The Usual

3WW 

Pathetic, adjective: pitiful, pitiable, piteous, moving, touching, poignant, plaintive, distressing, upsetting, heartbreaking, heart-rending, harrowing, wretched, forlorn, feeble, woeful, sorry, poor, pitiful, lamentable, deplorable, contemptible, inadequate, paltry, insufficient, unsatisfactory.

Righteous (LIVING), adjective: good, virtuous, upright, upstanding, decent; ethical, principled, moral, high-minded, law-abiding, honest, honorable, blameless, irreproachable, noble; saintly, angelic, pure; (RIGHTEOUS ANGER) justifiable, justified, legitimate, defensible, supportable, rightful; admissible, allowable, understandable, excusable, acceptable, reasonable.

Sedate, verb: tranquilize, put under sedation, drug; adjective: slow, steady, dignified, unhurried, relaxed, measured, leisurely, slow-moving, easy, easygoing, gentle, calm, placid, tranquil, quiet, uneventful; boring, dull.

The Usual

It wasn’t my best day, I’ll admit that.  “The usual.”  That’s all the text said.  I sat down at the bar and ordered a beer from Nathaniel.  I hate this place.  It’s an old roller rink turned into a bar.  The shag carpet from the 60’s is a brown and blue color and makes me think of vomit.  Every now and then the disco ball flickers light in my eyes and I hate the place even more.  I look around and see the off duty cops at the other end of the bar and they are going on about football.  Seeing them makes me want to do something illegal and start a fight, but I don’t.  I’ll sit here and let the thoughts roll around in my mind of why you wanted me to meet you.  I’m hoping the beer or beers will sedate me before you get there.  I know 10 pm is early for you and I might not see you until around 1 am when you finish up with whatever tater tot you are playing with.  A stranger sits down beside me and we talk  a bit and he buys the next round.  He is some kind of traveling salesman.  He sales electrical transformers for utilities.  The ones that blow out on your street with a loud bang and then no power.  He said the squirrels are good for his business.  He is charming enough to amuse me until you show up. 

I watch the door for you.  The crowd makes me just as sick as the carpet in the room. The cops are right there and I see two girls who are prostitutes walk- in and carry on like the party just arrived.  They are loud and obviously high.  I know their names.  I say hello, by calling them by name just so that the police will look my way.  None of us are stupid. The girls get their drinks and move over to the pool tables and smoke cigarettes and pretend to shoot pool until someone pays them attention.  

People in the bar know I have a bad attitude and don’t care.  I’m waiting for you and buying their beers, so they need to get over it.  I had a few late nights with the bartenders and some of the patrons waiting on you and the longer you made me wait, the more my attitude soured.  One time you didn’t show until about 3 am.  Then I think I started a verbal fight with you that was really pathetic, but in my mind, I was creating a tornado in which the tables and chairs and bottles started flying all around us and we were in a vortex of the bar.  Once our eyes locked, I was out of control and you escalated the whole scene.  I think you enjoy making me mad. I have this rage inside of me that will not stop until I am consoled.  You bring me to a level that there is no place else to go but straight down.  I am out of my mind when you take me to this level.  It’s twisted and wrong.  It’s like when two people are holding guns pointed at the other’s head and we go through the whole scenario, until you back down and I am appeased.  I am too righteous to back down.  One day you will shoot me.  I am o.k. with that.  I know you will be the death of me. 

I want to start doing shots, but as I look around I realize the room is not full enough for me not to be noticed.  I made up my mind earlier that I would come, and as my thoughts tumble, and the guy sitting next to me keeps talking, I want to leave.  Something inside of me can’t let me leave.  I have to see you. You charge me up like electricity.  I have been so low without you.  Ironic I am sitting by someone who deals in electricity, but he cannot help me. 

I hate that every time you get to walk away and I have to stay.  I think about why I stay.  I keep saying that I have no way to leave.  I am the only one keeping me here.  There is nothing else.  I should have left long ago. I should be living in New England and breathing cool salt air.  I should be far from this dark hole.  I hope this time you have new orders for me.  I’ve been here so long I have convinced everyone and even myself that I am a local. 

Hours pass and I wait. 

I started talking to a lively fellow from England and we talk about our favorite haunts when we are there and I completely miss seeing you come in.  I feel a tap on my shoulder, and I turn. Before I say a word, your lips are mine and you kiss the fight right out of me. I feel the vortex but it’s an empty  wind, and it smells of the sea, and I am home again.