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i was a child

i entered the liquor store, putting on an expression that was supposed to look alert & obedient, but instead looked like a 20-pound turkey shoved under a bill clinton mask. nobody in the store noticed; and they never notice anything at all. my boss grinned at me. how can he be so...happy? no, he didn't look happy, in fact he looked grayer than a dinosaur bone, and i was terrified by the thought of what he'd look like if his countenance was allowed to reflect his life for even a moment. "you're alone tonight, kiddo" was all he said. magnificent. i will play tom waits loudly on the store radio & leer at the customers.

i punch in punch in punch in punch in punch in, remembering the strongest fantasy i have ever had, the one that's stuck with me since i can remember; that of waking up on this earth utterly Alone. i would walk across the country looting for canned goods, & paint sex orgy murals on the walls of banks and post offices, if this ever happened.

yesterday i was evicted from my apartment for painting all the walls a lusty pomegranate red. i told the landlord it was simply to compliment the color of his face, which proved quite an accurate match when i told him this. i think he lost about a pound more of his hair right there in front of me when i told him that red was the color of Passion and that passion was always to be revered. i now have a black eye slowly turning pus-yellow, which i believe looks very sexy as i leer at this beautiful white-toothed brunette lass right here who's dressed like a banker. i begin to stroke my elongating penis through the rough pocket of my denim pants, smiling at her as i ring up her order, a diminutive mini-bottle of scotch, with my available hand. unfortunately, by the time i come in my pants, she has already exited and i am staring into the fallen-parachute face of a very old alcoholic man, not sure if my sudden grimace looks like a friendly greeting or not, and for the first time in my life very glad to be wearing an apron.

i look around as waits bellows "time" from the shitty radio, and wonder why, if we are all really going to die, that any of us are spending 8 hrs a day doing this. next thing that happens is my shift ends & it's time to close the store, so i lock the doors, closing them so hard that i almost smash the glass. now comes the terror of the computer screen, incomprehensible numbers & terms flashing before my eyes as i deftly fake the twisted mathematics of the day's paperwork. once again, if i am going to die, why am i spending even a minute of my precious life doing these things? i have seen you walk past me in fluorescent hallways, smiling like jack-o-lanterns, apparently resigned to your lives of clock-punching, and i have wanted to scream at you in response to your prerecorded greetings, not sure why i must be wide-awake as the rest of you sleep. i have no idea why any of you accept these hours, but i cannot accept whatever it is that you have accepted. not for a paycheck, not for a bedroom of paper-money wallpaper, not for anything.

this is the last night. i throw bottles underhanded, so that when they hit the dumb glass sentries on the shelves, glorious explosions raise long jagged shards of bottle almost as high as the ceiling, motley splinters of glass becoming iridescent against the hollow, cowardly yellow of the long fluorescent tubes. i have always wanted to do this, and now i'm doing it, with very little thought of penalty, as the computer creaks in the office, still spitting it's pathetic information. i walk into the office laughing harder than anybody's laughed in at least 2 decades, and calmly put a chair-leg through the blue oblivious screen. tonight i will have the ecstasy that was always meant to be mine, even if my happiness has been warped by too many delays. i love my life too much to allow myself to be deprived of my body's energy any longer. i see a lottery-ticket vending machine & i want to kill, thinking of all the thoughtless bastards who stare into it waiting for unearned money every day, people who have never seen Pablo Picasso's eyes or wept with relief at midnight listening to Debussy's symphonies like a churning ocean in my abandoned red bedroom.

i remove my cd from the boombox that sits atop the vending machine like a warning, and a radio station comes on, blasting the worst music i have ever heard. i can't find my keys, so i fling the stereo through the Exit door, and it lands in the abandoned driveway, warbling pathetically because the long electric cord is still plugged in, stretched like the veins of my blank-eyed customers. there are gas-pumps outside, because it is 2001, a science fiction year, and still they haven't invented a practical solar-powered car, being much too busy looking for gasoline. soon the bastards will dig up alaska looking for petrol, and i haven't even visited that pristine land of schizophrenic time-zone yet. a man pulls up to one of the pumps, looking slightly shaken as i emerge from the obviously wrecked liquor store. "don't worry, i'm not a robber", i assure him, "just a faithful american worker". he stares at me, actually pumping gas despite the fact that i am staring at him expectantly, waiting for him to call the police. he just swipes his credit card & pretends not to hear me. i don't think his alarm clock woke him up this morning. i don't think my alarm clock woke me up this morning. i walk up to him & extend my hand and my voice in greeting:

"guess what i just did, Humphry!" "i just destroyed that liquor store! and you know what i'm going to do now? i'm going to smash my car!" i pick up the radio again and hurl it at my windshield for emphasis, cutting off the voice of some nubile twat whining about her approaching adulthood. it misses my car & caroms off a propane tank.

he flinches, turns, his face like a frozen gutter mouse, and says, "it's a pretty lousy time to talk like that, kid. don't you know that your country is at war?"

"at war!" i bellow. " i've been at war my whole life!"

he shakes his head scornfully, about to say something, but i cut him off. "do you see that building right there?" i ask.

he just stares. and i continue,

"well, there should have been something behind that neon light. something of substance."

i walk down a street as abandoned as the streets of my unpopulated fantasies, and then i see the blues approaching. i don't run, because i'm not afraid any more. why should i be afraid? i've done no wrong. and what if one person in every town across this country acted as i have tonight? i will wait until that police car stops to talk to me, and i will ask them this question. i feel like like a slightly winded god, and tears of relief roll down my cold face. i should have asked that pretty girl in the check-out line what she was doing for dinner tonight, but i have a feeling we wouldn't have had much to talk about.

ahhhhhhhhh.

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