The plan was to do two more shots
at noon and then call it a morning. I’m not a drunk,
and I’m only halfway to being an alcoholic. The ten a.m.
road trip from my bedroom to The Missile Shack down the street
was strictly business, very plainly a bid to have my nerves
examined by the captains of industry.

I had to shape up
for the main event at 9 p.m.

What I really wanted to do was go back to bed
or sit down at the kitchen table and count the number
of times the wind pauses to drag its knives
along the window and laugh like a crowd of real bastards.

Nice try, right? Well, I never get to sleep in,
and I never get to have a dream that doesn’t end
with being lost in a library that turns into a circus
that turns into a whorehouse that turns into a bad mix
of every hotel I’ve ever been to.

Everything turns on me sooner or later.
I blink and miss years of backwards thinking
catching up with the general strangeness
that you can find in just about any parking garage.

I swear to God, I try to pay attention.

The Missile Shack was unsurprisingly busy
for that time of day. Casual and friendly, but I kept my nose down
and went out of my way to look like trouble. No one bothered me,
so I felt safe to leave my shots waiting while I went to the bathroom.

The bathroom was surprisingly quiet
for that time of day. Only three people were getting laid.
Only one guy was flushing diamonds down
the one toilet that actually worked. Only four lights were broken.

I decided to just wash my hands. I was thinking about how
they still weren’t very steady when I left the bathroom
and was forced to pause at the hideous scene in front of me.

Everyone was gone,
except for the bartender sitting alone
and sobbing something about the horror of it all.

There was a little blood on the ceiling. The whole place
looked like it had been very savagely taken
to the spiritual cleaners and then promptly left for dead.

I couldn’t have been in that bathroom for more than two minutes.
The damage in general looked very,
very old.

Since I’m not a complete jerk
I paid my tab and left a little extra.

My nerves were worse than ever.

The high school I barely finished
was right next door. Matt Bagley from the old debate team
stood outside with a clipboard, catching me despite my efforts
to wave some of the traffic onto the sidewalk.

He asked me if I was going to be at the reunion that night,
and if I was going to bring the whiskey, fireworks, butcher knife
and LSD like I had promised.

I shoved that son-of-a-bitch aside,
grabbing the clipboard and flipping into sun
as I went home to get ready for 9 p.m.

Despite my misgivings
the show would have to go on.

12/23/2009

Posted on 12/23/2009
Copyright © 2024 Gabriel Ricard