| ZYGOTE IN MY COFFEE.COM |
| ***BIO*** Mikael Covey lives in Dakota. His published works and other interests are www.stokeycat.blogspot.com and www.litupmagazine.wordpress.com. |
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| © 2008 zygoteinmycoffee Ink. |
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| by Mikael Covey |
| Omaha. Maybe you’ve heard of it. I went there once. Looking for work or a new life, or
whatever it is the small town kids are looking for when they leave the small towns. Left home in my crummy old car hoping for the best in the middle of winter. Gonna start the new year off right, make something of myself; not just bum around all the time. No big deal, just a three-hour drive but seems like you’re moving through centuries. Such is life in a small town, a real small town that is. We don’t even have a movie theater, not anymore. Not since they closed down the Lyric that only showed old films you’d already seen on tv. Cooler to see them at the theater though. Even with the stale popcorn and the old hardened candy that hurts when you chew it. But it only cost a buck to get in. Like coming in out of the cold for awhile, leave whenever you want. Just something to do, y’know. Saw some old documentary-type show about penguins. Just penguins, thousands of ‘em waddling around, jumping off floating chunks of ice, more waddling, sliding down, goofing around, popping up out of the water like being shot out of a cannon. Funny as hell when you’re half lit up. Funny that they’d show this at a theater. And that’s all the entertainment we had in my little town. Funny to think of it that way. Pretty good film though, all in all. But closed down now. A real shame. Get to Omaha, half nervous, half excited about leaving all that behind and starting anew. Stop and see my old friend Buddy from back home. That’s what you do when you come to Omaha, check in with home-boys. Good to see a familiar face, y’know. Makes you feel like you aren’t some stranger all lost and alone down here in the big city. Buddy aint real enthused about me showing up. Not good, but that’s the way it is. We’d been roomies out in California when we went there as kids, just outta high school. And then roomies again, up in Dakota when he was layin low. I guess that don’t count for nuthin. But...it’s a place to stay. Even if I am just in the way. Buddy works at the bar as a bartender where his girlfriend works as a waitress. Well, I guess she works in the dining room ‘cause she says she’s still “jailbait” whatever the fuck that means. Back home it don’t mean shit. Not old enough to be a cocktail waitress though. The place is a supper club, a pseudo-swanky dining room-bar type thing. A real geek joint, if you ask me. Just the sort of thing Buddy would like. Hangin with the rich old fat fuckers like he’s one of them. Gives me the creeps just being in here. Fucking velveteen wallpaper. Jesus. I hang out for awhile but it’s boring, just hanging around. Buddy gives me a scotch ‘n water and I ask him what the fuck’s wrong with it. Then I see him filling up an empty bottle of Chivas with White Pony. Man, that freaks me out. I mean, back when we was roomies, we didn’t have anything in the fridge. Stark empty, just a bag of amphetamines and a bottle of Cutty. The tap water wasn’t any good, y’see. Put some Cutty in it and call it “improved water.” But if you could, I’d drink that twenty-year-old Haig & Haig in the dimple bottle. And if they don’t have any of that (they never do) I’d settle for twelve-year-old Chivas. But damn, I’d never drink any punk-ass White Pony. That’s piss water, plain and simple. “Yeah, we do that all the time” says Buddy “customers don’t know the difference.” What kinda dumb fucks couldn’t tell Chivas from White Pony? Shit. Anyway, nothing else to do so I wander over to Kazzy’s house. Now this is a guy I can really relate to. Kazzy’s so wild and crazy and real. Like me, only more to the point. He’s living in this big old place with some other guys, his girlfriend, and his little sister who’s so all cute and sweet and apparently her boyfriend is like...a lot older than she is, like my age or so. Bummer. I’d like to...well, if she was a little older maybe. What a sweet kid. Kazzy takes me to the kitchen, shows me his old refrigerator that’s like one of those old antique classics from who knows when. Old rounded corners and big gold handle like to show off the metal grill of a 50’s Cadillac or something. He thinks it’s really cool. But that’s just the way he is, sees the chic side of everything. I could hang with Kazzy but feel like I’m just an extra here with all these other folks. So eventually wind up back at Buddy’s place. It’s late and he and the jailbait girl head off to bed. I’m not tired, watch some tv, but hungry as hell from smoking reefer all day. Of course Buddy’s got no food in the place. Could go get something but it’s only twenty below zero outside, and snowing like a motherfucker. So...I’m stuck. Starving and stuck. Make some popcorn and pour a bunch of butter on it. Eat it all down, but still hungry as hell. Then eat the unpopped kernels, then start eating the butter. Man that sucks. Why the fuck wouldn’t he have some goddamned food in the house? Like a loaf of bread and some lunch meat or some shit like that. Goddamn. I guess he and girlfriend get their free meals at the supper club. So they don’t bother to buy anything. Whatever. Next day I shovel a path down the steps. Snowed-in man, I mean deep. And so all sunny and bright outside like a cop shining his light in your eyes but still cold as hell. Record cold. Wouldn’t y’know it. Ten below for a daytime high. Take my old car over to the gas station and have the guy put in a wintertime thermostat so maybe the heater will work a little better. Seems to. But the guy was a real asshole about it. Too damn cold to be working, y’know. And not gonna let up, either. Later I get a call from some guy back home. Wants to talk to Buddy about a couple of pounds of reefer. Buddy’s at work so I take the call, see what I can do. Head on over to Tubby’s house. Tubby’s a real tall thin guy, good looking, curly blond hair. Back home they give him the nickname “Tubby.” Just the way they are back there. He and this Oriental guy rent this little bitty old house and don’t even live there. Just use it to store marijuana. He once asked me if I could get rid of ten pounds a week. Thought about it, told him no. That’s a lot of dope. But that was then, this is now. Shows me this five-page warrant that gots like everybody in Omaha listed on it, except him. Man that sucks. Bad enough to have all your friends named in a warrant. But to not be there with ‘em. Shit. Tubby didn’t live long after that. But he did suggest I check in with Buddy’s ex-girl friend. So I go over and see Rita. She’s all freaky like always, half-stoned. Nice enough girl, skinny sexy, just not my type. Too far above me, I guess. She’s a chem major and used to make the best LSD ever. And some kick ass amyl nitrate, too. And yeah I know, everybody’s got their sad story of what happened to them when they were all fucked up from huffing popper. Me too. Rita wants to know what I think of new her hair cut, just got it done at some ritzy shop. (And like loose bits of hair trickling out as she casually runs her hands through it.) I say “Rita you’d be a really great fuck if you weren’t such a snooty bitch.” Don’t really say that, but that’s what I’m thinking. Like her dad’s some big corporate executive and was once an extra in the movies. So what? You’d never know that about a person unless they told you, or somebody else told you. Like saying - hey, my old man’s a big shot. And you say - cool, or some shit like that. When really you oughta say - fuck off, geek; get real or get lost. Fuck it. It’s all a dead-end anyway. Get back to the place and Buddy’s all bitchy about me horning in on his dope deal. But goddamn, I’m just looking for work here is all. I guess there ain’t no job for me at the supper club. And no job on the side either. Yeah...I know, I shoulda stayed at Rita’s house. But I didn’t. Still thinking about Kazzy’s little sister, y’know. So...hang around for a couple a more days like that, and finally decide I can’t take anymore of it. Fucking head back home. Almost out of money too. Get about half-way there and the damn car up and dies. Sunday night I guess it is now. Well time fuckin flies when you’re gettin fucked in the ear all the time. Get somebody to tow me in to some godforsaken little town, to a repair shop. The guy tells me the thermostat housing is cracked. Seems the gas station guy who was all pissed off about working in the cold, screwed the damn thing down crooked. Now it’s overheated and cracked the housing. Fuck it. Cain’t be fixed either. Guy’s gonna try and weld it for me, but its cast iron and you can’t weld cast iron. But he’s gonna try anyway. Spends a couple of hours on it. Rita comes up from Omaha and loans me eighty bucks to pay the guy for what anybody else woulda charged twice as much for, tow and all, and not even a done on a Sunday night, no way. Now it’s middle of night and I’m back on my way. Broke cold heading home. The heater’s still not putting out much, and this being the coldest night in the history of planet earth. Kinda makes your head hurt to be that cold all the time, but what can you do. Smoke another cigarette. Another hour or so and I’m just about home. Couple of more miles to go. Pitch black dark can’t see a goddamned thing outside, get a flat tire. Got a spare, but...no tire iron. Motherfucker, this is the shits, man. I mean really. Now I’m gonna fuckin freeze to death out here on God’s snowed-in up to your eyeballs godforsaken pitch black wasteland that’s colder’n hell. Then I see the sheriff patrolling around in the middle of nowhere at three in the a.m. Old Johnnie Peavey...been the sheriff here for ages. Don’t know what he’s doing out here at this time a night, you hear rumors but I don’t care. Just glad as hell to see him. Like a freakin miracle. And his daughter was such a cute little wench back in junior high. Really, she was. Lets me use his tire iron, and lets me wear his gloves too. His are leather, fur lining inside, mine are just cotton. But it takes forever. Get one nut loose and then gotta go sit in his nice warm car ‘til my hands thaw out again. So cold I got no feeling in ‘em. Fingers all numb and stiff. Can’t feel ‘em, can’t turn the tire iron. So it’s takes a while to get it all done. |
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| Sept. 2008 |
| 110 |