And when Jay pulled off he still thought about ghosts. And it wasn't always so easy; he would still have to create imaginary rules to make it work somehow, this sometimes to the point to where he simply just resigned in midst to sitting there, all then too preoccupied with the invisible fences which had to be constructed.
But Jay, in the here and now, just an old albatross in this land of flamingos, where women had all the pussy and made the rules; especially in LA, it didn't matter so much how well one loved or cared and then a lot of the time what you just got was Ricky Hardflip all up in it all, because convenience actually did play a large part in the rule of attraction - larger than that of what some who convinced themselves other wise still believed and the old bible never really did say anything about that, though this overall behavior still existed - as it always probably has.
Jay never thought about Heather when he pulled off though, and it wasn't because he couldn't - it's mostly because he just didn't. And what could be that the more so sorrowful than pulling off to old Heather anyways?
It was too early for Jay to hit the flat bar (the flat bar in front of the bar at Poseidon Girl that is, not the flat bar at the park) and as Jay jettisoned - reeled around the fountain aimlessly, but not totally whigging out, still felt a bit uneasy because there was no where to go, there was no commons except for the beach, maybe - but now, Jay was too Cali jaded to go even there.
“Everybody’s Humping Around “ can be heard from many radios simultaneously outside as Jay turns down Fairfax, left towards SLB, and he spots a young hispanic couple both in uniform, over co-dependently pawing on each other in the bus stop, right in the middle of the work day - its not summer, though it always seems so and the young girl is sprawled on the bench, half on the boy, both of them laying beneath the plastic shelter and Jay is instantly annoyed by them, how they didn't seem so concerned about getting caught by the cops - just sitting there in front of the speedway.
Maybe the next Bible will say something about how teenagers didn't deserve sex, though right now it wouldn't really seem to matter too much. The persistent swelling in Jay’s trousers was direct evidence the universe was still expanding, that to quench such urge was still to actually touch infinity, create new sparks which would further ripple upon endless
But in the day, back in the day, it's not like Jay even ever got so much close to actually laying a finger on or inside Heather, but once they did cut class to smoke lantana at the park and it may have really just been about the quaint teenage irresponsibility of it all, Heather bumming cigarettes from other surreal teenagers.
Maybe the next Bible will say something about how teenagers didn't deserve sex, though right now it wouldn't really seem to matter too much. The persistent swelling in Jay’s trousers was direct evidence the universe was still expanding, that to quench such urge was still to actually touch infinity, create new sparks which would further ripple upon endless
But in the day, back in the day, it's not like Jay even ever got so much close to actually laying a finger on or inside Heather, but once they did cut class to smoke lantana at the park and it may have really just been about the quaint teenage irresponsibility of it all, Heather bumming cigarettes from other surreal teenagers.
In the sixteen some odd years which had passed since Heather, Jay’s youth had all slipped away without ever really being replaced by what was imagined a normal adult would definite as “maturity”. As Jay was eclipsed in a never ending line action of arrested development consisting of the futile powerslides, and a new stone set heavy wariness backdropped by the bricolage of vinyl stickers which really meant less than nothing, and all the much more general hatred, the defeated masturbation which all alluded to some named and nameless sexual abandonment, the persistent stateside anger from all the manholes on the grid of the boulevards he no longer got paid to China mollie as now they were all mocking him. Any sense of multiplying alternatives, or of bifurcating paths had been replaced by a quayside desolation, as Jay contemplated the long list of missed boats, since Blind, or since Stereo, and now Skatemental.
It was the longest drought in Los Angeles. College kids on the edge of the parking lot were waving homespun fluorescent glittered signs for a car wash which would raise only just enough cash to cover the costs for the organization whom they donated the money to, processing the internal office paper work documenting such car wash occurred.
Jay parked in the same lot they were in, but still as far away as possible, slightly envying how they were all allowed to languish safe inside the day in unecessary activity, how they along with other thousands upon the California coast could afford for their work's output to yield less than nothing - but also at the same time, Jay not admiring it enough to get the Volvo washed.
Jay still had to walk past them to get to the shop and the one young girl in a bikini top and jean shorts asks him:"Hey Mister, can we wash your car? The money goes to drone drone drone . . ."
Eventhough Jays never washed his car, he still knows it's the absolute last thing he needs right now, allows himself to hate this stranger just enough for everything wrong with his life now, how everyone just loves a gal who still makes cleavage hounds conveniently miserable, doing this all whilst being able to reinforce her sense of sexual flower, all in the name of pointless charity.
Jay walks past her, barely acknowledging, says, “ Nah, I'm cool . . . ", thinking if someone would be touching that pussy soon, it wouldn't be him.
The shop still smelled of construction, of pine and fresh paint and it is seductive, reinforces the stark white walls and exposed air conditioning tubes, all the scarce inventory. Sal’s got another shoe out, but it's some new sub label which just dropped and the shop seems to operate under the guise of outlet for the brand, as it’s mostly the only thing they carry - it’s operation seeming mainly cosmetic, like an art gallery. Jay knows the store is a front for something, which he's not quite sure what, but he knows that it exists as is such the type of detail which usually goes around left unsaid between the real Cali heads who actually knew what time it was. Mostly, Jay figured it's genesis may have been linked with some sort of tax liability, even though the shop mostly just seemed to be Sal's rec room, headquarters, living room - Jay always thought the shop could have been called "Sal's Closet".
The silver window garage doors on the north side allowed Sal to park his antique truck inside. Sal even had someone detail "SLB" and the address in old timey pennant lettering on the side doors as the truck seemed to reflect reference to some bygone invisible days we’ve only seen pictures of, or read about - the old truck just there in the middle of the store, a reminder Mark Echoing whatever clarity Sal must have possessed - perhaps an unconscious statement alluding to futility of relentless progress, or a rebuff from the nervous West Coast gallop. Mostly though, Sal liked to just kick it back at the shop and the old truck was real good at getting that across. Sometimes driving the lane late down Fairfax, Jay would immediately see the too many stacks of Etnies boxes against the facade window and then there'd be Sal alone just sitting there in the truck inside, probably totally sober but still staring off forward into space dazed, a kind of mix of California contentment, California restlessness.
Jay walks inside and Mortimer is there behind the counter talking to a couple of kids who were odviously skipping school and Jay has no time for chit chat, walks up, interrups, “Yo--yo,yo - Sal here?”
“Jay-Lee. What tha Don Dillz ???”, Mort in a way which revealed he actually noticed Jay walk in.
“You know, one hundred, whatever, just looking for Sal.”
The kids Mortimer was talking to looked a little green, Mortimer breaks out, “Do you know who this is?”, to which the kids say nothing.
“This guy’s a legend . . . the Grace Kelly of rollerdecking .”
“Feel more like the Susan Sarandon right now . . .”, Jay back in casual frustration.
“Hey, so whats up with that Stereo??? When you gonna get the Stereos going again?” Mortimer not missing a beat, facetiously saying this, as is probably a variation of banter they had had before.
“Aw, you know I can’t do that . . .”, Jay demurs, still entertaining such a ludicrous question.
Jay picks up, studies the roller wheel mounted at the end of a long stick, which was used somehow for pressing gripped tape, even though it’s impossible Jay really gives a shit about this sort of thing.
“Shit would be GAY”, Jay eventually saying to the beat.
“Ha, ha - yeah, no doubt.”
“You know who you should put on Stereo?” Mort baiting Jay in a typically obvious mentally rehersed way.
“Whom.” said Jay skeptically, sounding kind of Stereofied.
Mort pauses for dramatic effect.
“Kanten Russell!”, Mortimer flippantly.
“Oh, yeah totally. Good idea.” Jay, nonplussed.
“No, no, wait, you know who you should put on . . . No, I had a good one. You know who you should put on Stereo? Put on . . . “
“. . . Jesse Mc Millan . . .”Mort finally.
“Oh, dang. Yeah, I know that kid. He does actually kinda fit . . . lives in Frisco too I think.”, Jay loosening up a bit.
Folded paper rested curiously upon the glass counter. From the back you could tell the pages were typed and of thick stock as they hovered silently above the Ventures, casting shadow upon the Slime Balls, the Hacket Surf Nazi wheels - which for some reason Sal still carried.
As part of the problem with hanging at any shop, there was always nothing to do. Jay automatically picks up the paper because there are no magazines, does this with some exaggerated sense of importance, as if looking at an invoice or contract.
“What’s this”, Jay holding the letter.
“Oh, this kid Justin.”
“Justin”
“ . . . some kid from Austin. It’s like some weird creative writing project - a review for Supreme video. He was here on visiting, came in and left it.”
“Supreme video. What, like the 411 one?”
“No, it’s like a fake review, the video doesn’t exist. It’s quite strange, doesn’t make sense but sometimes does in some weird way . . . reads like it was maybe written from the future.”
Paulo hits the glass, exhales through the combination flute/crack pipe he's smoking/playing through and white smoke plumes out the other end and through the holes NOT covered by his burnt fingers and the wobbly wind stereo sound that it makes is the music for his section. Paulo wears a cobalt yellow 8-ball beanie which looks like he could have gotten it at any swap meet, in like say, Crenshaw Slawson for instance, but it's actually a Supreme beanie and it goes for $450.00 and it looks like they may have let him leave the halfway house he's staying at just for the work day, like in order to get his wonky footy, though you kind of get the sense somehow that his part was done all pro-bono.
A middle aged street lady from the same halfway house Paulo stays at flashes her flabby tits for cash in front of minors, as another street character fondels them cheaply infront of the camera and this confirms the trashyness that has resided slightly beneath the surface of the brand all along.
And what the hell does Koston and Guy have to do with Supreme anyways? Why are they there? One may infer that it was the videographer director's typical sycophantic attempt to juice it (like how all videographers tend to do this sort of thing). It illustrates how the videographer may be over reaching a bit - even at the cost of putting in some random, pointless unflattering clip of Chloë Sevingy somewhere in there and it makes one consider how you really must be some total hack if you can even manage to pull off making Chloë (downtown it-girl of the nineties) actually NOT look cool in your little video.
A middle aged street lady from the same halfway house Paulo stays at flashes her flabby tits for cash in front of minors, as another street character fondels them cheaply infront of the camera and this confirms the trashyness that has resided slightly beneath the surface of the brand all along.
And what the hell does Koston and Guy have to do with Supreme anyways? Why are they there? One may infer that it was the videographer director's typical sycophantic attempt to juice it (like how all videographers tend to do this sort of thing). It illustrates how the videographer may be over reaching a bit - even at the cost of putting in some random, pointless unflattering clip of Chloë Sevingy somewhere in there and it makes one consider how you really must be some total hack if you can even manage to pull off making Chloë (downtown it-girl of the nineties) actually NOT look cool in your little video.
I didn't have any clips in there, but Guy did, which he has no business being in anyways. It doesn't matter how cute Koston tries to feign being in front of the camera (cute to the point of dressing like Jayden Smith), or how he may try to make his skating come off more en vogue than it really is by dumbing down his virtuosity with no comply tricks: it does nothing to erase the reality of his one goofy ass Koston life, which is well his and has already been documented ad nausea over the last twenty plus years or so.
Ultimately "Cherry" makes one consider how perhaps wearing gear which says "Supreme" all over it, may have have some subconscious psychological effect on all these kids because they are all such total dicks to everyone else in the non sk8ing clips. As if skateboarding is such some big fucking deal anyways; the black kid in the Gonz drawing Supreme shirt is way too cocky for how stupes he actually looks and is still condescending to the older Asian man like the man is just some poor fool or how about Dill's diarrhea of the mouth which shows that he only needs more dental work (seeing Dill has had numerous signature shoes and his career rests on being a model type- you would think this a priority, but we already knew Dill is an idiot), more homeless exploitation footy, a clip of a midget on crutches which we are supposed to snigger at, more security guard exploitation footage with a security guard who didn't win the gene lottery, like say a Reese Forbes or a Dylan and then the gaze of the camera rests on him for too long, lingers on him, scrutinizes him like he's some mutant degenerate here doing some less than important job than as say playing with a toy on private property and again we should laugh AT him for not being a "good sport" and not high fiveing crack head Guy, who is actually being playfully condescending towards him - then after that we are supposed to feel some hypocritical yearning along with the skaters skating to that one dumb INXS song they used to play too much on the radio and MTV and the square of the cute entitled white girl clumsily smoking a cigarette like she's Dylan's girl, disappears from the screen and her head shot was actually covering the head of an older black woman on the streets, to whom Dylan half condescendingly confirms back to her how she thinks skaters are sexy, is probably the hypocrisy center piece of "Cherry".
Although the brand rests it's elbows on its ostensible cultural imperialism, in reality you still used the most obvious choices for Cypress Hill, Jane's Addiction (the soundtrack isn't even good), you're still following around a twelve year old with a camcorder in the New York subway, and no matter how good you are at trick boarding rollerskate toys in the coolest of ill- Na-Na cities in the world, it does not dispel the fact that these kids are less fucking awesome than what their T-shirts say, and are all simply just the fucking kooks which "Cherry" makes so apparent.
Mortimer continues talking to the kids, all which Jay had automatically blocked, never really acknowledged their presence and then they finally leave.
“ . . . may be onto something, man.”Mort breaking the silence.
“This is odd,” Jay pausing as if reading stock information.
“This is odd,” Jay pausing as if reading stock information.
“Yeah, he kept saying something like ‘Guy is gonna fuck my wife - Guy fucked my wife, Guys gonna replace me in my own shop video.’ ”
“What”
“Yeah, but the thing is, is was he’s young too, like too young to be married . . . he must have been on holiday with his parents, like forced them to bring him here - just kept going on about Guy and Pablo smoking crack.”
“What were his parents saying”
“Oh, they must have been just chillin'.” Mortimer saying in such the flighty way, that as shop kid in the know, he wouldn’t over disclose pointless detail he may have actually remembered, mentally keeping distance from whatever came into the shop, in such the way that as employee of SLB, was his primary responsibility.
“They did get prody though . . ."
Allthough Jay never actually seen Paulo or Guy smoke hubbas, even when they were young kids it still wouldn’t have been something Jay would have put past either of them. It's quite strange how whoever wrote the letter seemed so seemingly dialed into Jay’s world, that such assertion was grounded in a knowing which even Jay barely grasped - some ghost written letter about ex-coworkers, Jay at points in the past being on the same teams as both Guy and Paulo.
Jay put the letter in his back pocket, brazed his Escondido stubble with the ends of his crusty fingernails, asks Mort if he can use the telephone. Jay uses the shop line to call in pizza, drives to Escape from LA, then back to the shop, and he and Mort re-watch “Ravers”.
The garage door ominously rumbles and it’s Sal rolling in an expensive looking rusted oil drum.
“Jayster.” Says Sal, with the highest degree of enthusiasm Sal is capable of expressing, which isnt necessarily much, as Sal has seen more than most, not the one who was as easily amused as your average Bobby Bodyvarial.
“What the Don Dill, Sal? What’s shakin, baby?”
“Nothin, just working.”, Sal crouched down rolling the oil drum, in a manor of taking great care, as if the equivalent of catching dowager at home diligently working on French garden.
Sal stands the barrel up next to the truck, stares at it in silent contemplation with as much concern as he would have put into say, doing a blunt shuving-it out on a quarter pike in an abandoned H-ST. garage.
“Looking good man, looks cooool . . .”, Jay says supportively.
“Yee” says Sal staring at the barrel in concentration like he already knows this.
Sal barely shakes his head as to distract himself out of politeness, walks towards the case, breaks the long interval of not talking, “Well, tell me, Jay Lee, kid - come on now, spit it out, whats new with you.”
“Nothing. Well everything . . . actually wanted to talk to you.”
“Oh, yeah . . ."
“Just got cut from the squad.”
Jay notices Sals wearing a black t-shirt with a picture of the cartoon version of Bozo the Clown behind the Ghost Busters symbol which represents “No”.
“Well, I’ll tell you what I always tell somebody who looses their job - congratulations and good for you!”, Sal without any hint of irony.
“Naw, yeah - I mean, I’m not tripping too hard. But I knew I talked to you there would be things I wouldn’t have to explain. I’m still mulling it over . . . it’s still fresh . . .”
“Balma?”
“Balma? No, yeah - Balma, fuck.” said Jay, surprised Sal guessed that.
“Well, you caught me at a good time. I’ve got to go make this deposit. Ride with me, we’ll grab a drink. Becca’s on holiday in San Louis Obispo with some girlfriends, I don’t have to be home any time soon . . .”
As LA vibrators mock the hungry dicks of this land (and that probably most of the appeal for women) - the sun was setting and the city looked like the background of a Sega game. Jay waited while Sal went inside the apocalyptic corner store - it like most things in LA done so half assed. Jay thought to himself "Why don’t the immigrants try hard enough? ” Jay imagines if he ran a convenience shop, he could make it appealing; free jazz during business hours, key lighting offsetting the fluorescent, maybe hire a good-looking legal teen part time, carry more useful prod beyond obvious, maybe even have a small video library to rent hand picked films.
"What did you have to get?”
“Elf Pussy Papers . . . blue dice . . ."
Jay and Sal walk into the Posiedon. Motley Crüe is playing "Too Fast for Love". All the women were gone. It was Jay's God given right to be alcoholic.
Jay says “I'll get first round.”, with solemnity reserved only for the good chaps.
Jay says “I'll get first round.”, with solemnity reserved only for the good chaps.
The bartender is washing glasses, taking to two guys on the other side. The bartender doesn’t immediately stop so he can walk over and ask them what they want because he seems kinda half into whatever they were talking about, this giving Jay and Sal time to reconnoiter when they sit at the bar.
Jays holding the shot menu, looking at it but no really paying attention.
"What you want, Sal.”
Sal doesn’t answer, but in an un-worrisome way.
“Ok, do you do Gin. Get this citrus gin shot thingy they make sometimes.”
Sal still says nothing, as if taking everything in.
“Yeah, that’s fine,” Sal delayed.
Growing up poor in Houston, Sal still carried himself with the patina of old money and good breeding and held himself a bit in a manner of toft. There was something sober about his thinking which could be pleasantly reassuring, but sometimes also quite tiring and tough to swallow. There had been a lot of fire in Sal’s past, but he was still able to win the good fight, stake his claim - though one gets the sense that this may have happened at great cost, a sacrifice which Sal keeps well hidden away. For instance, Sal was always strapped with a knife and Sal actually did bring shot gun racks and shot guns filled with rock salt to those redneck demos in middle America. Everyone wanted Sal's job, actively sought to precipitate some obsolescence which would get him cut from the same team which made the video which inspired those same kids to want to attempt to take his slot in the next video. Never missing a beat though, Sal branched out doing consultation work for Sole Tech, was able to herald himself his own more than modestly selling sought after shoe design. But Sal, also maybe like Jay, was still in a peculiar place - he really now no longer needed to actually produce any skate anymore (or so he had thought) - it was as if maybe everything that went around the roller decking, the peripheral was now all the new focus and this could be quite liberating, yet at the same time one could never quite know how long such a thing could last.
The bar filled up a bit more, the music turned up, and at this particular point the darkness all felt very noir. The brewski washed against Jay's inside feeling like the Pacific crushing into Golden Gate and he reveled in the sharpened sense of smell he got when fresh drunk.
" . . . when I talk to women I do this thing where invariably at some point in conversation I just zone out, feign listening to whatever they may be saying, like saying to me. I do this all the time . . ."
"I wouldn't call that a problem, I call that sensible practice “ Sal says sternly, elbows resting on the bar comfortably. He woofs down his shot, not skipping a beat, casually sliding the empty shot glass closer to the bartender, nods to himself.
"The last girl I dated - you know she like successfully SUED the diner she used to work at, like she won three or like five grand in a settlement and even now I couldn't quite tell you exactly what happened.”, Jay shaking his head to himself.
Jay pauses, takes a sip, gulps, says nothing, eventually goes " . . . might have been a harassment suit . . .", adding as after thought, in such a delayed way that it was impossible to confuse him for giving a shit.
"You probably knew enough anyways, so what's the point of listening to detail . . .”
"I wouldn't call that a problem, I call that sensible practice “ Sal says sternly, elbows resting on the bar comfortably. He woofs down his shot, not skipping a beat, casually sliding the empty shot glass closer to the bartender, nods to himself.
"The last girl I dated - you know she like successfully SUED the diner she used to work at, like she won three or like five grand in a settlement and even now I couldn't quite tell you exactly what happened.”, Jay shaking his head to himself.
Jay pauses, takes a sip, gulps, says nothing, eventually goes " . . . might have been a harassment suit . . .", adding as after thought, in such a delayed way that it was impossible to confuse him for giving a shit.
"You probably knew enough anyways, so what's the point of listening to detail . . .”
“Well, maybe, I should have listened, Sal. Maybe thats the thing."
Sal Pauses,” . . . you hang around any woman long enough, she just manipulates you into not doing things she's averse to, which are also the same things that makes women attracted to men in the first place. She'll keep your dick in a sling in her purse next to her vibrator if she could."
“Oh no, I know. Yeah, like sometimes you probably have to do things you shouldn’t, be a dick back at her old man . . . fight her brother out on the front lawn, like at a family get together."
"Oh, absolutely.”, Sal tilting his head back, taking a pull with an errant air of duty as if its elixir .
“Oh no, I know. Yeah, like sometimes you probably have to do things you shouldn’t, be a dick back at her old man . . . fight her brother out on the front lawn, like at a family get together."
"Oh, absolutely.”, Sal tilting his head back, taking a pull with an errant air of duty as if its elixir .
"Kinda helps if her family hates your guts anyways.”, adds Sal optimistically, wincing, wiping his lip .
Jay continues,"Yeah, I remember with Katie - like when I knew it was over, I just wanted to pal around with her mom and then have her mom convince her to stay with me."
"That's never gonna work . . ."
“Well, it didn't work. That's what I'm saying! In no time she was dating the bassist to a cover song band."
Jay took a swig and paused with optimistic gulp, "Of course that was way before I was doing Stereo - like before I became that guy, but still - can you imagine?
"Yeah, I can imagine. You could be Keith Richards and she still thinks you're a bum. She dumps you and then shacks up with Bucky Lasek - like Annie Hall or something. Women are stupid."
"I'll drink to that.”
In LA there were more men than girls. The culmination of thousands of years of people wishing upon each other their next child be born boy seemed to have come true. Scarcity would naturally inflate a dime’s value, which had fatal consequence upon the balance of sexual economics of the land. Any skinny girl was now automatically an eight or nine. Obese women could have sex pretty much anytime they wanted, and they flaunted this all the time. And so along with the throngs of hungry men, on the streets too Jay ran - the running of the bull, but in reverse - the same golden bull that Charlton Heston found them all worshipping when he got back from Mount Sinai. And now too Jay competed against, lost to the sea of the Wang Chungs of the land, lost to all the fake alt, to the too many fat men who still got the beautiful woman which they didn’t deserve, lost to english professors who really couldn’t write, young ams good but no cool, the steady river of Spaniards with pony tails and faggoty ass capos who played nylon guitar but didn’t know how to really play the blues but still acted like they were rockers. Jay was real biter about all that and when he drank it tended to come out sideways, especially with the bar now as crowded as it was now; too many men everywhere cock blocking against the few mediocre chicks cold cocking, throwing all their damn weight around.
“Do you think you can get sued for filling out a form incorrectly,” asks Jay.
“What, like for fraud or something?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, it’s California, so I’d say anything is possible.”
“Oh . . .”
“For now though, it’s just about stepping out the frame and thats about it . . .”
“What do ya mean, Sal.”
“This?” says Sal nodding to his hand tilting his glass on the surface of the bar, even though he’s probably not just referring to his drink.
“This” said Sal motioning around the room, waving his head.
“No, yeah man. Believe me, I know.”
“So, what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. Still got a final check coming, hopefully . . . go to Chicago, find Sam Lay.”
“Get serious.”
“I am serious.”
“Well, I still got my Roladex,” Jay adding.
Jay lights a cigarette in tragically hip television fashion, puffs smoke through his nose like an angry cartoon bull,“The thing is, I have no next move, Sal. I’m pretty much done - I mean, I’ve been done a while . . . It’s just been about survival for too long now . . .”
“ . . . theres not much left inside my tank today,” Jay taking another drag.
“Hows Brad about this.”
“Brad? Brad’s great. Brad will always be, well Brad.”
“Whats he talking about”
“Nothing really, he’s off campus, in outer space most of the time. Spends a lot of time ‘in retreat’.”
Jay motions to the bar back to get him another beer, for the servant to tell the bartender to put it on his tab, because the bartender wasn’t really paying attention to them and it could be a while, and the bar back feigns helplessness like theres absolutely nothing he can do about it - as if poping the top off a beer bottle is complety out of the jurisdiction of his job and then he uses that he can’t speak English to add to the confusion of Jay’s simple demand.
“Fuck, this. You know you move to the most powerful country on the planet, it may behove you go to trouble to at least try to speak English - you know, might come in handy,” Jay to Sal.
“I think it’s illegal for bar backs to serve.”
“Yeah well, in reference to him, the word ‘illegal’ does actually come to mind . . . this service, look at this hot shot in his Huckleberry Hound hat. Guy’s been shining us off since we got here.”
“Yeah, I know. Maybe we just should go.”
“No! I want another round! I’m enjoying myself,” Jay saying this, revealing how buzzed he actually was.
Jay flags the bartender down and it’s all a bit ridiculous as the bartender seemingly conveniently lacks peripheral vision enough to see or acknowledge Jay and then Jay looks slightly obnoxious trying to get his attention.
When he brings Jay the change, he lays out ones on the counter. The bartender facetiously says something, as if it should cancel out the bad service, fool Jay into giving him more money, as if to make Jay think he was being nice when he really wasn’t all along, this like everyone did every day in LA. Jay doesn’t tip.
“Believe this?”, Jay passing another shot and beer to Sal.
Jay’s still talking,“I love it when service industry people are all like: ‘If you can’t tip, well then don’t go out.’ - yeah, real great advice from the person I didn’t give a dollar to.”
“I don’t want to give you a buck, so I’ll stay at home. Nice.” Jay, sniffing his shot.
“Can we tell you been drinking gin?”, Sal smiling, putting his hand on Jay’s shoulder as if messaging the belligerence out of him. “Or are you just like this on day’s you lost your job . . .”
“I just hate in when people say ‘You sound real biter’. They shoot that one out so easy with the presumption you should be over whatever you’re obviously not. It just really sucks because it’s not just enough you had something bad happen to you, to add insult to injury, your time to be upset or troubled should be cut short because it momentarily mentally inconveniences that person's limited perception of what they think your status quo should be.”
“People telling you how to feel . . . ,” Sal says.
“NO - yeah, people telling you how to feel. I mean it’s just pretty selfish to try to tell somebody how to feel,” Jay sighs.
“Well hell, anyways hostility is a luxury I can afford - I won't feign humble fool as I should suffer such defeat,” Jay says, now kind of ripped and he already wants another shot, getting closer towards the dark side.
"Someone else sleeping with the woman you love . . . is a round about way of the universe telling you: 'YOU LOOSE. Be a good sport, little man,’’”
“It’s white people’s fault weed is illegal."
“. . . if you’re not like totally pissed, then well maybe you aren’t paying that much attention, man . . .”
"I tried living in the real world, instead of a shell . . . “
Jay is one sided arguing at Sal, Sal not saying much, still keeping his drunk composure.
Its a crowded house now, some bitch randomly falls on Jay, presses him up against the bar totally all unexpectedly.
Jay already fuming, but now accidentally provoked further by circumstance and in knee jerk fashion,without thinking, unflinchingly pushes her off him (whom he could also feel was overweight), says “Get the fuck off me!”
A sudden flash and Jay realizes after it happens, he’s been punched in the face by the guy she was with, who Jay never did see because his back had originally been to them.
Fight and fight takes over, Jays ready to go, even though he’s usually not the fight type, not really a fighter - but he’s now been attacked and is drunk.
“Bring it fat boy!!!!”Jay, ready.
Before the girl’s boyfriend can launch a punch, the girl has her hands around Jay’s neck - chocking him in a way only a woman could and then her boyfriend lamely has his arms around Jay as if he was bouncer - the view Jay now experiencing directly, what it’s like to be assaulted by couple, two people both in the wrong, the lost moment stolen by their degenerate-esque demonstration show of allegiance.
Sal hops in the mix between them all trying to break it up.
Jay then just resigns, simply gives up says, “I’m sorry, I’m really a good person!”
There is a scene in It’s a Wonderful Life where George Bailey commits suicide, where Donna Reed leaves with someone else from the bar and where theres nothing else to do. Theres also the scene when Donna Reed walks up to the building at Glassell School consciously holding his hand. Theres the sound from her mouth when she conspicuously says the word “suitor".
Tonight the couple who attacked Jay will probably go home later, have overweight sex spurred by solidarity which was reinforced by their display of assault on Jay and yes, life still continues to be a pigsty.
Jay finally escapes their grasp, stumbles out the bar, breaks out and vanishes from the crime scene.
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