John stubs out his
sixth cigarette. His fourth and fifth
are still burning in the tray. Unpaid
parking tickets litter the floor. Empty
cans of Red Bull, fliers, cheese and cracker plastic containers. A little hula girl on the dash rocks to the
beat of Halcyon On + On as we pass endless
trains moving boxcars to unknown destinations.
We pass gas stations, pass McDonald’s signs six billion served as we
slowly make our way back to the city. To
LA. John passes me a Twinkie and tells
me he’s pulling over to take a piss.
Amanda and I made out
in the main room for the rest of the night.
She sat in my lap with her legs wrapped around my waist and as I kissed
her, she’d stick her hand in my pants, rubbing my dick while I pet her wings. Her lips tasted like cherry. She gave me her number after the party ended
and told me to call her tonight. I found
John outside, talking with that dj he knew.
The rave ended at
John pulls into a diner
next to this Texaco station and there are these two giant dinosaurs in the
parking lot. One of them is a
Brontosaurus and the other looks like a T Rex.
Truckers wearing cowboy hats and red flannel shirts walk out the diner
carrying boxes of chocolate donuts under their arms. Rather than using the bathroom in the diner,
John walks up to the T Rex and pisses on its leg. I see a trucker who has a moustache like my
father’s.
Some sounds you
remember forever. For me, it was the
sound of my mother’s bed banging against the wall. She was crying and her whole body was shaking,
causing the bed to shake with her. I
asked her what was wrong and she looked up at me and whispered: I’m not happy.
At that moment, my
father burst in the room and said: If
you’re not happy then leave! He started pulling
drawers out of the dresser and throwing them at my mother, telling her to pack
her things and get out. I asked him to
stop and he told me to mind my own business.
He was a big man. He gave me a
light push into the hall and sent me to my room. Then he locked the door. I could still hear the sound of my mother’s
bed, banging against the wall. Only this
time, she wasn’t crying.
John zips up his fly,
slaps me on the back and snaps me out of my dream.
Forget the old man.