The things I've seen in this war... what I've lost... will follow me to my grave...
- Joe Kelly, "War Letters"
Ice cream man on my street, your little truck, you know, is a-neat, a-neat, a-neat. Ice cream man, upon my block, your chimes, your chimes, they reel and rock...
- Jonathan Richman, "Ice Cream Man"
"Training Day"
THE STORY THUS FAR: I'm not sure how we'd gotten into the ghetto, but I was fairly certain it had taken me by surprise. Sure, there'd been a great many liquor stores, but not as many gunshops as I would have expected.
Darlene, 53-year-old substitute teacher, mother of five, grandmother of three, and Denzel to my Ethan Hawke had said a great many things about making sure the sales superviser signed off on my order sheet the next morning and about the importance of having singles and quarters, but she'd said nothing about the ghetto.
As we pulled onto the lawn of a modest home with an overturned pool table and a tarp-covered stove on the porch, there was no mistaking the uneasy feeling I had. On a long car ride to the airport, Kate Jeffries had described it to me before... I felt tired and sick.
It was a quarter to one, we hadn't even tried to sell a bubble gum bar yet, and it'd be another five hours or so until Heather yelled over to Tyrone on the way to Churches, but I already knew that this didn't seem like the job for me. I would have rather watched that insipid and repetitious safety video again... and I would have killed to get out of doing that.
And to think, I'd finally gotten up at a decent hour to waste my day doing this...
I have been stranded on the highway more than a few times in my life. Usually, it happens in winter, and I've got this stupid thing about not wearing a coat, so it's always really cold.
When I'm stuck in the middle of no where (or rural Missouri, same difference) I always have the same feeling: This is not my life. This is some horrible nightmare, only I'm not goint to wake up, and I'm never going to get back to the way things were.
Today, a flea-bitten pitbull named Sugar with massive teats wished me ill while a three legged labrador named Troy improbably hiked up his one hind leg to pee on an armchair in the lawn. I bore witness to a strange, small conspiracy to steal a bike from a boy named Tyrone who came calling while we washed the truck with a hose and a soggy broom. (Tyrone was wearing Jermaine's clothes. Heather was wearing John's shirt. John fooled around on Heather with his baby's momma. I'm not sure who punched Kano in the head so hard she had to have a CATscan. I'd only seen her briefly and we hadn't spoken. But really, none of that is niether here nor there.) I took advice from a cartoon clown. Darlene suggested that I hide the big bills somewhere in the event that I get robbed, but she made no indication as to how likely it was that such a thing would happen, nor did I ask her to. We sold the last Wolverine bar ever to some guy in an apartment complex farrer north of 40 highway than I like to go.
And at no point during any of this did it seem possible to me that the events of my life could have led me to these strange and haunting places. I was fairly convinced that at some point, I had stopped being the guy who drew stick figures or counted his comic books or waxed eloquently about the finer points of Ed or went to Barnes and Noble once a week with Kate.
And never did I believe that I would make it back to my mother's basement to tell you all about it.
I'm going back there tomorrow, but I'd really rather not. I have to get up even earlier this time. And, while I'll thankfully be on my own, I'm not sure I'm really ready for that. I don't know if I have enough change and I'm afraid I might change too much out there. I have no idea where they'll send me. I'm not sure I'll make it back. What if I go out there, and that feeling that I'm no longer me comes back and overwhelms me? Will I be lost forever selling Choco Tacos to the employees of industrial parks and strip malls?
I'm going back tomorrow, and there's no guarantee they'll even give me a truck (which really might be for the best, considering I'll probably be compelled to drive it into a goddamned bridge embunkment), but Darlene made it seem like it's more likely than not.
I'm going back, and in all likelihood, it will cause me trouble and cost me Trouble, but I've given up on so much thus far. I'm not ready to give up on much else these days...
Even Hell.
NEXT:
I Love Trouble.
- Joe Kelly, "War Letters"
Ice cream man on my street, your little truck, you know, is a-neat, a-neat, a-neat. Ice cream man, upon my block, your chimes, your chimes, they reel and rock...
- Jonathan Richman, "Ice Cream Man"
"Training Day"
THE STORY THUS FAR: I'm not sure how we'd gotten into the ghetto, but I was fairly certain it had taken me by surprise. Sure, there'd been a great many liquor stores, but not as many gunshops as I would have expected.
Darlene, 53-year-old substitute teacher, mother of five, grandmother of three, and Denzel to my Ethan Hawke had said a great many things about making sure the sales superviser signed off on my order sheet the next morning and about the importance of having singles and quarters, but she'd said nothing about the ghetto.
As we pulled onto the lawn of a modest home with an overturned pool table and a tarp-covered stove on the porch, there was no mistaking the uneasy feeling I had. On a long car ride to the airport, Kate Jeffries had described it to me before... I felt tired and sick.
It was a quarter to one, we hadn't even tried to sell a bubble gum bar yet, and it'd be another five hours or so until Heather yelled over to Tyrone on the way to Churches, but I already knew that this didn't seem like the job for me. I would have rather watched that insipid and repetitious safety video again... and I would have killed to get out of doing that.
And to think, I'd finally gotten up at a decent hour to waste my day doing this...
I have been stranded on the highway more than a few times in my life. Usually, it happens in winter, and I've got this stupid thing about not wearing a coat, so it's always really cold.
When I'm stuck in the middle of no where (or rural Missouri, same difference) I always have the same feeling: This is not my life. This is some horrible nightmare, only I'm not goint to wake up, and I'm never going to get back to the way things were.
Today, a flea-bitten pitbull named Sugar with massive teats wished me ill while a three legged labrador named Troy improbably hiked up his one hind leg to pee on an armchair in the lawn. I bore witness to a strange, small conspiracy to steal a bike from a boy named Tyrone who came calling while we washed the truck with a hose and a soggy broom. (Tyrone was wearing Jermaine's clothes. Heather was wearing John's shirt. John fooled around on Heather with his baby's momma. I'm not sure who punched Kano in the head so hard she had to have a CATscan. I'd only seen her briefly and we hadn't spoken. But really, none of that is niether here nor there.) I took advice from a cartoon clown. Darlene suggested that I hide the big bills somewhere in the event that I get robbed, but she made no indication as to how likely it was that such a thing would happen, nor did I ask her to. We sold the last Wolverine bar ever to some guy in an apartment complex farrer north of 40 highway than I like to go.
And at no point during any of this did it seem possible to me that the events of my life could have led me to these strange and haunting places. I was fairly convinced that at some point, I had stopped being the guy who drew stick figures or counted his comic books or waxed eloquently about the finer points of Ed or went to Barnes and Noble once a week with Kate.
And never did I believe that I would make it back to my mother's basement to tell you all about it.
I'm going back there tomorrow, but I'd really rather not. I have to get up even earlier this time. And, while I'll thankfully be on my own, I'm not sure I'm really ready for that. I don't know if I have enough change and I'm afraid I might change too much out there. I have no idea where they'll send me. I'm not sure I'll make it back. What if I go out there, and that feeling that I'm no longer me comes back and overwhelms me? Will I be lost forever selling Choco Tacos to the employees of industrial parks and strip malls?
I'm going back tomorrow, and there's no guarantee they'll even give me a truck (which really might be for the best, considering I'll probably be compelled to drive it into a goddamned bridge embunkment), but Darlene made it seem like it's more likely than not.
I'm going back, and in all likelihood, it will cause me trouble and cost me Trouble, but I've given up on so much thus far. I'm not ready to give up on much else these days...
Even Hell.
NEXT:
I Love Trouble.
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