The Sun Burns Cold

Sitting here with a glass of Coke and a smoldering Camel after work. Chef B. gave me the rest of the lobster and crab bisque tonight when the kitchen closed, so I made short work of that. Tasty stuff. Nuked up a bunch of it in a bowl and skarfed. Thats one of the big perks at my job, I get hooked up with the soup that doesn’t sell. The bisque is my favorite; sometimes I even put it over pasta it’s so rich and loaded with crab meat and lobster chunks. Full meal deal there.

So after work me and K-Dog, one of my co-workers and former (btw, if anybody is keeping track besides me, I’ve gone over seven months now sans alcohol) drinking buddy, were walking to the mini mart. I had to get smokes, and he wanted to stop for scratch tickets before hitting the bar. We were walking up main street, and he’s carrying his bag and a pizza from work someone ordered but never picked up, when this econ-style wanna be SUV drives by us. Some teenage fuckwit hangs out the passenger side window and yells “HEY…FUCK YOU” I went ballistic, screamed at the top of my lungs “GO FUCK YOURSELF PUSSY-COME ON BACK HERE YOU FUCKING COWARD”, and started after them. Hoping, truly, that they would come back and I’d get to punch a motherfucker right in the fucking face tonight. It had been one of those days.

Unfortunately, they just sped off up the road. K-Dog was utterly unfazed. He catches up to me. We walk in silence for a little while and then he says “I just ignore them when they do that”. Apparently this sort of thing happens to K-Dog all the time. It’s kind of sad really. Sad and rather infuriating. I was still a bit adrenalined up. I said, “I sure the fuck wish those little cocksuckers had come back. I would have liked to fuck somebody up tonight.” Cause, like I said, it had been one of those days.

K-Dog, still carrying his tray of Pizza and his duffel bag, head down as usual, says quietly “Wouldn’t have been worth it. You just would have gone to jail. Police station is right there, remember?” I said yah. Yeah, yeah Kev you’re right.

We walked to the store. I got my cigs, K-Dog got his lottery tickets. I walked home. He went to go get more or less insanely drunk probably.

If I’m ever walking with him again and some little shit yells at him I’ll do the same thing. And if they come back I’ll fucking bust a motherfucker up. Nobody fucks with K-Dog. Fuckin guy’s a bit socially disabled and all, and he aint writing any philosophical treatises any time soon. But he’s a good dude and he works like a goddam ox. Most important, he’s my pal. It kind of bothers the fuck out of me that anybody would mess with him like that. I walk to the store at night alone all the fucking time and nothing happens. Fuckers, fucking with K-Dog.

But now, like I’m sitting here and I realize that I’m officially a cranky old man. I wasn’t chasing kids off my lawn, but there I was-40 years old-going after a car who’s passenger was some smart mouth little shit who probably hasn’t even had hair on his balls for five full summers. Fuck, if I’m like this now I can’t fucking wait till I’m Keith Morris’ age. So yeah, I experienced “elder rage syndrome” or whatever you call it.

Thing is, it wouldn’t have been any different 25 years ago-and it wasn’t. I was in Tacoma back in 88 and someone yelled at me and my friend Josh from a car off 6th street for being all punk rock looking in public. I cordially, and quite vehemently invited the driver to suck my dick. The car turned around. Two angry heshers got out. One just walked up and punched me right in the fucking face. Didn’t say a word. All I saw was a Metallica t-shirt and hair, and then the next thing I know I’ve got a skull ring impacting my dentifrice. I had to get my lip sewn back together at the hospital after that one. I remember after it happened  just walking into the nearest bar and asking if anybody could give me a lift to the hospital. I tried at the corner store it happened in front of, but the people working there chased me out. Probably for bleeding all over the fucking place. There was a lot of blood. I mean a lot, and I’m trying to talk all calm and shit with half my lower lip hanging off. Josh beat feet as soon as the metallists got out of the car so I was on my own. The people at the bar I went to were tripping on the whole scene, but this one guy was like “Cumon, get in the car!” And we sped off to the hospital in his Camaro. He was really firewalling the throttle, and he was drunk as fuck. We pulled up, I got out and turned around to thank him and he was already blazing off. And yes, it was a bitchen Camaro.

They asked me what happened at the hospital. I told them. They called the cops. Cops come in and I’m getting sewed up. They stand there and look at me. Doctor finishes. Cop asks me if I want to press charges. I’m like, “For what? I fell off my skateboard.” They run my name. Comes back I’m a runaway. Cops tell me they’re contacting DSHS and I have to wait for someone to pick me up. I ask them if I can put my clothes back on. I get dressed, pocket the rest of the bottle of Xylocaine they numbed my face with, tell them I gotta piss…and make a hasty exit via an almost algorithmic pattern of turns and twists through the emergency room into the main hospital, and literally, out the side door. Funny how when you’re young you can never seem to get lost in buildings no matter how unfamiliar they are to you.

Trying to drink cheap beer after that with a lip full of stitches was no fun though. They were supposed to dissolve in a couple of weeks. I tore them out after like four or five days. The doctor who sewed me up must have been a real ace though, cause eventhough I can still feel the scar on the inside of my lip I didn’t wind up all Stalloneified or anything. Then me and this dude Lonnie, the guitarist for Abolishment at the time, we got arrested a couple of days after I removed my stitches. We were napping on the soccer field at the University of Puget Sound. Seemed like a good place to cop a snooze. Wasn’t like we had anywhere else to pass out. That time when they got me the cops didn’t let me out of their sight until the DSHS worker came and picked me up at the station. It was the same one who always picked me up. Older lady, obviously well beyond the burn out stage with her state job. She was cool though. She knew wherever she put me I’d be gone again within a week and she’d have to come pick me up from another police station within a month or two. She wasn’t bothered by it. It was her job, after all. The coolest thing was she didn’t even try to moralize or give me some pep talk rap about doing the right thing or whatever. I was money in the bank, basically. It was my job to run, it was hers to come pick me up from the cops when they’d catch me. I remember she smoked Benson and Hedges greens cigarettes, and she’d always offer me one when I got in the car. Fucking horrible cigarettes, but I never turned one down. I wonder what ever happened to her. She’s got to be like eighty now at least. I wish I could see her and tell her that I got my shit together finally.

Oh, and here’s the newest video from OFF!