From Kissed to Kissed Off

So, here I sit at the computer on the eve of the end of another wasted Only-Day-Off; still slightly hungover, mainly tired (strung out), and really bummed out.

The End:

I ended last night [last Friday night] (once again *sigh*) at the Mark II Lounge (#261). Sipping Old Style and having like the 6th shot of Jameson, I found myself wedged way-to-tightly between the waitress stand brass rail and some annoying "actor" ("I just got done shooting this really cool indie thing in Chicago" and "I have an agent, I don't need to talk to you"). I try and chat up the cute Polish waitress with the Marylin Monroe Mole above her lip, but sense instantly no-chance and decide to shut the fuck up before she tells me to "shut the fuck up." Freddie, the bar back, stops by and says hello and shakes my hand, then scampers off to collect shot glasses and the like, so that lifts my shitty mood a bit. LA Kat jabs me in the back and shouts above the barroom din, "so this is where you hide to escape me" and then turns back to the Heavy Mustachio dude I left her with at My Place (#266) and some young couple she started talking with. Someone flicks me in the back of the ear, I turn to see a huge Mexican Guy trying to order a Corona, and realize LA Kat most likely was the culprit. I knod at the Mexican Guy because we accidently make eye contact then turn back to the bar. Angie waves and says, "Hiya, Mac!" then rushes to the other end of the bar to take orders. I finish my Old Style, get another, glance at the clock 3:30, and try and make eye contact with LA Kat to no avail...this adventure is most likely over. Feeling crushed, I chug the Old Style, squeeze LA Kat on the shoulder, whisper (drunkenly shout) "have a good night," walk home feeling rejected and confused...

And very very very alone in the world.

The Beginning:

Sitting at the Mark II Lounge, maybe a month ago, minding my own business, I look over across the way toward the pool tables and see this pretty woman. She's got long black hair, shorter than me, brown cargo pants that fit relaxed (but show curves) and a tight orange t-shirt. She has her hand on her hip which is cocked a little to the side, and she's just sort of standing there smoking a cigarette and like surveying the scene. Her head pans kind of slowly left and right, observing and soaking in the few people millng around or sitting at tables. I take a mental note to keep an eye on her movements.

If this woman was placed in a large room of other woman or differing looks, styles, races, hair colors etc., my friends would have pointed at her, nudged me in the ribs, and said, "dude, she's totally 'your type.' Go talk to her!"

I continue sipping my beer and trading small talk with Hristo and Freddie. They're nice guys, and they seem to like my company as they usually hang out with me before the midnight hour rush in the bar keeps them busy.

I guess reading this guy's date should make feel better, sort of, maybe? (link shown by Fresh)

Whiskey and Wage-release*

Drinking fist-fulls of Jameson and paying bills online is probably not the best of combinations, but it takes a bit of the pain out of it.

*"Wage-release" is the new hep way of saying, "paying bills."

Actually, it isn't, but I think it should be the new way. Please start blogging it this way, and linking back to this post: this might gain my some micro-cewebrity LOL.

(and, yes, I'm re-posting this to my Tumblr to expand my Internet-cred... Bah!)

And I quote Lauren Hynde:

"...because she (and I) always knew it was going to be like that, and it was...."

It's Thursday after work, I go home, pay some bills, watch a little TV, planning on staying home and reading, listening to classical music.
But then I drank the last of the Jameson, and felt better, and then my mind clicked, just like Brick (Paul Newman) says in his speech in the bedroom. That little lever flicks in my mind, and I'm urged to go out, against all better judgement.

I walk to My Place (#272) No one in there, really, just Uncle John and some Mexicans playing pool. But that's okay because they have ESPN on and I watch them talk about sports; highlights are fun to watch and Uncle John is sweet and talks to me, always says I'm a nice/good guy. He buys me a shot of Jack Daniels, then another of Jameson, apologizing for the Jack "I forget, you like the Jameson." I smile and say, "it's cool, thank you Uncle John, I really shouldn't even be out tonight." The Mexicans leave, but one. Danny stays behind to drink a Heineken and we chat about baseball and the Lamp Post. Then he leaves, and I say good night to Uncle John.

Touhy is quiet, but the alcoholics in my head are whispering for more, so I find myself sitting in the Lamp Post (#255), sipping a Heineken and looking at the big chested Blond bartender. The crowd is just Big Jim and some sport/jock yahooos, so there is no reason to stay.

I cut down Lunt to Clark Street. The houses are big and beautiful, even in streetlight/darken moonlight under the trees with their grass lots and eaves and lattice work. I feel buzzed and envious and alone. And poor.

Gallagher's (#271) is slow. Only a few of the bar girls, but Tanya and Bianney are working, so I pass the beers chatting and teasing them, acting the fool for a laugh. The manager, Raul, stops by my bar stool and says hello, shaking my hand. The regular bouncer, Dave, isn't working tonight, in fact quit this week. Rasta Drunk Don is working tonight as Security, but I wonder if the bar is actually paying him, since really all he does is walk around and bum cigarettes and beer off of me. But we talk and he's always hugging my shoulders and telling me about his construction work. He wants to give me another shirt, this time a Boy Scout dress shirt, but I tell him, "no, that's cool, but thanks." I end up talking to some Mexican guy named Cesar. He just moved to the area, and is trying to make friends to go out with. I sort of feel for the guy since I only go out alone nowadays. I give him my number, knowing he'll probably never call, and knowing I'll probably not call him back if he does, but why not, eh? We're all looking for some kind of connection. He dances with one of the bar girls, then finishes his drink, says good night to me, and leaves.

It is nearing closing, and I have to work tomorrow (later today?), so I get up to leave. Wave to Tanya and Bienney, and step outside.

The air is cool, a nip of coolness fall in the air. I breathe deep and turn to Clark Street. Maybe I'll get a couple of tacos on the way home. I shove my hands in my pockets to brace myself for the walk and against the chill in the air, and take a few steps away from the door.

A black girl in a pink T-shirt passes me, a half-block behind her is a guy in white jumper with blue stripes. He is yelling at her, something, I can't remember, but it sounds like they are arguing. I look back. She keeps walking away, almost to the metra tracks.

I turn back, and the guy stops and says, "hey, you want her to give you a blow job?"

"No, no thanks."

"Yeah, she's going to give you a blow job here in the alley."

"No, that's cool."

He grabs my by the front of my sweatshirt, twisting it in his hand, pushes me in the alley. I'm thrown against the wall.

"Let me go, let go!" I shout at him.

I'm thrown against the wall again, and my hand is being twisted around, "calm down, man!" I feel pain shoot threw my left ring finger, it's bending all over the place. "you want me to break it?"

I trip, or he pushes me onto the alley floor, I squirm and yell, "get off me, let me go!"

"Shut up!" and there is a calloused hand over my mouth, the woman in pink is there, grabbing for my wallet; I clamp my hand on it, shove it further into my back pocket while he twists my neck around, pushing my head into the concrete.

Suddenly, there are three other women, all hands in all my pockets, my glasses are gone, one hand on my chest, another on my face, as I yell four or five times:

"Raul! Help! Raaauuuuul!"

It's the only name I can think of to shout. I am embarrassed, only two store doors away from the bar's door. I am being overtaken by women, beat up, one of them is standing on my crotch--grinding my middle pelvic bone with her shoe. Fuck, it's like I'm a little kid again, always the victim of stronger bullies. She holds up my ID, "We got your ID fucker!"

I lose my grip on the wallet; it's gone, as well as my cigarettes.

He slams me against the ground again, and then they are gone, running toward Clark Street.

I lay in the alley for a moment. Helpless, bruised and in pain. My glasses! I crawl around the alley, searching for them in the dim light. Two Mexican guys walk by, "I just got jumped, can you help me find my glasses?"

They keep walking. They probably don't know English.

I find my glasses and put them on, steadying myself, and a cop pulls up, "are you okay?" she asks.

Someone had called 911-- four Black people are beating up a white guy.

I blurt out fast what happened and the best description I can. They tell me to get in the back of the car. I'm strangely calm as I give my report and information.

They shoot the car forward fast to the end of the block. "You recognize either of those two?"

Standing by another cop car parked diagonal in the street is a guy in a white tank top with a tiny Mohawk and a black girl in a pink T-shirt. I don't recognize his face, I say. The cops tell me he cruises the area, usually dressed as a woman. I can't make a positive ID, so they let him go. He walks away from the cop car and yells something, and something in the way he moves, I recognize him as maybe being one of the whores I've walked by denied business on Clark Street a few weeks ago. I don't know his/her name.

The police take me home where I call The Bank, leave a message: "I can't come into work on Friday."

I cancel all the cards ("did you use your Discover Card at an ATM in the last hour?" "No" Man, they moved fast.) and try to remember what else I'm missing. The phone rings.

I am being picked up by the cops again. They caught the guy, the Mohawk dude, they found all my cards on him. They take me to the station.

I sit in the break room, talking to some Rasta guy (his friend is asleep on the table, snoring loud). They are there to report a drive-by shooting in The Jungle. No one got hit, but four cars now have bullet holes. We talk about how bad the neighborhood's gotten, and his love for pot (rasta, mon!). We agree: people need to leave people the fuck alone.

I see the female cop through the window coming toward us, holding a white and blue jumper. I start pointing and nodding my head, "yes, that's the jacket."

They give me my Court Date, sign for the cards they recovered ("he claims to have 'found' them on the street"), no wallet/ID/etc. I sign some other forms, a police report of the incident. To much time took place between event and capture, so he is up for a misdemeanor of battery instead of a felony charge...I think Strong Arm Battery--no weapon.

They drive me home. I call work again, to let them know I got The Bank's business card back, so it may be alright. I pick up Lilly, and head to bed, fully clothed. My whole right side hurts, throbs with some inner bruise. My neck feels twisted. I have a headache. The next day, I see I have a shiner, a reminder: if you think you should go home earlier in the night, go home.

Hanging with Crackhos

It's been a strange and pathetic few weeks.

I've been getting to know the drug-addled street-wise blurry-vision racing-heart underbelly of my neighborhood a little. Four o'clock in the morning conversations are crazy.

The Mark II Lounge, should be renamed The Mac II Living Room.

Isabella at Gallagher's spoke to me last Friday (she speaks English, someone lied to me!). What did she say? Um, the memory is bathed in beer and Jameson, and it's a little vague.

Fucked up at work way too many times. Showed up hours late to both jobs at least twice each. And fucked up big time today at The Bank...apparently I overstepped my boundary of authority; however, I think I cleared it up fifteen minutes later. Hopefully.

I can't go into details, as some are incriminating and (like I said) pathetic, vile, depressing, and just out and out disappointing to myself...yet, an adventure.

I know have more than one Secret, I'll be keeping it to myself.

Hello to Karin, Vernon, Shaolin, and Camilla. See you all on Clark Street after hours, eh?

Good night.

And the cork just fell out

You shake the champagne bottle slowly, steadily.
You unwind that weird wire cage thing that holds the cork in the top.
You wedge both thumbs between bottle and cork and pryyyyy.

(Plip)
The cork just slips out and falls straight to the floor. No pop, no explosion of bubbly, no spray on the walls and ceiling.

Huh.
Now what?
That's how I feel a little right now.

I remembered and added a couple more places I've gone, and it boosted me past 300.
That was my goal: 300.
I did it.

Now what?

Love Thy Neighbor(hood)

It's going to be a long hot summer, and I may become a cat on a hot tin roof.

After a sober Saturday night (my date? meet? non-date? fell through due to a mysteriously reoccurring flat tire on her car), I awoke refreshed on Sunday and actually made it to the part-time job ON TIME (to much noting and joking by crew and management alike). The day flew by quickly with low sales and high traffic. I left tired yet slightly upbeat, and made it home fully intending on only checking emails, YIMing Flat Tire Woman, and reading old issues of The New Yorker to the sound of classical music.

I started out on track, and then the track exploded.

I made the mistake of cracking open an Old Style which quickly led to a second and 3rd as my neighbor and the HHUN (Hot Hispanic Upstairs Neighbor) started a verbal throw-down outside my kitchen door. I've mentioned before the neighbor woman has the volume capacity of 100 Marshall Amp Full Stacks turned to Eleven, but I think I failed to mention the HHUN equals, nay, nearly rivals this quality...with a Puerto Rican linguistic twist (you should hear how she verbally bullies her beautiful ginger dog).

So, anyway, I think I've informed you about my theory of the Marshall Amp woman's dealing in The Weed (if she don't deal, she sure as hell smokes it! You can nearly taste that greenish swampy sweet shit coming up the sidewalk to the gate most evenings). Well the HHUN smokes up a lot, too; usually in her biggass banana hummer outside my kitchen window on sunny days. And they hangout together a lot; I can hear them laughing and swearing through the kitchen window and facing two front doors. And both their buzzers ring like 20 times a day/night people popping in for 10 minutes and then leave. Or sometimes I hear HHUN yell into Marshall's window "hello" or "unlock your door" various type things.

But tonight, HHUN and Marshal Amp re-enacted an Urban Hatfield and McCoys on the stoop.

But let me back up:
So, I crack a beer and glance out the living room window to see what appears to be a group of 10 Birchwood/Wollcott Boys sprinting and yelling down the street in their requisite white t-shirts and blue jeans. I go to the window in time to see five Mexican men and two Mexican women chasing the guys, swinging fucking baseball bats and bike chains!

Um, WTF?

The Mexicans stop on the corner by my bedroom window, shouting at the white T-shirts disappearing toward Howard, calling on their cell phones "policia!" or yelling "get tu carro, whey!" A couple of cars pull up, and a few of the guys get in and they peel off after the black guys while the rest mill around the intersection or head past my kitchen window in serious Seek and Destroy mode. A guy carrying a brick walks down the middle of the street, shifting on slightly to the side as the 2 cop cruisers and one paddy wagon are now sweeping through the neighborhood (again, again, again) trying to triangulate the Birchwood/Wolcott Boys into a trap. I stand at the kitchen window, sipping a beer (nothing good on TV tonight anyway) and listen to Marshall Amp and her boys friends talk about what's going on. Turns out the B/W Boys jumped and beat up the Mexican corn pushcart vendor at the park, thinking he was a Latin King, and they were giving payback for one of their own getting beat down last week. We learn this from one of the Mexicans (the nephew of the victim) who came into the gate and was chilling on the porch with Marshall Amp's group; he didn't want to get in trouble with the patrolling cops since he was carrying the aluminum bat and all.

It quiets down again. The Mexican goes back on the search with his friends, and some of the guys hanging out go for a walk. I go back to the computer to finish deleting spam.

"Fuck you, bitch! Don't go yelling into my window like that! This may be the motherfucking ghetto, but you ain't got to act motherfucking ghetto, bitch!"

And thus begins the aforementioned Feuding Neighbors. Soon there is a group of boys hanging out on the porch and outside the gate to watch the Rogers Park Smack Down.

What I learned in following 30 minutes or so:

HHUN:

• has had 5 abortions.
• is a stripper (Must. Find. Out. Where.)
• stomps around upstairs in 10 inch heels
• fucks a lot of men
• these men leave drunk at 8 in the morning (which I actually found out from Marshall Amp yelling at one of the drunk guys outside my bedroom window at 8 in the morning)
• these "drunk stupid motherfuckers" are always ringing the wrong bell and demand Marshall Amp "let them the fuck in."
• the two of them had gotten drunk earlier this afternoon.
• is nineteen (?).
• likes to Marshall hear her have loud sex in the bedroom above her.

Marshall Amp:

• is a "dirty ass nigger."
• is a "broke ass bitch in a one-bedroom with two kids and mom."
• doesn't have a job (I think she's actually a night nurse).
• "likes drama."
• is a Drama Queen who is "always yelling at your kids, the kids across the street, and everyone on the sidewalk 'cause you like motherfucking DRAMA, bitch!"
• needs to "shut the fuck up!"
• can't keep her man (husband moved out months ago), can't get a man, and can't please a man.

Finally, most of the crowd dispersed. The cop cars disappeared. And I went inside, slightly buzzed, and in no mood to read a New Yorker.

So I went to Gallagher's (#265); it'd been a long while since I've visited. I stumble across the muddy park, stopping briefly to chat with the paddy wagon set up there still for the Mexican/B/W Boys incident. I tell them what little I know, and that I'm sure they never hear it, but they are appreciated. We wish each other a good night, and I hit Clark Street.

I'm zoning out, thinking about the recent events, and walk past the bar door.

"Hey, Mac, where you going, man?"

It's Dave, one of the bouncers. He's talking on a cell phone, leaning against a car. We shake hands trade hellos etc. He's asks me where I been and tells me it's dead as hell in there, but will get better soon.

I go in and take a seat at the bar. It's just me, two male customers, and the full crew of Bar Girls. Tanya and Bianney aren't working, Nachos brother is manning the bar. I ask Raul about them, and says, "I don't know. Vacation, maybe?"

I spend the most of the night drinking alone at the bar, eyeing Isabella and the not so friendly Bar Girl, who actually smiles and says hi once as she orders her table's Modellos. Later, I switch my view to that one hot looking Latina I see here now and then; the one people say is actually a tranny. I've seen her at The Mark II Lounge (#261) occasionally, Freddie said he thinks she's a man, too. Whatever, she's got a Hot Eye-candy Body, and her friend she's with is especially soft on the eyes, so I let my beer-sodden eyes float over to their table a lot.

I'm remembering why I haven't come here lately: expensive, none of the hotties speak English, and it's a total Sausage Fest. And that's when Melinda (?) sits down next to me. She's one of the more cuter Bar Girls, and, rumor has it, sleeps with Raul. So we chat for a bit, exchange names, I tease her that Raul's her boyfriend ("no, no, no. He's old man."), and, weirdly, she doesn't ask me to buy her a glass of ice-down beer they get served. I get the unnerving vibe that Raul has decided to pimp her out to me, or maybe told her to talk to the lonely-looking geeky white guy, so I don't push anything. I just drink and make small talk. 3;20 rolls around and the announcement is made over the PA, and all the Bar Girls rush for the closet to get coats and leave. I say good-night to Dave, and walk Melinda to her car because Dave said there was a fight going on by it (nothing), then head home.

Sleep.

[update from half and hour ago: Marshall Amp and the HHUN just got into it again on the stoop. This time it escalated to a physical fight "bitch broke my nail!" Apparently, Marshall Amp and her kids were sitting on the stoop when HHUN dumped mop water over the side of the upstairs stoop. No one got hit with the water, but this was enough to set them off. Oh, for the love of God...]

Off to the Mark II Lounge alone (again)

#261
because:
I'm bored.
I've had a (typically) lousy week.
I've got a belly-full of Jameson.
I'm horny (yes, shock to my friends...I lust!)
My booty-call is with her kid this weekend.
There's nothing on TV.
I'm Drunk.
And I've got no "boys to call" to have a B.N.O. with...my Bestest Wingman is a thousand miles away....Fucker! (just kidding).

Wish me luck, eh?

[update---well, I got drunk anyway, right?]

A pile of bar napkins from my pocket

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