2004-04-10 - 1:37 PM

Matt was gone for the weekend. Being without a car, I promptly set about starving.

More than anything, I thought, it was time for Chicken Fried Steak. So I IM'd Meagan. She wanted to go, but didn't, but did, but was on the phone nursing a friend through boy-related breakdown.

Almost by divine providence, Doug called, asked if I was hungry.

Sometime later, I get call from Upgrade.
"Alex, do you think I'm a failure at life?"
I frantically tried to chew so I could answer.
"Why aren't you saying anything? OH MY GOD..."
"I don't, holy crap but you called me at Denny's and I had a mouth full of eggs and hashbrowns and tobasco sauce and couldn't talk and my mouth was full and I'm sorry!"
"Heh. I love you Alex."
"You too. Call you back in an hour?"

Hang up, wait for dessert. Meagan calls.
"I'm hungry."
"Too late, I already went with Doug and his girlfriend. You lose!"
"Awwe..."
"Come out and meet us."

Hang up, 15 seconds later, Upgrade calls back again to get Billy's phone number. Hangs up, Meagan calls back.
"I'm not coming."
Intense laughter.
"You saw that coming?"
"Yup."

Dessert, food, I go home. Meagan calls. "I should come over," she says. I cock an eyebrow. My living room is a shrine of cigarette butts, beercans, mcdonalds bags and dried beer stains on the carpet. "You know it's time to find a new roommate When..." Not that I will. It's just that sometimes I consider it.

Two garbage-can loads and 15 minutes later, she shows up. We go to Denny's.

"Tammi, these two need to be seated..."
"Like, right this way!" Tammi beams through dilated pupils, cocking her head to the side and grinning broadly at us. Tammi's acting like someone who's really pissed off and being sarcastically upbeat. It takes me a second to realize she's not. At this point, I have a sneaking suspicion our waitress is on something. Not in the figurative, "way of referring to energetic or strange people" way, but in a very real chemically influenced sort of way. She practically skips us to our table. On the way over, Meagan says hi to the guy "My ex-boyfriend's best friend, who apparently my cousin Carly cheated on her husband with." Doc for short.

We get to our table, Tammi notices our lack of silverware and promptly pilfers some from the neighboring tables for us. Service with a smile.

Meagan asks me for my cell. She HAS to call her brother and tell him we ran into Doc. I take it out, look around, and say "I'm going to pretend I'm just texting someone. He's coming over." Doc is about 20 years old, scrawny, buzzed head, earrings, with 3 letters tattooed in green gothic script down the inside of his left arm. They stand for "Nasty Boys Incorporated." There was going to be a clothing line. Staggeringly, by some cosmic roll of the dice, it never took off.

Doc comes over and sits down next to Meagan. And he just... he just starts going. Quietly I flipped on the "memo" feature on my phone and pressed record. I only got a couple 18 second blips, but I'll try to peice the rest together from memory.

"A'ight, first, you otta know. I left Amanda," he started, absent-mindedly toying with his wedding-band while he talked. "Carly an' I decided we still had feelings for eachother, so she left Tommy an' I left Amanda, and we started dating again, yeah? But she moved in with Joe, who offered to pay her way hopin' he'd win her back eventually, right?" Joe, incidentally, is Meagan's ex. "So, like, she tells me there's nothin' goin' on between them, weeks go by and I'm starting to worry, ya know? Cuz she cheated on Tommy (her husband) with him. And Imall 'Okay, whatever, can I come over so we can talk' and she's all 'Okay' and I'm all 'Is JOE gonna have a problem with that?' and she's all 'Don't be like that', so fine, I come over, yaknow? Joe's just pulling out when I get there, went to the Circle K to get Paper Towels or some shit..."

At this point Tammi's swooping by every chance she can get to hear soundbytes of this psychotic springerian monologue, then skipping her drugged out ass away before anyone can see. We're her only table of the night. She can't figure out what to do until we're at least ready to order.

"So I go inside, and I see these Green post-its on the fridge saying shit like 'You're so beautiful' and 'Have a great day' with smiley faces and shit, I mean, what IS that?"

Meagan informs him that Joe used to leave those for her. Always the green Postits. He would by multi-colored packs, take out all the greens, and leave the yellow and pinks behind. Kind of like the way Homer Simpson goes through Napolean Ice Cream, come to think of it. This is what I like about Joe. Like everyone else involved, apparently he's a man of class. Back to our sordid tale.

"... So I figure, eh, probably nothin' special... I go to thebathroom, and ALL OVER the fuckin' mirror, happyfaces and "I love you's" and shit... And I'm starting to think somethin's going on..." Doc, you see, is not only classy. He's quick, like a fox. "...So I figger, I gotta get a look in the bedroom. You can tell a lot about people by the bedroom, you know? So when Joe comes back and goes in, I'm all 'Hey Joe, lemme get your phone number...' And I follow him in..." Quickness confirmed. Doc's got soul. "...And Joe's bedroom, he's got a big bed, and there's a drawer open with girl's things in it, and the baby's crib and everything. The room she's SUPPOLY sleepin' in (Commentary: I swear he said it like that) ain't been touched for weeks, the bed's covered in neatly folded clothes and everything. So I'm all 'aight' and figure it's time to go, so I take off. Your cousin, that bitch CALLS me, you know, and she's all 'I know what you saw, it's not what you think', and I'm all, you know what? Whatever, man..." I'll never forget the look of pride on his face when he told us what he said to this woman next... "I'm all, 'Kick rocks, Bitch! We're through!' "

Kick rocks? KICK ROCKS? What does that MEAN? Before he can elaborate further on their throughness (He gets a good start with "They say Fuck me once, shame on you, fuck me twice, shame on me..."), his friend, some kind of sex pistols reject with long hair and gloves with the fingers cut off, black leather jacket with as much metal as can possibly fit into one expensive article of clothing, comes up to his honky compatriot and says "C'mon negro, we gotta go..." RIGHT IN FRONT of the waiter of the next table over, an awesome crazy black elvis with a missing front tooth and a new Awleans accent. Not realizing his foi pas, he follows that up with "C'mon, move your black ass." I mouth to black guy, "DOn't know him," and he laughs, so I'm like, cool, nobody's spitting in our coke refills. Then this weird new guy notices Meagan. "Hey... MOrgan, right?"
"Meagan."
"Yeah. Remember me? I'm Freak..."
"Not just a clever name..."I want to say it, so desperately I want to say it, but something about Freak (maybe the clever name) suggested it wasn't the greatest plan in the world.

Smalltalk, they leave. She tells me Freak peirced her naval when she was 15. I'm so confused by the fact that these people exist in real life, and aren't just constructs of some sort of drugged out underground talkshow thinktank.

Tammi bounds up, asks if we know what we want. She sits down and demands the story be told. Meagan tells it, and at the end I notice Tammi's tossed a few stale valentines candies on the table for us.

"Hey..." I grin, "Candy!"
"You only just now noticed?" Tammi laughs, hard and high and shrill and beautiful, before fixing her dilated, shakey eyes on me and cocking her head to the side in that curious expression only she has ever used. "You must be kinda out of it."

We order. 30 seconds later, before the food's even been started by the cook, she slaps the bill down on our table. "I just printed it out, and if I dont' give it to you know I'm going to lose it."

She ambles off. The manager points 3 unbussed tables out to her. I hear her say "Those... have GOT to be the WORST tables to sit at in the ENTIRE restaurant." One table over, a small indie punk girl who reminds me a little of heather, but depressingly scrawny, belches, it's loud and insane and carries well. I start laughing. Two more people sit behind me, stoned out of their minds. Meagan and I try to figure out what Tammi's on. She's too alert and clear-eyed for it to be downers like pot, painkillers or weed. But she's too mellow-happy and calm-smiley for it to be coke or meth or speed or any uppers.

Afterwards we went back to my place, where we (heh heh) watched cartoons. Recess. Then she went home and I fell asleep. My last waking thought was, Burping and stoned neighbors, drugged out waitress, Jerry Springer reject coming over to talk to us, pulled away by a racist punk named Freak. Free cheesecake. Did all of that... Did that... Did it just happen?

Yeah. Yeah it did.

-Alex

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