling absolutely honest about everything. I'm inhuman, a freak, incapable of ever relating to anything other than my own bullshit.
When the SRC woke up he thought my plan of self-execution was first rate, and he happily agreed to ferry me off into traffic, but, alas, the moment the SRC came on the scene, I ran out of Natural Ice, and that was no good – at this point in the drunk any moment without booze was seen as sobering up, a loss, a tragedy, a failure, a big problem.
So I stumbled out of my place and exited my building as quickly as possible. The best way to do this is to keep your head down. Don't make eye contact. As soon as people hear your door open they'll open theirs and stick their heads out and ask you for money, and look for something to steal. The worst thing you can do is give them money, because they never pay it back, and then they know you're a punk, and then they'll break into your pad and take everything not nailed down. When I moved in I think I loaned money to just about everyone - further proof of poor social skills. Further proof of a life not worth continuing.
"Mustache! You got five dollars?" It was the lady who always hung by the stoop. She was shaped like a couch and had some kind of leprosy –thorns growing all over face and hands. Her tone always both harshand abrupt, and potentially violent, even more so today. I understood; it was the end of the month, and everyone had spent their checks by the beginning of the second week. I wasn't the only dealing with desperate times.
The SRC hurried past her, shoulders up and head down. Across Seventh Street and through the open door of his favorite liquor store into coolness. Dusty cans of lunchmeat and salsa, the cooler with luke warm beer advertised as ice cold. Limp banners announcing sports and festivities.
Even with the SRC guiding me, I felt guilty. Here I was again, the drunk,the asshole, the stinky poor fool, who needed booze because he couldn't relate, couldn't deal. A Korean kid worked the register and was God to all the bottles behind him. No expression to his face,even when he smiled. Koreans are the most stone-faced motherfuckersto walk this planet, and every time I was there he made me ask even though a pint of Blue Nuts vodka is all I ever asked for.
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THE DOG HUNTERS (completed)
Tiểu Thuyết ChungA suicidal homeless weirdo has adventures. He runs into a duo of dog lovers, who spend their days traveling around the city observing and honoring dogs. Wisdom cannot be run away from. He escapes paradise and falls in love with a strange lady who m...
