2009

The Loser Chronicles; I WANT YOU TO HURT LIKE (Part II)

l3wis May 6, 2009 0Comments

I WANT YOU TO HURT LIKE

Earl Petty Jr.

(Part 2 of 2)

PART I

I throw on a pair of shorts and my least rancid t-shirt I found in the back seat of my ’69 Buick Rust-O-Matic. I pop the trunk and grab my ten-gallon gas can (like the guys at the sprint car races have, yeah) and a seven-foot length of thin garden hose I once used for a beer bong. I walk over to the neighbor’s truck, remove the gas cap, snake the tube in and start sucking. I sense the gas coming but I don’t get my mouth off soon enough and I get a mouthful of unleaded. I stop the end of the tube with my thumb, spit the gas into the can, then I stick the tube into the can and start draining the tank.

 

I take my t-shirt and try to wipe the gas taste out of my mouth. I’d like to say that was the first time that has ever happened to me but it wasn’t. I swear you could draw me a picture and beat me over the head with a meat mallet and I would still get a mouthful of gas four times out of ten.

 

I fill my can and take a few moments to thank the gas siphon gods that live in the smog that surrounds the meat packing plant like a poisonous shroud. I pour the gas in my tank, start the car, and head out because, my friends, anywhere is better than here.

 

Down the highway I scream rock and roll songs at the top of my lungs because the radio doesn’t work and the windows won’t roll up.

 

I pull into town, voice horse from 99 raunchy verses of Chantilly Lace and the almost swallowed gasoline and I park in front of my friend John’s apartment, which is located directly above my favorite bar in that town (cheap, cold beer). Inside, John tells me I’m fortunate because tonight is the night for his pal Steve’s bachelor party. I don’t know Steve.

 

“He’s marrying Amanda Troutman.” He says, then looks at me funny and asks if I’ve been huffing gas and I say, “yeah.”

 

John says everyone will be here in a few minutes to have cocktails and I mix myself up a giant gin and tonic, with real lime, thinking this is my lucky day. After guzzling heartily, we pile into John’s Thunderbird and everyone is revved-up and hyped-up, high-fiving like we’ve won the Super Bowl 100-0, elated we are driving across county lines and between corn fields to the raunchiest strip bar in eight states.

 

The guy sitting next to me (the only person I know in the car is John so this guy is a complete mystery to me) tells me he was a marine and he’s served in some backward-assed countries and he’d seen a lot of strip bars and I wouldn’t begin to believe the shit they’d do, man it was just unnatural, and you’d need a vaccination just by walking through the front doors and this one we were going to was the closest to that and that is a good thing wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

 

So we walk past a twin set of four hundred pound bouncers posted at the door and we have a seat in the corner both. There are more beers around and I’m thinking just keep the beers coming, assholes, that’s all I want. The enthusiasm hasn’t died, and they each get up and walk to the short, dimly-lit stage for a chance to grope some brunette with augmented breasts, and I can tell, not only because they are perched unnaturally on her chest, but the scars on the underside of her nipples appear to be the results of a finger nail file incision stitched with baling wire.

 

I’m left on Steve (the bachelor) watch and he is nearly comatose from copious amounts of booze. Then, this chubby girl with slight breasts and mousy gray hair walks up and starts gyrating for him and he’s laughing embarrassed like and I say tip the woman buddy, and he says “I don’t have any money” and I know he’s fuckin’ lying and I give her a dollar and he yanks it back and says she’s a stupid slut (these people are trash, he adds, Jesus get a grip…), “get yourself a drink,” he says handing me the dollar, “but don’t give her any fuckin’ money.”

 

She’s insulted, angry, hands-on-her-hips insulted. I try once again to give her the dollar, he smacks my hand, his eyes cold and gray like a fish and drizzled in alcohol and mean, and he knocks over a beer splashing the dancer before it rolls off the table and smashes on the floor.

 

Then the bouncers, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, are on their way and nothing is going to stop them so I pick up my beer and slug it down just as thick hands come down on my neck and arm and squeeze tight like a constrictor.

 

Next thing we are out on the street, Tweedledee standing sentinel while Steve vomits in the gutter, growling like he’s summoning up an army of trolls and I’m lying on my back, bruised, rocks jabbing my spine and ribs, looking up between a pair of parked cars at the dark ink heaven-void above and I taste blood at the corner of my mouth and from my nose and I smile and think, goddamn, I haven’t even begun to sink as low as I can go, have I?