inauguration day

I woke up today. I was still here. I had three shots of Jim Beam. I kept that a secret. So I called in sick. Didn’t feel like working.It was Martin Luther King Day. Did he really fool around with all those women? And we’re celebrating him? Yasss! 

I walked to the grocery store. Bought some canned ravioli and a six-pack of Bud. 

As the checkout girl checked me out she said, “There’s only one political party. The Rich Man’s Party. And then there are the rest of us.”

She laughed, but I could tell she wanted to cry.

Later that day I turned on the TV.

A newsman looked into the camera and said, “Are you fearful of getting old? You’re not alone. So am I.”

And then he threw to the weatherman with the full mouth dental implants, the hair system, and the Jos. A. Bank Tailored Fit Suit who said, “There’s an asteroid heading toward Earth and this is my last day on the job. Good night.”

I looked out the window.

Saw some daylight.

My next door neighbor was standing in his backyard, hands on his hips, surveying his land.

I walked over to him and said, “They say an asteroid is heading right for us.”

“Yep,” my neighbor said. “Wondrin' if I have time to build an apocalyptic home?”

“Not sure,” I said. “The weatherman didn't give any details. He was in such a hurry he didn't even finish the weather forecast.”

“Well,” my neighbor said, kicking a stone the size of a forty or fifty specks of dust. “I heard this particular asteroid is traveling at roughly 17,000 miles per hour. So by my calculation, the thing oughta be here sometime between Christmas and Easter.”

“Interesting time frame,” I said.

“Isn't it?” said my neighbor. “We're talkin' the second advent of Christ to the earth.”

“Really,” I said.

Didn't know what else to say.

“It's fucken obvious. It's got all the earmarks. The Antichrist better watch his a*s. A thousand years is an awful fucken long time to spend in a bottomless pit.”

I just stood there watching my neighbor's apple-shiny cheeks. I'd never really liked the man all that much. I guess because he wasn’t like me or how I wanted to be. But he made damn good moonshine and never charged me for it, so I had to cut him a little slack.

“Yep,” my neighbor said, as if he knew exactly what he was about to say. “This damn world can't make up its mind. Don't know what it wants to be.Sort of an Any Given Day kinda thing, far as I can tell.One day it wantsa be all about selfless, altruistic love, the next day wantsta be all about possessive, jealous love. It's a true dichotomy, far as I can tell. And what really makes it all so maddening? Is love, as far as I can tell, is a truly and completely haphazard, splendored thing. Hard thing for you to hear, probably. But it's the goddamn truth. Far as I can tell.” 

“Not hard for me to hear at all,” I said. “You're talkin' to a guy who's been single all his life.”

“Well, I can certainly understand that,” my neighbor said  “Not that women aren't without their benefits...”

And then my neighbor looked off toward the west, just like Horace Greeley, and added, “But they sure do talk a lot.”

“Kurt Vonnegut said that's because women need a lot of people to talk to.”

“Well,” my neighbor said. “Whoever the hell Kurt Vonnegut is, he was bloody well right.”

I really didn't feel like explaining who the hell Kurt Vonnegut was so I didn't. I just stood there like a citron, as my neighbor mumbled something about flammable materials.

“The manual I was reading,” said my neighbor, said to dig the trench as deep as you want to, but the lower it is, the more room you have and it may improve blast protection.”

“Well,” I said, not really knowing what to say. “If that's important to you...”

“I've about reached my tipping point. Can't trust anything Uncle Sam says anymore. The inconsistencies, the hypocrisies, the never-ending excuses and finger-pointings have pushed me to the brink. To put it crudely? It's all just a motherfucken piece a s**t. And you can quote me on that.”

“If I was a reporter, I would,” I said, trying to inject a bit of levity into the proceedings. “But I'm just a lowly human being who listens to other lowly human beings and that’s all….”

My neighbor sort of laughed, but I could tell there was pain pinned to his laugh; it was one of those laughs Philip Marlow tried to deconstruct in The Big Sleep. Maybe you know the line I'm referring to. “I thought there was puzzlement in it, not exactly a surprise, but as if a new idea had been added to something already known and it didn't fit. Then I thought that was too much to get out of a laugh.”

And I thought, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

Then suddenly my neighbor got this look in his eyes; something chemical or molecular was definitely going on inside those paired organs of vision. Evidently, he was experiencing a feeling, maybe even multiple feelings simultaneously.

Either that or he was beginning to develop cataracts. What did I know? I'm not an ophthalmologist.

Whatever it was he was feeling, made me feel really uneasy. And awkward. Like maybe I should have called 911. It was that intense.

“My wife thinks I should see someone,” my neighbor said, with a fixed look.

“What do you mean, 'see someone',” I said.

“A shrink...” 

“Really? Why?”

“Been having these...”

He paused.

His left eyelid started twitching. I could tell he didn't really want to say what he was about to say. Especially to somebody like me.But I could tell there was also a part of him that didn't give two s***s who he said it to.

“Been having these outbursts,” my neighbor continued. “My wife attributes it to my drinking. I attribute it to stupid people.”

And he left it at that.

“Well, you keep an eye on that,” I said.

As I walked away I heard my neighbor mumble, “I just don't have much to say to anybody anymore. And they for damn sure don't have anything to say to me.”

I looked at my watch.

It was half past ten.

I had to hustle or else I'd be late for my appointment with my career counselor, Eli Brewer. Or as I called him: Mr. Eli. It's kind of a long story how I ended up with a career counselor. I saw an ad in the Job Finder. There was an advertisement. This nonprofit organization was promising to provide customized resources for job seekers. So I called the number and they told me to come on in. That's when they hooked me up with Mr. Eli.

Mr. Eli, all comfy and s**t in his dirty little not-at-all-cushy office. Except this time when I met with Mr. Eli, he tried to come with his A-Game, but I could tell the brother was clearly being graded on the curve.

“I do have an opportunity that came across my desk about an hour ago.”

Mr. Eli looked at me like he always looked at me in those particular situations.

Suspiciously.

“I'm listening,” I said.

“The Finklestein and Finch carnival's in town. They're looking for an insult clown for their dunking booth.”

“Insult clown?” I said.

“You sit inside a dunking booth insulting people as they throw rubber balls at a target. If they hit the target, you fall into a tank of water. That's pretty much it. Your background's clean, right?”

“Few speeding tickets,” I said.

Mr. Eli nodded. “So what do you think? Think you'd be interested in something like that? Think you can insult people?”

I shrugged. “Why not? People are easily insulted these days.”

He handed me a piece of paper  “Here's the address and phone number,” Mr. Eli said. “I'll let them know I'm referring you.”

“'Preciate it,” I said.

And then Mr.Eli leaned toward me, resting his elbows on his desk, and got all serious and s**t, as serious as brain aneurysm surgery.

“My name's on the line here,” Mr. Eli said. 

“OK,” I said.

“Don't screw this up.”

I thought it was a little selfish of Mr. Eli to be saying something like that to me, especially considering this was the first actual “job lead” he'd given me in three months.

But I needed the cash

so I could pay a few bills

so I let it slide.

“Mr. Eli, I am certainly in no position

to let you down,” I said.

Mr. Eli smiled

and kind of nodded his head.

I had to talk to

Mr. Eli like that,

all professional

and statesman-like,

because I could tell

he'd come from a family

that valued hard work

and diligence.

I could also tell

he was one of those

“overburdened social workers”

who'd been burned again and again

by shiftless slackers

who didn't give a s**t about

working for a living;

just wanted to do

whatever the hell they wanted to do,

and mess with Mr. Eli's head

while they were doing it.

I couldn't see Mr. Eli

lasting too much longer

working as a career counselor.

Not in the

human services field,

anyway.

Maybe he could make a go of it

at a high school or a college.

Not at some nonprofit agency

whose clients were mostly

living in poverty.

That really didn't seem to fit his style.

As soon I got home

I called the guy

from the carnival

who was hiring the

insult clown.

His name was Guy Marks.

He had a husky, grating voice;

sounded like a villain

from one of those

Hanna-Barbera cartoons

from the 70s.

“Yeah, kid.” he said. “How can I help ya?”

“My career counselor Mr. Eli Brewer

gave me your name and number.

He said you were hiring an

insult clown?”

“OK, so insult me.”

“Uhhmm...”

“You're applying for the

job of the insult clown,

arncha?”

“Yes, sir.”

“So insult me.”

“Well, I didn't know I was going to have to...”

“Didn't know you was going to have to what?”

“I thought I was just supposed to

you know, set up a time for

an interview with you.”

“This is an interview.”

“This is an interview?”

“What do I, stutter?”

OK, I thought,

he's one of those kinds of guys.

I thought about

all the insults

I'd received

over the years and the only one

I could remember was:

“I love what you've done with your hair.

How do you get it to come out

of the nostrils like that?”

You would have thought

I was a God damned comedian

the way Guy Marks

busted out laughing.

He laughed so hard,

his laugh turned into a cough.

A productive cough.

The kind of cough

Mucinex can't suppress.

“Ohh s**t!” he gasped,

barely even able to get that out.

“Ohmygod that's funny.

That is funny!

Hoooooo! Love it!

Absolutely love it!

When can you start?”

“I mean, I guess

I can start fairly soon...”

“How 'bout tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow? Tomorrow is definitely

fairly soon enough.

And as my grandfather used to say,

money's always a good thing to have,

especially when you don't have any, 

and I got nothing else planned, so...”

“Be here tomorrow morning at ten.”

“Ten?”

“Is that a problem?”

“No, it’s not a problem at all. I’ll be there.”

After I’d slept for five

and a half hours.

I woke up, took a piss

and ate breakfast.