the cliches stopped when i was drunk

I headed for Zozzie's, a little dive I frequent whenever I feel like

 overdosing on expired prescription medication.

  

The owner was a semi-acquaintance of mine named Zeke Balue. He'd served a couple of duties in Nam and came home wondering who the hell he was.

  

 As soon as he saw me, he smiled so big I could see his cleft pallet.

  

 "How are ya, Chico?" he said.

  

 "Tired, tense, rather bitter, if you wanna know the truth…"

  

 He knew how to handle a self-pitying whack job like me.

 

"Pimm's Cup comin' right up!" he said.

  

 I sat my phat a*s down at a lonely table in the corner, lit a cigarette, and stared into an unlimited expanse.

  

 I tried to live in the present as much as I could and implement all those Buddhist principles into my life, but I wasn't always successful at doing that.

  

 I really didn't have a handle on my thoughts.

  

 Especially thoughts about my past.

  

 They cropped up when I least expected them.

  

 That was the trouble with thoughts.

  

 They really pissed me off sometimes.

  

 By the time Zeke brought my Pimm's  Cup to me, I was daydreaming about angry sex with fragile women.

 

"Hope that'll help ya out," Zeke said.

 

"Zeke?"  I said.

 

"Yaa?"

 

"Do ya remember your childhood?"

 

Zeke looked at me, really puzzled for a second.  "Sure," he said.

 

"Remember all those nightmares you had?"

 

"Sure…"

 

"…Well, do you remember getting sudden head rushes whenever the air  pressure changed, when the drinks were flowing, and the drugs were epoch-making, and your penis was raw from masturbating to MTV…?"

 

This time, Zeke didn't say "Sure."

 

In fact, he didn't say anything at all.

 

I think he was afraid to say anything.

 

Either that, or I'd touched a nerve so deep in him that my question had left him totally paralyzed.

 

"I was just curious," I said, shrugging.

 

He half-smiled, but I could tell it was an effort for him.  "No problem," he said. "Can I getcha anything else?"

 

I looked at my Pimm's Cup.  "Did  you use lemonade or ginger ale this time?"

 

"Lemonade," he said. "Just like you like it…"

 

"Good,"  I said.  "Lemonade  reminds me of the sun…you  know, you're a good man,  Zeke…"

 

"Thank you," he said. "Anything else?"

 

I  held out my hand.

 

We shook on something, but I'll be damned if I knew what it was.

 

Maybe it was lost innocence or lost youth or something else that was lost.

 

Who knows?

 

I could be better at finding the subtext in things, anyway.

That's probably why I  write the kind of s**t I write, which is nothing special.

 

I make a living at it, although I live in a tenement house

 on the Lower East Side and subsist on a diet of Cream of Wheat, ramen noodles, jelly doughnuts, and Boone's Farm apple wine.

 

Somebody once asked me if I considered myself a success.

 

That's one of those questions I hate.

 

And I told them how much I wouldn't say I liked it.

 

That's probably why I don't have many friends.

 

I'm too honest.

 

F**k 'em.