muss

[Boogus Epirus Aurelius]

Car didn't start so I called for rides from most people I knew, but all of those most people were tied up or out of town or making excuses.  Having to call in favors with friends seems counter-infuckingtuitive.

Put on the boots, then, and walked the four miles to work in single digit, below zero wind chills with nothing to prevent the wind from damaging those nerve endings in the cheeks. I wont miss them.

I had reached the two mile point when I decided to look at my phone; voicemail from my boss saying I didn't have to come in anymore because they over scheduled. Another voicemail from someone else saying something else that you normally don't want to hear during the holiday season or during any season or through a cellphone voicemail, for christ's sake. The phone blinks off afterward because of the cold air seeping the battery as a final fuck you.

Walking gives you that time to think and plenty of time to stew and it can get dangerous if you haven't prepared a mental roadmap next to your street map. Actually, that's the real epitome of the modern lesson; thinking is dangerous because it can be uncomfortable, so don't be uncomfortable.

Anyways, I stopped into a bar on the way home for a drink, but ended up getting a nacho platter and a ginger ale instead. Place was empty and the dishwashers had full control of the jukebox; sounded like spanish gunslinger ballads to me, but I don't speak more than a few words in espanol.

Places like that are always empty when you'd rather them not be. The hollywood Vaseline vision of the candy cane suspenders wearing, mustachioed barman who can crack beers and conversations only happens rarely, I think. Kind of like the cowboys those mariachi singers were going on about...

The bar didn't do much, so I stopped into a theater a few doors down that was recently refurbished and given the modern treatment. They play old movies there most weeknights and weekends for a few bucks a pop and all of the ticket takers are college volunteers who hate life.

When it re-opened a while back, there was a big resurgence in terms of audience. It was kind of a novel thing. But now, only mock art-house crawlers and bored fuckers end up there and the seats are getting ratty again and there's always a guy with his hand up some girl's shirt in the last row behind the separator, right in front of the broken antique popcorn machine which hasn't been cleaned since the grand reopening.

The woman in charge is on a rotten Bogart kick, so there are endless loops of Key Largo and The African Queen most afternoons and evenings.

The marquee hasn't been changed for weeks.

And, sure enough, there is a couple behind the separator waiting for the lights to dim and a guy in a blue flannel shirt in the front row and the local wino charmer asleep in the third row, having found a place besides the library to warm up. It is like watching a film through the negative of another and I'm on the way out after a half an hour of In a Lonely Place.
Went home and the air's dipped a few more degrees and the car still can't find the breath to turn over