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Part 3c (aka the end)

The coffee rings on the table signal our retirement. Randy’s hand is shaking like an Alzheimer’s patient when he pays for his snack. Whether he’s wired or worried I couldn’t tell you, but I’m alert as airport security in New York.

Sirens echo in the skyline while we crunch gravel with our heels, dust to dust. The city air sings of lost souls and antidepressants, somewhere someone was getting more action than I’d seen in months.

We pull off thirty miles down the road. They abandoned this stretch of highway forty years ago when the interstate moved in; an ignored part of the 1960’s our grandparents left for us to discover. One lane, no lights, no signs, not a guardrail to guide you home, out here the rest of the world just kinda dissolves.

Speeding down the road with ghosts in our hair, this is where the world makes sense. Away from the sounds and stench of home, away from the theater and my shit job, away from the sirens and the lights and the pollution. I imagine this is how Jonah felt before the storm; liberated, out of sight, the perfect get away.

My mother used to read me stories out of this oversized, poorly animated children’s Bible. David and Goliath, Daniel and the Lions, Joseph’s flamboyant 80’s overcoat- pages of the faithful dumbed down for the illiterate. Mom would always go back to Jonah. Night after night I’d sit in my footie pajamas while she’d pound through the same themes: you can’t run from God, and the blessings of obedience. She never mentioned that at the end of the story Jonah looks God in the eye and says, “Fuck you, I’d rather die.” Jonah’s the only book in the Bible to end in a question.

Randy kills the engine in front of the docks, wood left to rot while stars reflect scales on the water. He pulls a handle of Wild Turkey from under the passenger seat and we take our spot next to the crickets and bullfrogs. You don’t need words when nature’s speaking; the whiskey does just fine. This is where life happens, between the puddles of bourbon and shooting stars, Saturday nights where the Lord himself couldn’t care what time it was.

There aren’t any world changing epiphanies here. I’d love to sit back and tell you that sitting there in the moonlight we had some deep philosophical conversation about life, God and death, that under the cosmos we finally understood our place in the world around us; that we found Jesus at the bottom of that bottle.

But I’m not here to lie to you.

She used gasoline.

I'd give a kidney to express myself half as well.

That's how I feel today.

It's about time.

The new As Cities Burn stuff makes me wanna dance.

less fist and feet, more spin and sway.

Part 3B

“I don’t see why you stick with that shit job,” Randy’s speeding down the freeway. “If it were me, I would’ve told those bastards to go fuck themselves months ago.”

“Gotta pay rent somehow.” I’ve heard Randy’s sermon every Saturday for the past two years.
“I’m just saying, it’s not like they’re paying for your retirement, you don’t owe them a damn thing.”

He’s right, but we both know I’m too much of a bitch to actually quit. Sure, I could find something else, but at least this job lets me wear a mask to hide my shame.

After fifteen minutes of listening to the wind slap against the Jeep’s plastic exterior we roll into our favorite diner, one of those high-class joints with red leather booths and a real smoking section. The whole place smells like cigarettes and stale coffee.

Randy orders the chicken fried steak and I ask for a slice of apple pie.

“You know that stuff’s like eating cancer.” I say when the food arrives. The steak looks like tire rubber smothered in bull semen.

“Fuck you Martha Stewart,” he stabs. “I’ve got a solid four years left before my metabolism goes to the shitter, and until then I’ll eat what ever the hell I damn well please.”
“Have it your way, just don’t expect me to cry at your funeral.”
“Look who’s talking, Mr. I’m to Much of a Pussy to Quit My Shitty Job and Actually Do Something with My Life. I’m surprised you haven’t killed yourself.”
“You’re right, why don’t you pass that heart attack over here and I’ll get started.”
“Why don’t you shut the fuck up and eat your Goddamned pie?”

We banter on while sucking down gallons of unleaded coffee, I’m a self-righteous, self-loathing prick, and he’s a scumbag, no talent, ass clown. It’s a beautiful thing.