The Usual, Please, and Thank You
By: Scott Sousa
I opened the door and Cego was standing, staring at me from across the room. I stopped and stared back, wondering why I was being challenged in this way. I crept toward him, shutting the door behind me. His eyes remained fixed, stone cold. I was perplexed. I felt like saying something but anything I could have come up with would have sounded dumb so I kept quiet, examining the situation. I stopped.
Was he even looking at me? Maybe he was transfixed by something behind me. But I couldn't look away. If he was indeed challenging me then I would lose. I've already lost thirty bucks on scratch tickets in the past week. I could at least try and win this. I was good at this sort of thing.
Cego opened his mouth slightly. Was he ready to speak? No, he sat there, silent, with a dumbfounded look. At any moment he would begin to drool and it would all be over. He seemed to have caught himself and pursed his lips. I slowly moved to the left. His eyes remained fix on the door. I could blink again. I looked at the door. It was certainly a beautiful door but he has lived in this same house for years and to stare at it in awe today?
Cego turned around and sat at his desk.
I walked up behind him. "The hell is wrong with you?"
Astonished, he turned around. "Paul! When did you get here?"
"I walked in the door and you stared at me for almost five minutes."
"Really?" He scratched at his beard and smiled. "I guess we're all a bit anosognosic at times. Would you like something to drink?"
Change in Judgement
By: Scott Sousa
707-B. Designed to kill bed bugs but it works better as a pork marinade. I smothered my pork chops in it and lit a cigarette. It tastes like motor oil but I've never been a great judge of food so I'll disregard what my mouth is telling me.
I smoked a hit of D.M.T. I had lying around and here's what went down: Nothing too exciting.
I fucked it up. Didn't smoke enough. Choked on the smoke and exhaled too soon. Missed out. Sat at a differing angle. Changed my judgment, said, "fuck it" and went to a local bar to forget about it all.
I'm not sure if I experienced residual effects from the D.M.T. but shit got weird when the French girl with the accordion got on stage to sing about penises. Then there was the other girl, Melissa. She was cute but I lost track of her in an unconventional burrito. Sad claims to make but this is how it happens. Beg to differ? Fuck that. This IS how it happens.
40 St. & Lowery
By: Scott Sousa
It was way too late for me to be out considering I had to work in the morning but I said fuck it I might as well have a good time and see friends I hadn't seen in ages.
We had a great time. We drink beer and ate pizza and watched a certain cartoon from out childhood that featured a certain comedian who would later go crazy and shave his head.
An artifact of our youth. Things change so quickly and it's generational. When I see what cartoons kids watch today I am appalled. The cartoons I watched were exceptionally violent in comparison and the violence was rarely explained. Psychotic cats didn't need a reason to try and detonate a small mouse with 20 lbs of explosives. It just could. It was natural. It happened in real life.
When I came of age I realized the only real difference between reality and those cartoons was the lack of dynamite in real life, and even then I can think of some exceptions to that. Those senselessly violent cartoons prepped me for the real world.
So when I sat at the el train platform at 2 a.m. watching some drunk woman lean against the wall and puke, I couldn't help but laugh. Not because it was funny but because I've been there many times before. There was a brief moment of solidarity between that barfing woman and myself - being unable to say no to the last six shots of whiskey and thinking, "I can handle it." Even when the last one goes down and we know deep down we are going to vomit we think, "FUCK IT MAN I'M WITH GOOD PEOPLE DON'T TRY AND RUIN MY FUN YOU FUCKING STOMACH."
The woman stopped puking and adjusted her posture. She swayed in place and spit a few times - told old trick to get the taste of vomit and liquor out of your mouth while convincing your stomach you don't need to puke anymore. It never works, but what the hell, it's worth a shot.
Sure enough she threw up again and this time I laughed because I thought it was funny. Just like those cartoons.