Blood in the boogers.

That bimbo barmaid undercharged me as usual:
thirteen bucks, just enough to cover
the pulled-pork sandwich and the first pint.
The first of seven pints, mind you.
She never seemed to make it back
to the touch-screen register to enter the drinks
on my tab for reasons that seem more than
the normal breast-implanted blonde excuse.
Her husband, who owns the joint, is also Puerto Rican.
If she were twelve years younger and single she'd try.
I offered to pay the rightful difference but
she laughed it off and told me not to bother.
Her tip reflected her hospitality.
Sometimes I wonder if in another life
she could've been something more
than a trophy wife used to lure dirty old bikers
and construction workers to an otherwise worthless bar.
I try not to dwell on it, though.
It's too real.

The slightly ossified ride back from the bar
was livened up by a strange turn of events.
I came around a bend and had to slam on the brakes
since a line of three cars stood still in the middle
of the forty-five mile-an-hour highway.
My eyes unblurred themselves and saw
a small black dog standing in the shoulder
on the other side of the road. A red leash
was attached to its neck, but no human hand was present.
A woman in the first stopped car frantically hopped out
of the passenger seat of the late-Eighties convertible
that she was riding in and approached the little canine.
He took off running like a bat out of Hell, a broad
saw-toothed grin on his face. I watched him pass by my truck
and bang a sharp left up a driveway in my rear-view mirror.
It seemed like he knew where he was going.
Or maybe he didn't.
I hope he did; that woman got right back in that
bucket of bolts and drove away in the opposite direction.
Good Samaritans have gotten lazy, doughy in their apathy.

The mall seemed like a logical destination once I got back into town.
I probably shouldn't have been driving, but I was having a party
that night and needed a new multi-media stereo for the occasion.
My initial failure in the electronics department of the "anchor store"
I first tried on my quest led me to question what's wrong with
a world that cannot sell the display model, even for full retail price.
Words were kept civil, though I'm pretty sure the clerk could sense
the frustration burning in my eyes almost as clearly as he could
smell the beer on my breath. I headed for a specialty store.
They had what I was looking for there, it was even on sale.
I paid with exact change and heaved the awkward box onto my shoulder.
It was almost a successful voyage for me in spite of the speedbumps.

But then that damn Piano Man caught my eye.
He was back amongst the overpriced pianos on display
in an intersection at the mall, and he was even more disgusted.
The music wasn't playing automatically this time, but the rubber-faced
gray caricature of himself wasn't tickling any ivories either.
His elbows rested on his knees as he bent over on an uncomfortable
stool with his back to the hunk of wood and metal that he was
supposed to be trying to sell. I was mid-stride when our eyes met.
My boots nearly tripped over themselves when he looked me
square in the face and shook his head slowly.
He knew. Somehow, he just knew.
I hope they bury him in a more expensive tux.