Of Laways, Of Misery, Of Sammie
The two XYs walked over to the EZ Lotto and Guzzoline to get themselves the previously discussed Wild Scottish Rose. Thomie walked inside to get them some of the best stuff on the lowest shelf of the goofy juice isle but Sammie stayed outside. After all the action of killing another man in cold blood he needed some mint in his lungs. He sat down on the bus bench on the sidewalk in front of the store and lit a minty with his dad’s lighter. He closed his eyes for a moment and enjoyed the first drag. There was nothing quite like the first drag of a fresh smokie and that pleasure was only made all the more bigger after a kill. It wasn’t a kind of feeling that he tried to give himself too often because he knew that he had a habit of picking up habits. “A bad junkie man needs to know his limits, sometimes,” he muttered to himself.
He opened his eyes and took another lung full of smoke. Sammie had never really paid attention to the stores across the street from the big EZ. Normally he just got some mouthwash and had it down the hatch before he got here and the walk to get here was always fuzzy since the walk usually came before his first bottle of whatever he was starting the day off with. The block across the street bustled with people. The people all looked so happy and fulfilled. They gave each other smiles and patted each other on the back and lied to each other when they passed people who had babies by saying, “What a nice baby that doesn’t look at all like a wrinkly red potato.” Those were the people that Sammie wanted to be like. They had it all together.
In his head, Sammie reasoned that maybe it was the block they were on that helped make them look so fulfilled and normal. Left to right on that block there was a marble templo to the mighty Jeeb god man, a money store, a store that just said, “The Work Place,” a vidjya gamblog parlor, and a big building on the right corner that had a big, blinky red sign that said, “Suicides on Layaway.” He noticed that that people seemed to go left to right, visiting the stores in the same order that he had looked at them in. The men with their Darby haircuts and the women with their prim, tight bobs looked happy coming out of the Templo of Jeeb and even happier coming out of the money store but when they came out of The Work Place they looked as broken as his parents marriage. They looked downtrodden but there was still a bit of hope shining in the corners of their eyes. The gel in the men’s hair had started to lose its strong hold and a few stray hairs frayed at the edges. By the time they left the gamblog parlor their skin had turned as ashy as the bottom of a minty stub out tray, their bodies were slumped like used hard ons, and the light of Jeeb had left them. Counting the change in their pockets they headed to put some money down on a layaway. After they left without their change they headed back down to the Templo. They kept walking in the same line again and again and again and again until they just didn’t come out of the layaway store again. Sammie didn’t know why but the sight made him feel real bad for all these people.
From beside him there was a thud as Thomie jumped over the back of the bench and landed beside Sammie. He handed Sammy a dusty bottle. “Drink up, Sammie,” he said. “This is the good stuff. It’s vintage. Almost a whole year old.” Thomie cracked the plastic cap on the bottle and clinked it with Sammie’s before taking a big huge swig.
Sammie’s eyes went wide in amazement. A year old? Thomie had really pulled out the stops when he had bought such an old, rare bottle. “Maybe you aren’t so bad, Thomie. Thank you very a lot for such a nice gift. I’ve never had such a fine, rare drink.” Sammie cracked the top of his bottle and also took a big huge swig. Something about the block across the street made his head hurt and his heart felt the same. There was something just wrong about all of it. All those poor people stuck walking slowly in lines from one end of the block all day until they just disappeared. He pulled the nickel bag out of his pocket, balled his fist with the thumb pushing down and away, then tapped some of the sloth dust onto the flat triangle of skin between his fingers and wrist. With a gusty snort he sucked it all up into his nose and leaned back, full of stimulated relaxation, and kissed the bottle again.
“Hey, Sammie?”
“Yeah, Thomie?”
“Do you ever wonder why those people don’t just go straight to the store and put it down on a suicide?”
Sammy screwed up his face a bit. He didn’t think of that until now. “I don’t know Thomie.”
“I bet they get all kinds of dollars at the money store so why would they go to the Work Place or gamblog parlor before they put some change down on layaway?”
“Those people are a mysterious mystery to guys like us. If they had any sense they would just buy a non-kink garden hose.”
“Them chumps just don’t know how to live. They’re the kinda folks that daydream all day about fake plastic trees while they walk the line. They live lives with no surprises, just sad boring lines that they follow until they finally save up enough to die.”
“Do you think that’s any better than how we live, though, Thomie?”
“What do you mean?”
“We live real rough. I do crimes to get my fixes and you get beat up for your Wild Scot money. How is what we do any different from them. Maybe the path we, the path I walk ends in the same place. Maybe I am just making the path more winding, more bad for me. The only time I’m happy is when I’m doing bad naughty crimes or when I’m so toasty I fall asleep.” Sammie pounded down the rest of his bottle to quiet up his head. His brain was getting real dark real fast. Sammy dug in his pockets. The right pocket had a big hole in it, and the left one only had some lint. He reached into his jacket pocket and came out with a few George Walshington coins. “Maybe I should put down a layaway payment. The non-kink garden hose way didn’t work. Maybe I should have professional do me a solid.”
Instead of responding Thomie let out a girlish wurrrp of a burp that sounded more like a bird chirping than a man’s belch. There was a clinking sound at his side and he pressed another bottle into Sammie’s chest. “We all wanna die but sometimes we gotta use our change to make us happy instead’a saving up for the day we die.” Sammie looked over to see where the bottle had come from and saw that his Thomie had bought a whole case of Wild Scottish Rose. “Hey, Sammie?”
“Yeah, Thomie?”
“I got some quarters too.”
“Wanna come with me to layaway store?”
“Maybe. If that’s what you wanna do I’ll come with but I heard from the nice man behind the bulletproof glass at the EZ that the Korean’s that run the dance hall just bought a new pinball machine. Wanna go use our Walshingtons there?”
Sammie slammed the bottle in his hands then looked at the three silver coins in his palm. “Ok, Thomie, lets go.”
Thomie picked up his treasure chest of sweet, sweet non-organic wine in plastic bottles and offered his hand to Sammie. Sammie took his hand and Thomie used all of his girlish strength to help heave Sammie up onto his boots and off they went and not another word was said about layaways or Jeeb. Who had any use for them when there was Korean pinball to be had?
