Town Drunk

By Soccolich 

11 chairs tripped me up in the bar, which was strange because this was a really small place. Here in the city, they called these types of places ‘dives’ as though the bigger places provided ‘ascension’ of some sort.

Nonetheless, on this night, alcohol, music and conversation all jackhammer pounded upon my nerves. There was some commotion in the bar because I called the guy’s wife sitting next to me Thingzilla or Creep Carol or something, so I escaped immediately into the golden bathroom.

After a rather longish time at the urinal, I leaned my face against the wall and stole a little snooze. The thing that moved me was the absolute synchronous subdued coherence of it all, the decadent ease with which I slipped into dream. 

Lovingly, I drifted through the duckbill corridor of my cold and drooping blood; I fell so easy then, into the very elation of completion, the pulse of total release and total surrender. I was the measure, the torch of a passionate blaze; I was the long instrument of a lover’s highest craft.

Spinning, sculpting…a child was born here in the stillness of a single Idea. 

“Had I paid the proper price of admission?”

What? What!

I stuttered symphonies of repressed flesh and toxic constitution. 

“Woe, woe, woe!” said I, to the fish men who frayed into this territory of drunkenness all white washed in sentiment.

I had a genuine bone to pick with the whole of these warblers. I tried to explain how words had shaped the sound of the artifice of thought. 

“Action echoes nature, I repeated over and over again before abruptly interjecting, while words simply lie about mind. And awkwardly at that, like a pregnant mime…”

Thus I realized I was still sleeping in the bathroom; sportingly, I returned to the antechamber of the bar. Thingzilla fired her small eyes of bad intent toward my general direction and two of her fearless minions immediately approached me in the variable line of her general sight.

I shouted, “Honor is not dead!”

They stopped and studied me for a few moments before speaking in earnest. 

“Listen man, its not cool to talk to my wife like that.” 

The second man nodded in agreement. I studied the second man’s face. It was a bit like a daffodil, but I couldn’t really remember the last time I had actually seen a daffodil. No matter! The daffodil spoke! 

“Listen, we don’t want any trouble.”

I shouted, “Honor, without trouble?  Man, what is your strategy?”

The daffodil pouted silently.

He then looked at his friend.

I shouted, “Enough! This establishment has burdened my bowels! Incarcerate me no longer with your presence!” 

And then, as if I had uttered an exact code between the bartender and myself, he magically appeared and kicked both men out of the bar. 

I quietly returned to Thingzilla.

I then shouted, “In Indonesia, Thingzilla means free drinks!” 

With that, she seemed remarkably contented… 

copyright 2010 Soccolich, all rights reserved