Party Town
Date Friday, March 29, 2024 - 04:52 AM PST
Topic Illustrations


"Brooklyn? Damn, dog, that's gotta be like jumping from fourth gear to first to be in this town." He's a handsome black; unusually sharp facial features, with a beard that makes him look unquantifiably aged. This town is so different for him, and he's going slightly stir crazy.
We've got these characters in this small town. It's not like people grow up here; the ones that do tend to leave and not come back. But the ones you do meet have stories to tell, and they will tell you, and they're the wierdest shit you've ever heard in your life.

She grew up in England for the first fifteen years of her life; four years here, and she doesn't have even a hint of an accent. She sounds more like a cali girl than somebody who grew up within a five-minute drive of Oxford. She pops valium like skittles, cause the nightmares and flashbacks keep her up otherwise. We talk about drugs and the rough lifestyle. We both got scared out of it, though neither of us have quit it. She's a lifeguard now; on a full tuition scholarship, and draws pictures and doodles so brilliant I'd pay her for the margins of any of her class notes. It's that momentary brilliance that makes me think of her as someone who should be kept around; I know it so well because I tried to keep it that way myself.

"Well, she got pregnant, and since her husband was dead, I had to ask myself a few questions." She's got this 1968 VW Beetle in the driveway with a $12,000 paint job. It's got leather seats that are each worth a grand, and a porsche engine under the hood. And it can't do reverse. Her Ex-husband left her after 9/11, where his partner died and started sleeping with the widow; she bartends in a casino aside from getting Dupont to sponsor the car. Her boy used to be the local pot retailer, and nearly burned down the house with a growing-lamp mishap when they lived in Hawai'i. The Lifeguard knows her boy, and she jokes about how her boy had been pretty stupid with his business dealings. They both talk about how the kids in this town have been stupid, and the tragedies. Growing up in this small town worked for me, but for some odd reason, every other kid got into crack cocaine, crystal meth and marijuana.

She's beautiful. She's the type of girl that stop and make heads turn wherever she goes; natural beauty incarnate. It might be a kind of secretive gene that skips generations, some kind of 'muse' gene, the thing that inspires poetry but cannot create it themselves. Flawless ivory skin that has caused wars and fist-fights and enbough broken hearts to build a bridge of shards to the Philipines. She goes to the college because she wants to be a child psychologist specializing in autism. Her hair is that natural dark brown that makes you immediately think of rich old wood darkened with lacquer and years of age; there's a natural curl towards the end of the long strands. We flatter her with compliments, and she blushes, and says in one of those doe-like voices, to my jokes about women killing and scalping her, "I haven't even brushed it today."

"Yeah, whenever I talk to people about moving, they always think I'm so stoned I only care about the drug angle. Fuck, you can score pot anywhere, I'm just looking for a nice place to live." He looks like a somewhat stockier version of Garth Brooks. It's a rustic handsome; the old cowboy look works for some people, but it doesn't work for him in a sweater and jeans. He mixes margaritas with the expert autopilot that you normally expect of a lifetime of monotomy. "I spent a week or two in Laguna Beach once. That's the place where you move to if you want sunsets," I say, and turn back to the other African.

He looks almost like his brother. He doesn't want to get attached to this town, or anything in it, that much is obvious. The DVD collection is a long series of Thai Chi and martial arts meditational films. He burns incese sticks and shares a dystopic view of the future. When discussion about abortion comes up, he says the kids should carry to term; fucking like adults means they have to be prepared for the consequences. He sparks a joint but doesn't pass. The already lit one passes by him without a toke on his part. Thirty-two, and he's only here for his recently widowed mother.

It's not even like a party; it's more like just a neighbourhood barbeque, but none of us live near eachother. As I leave, taking the beauty and a random stoner back to the college dorms in my car, Stir-Crazy lights up massive marijuana cigarello rolled with old bronw papers, and grins at me. "Remind me, next time we work, I owe you breakfast, bro."

It's amazing, we've all downshifted to first, but life if still moving by us all faster and faster

This article comes from Shmeng
http://www.shmeng.com/

The URL for this story is:
http://www.shmeng.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=598