I was walking to the dollar store to get some bread. I didn't notice that pitbull's paw sticking out from under the sidewalk sign he was hiding under until his mouth was on my leg and chewing. I felt his teeth graze the skin of my leg and him ripping away at my pant leg like an alligator. I took a step away and looked down and miraculously his teeth hadn't broken any skin. I quickly apologized to the people who witnessed the commotion and went along my way.
I had a quick bite to eat and I was sitting on the porch having a smoke when Jason came bumbling by.
"hey man. whasup?" he said up to me.
"hey man I got a new one. I just came up with it a second ago. like a late 70s anthem. total cheese" I said leaning over the edge of the stair case.
"alright well we've got the wine and everything's ready so come on down." he kindly stated.
"alright I'll be down in a bit"
I went back to my room and made sure the cat was fed and I had everything on my person that I would need for a good time. I looked in the mirror and straightened my tie. I'd been waiting for this night all week. chance to jam. and be jolly with some freindly peeps from the neighborhood. we just started a band a week before and already had a full set list of songs. half of which were supplied immediately by a young misses by the name of natalia rose.
I had seen her coming and going. easy on the eyes. and quite jovial. after having been given the opportunity to get to know her I had come to find out that she was quite interesting and an extremely talented song writer. A natural. she eagerly played me a few of her tunes upon our first introduction and I was immediately impressed. an instant sensation. pete was helping her keep time on another guitar and it was pretty sloppy. but it was all there. Like a gold miner finally seeing a chunk of something special drop into his pan. we quickly got acquainted. wine is good for that.
I gave a few gentle raps on the door. she greeted me with a warm and hearty hello and I started in "have we started pouring wine yet?"
"To Normalcies" we all gleefully cheered. making sure to make eye contact just as natalia had instructed us to do a few days prior. followed by a foolish shushing as we got out our instruments.
We tore into all of our ballads. our edgy songs. our spiritual songs. our love songs. and it was glorious. by the third bottle we were all stars headed for the big time. talking each other into a frenzy of confidence that could only make sense to those directly involved. my eyes kept wandering all night. and my mind was warm and fuzzy. everything was Interesting all of a sudden. things were happening. I'd been walking around with my tail between my legs for a year looking steadily for anything to catch my interest. It seemed like the world was meant to be a bore. then came these dancing singing angels. with nothing but a soft warm glow in their hearts and a twinkle in their eye. it was all so perfect. everything happening all at once. nothing needing to be forced or manipulated. a beautiful montage of tomfoolery at it's finest.
Natalia had promised us food. the drunker we got the longer the food took to get done though. which was fine by me. I ate before I came so that I could be sure to digest plenty of wine. that's the great thing about wine. is that you can drink it all night. and so we did. and the time passed by quickly but smoothly. the clock struck midnight and food still wasn't done. we went out side for a smoke. we sat there on the end of my steps and talked about drugs and limits and intelligence. we held our cups of wine as if they gave us magical powers. Jason went on and on about how Oakland is going to be nothing but rich people a decade from now. I wasn't buying it but he was convinced and was doing his damndest to convince me when he very casually let his glass slip from his fingers and shatter at our feat. we all geered him for letting his power glass be destroyed and chastised him for his failure. but soon laughed and carried on with our drunkenness.
we finished off 5 bottles and were doing everything we could to avoid that last bottle of white wine that had some how ended up in the fold. me and natalia both cringed when we saw pete pull it out. It looked like shampoo to me. all pinkish and syrupy. not tempting in the slightest. but we had drank all the red wine and so it was just all that was left. so we brazenly popped the cork and slowly and carefully sipped away at it.
the food was starting to smell up the entire house with delicious smells of garlic and onion. she began to divvy out some portions. I stabbed the fork into my bowl and shoved a nice hunk of potato into my mouth. but as I started to chew my meal I was interrupted by the sound of jason in the bathroom suffering Loudly from severe stomach failure. Like the sounds that come out of a champion wrestler. he grappled with the porcelain chariot. we all looked at each other and tried our best to enjoy our meal. I lavished natalia with compliments for the feast that she had so generously prepared for us while I stuffed my face full of food. with every bite I felt better. Real food. I'd almost forgotten what it felt like.
we finished our meal and pete opted to do the dishes. Natalia put on some very old school blue grass music which immediately put me back in a very chipper mood. that music is so natural. it's like listening to the river. it just flows. we went back out for one last smoke. back on the steps she pulled out her camera and we laughed about how ridiculous we were acting and how interesting the photos she had been taking all night turned out to be. we were slowing down. it was 1:30 in the morning. we heard a gun shot go off in the distance. a black man in a suit with a briefcase walked by acting strangely. every couple of feet he would mutter the words "good evening" to people that weren't there. Like he were walking through a crowd of a thousand ghosts. though he quickly vanished into the darkness. we started talking about violence and god and gods and spiritual stigmatisms and voodoo. we heard a scuffling and out of no where appeared one gigantic brown pitbull. he looked over at us but then looked away.
"whoa" natalia exclaimed reservedly.
I concurred.
we heard more scuffling from the same space as before when out came two more brown pitbulls. both of equal size and strength. they came out frolicking and met up in the middle of the street. the three of them stood there in the street like a pack of lions. and there we sat feeling like we had been dropped in the lions den. they took note of their surroundings and then quickly Charged down the middle of the street as if they had plans and knew right where they were headed. surely off to cause some kind of mischief. trained killers out running the streets.
"suddenly it just got a lot more dangerous around here" she digressed.
"no shit." I simply replied.
we spoke softly and thoughtfully feeling spooked for a few moments but then said our good nights. I opted to sleep on their couch only because it's so much softer then my poor excuse for a bed. she kindly gave me a blanket and I stretched out across their couch. it was so soft. I could feel the sharp pain in my back that had been there for over a week relaxing for once. so I laid there and watched the moon get full. but my mind kept wandering. thoughts coming in and out. the wine making all of the conversation happening in my head hard to keep up with. So I just let my thoughts roll on top of each other and pulled down my hat and tried to fall asleep.
after a a few hours of laying there I finally gave up and realized I wasn't going to get to sleep because my surroundings were too unfamiliar. So I tried my best to pack up my stuff by the light of my lighter and crawled my way back up stairs to my dingy room. where life was meaningless once again and the music finally stopped.
