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There was a strange smell coming out of my face. Maybe my mouth. It was smoke, but i hadn't been smoking. I fumbled for a match to light the cigarette dangling from my lip. I was stuck. It had been hours & i had nary an idea about how to re-purpose the Ball In A Cup. It's a great idea. Like Lemme's mic. I wouldn't say "perfect"... but it's hard to improve on "really good", as well. It had been two months since i had been released from The St. Louis Home For The Totally Fucked & i hadn't been outside in six weeks. There were empty cigarette packages piled up at the end of the sofa. Somewhere, under the pile, was an Old Western spittoon made of brass. It was a gift from my father. Oddly enough, he had found it in a Sudanese opium parlor. I don't know either, to be honest. I had been dismissed from the Botswana Blue Berets almost a year ago... &, quite frankly, didn't yet feel like getting a "real" job. The marketing firm set up all this shit over the phone & a computer. The New Technology rides again! But what the hell was i doing? If you're gonna leave a retard alone in a room with a handgun, you better give him a yo-yo, or someone's gonna make an "oops". It was Tim Armstrong who once said, or screamed, "Secret to a good life's knowin' when you're through." I've never been that smart, though. Never really light on my feet in this world... & too heavy for most boats i jumped into. I believe it was Mick Jones who said, or hummed, "If I had my time again, I'd do it all the same." I don't know that i could remember it all. The heated up spaghetti & sauce was excellent. It was damn near perfect! There wasn't much sauce left, but just the perfect amount for me. There was just enough to get nearly all the noodles wet with a little sauce - a few bald spots, but this is good in moderation - plus a few globs here & there for some ZANG. And in addition, there were also just enough little meat nuggets to satisfy. A few big enough to stab with a fork & enough to be wrapped up in a noodle-swirl with the fork. About the only complaint i could possibly muster is that i could have maybe had four or five more bites in toto. I had started wearing shorts WAY too small for a man of my girth. In fact, if the pair i had on were any shorter, they'd be a belt. "Fuck it," i thought... i'm not out in public. It wasn't my first fashion faux pas... & would more than likely not be my last. My cross-country motorcycle trip came to mind. Plenty-o-Ponchos was the name of the game. Those goddamn ponchos. But why dwell on the past now. This Ball was getting no less Cuppy. My intercultural competence wasn't getting any less cuppy, either. I'd never live down the incident in Derecske. How was i to know that 6 flowers was one too many? And how was i supposed to know that woman was P�ter Medgyessy's wife? Screw Hungary in the winter, anyway. Oh, Johanne Gonthier, where have you gone? It's an odd dance & it ventures through many missteps. It's awkward for both, but neither would admit to it until it is over. There are many points at which all can be lost. It's amazing that the connection is ever made. So many variables that can go wrong... or go right, in the wrong way. An odd dance, indeed. How does it ever work? Why does it ever work? Is it God's plan... or the Devil's? And somehow, you knew the reality he was living in was more exciting, more interesting than your own. You couldn't quite put your finger on it, but you knew he was having more fun than you... |