Bobby was let home early that day around noon. There’d been a knife fight on the production line of the bagel factory where he worked. The fight didn’t last long but quickly turned from bad to out of control. Blood was all over the place. Splattered on the conveyor belt, all over the frozen bagels, gathered in a pool clogging the drainage gate. It would take hours to sort through the mess. Someone would have to individually pick out the blood stained bagels, clean out the inner workings of the machinery and then scrub down the conveyor belt with a heavy-duty disinfectant like the kind they used in emergency rooms. The health inspectors would be there within the hour to start the process.
As the immediate supervisor of the frozen bagel production line, it was Bobby’s responsibility to make sure things like bloody knife fights didn’t happen. He hadn’t been directly in the fight but he was the first one there to break it up. He’d grabbed the knife out of Carlos’s hand about 7 or 8 stabs into his attack on George’s chest while a handful of others jumped in to hold Carlos down. Blood flew from the knife. So much blood and the two men delicately wrapped up together, both on their feet. It was hard to tell who was stabbing whom. Everyone immediately assumed the motive was a race thing but who fucking knew. There’d been three other stabbing on that same production line within the last year and from what Bobby could gather all of those fights had more to do with drugs than anything.
He was tired of the whole thing. The cops came and went with the questioning and the statements and the yellow tape and the cups of coffee. How could they drink so much coffee? It was July and it was hot as fuck in that factory. That’s all Bobby could think about, was that disgusting hot coffee. And finally after an hour or so, Bobby’s Uncle David called him into his office, told him he should go home.
“These things happen Bobby. But Jesus Christ, next time don’t try to grab the fucking knife! And make sure you take that apron off before you get out on the street. You look like you just stabbed somebody.”
Bobby walked out the side door, threw his apron in the alleyway dumpster and pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, a flip phone that looked like it could of came from Metro PCS. He looked at the missed text.
ISABELLA.
“Take me to the library again please.”
He text back, “When?”
ISABELLA
“Now?”
BOBBY
“Um, I’m at work.”
ISABELLA
“Well just leave.”
BOBBY
“Um, ok”
ISABELLA
“Really?
BOBBY
“Yea, why not. I’ll say I’m sick.”
ISABELLA
“Yes! Meet me at my house.”
Bobby hesitated for a moment with his finger on the keypad, wondering if he should explain what just happened with the knife fight but quickly decided it wasn’t worth mentioning. He then replied ok and made the trip over to Isabella’s house.
Isabella, much like every other Parisian in the greater New York area, lived in Bed Stuy, which was about a 30minute bike ride from the Bagel Factory located in Red Hook. Bobby started to ride along a quiet light industrial street for a few blocks and turned onto an even quieter, tree lined residential street. Bobby’s bike was a big old heavy schwin, spray painted red with a squeaky seat and a matching rusty red chain. There was a strong breeze of humid wind which at first was a relief but soon switched to absolute repression.
Bobby swayed his way into the headwind and pictured himself in the movie Back Draft. He saw himself as the Baldwin character and the wind was a combination of the older brother character and the fire itself. In his mind Bobby convinced himself he couldn’t let down his fire station from the Back Draft. He definitely had to blaze through this fire wind if he was ever gonna make it in Chicago’s Fire Station 17. Do it for your family. Do it for Chicago and so on. Then he passed a subway station and said fuck it, this is retarded, I’m taking the train.
On the train a thing occurred to him.
To be continued.
Words…pictures, videos, blah blah blah internet. I’m sooooo over… it.
No…. psyche. Still love the internet. Lots of things going on. Exciting things and Imma talk about them shits. Right now gdmammitt. The weathr is getting warmer and my life is a slow giant swell of a wave just about to crash all over the beach. Swooooshhhh (note seasonal metaphor) check.
But that’s life right, just a constant series of interchanging seasonal metaphors or something. Waves always breaking and returning. Yes. (I’m mking a wave crash motion with my hand)
A couple weeks ago I was out with a HS friend and some new friends, dancing and drinking at a bar in a pretty nice part of the City and the night came to an end and everyone was gone.
It was just me and these two girls left on the street, deciding where to go. Now these two girls happen to be beautiful, 6 foot tall, black model types and they also happen to be cousins, and… don’t ask me why they were hanging out with me… I mean besides the obvious fact that I’m amazing company and terribly charming/handsome yet - not important to this story. What was important is that we were waiting for a cab, two cabs. One of us was going one way and two of us were going another way.
So, kind of jokingly I said hey you should hail down this cab, sort of implying that duh, this girl is a total babe and will have a much easier time flagging one down than me. Instantly both of the cousins looked at each other and started to laugh, like are you kidding me, duh you’re white, we’re black, this is your job. I was also dressed well that night. But I wasn’t really catching what they were implying at first. My first thought was that they I assumed I should hail down the cab because I’m a guy but that wasn’t it.
“What because I’m a guy?”
“No, because you’re white”
That’s ridiculous, but it wasn’t. So she’s out there trying to flag down a cab, one, two then three go by and she’s like fuck this, we told you. Your turn. And of course I get the first one. We put my friends cousin in the cab and moments later I flag down a second one.
What?
Not cool.
The next week I’m at a beautiful wedding on a farm in Queens when I realize I have a drinking problem… along with all of the other guests at this wedding. This was a two fold revelation and not so much a revelation really as much a reminder, to be honest.
Went like this.
We show up at 5pm on this farm and there’s like a dozen or so people milling about-with no booze- who kind of know each other mutually through our friends who are getting married. Everyone is cordial and excited to be there. Well dressed, again. Yet every time I turned my head I could hear these echoes of booze requests billowing through the crowd.
When are they serving booze?
I should have brought a flask
Just open that thing
What kind of wedding doesn’t start with drinks
I have the shakes
ect
And so it was. First fold. Everyone here loves booze.
But the next thing that occurred to me was that I knew over a dozen or so of these people from various engagements and had never been sober around the majority of them…
It was like some weird European take on a reality tv rehab show. I know what would be interesting! Get a bunch of crazy drunks on a farm, dressed in nice clothes and make them try to remember how they know each other… in the daylight…Sober! Now that’s entertainment.
Hah, but then they started serving booze and everything went back to normal and it was a truly magical and wonderful time. Weddings are fun!
And lastly. I recently heard this rumor that somewhere at sometime… that there was this guy… and this girl who both decided to call in sick to work.. on the same day… and they just laid around in bed all day and ordered in from Frankie’s, enjoying delicious breakfast sandwiches in various states of clothed and unclothedness. I also heard that it totally ruled and it’s good to be alive!
Whatsssup Summer!?
Hello good friends, here we are once again and as you’ve undoubtably come to expect from this corner of the computer.. with no furhter ahh doooo. It’s time to talk about poop.
But wait! Not just any old poop. Noooo. This is a special type of poop. This is my Sister’s Famous Poop Story. Dunt Dunt Dunt.
(context)
Some friends of mine in New Orleans are putting together a poop zine, which they’ve asked people to submit poop stories for them to draw illustrations to. I know, it’s so ehhh and umm gross? And speaking of gross, my twin sister has an amazing…ly gross poop story that i hope she will put to writing by the May 18th deadline.. eh hem, that she’ll probably miss becasue she’s stressed out, currently in a phd program studying how to be a total nerd.
So, being the great brother and amazing person that i am, I’ve decided to tell her famous poop story through my perspective and broadcast it through this bleak and hideous corner of the internet.
Here goes.
In the mid 2000’s my twin sister moved to SF, after she’d graduated undergrad. She was going to take a year off to gain residency and then apply for grad school at USF. She moved out there with some highschool friends, who already had jobs and having moved on a whim, she found herself in a situation where she had to find a job in a week or two before she ran out of money. (more context) My twin Sister a planner/ former cheerleader / full time worrier.
When we were in 4th grade she had somehow gotten a hold of a box of Valentines Day cards in December and literally filled out all of her entire classmates valentines before Christmas, just to be sure she had them done on time….Seriously. And her extreme pre- planning hasn’t slowed down ever since.
But, in her defense, she’s fun and she likes to party. Back to the story. So it’s approaching two weeks of my Sister’s having been in SF and she’s had a couple office type jobs fall through and she’s totally freaking out becasue she really needs a job. Blah blah blah, panic omg, I’m failing at life, what will I do? and finally she gets this barbacking job at Eddie Ridenbackers in downtown near market st. If you don’t know what Eddie Ridenbackers is, it deserves some explanation. It’s an office crowd happy hour type bar with motorcycles hanging in the windows as ornaments and idk I guess generally sort of a comfy duechey tucked in shirt sort of vibe. But what do I know, I’ve never actually had a drink in there.
A couple weeks go by and my Sister is excited to be working there. the tips are large, the crowd is nice, the girls she work with are ok and things are good it seems.
“Great!” says I. “See, I knew you’d figure something out. Look at you, always sweating the details.” We have a laugh. Then she pauses.
Well there is one thing that’s kind of odd. ‘Go on” says I.
“Well, the owner of the bar, Norm is his name, he’s this ancient old fat excuse, who just sits at the edge of the bar all night shouting at the girls, slowly getting wasted and saying more bizarre shit.”
“huh” says me.
“Yea and by the end of the night, it’s always left to the two girls closing to make sure he gets put to bed in his bunk above the bar”
“His what?” -me
“He lives and sleeps in this bunk space above the bar, that he has to crawl his fat ass up a ladder to get to”
“Hahah” -me again.
“But wait, it’s worse. Most nights, after closing, he sits at the end of the bar with no pants on, with just a long night shirt covering his tightie whities and junk”
“Ewww, that sounds, like against the law” - I’m thinking in my head
“What’s so weird about that” - say’s I
“Dude, it’s totally disgusting and creepy and sad on so many levels”
Blah blah barf. So this was this situation for awhile. My Sister continued to work at this bar with this weird, semi psychologically abusive fat fuck owner becasue it paid well and no one else seemed to complain and it was kind of fascinating in a cartoonish kind of way. That is until the night…of the famous poop story.
It was closing time and as usual, Fat Gross Norm was wasted and shouted to any and everyone still in the room, which was my Sister and one other girl. The other girl was closing the bar and my Sister was tasked with the duty of helping Norm not fall off the ladder, which she had done numerous times before. Only, this time, Norm lost control of his bowels and shat enourmous poop squirts through his ass while climbing up the ladder.Ohhh, and I forgot to mention that on this night he wasn’t wearing underwear, just a long nightie shirt.
Splat goes the poop. My Sister dodges the fecal and is left stunned, not sure what to do. Without missing a beat, Norm, looks back down from the ladder and says, “Well are you just gonna stand there looking at it or are you gonna clean it up?”
Whhaaaaaattttttt.
Ok. For anyone still reading. At this point, if this is you standing at the bottom of the ladder, you are now faced with what is better known as a cross roads in life. We all face them, these said forks in the various paths of our lives, but rarely are we faced with them in such a foul and stark light.
Basically, she had two options. 1. Tell the old blob to fuck off and quit. Or… 2. Clean it up.s
She went to get some rags.
Noooooooo. So that was that.
Two days later, I get a call from her.
“Hello”
“I quit my job”
“What, why?”
“IUhhhh it’s a wierd story, let me tell you in person”
Conclusion: Here’s the worst part about this story. So that night she actually cleaned Norm’s shit, saw him off to bed and then went home. Paralyzed by the events. She then confides in her trusted roommates who immediately convince her to quit, the next day. Ahhh, the poor thing. Bless her heart. The lesson, I think, if any to take from this is, never clean up someone elses’s shit. Once it gets to that point, metaphorically or otherwise, you’re only just gonna want to quit right after. Might as well get out, with a strong fuck you while the shit’s still on the floor!
That being said, this song was a pretty big deal when I was 13 along with many other gateway songs.
Nothing else ever in your life will affect you like music did in your early teens, and it puts you on a certain course. It’s like a love affair. It widens your taste and it broadens your view on everything. It saves you.
*********************
I don’t agree with this or at least I can’t relate (there’s some obvious truth to it but). I’m sorry Morrissey, if the music you listened to in your early teens has affected you most in life then you’re doing something wrong.
Not that music from your early teens isn’t extremely influential, it is but to say that’s the most influential time is a cop out. You should always be growing as a person and music should always be a part of that. Which i’m sure is closer to the truth for Morrissey.
Anyone over the age of 25 who still claims the music they listened to in their early teens has affected them most is probably a boring person or at least a really lazy music listener.
"(Source: arrests, via prettylittlebox)
