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Saren! listen to this...
I pulled in the driveway so exhausted that I wasn’t sure I could get out of the car. Daniel’s silver Mitsubishi was in the driveway.
I opened the big gate and surprise! There he was sitting at the glass-topped patio table a Heineken in hand, the rest of the six-pack sitting in the grass. He started laughing, “Did you get a real job?” “No.” I said trying to dust the gray concrete and terra cotta dye off my black capris. “I just spent seven hours making planters, and sinks, and rocks with Meredyth. I am spent.”
“I stopped over to see if you want to go for tacos. I saw a sign today at a little place on the river…tacos on Tuesday 50 cents.”
I showered hoping it would revive me. It didn’t but tacos with Daniel sounded great. Meredyth and I had chomped on fresh pineapple slices and pretzels washed down with Red Zinger tea.
Daniel and I swung down into a little place on the river in Burton’s Bridge. It didn’t take long to figure out that this was a rathole, one of those little eight-table riverside bars that rocked in the summer with all of the boaters using their huge marina. The clientele ran the gamut from people 30 to 50. Everyone is really drunk. One really old guy, maybe 70, came and sat at a table next to us. A thirtysomething strawberry blonde joined him. Other women came up and kissed him. Three really big men stared at me the entire time I was there. A ponytailed brunette was talking very loudly to a dude. I wasn’t listening. Too damn tired and I didn’t care. Then I notice that all of the people are hugging and kissing one another, straight, gay, bi…the total mix. The brunette goes over to a big-boobed bleach blonde, talks for a while, then brings her over to her datedude. I hear her introduce her…Linda.
Minutes later the man is roaring. Daniel is trying to talk to my right ear but the dude is holding my attention, “I’ll slam your ass right through the plate glass window!” Oh fuck. The table where Daniel and I are sitting is in the scrimmage beeline. He tells Linda, “Stay out of this.”
I am trying to eat my taco. I am trying to avoid violence. I am too tired to move. Daniel has heard none of it.
Dude and his girlfriend leave…finally.
More and more people are coming in…and out. I think this is a place with an “active” parking lot.
We get up to leave and the strawberry blonde says, “Are you two leaving together?” Daniel says, “We’ve been leaving together for five years.”
The old dude gives him the thumbs up.
Right then I was wishing I wasn’t so tired. I would have played. I would have asked Daniel to get up on one of the tables. “Who would offer me a pig and a bushel of apples for this fine specimen of a man?” On the way back to my place I asked Daniel why people fight in public and why did it almost sound rehearsed?
Is it a game they play?
He answered, “Yes. It is a game. For some people fighting is foreplay. There are even people who consider fighting, love.”
I am learning new stuff everyday. I want to go for ribs on Monday! Talk to me about food, and school, and you!
Me
