had a little payout from a lottery scratcher or something. Fifty bucks. I know it doesn't seem like much but when all you want to do is drink and quality doesn't matter, it is. A gallon of wine then right back to the store in the one hundred degree heat, of the Arizona desert. When driving a car with a broken a/c and power windows that don't work, keeping cool is an exercise in futility, it's better if you just forget it and drive. A forty ounce bottle of Mickey's and heading to the housing projects park because the window unit air conditioner in my apartment is as useless as the one in the car. So a shade tree and sprinkler mist are just as good with better scenery than that dump, my three hundred dollar a month studio apartment with a partition. I sat watching a group of little Mexican kids playing they just squealed and fought more than anything. A guy walked up, more facial hair than me and definitely dirtier. I couldn't really tell his age but he was definitely older than I was. He sat right down and said " Ain't that the truth, man? Dig that fat kid he's got it right!" He spoke like he had just stepped out of a Kerouac novel actually even dressed like one. His eyes lit up as he watched the kids and looked back at me. I said " I hear ya brother but why?" I held that green bottle wrapped in brown paper, filled with feeling, toward him and then said "Wanna drink?" He grabbed it and drank as if it were the cup of knowledge about to overflow. A little dribbled out of his mouth he just grinned and wiped the top of the bottle off and handed it back saying: "We do the same thing man, just on a grander scale." I took the bottle back and took a long drink, trying to follow where he was leading. "Just check that fat kid, man he has it. He knows how to handle it and we both lost it." I looked over at him, my bottle getting light probably down to ten ounces out of the forty, and said "Not me man, I am that fat kid." He looked at me quickly as I continued. " Older, wiser," I paused. "drunker!"
We both laughed as I handed the bottle back to him and he took the last of that golden liquid down. He set the bottle under our bench as if it where his kitchen counter, reached into his back pocket and pulled out his own bottle and handed it over. Ah mad dog I thought to myself, and it's the red wine flavor, a man after my own heart. I wiped the mouth of the bottle and took a drink as he started again, it was hot and kind of stale but I've tasted none better. "Brother, I call you this in the terms of the earth being our mother and all men brothers, now brother�" He was rocking a little and so full of electric energy I could feel it coming off him, I listened intently for the revelation I knew was coming. " If you're that ugly fat kid, ruling the roost, boys under thumb and all the little girlies watching and awing over you ." I took another slow drink and swallowed letting it warm my already molten interior even more as he continued " Then I gotta ask man,why the f**k you sitn in the park drinking with a bum?" I just smiled, took another drink and passed his bottle back to him. I didn't answer, after all it was sunday, one hundred degrees at noon and the kids had all day to play.
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