5.14.2010

Asking permission.

"It's been a long time
since we've done it this way."

"Yes. Wait. Have we ever?"

"Oh we used to. Believe me.
We used to."

I crack a fresh bottle of tonic
and dump it into a half-glass of ice
fighting to swim in the gin.
A few weeks ago I drank
at a bar in Midtown
where the Bloody Mary originated
only there they called it a Red Snapper.
The cocktails were a stiff twenty
which was fine since I wasn't paying.
A bowtied bartender complete with engraved nameplate
opened a new ten-ounce bottle of soda
for each drink in an act that made me feel
further out of place in my tight green T-shirt. No type
of syrup-to-bubbles-to water ratio error could be tolerated
for a cup of overpriced rotgut in such a fancy joint.
The factory's bottled contents were
the only thing to be trusted in that whole damn place.
That whole damned place.

"Yeah, this is how it used to get done
alright."

There's no one around to disagree this time.
The accompanying smirk is guiltlessly savored.

A sip better than any I've tasted all week
passes my bored Friday lips, sinks somewhere into the fat
perched above my hairy thighs. I've gained and lost
and gained again in a fashion typical of life.
The current phase isn't so appetizing
I must admit. The beach beckons not this summer.
A stranded brown sea mammal trying desperately
to squint hard enough to be able to read
the glowing pages of a sun-drenched book.
Children will run screaming from the abortion.

There's an image for you, Adam.
Swallow it whole.
And Adam responds accordingly:
"Hey Lush, have fun. It's the weekend.
I don't think that you know what you've been missing."
We never do; or we do, and we embrace the cross
in the hopes of a posthumous sainthood.
God, I wish I could save them all--
or maybe myself in stride.

But I answer Adam back with a Click.

To me that sound is more than it is for most.
Only one of my nine firearms has a hammer
that can be physically cocked with the thumb.
There's something lovely in that noise
that all of us lose every day. Call it Choice for now.
I lower the steel heel, make it go away.
A wise decision.
Again with the tonic
still fighting the gin.

My father used to order it when we'd go to dinner.

"You mean a gin-and-tonic?" the confused waitress
would ask.

"No," he'd sigh from his hesitant booth. "Just a tonic water
with lime." That crooked jaw of ours
would grin at no one afterwards.

I've topped him, improved upon his wheel.
And still I will become him.

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