Sunday, August 16, 2009

Grim III

The Last Event was still a couple of hours away so I went to the bar to buy another round of drinks. I had to push my way through the room, most people gave way but a few had to be maneuvered around. As I walked I wondered what it’d be like to just flip out and punch someone. I’m a great daydreamer - if I’m bored, sitting in a doctors surgery or waiting on the train I find myself entering an argument with an absent friend or imagining what it’d be like if I randomly punched someone in the crowd. The thing is that some of the time, I’m not the hero of my imaginings. If I had smacked a poor drunken loser who was too busy gesticulating to see that I was trying to make my way through then he’d most likely fall broken and bloody on the floor. But his mates would rush me - one would collide into my chest and push me back into the crowd while the other would run around looking for an opportunity to get a good one in. I’d be down on the ground trying to defend my face as the crowd would part and circle around like seagulls on a small boy holding sauce blooded chips. They’d squawk and chant as his second friend would back away to let it be a fair fight, besides it looked like I was getting the worst of it anyway. Perhaps I’d see Sam’s excited but disappointed eyes as the huge lad sat on my chest and pummeled me. Perhaps she’d dump me, perhaps I’d be able to get out of here.

I loaded the drinks onto a tray and carried them over to the table, carefully navigating past a gorilla in a fifty dollar suit flinging his arms about as he explained why Donnie Darko was the best movie ever made. I nearly turned back to fulfill my pummeling fantasy but then cowardice got the better of me and I continued on to our table. Sam smiled up at me as I put down the jug, and handed out Lemon, Lime and Bitters to those whom I knew weren’t drinking. She liked it when I played the big man and bought everyone drinks but I hate it because I felt like was buying into a dying image. I sat next to her but her attention was back on the track. In my absence she’d somehow managed to place another large bet on a trifecta. I put the remains of our winnings on the table, and wondered what it’d be like if she dumped me after a huge screaming match in the parking lot.

“You’re fucking insane, it’s just a fucking movie!”

“Hey, you always fantasize about those trade-y wife-beater assholes and now that I finally act like one you go all crazy”

“Oh don’t you fucking turn this on me, this isn’t what I wanted. You’re so anally fucking repressed it’s surprising you didn’t crack years ago!”

“Crack! I haven’t cracked, I’m just obeying the idiotic trans-fucking-dimensional representation of a psychotic bunny!”

“Fuck you, just… fuck you.”

“God, I hate that movie.”

After going to the hospital to have myself checked out, I’d go back to my apartment and wonder at how easy it was to separate her from my life. It’s strange that after four years of dating we never even moved in together. I’d look around my three room unit and mentally count the number of things that she left in my apartment. A toothbrush, a single lost sock and the Director’s Cut of Saving Private Ryan.

“You okay?” Samantha was tearing up a betting slip.

I grunted in a smiling way and put my hand on her leg.

“I don’t like it when you get that look on your face.”

“What look?”

“That one, the one like you’re arguing with yourself. All of your terrible ideas come from that look.” Her friends laugh and the conversation moves on. We’re running low on money, so they all suggest that we head back to Jason’s house to play pool. They all stand up to leave and I glance over to the untouched jug of beer. It looks like I’m going to miss the Last Event this time, but at this stage in the proceedings I’m too far gone to care.

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