Hunter S. Thompson: Crazy Bastard!
And for the first time in a long time I felt like I was in total control. I stood on a piece of curved wood with black tape on its surface which gripped the bottom of my feet. Four wheels barrelled down the side walk, with every kilometer it became more obvious to me how close I was to being bucked off of this wild machine. Total control. Even as I added another body to the equation, our feet alternating between each others legs like a dangerous ladder I felt like I could do anything.
"Faster or we'll die!"
It made no sense, none of it made sense. I was struggling to remember what had been of me 5 minutes before this moment. Had I really just seen a friend after a two year hiatus? She told me she was back looking for a bag of donuts, or some roundish pastry of the sort. It seemed sensible: retrace the steps...to find the black bag...which held the donuts...go back to the dingy dive bar on the corner of 25th and S. Van Ness... This train of thought reminded me of the way we had just run out of the bar like mad men, as though we had committed a crime. A crime had been committed, admittedly, by none other than me, a criminal. Cuff me officer! I think I am still drunk.
I can paint a picture of the scene:
With only the 8 ball left on the table, my shot for the game sinker, corner pocket, lined up perfect, my American IPAs sat warm in my belly while I was in the middle of what could have been a cowboy showdown...and my guns were both drawn.
No. Fucking. Dice. Man.
Scratched, and so I took a seat on the floor right where my feet had been poorly positioned just two seconds prior. Before I had time to think I was being ushered out the door by my friend who was tenderly convincing me that I was innocent. But I wasn't innocent! I had just killed a man back there! My dignity was still in that shitty bar under the billiards table with that scratched cue ball. I had to be put out!
I was drawn out of my flashback by the mere proximity of my face and the pavement.
'Too close,' I thought, especially after my incident in Madrid where my freshly healed black eyes and crooked nose would preferably choose to not endure another slam for the next 47 to 102 business days. Anything after and it's up for discussion.
Having made it a short two blocks back, I hung halfway out of the third story kitchen window, my girl friend and I piecing a Parliament, (filthy congress, filthy senate), and discussing loudly what our hypothetical Europe plans would be for October. Dreaming of the terraza's of Barcelona I sunk deeply into my heart, as I do, and forgot that the night was supposed to be about fun. Being drunk and being drunk in love can cause the brain to do involuntary things. For a short while the loudness of my friends voice turned into white noise in the background of this movie I called "my life". While I overlooked the cityscape, at what appeared to be all of San Francisco in their backyard, I felt like a sewer rat, or perhaps something more poetic...a beach gull flying over the skyscrapers willing myself onto one of the wings of a big metal bird roaring up above.
And I sang to myself:
"Up above the world so high...like a diamond in the sky..."
...I have to get out of this place while I still can and save myself. This place. This city?
A few hours later, I was found hidden away sleeping on someone's couch, drunk and jet lagged. Today I need coffee, water will do. Smoke break soon…
