In response to your message

I woke up a while before Amanda and Edward today so I left them in bed and started reading the Short Happy Life of Fancis Macomber, but I wasn’t felling it so I checked my e-mail and was happy to see your message, though I had no idea how I would respond.

I had a thought the other night at the bar: mustache talk is lame and I’m not going to engage in it anymore. I had just walked into ABG’s and Dane was checking my ID, he has about a foot and 200 pounds on me, wears overalls, flannel shirts, foam/mesh hats and tattoos on his forearms and was sporting a nice looking Kilmister mustache (more commonly known as an imperial mustache: whiskers growing from both the upper lip and cheeks, but I’ve always called them Kilmisters after Lemmy Kilmister of Motorhead who wears one). I often wear a lazy or undefined Kilmister and had just shaved one off an hour earlier. I guess I was missing it and liked his so I said nice Kilmister…then Jake came over and said “THAT’S A MUSTACHE…THAT IS…YEA! You know what a mustache is like! Rock…the BEST!” and put his arms around our necks and lifted his feet off the floor while trying to suck on Dane’s neck. This type of stuff happens all the time when people start talking about mustaches and I was sick of it and I thought “no more will I bring up the subject of mustaches”.

So that came to mind…then Amanda walked in and asked “cartoons?”, I said “hmm” and she tuned on the tv. What came on was the story of Manny Rivera’s quest for a mustache. Manny is a 13 year old boy with a mystical belt that gives him some sort of super power and, longing to enjoy the perks of adult life, he wants a mustache more than anything in the world. So he goes to a mad scientist, Dr. Chipolte Jr. who is able to grow him a mustache but says he needs Manny’s belt in order to infuse it with superpowers. Manny receives a truly glorious mustache, whom he names Raul and likens to the older brother he’s never had…only attached to his upper lip. But Dr. Chipolte steals the belt and gives it to the Guacamole Monster and they commit a series of robberies.

ə-chāf’ə-lī’ə

Brief encounter w/ a short and stout, hooded, angry and intoxicated American Indian* woman.

I didn’t look very close, she was the type person I just honestly don’t look too closely at, especially in a club situation… and it happened fast. She approached quickly following close the line of a male right in front of her, they were dressed the same, all in black, baggy cotton. I thought they were together. I side stepped (but continued dancing) to let them by, but she changed direction at the last moment and aimed herself into my sphere, now dancing without reference to the tempo of the quadrophonic beat. She stepped in close, so her front touched mine (I’ve found that’s it’s best to maintain and stand my ground when people get right in my face but even if I had wanted to escape to the side or retreat I couldn’t, it was too crowded for that, plus she had me in her cross hairs, there was no escape) and she continued pushing closer.

In a snap her posture and expression changed. A look of rejection, anger and inebriation flashed across her face. She took her fist and in a sideways, stabbing motion, hit me bellow the belt, hard, like she was trying to knock the buttons off the fly of my 501s. It happened fast, quick approach, lingered for half a moment, shocked expression, POW! and she was out. I followed her without hesitation, getting in her peripheral vision and said “Hey! You just assaulted me.”

“You sthink your too good! sthink I’m trash! You white honky mother fucker!” she spit back.

“Well…I don’t know anything about that…but what I do know is that you just punched me in the genitals for no reason at all, and if I had done to you, what you just did to me… I’d be in jail tonight.”

 At this point she was trying to escape to her posse who were all hanging out around the pool tables. I assumed she was going to try to rally a defense…or an assault. I told the closest bar tender to watch that one in the black “Gears of War” hoodie. “I think she may of gone over her limit already.”

I thought maybe I should let her crew know my side of things so they would be able to better form an opinion of the situation. When I approached, the black hooded beauty retreated further, to, what I assume were her “down-ass fools” congregated around the billiard table furthest from the dance floor. They were sporting the latest and greatest in ICP fashion. I said to the two males in her group that where nearest me, “I think your friend may of had too much to drink”, they agreed, which didn’t compute for a moment so I went on “yea, she tried to bowl me over on the dance floor, then punched me in the nuts. Then when I tried to ask her why, she started screaming racist gibberish at me.”

They nodded and one of them said “Yea, that sounds about right”.  What! no argument? I quickly realized that none of these people were going to back up their drunk friend and the group posed no threat to me. There was no need to hang around and think about it…I’d had enough of the top 40’s nonsense with the PG-13 pornography on the jumbo flat screens and the sylis dancing.

I turned to a friend I had come with, “Tera, I think this is the perfect time to say farewell to this fine establishment and goodbye to all of it’s beautiful patrons. ‘So goodnight. We’ll see ya next time. Drive safe and may God have mercy on you swine’.”

 

*Native American: I’ve read some Indians object to this term, seeing it as a way to downplay the history of their oppression by whites. And ‘Indian’ offends others. And when I here ‘indigenous’ used to refer to American Indians I feel like I’m listening to George Bush Jr. speaking in a Yale Club meeting on C-Span 2’s Book Television. So I could omit the mention of race entirely, in any description, which I’ve been encouraged to do on several occasions…but if I were to do that I would feel like I was George Bush Jr. speaking in a Yale Club meeting being filmed for broadcast on C-Span 2’s Book Television.