Mammoth Sunday Spectacular #2: The Time Out of Mind Issue
How terrible it is to be clever and bored. Madame Étrange
Another Sunday morning. Another rare chance to sit down at a computer during the weekend hours and tap out mad exorcisms, a gross and disgusting obsession I can't seem to kick for whatever reason. I harbor some sort of essential malfunction, some short-wiring of the brain, that will not allow me freedom from all this bitching and whining. Lo, the world is filled to the brim with Perspective Warriors and seekers. Why pollute the earth with another?
But it is already three in the afternoon thanks to the time change last night, and half the day has been foolishly wasted tossing and turning on a friend's couch in the Big Town. My bum hip joint, where the left femur joins the pelvis, is aching from an hour of walking to a bar that was only 20 minutes away thanks to Corporal Yonk's proprioceptional breakdown. He is normally fairly keen when it comes to geographic conundrums, but he led us down Clybourn Ave. into some goddamned nest of yuppies and financial swill merchants. Finally, we flagged a cab and paid the man ten dollars (plus tip) to haul us three miles back north to an intersection the Corporal had been saying was only three blocks away for something like forty minutes. He laughed. I scowled. The swine doesn't have old basketball injuries to plague him on long hikes through the urban wilderness. If we had encountered any trouble along the way, I doubt I could run away and his penknife sure as hell wouldn't get us out of a tight spot. Perhaps it is my fault for dealing with contemptible people.
It begs telling, though, that I graciously relieved him of the coveted title of Fuerher King, a distinction he had been hellbent on self-applying until he put it up for grabs with a Best of 3 showdown on the pool table at Delilah's. He should have known, poor bastard. And now the Mammoth is King and shall rule as such until the earth sighs and gives itself up.
But this thing isn't about last night. This is about Now, and for the moment, I need 500cc of coffee straight to the heart. If only I knew where to go being unfamiliar with this particular corner of Chicago and unlikely to find my way back should I lose myself in the back-alley retention ponds where all manners of foulness lie in wait for fresh, suburban meat like me. These bastards can spot a foreigner from miles away, and I can't imagine I cover my own origins with a convincing schtick. I reek of fairways and polyurethane. Ennui and ignorance. Even aping a British accent and pretending to be an organized thug won't cut it. I will need to find a weapon before venturing Out There on my own. Already, the day is waning, and I am wasting the light again as is my wont.
It is happening. I can feel it. Rudimentary shutdowns on all levels due to a long bout of sexless floundering. There are beautiful women everywhere, by my definition anyhow. Ninety percent of males in my peer group would probably disagree, but their sense of beauty has been dumbed down by major media outlets and internet pornography. They don't know what it means to look into the eyes of a woman and see that look, that carnivorous glare betraying past conquests, as if she left Zeus himself panting feverishly and speaking in tongues. As if taking her would mean total atomic implosion, a sexual conflagration that spells immediate disintegration for any man lucky enough to take a stab at her. It's been a good long while, and I'd be foolish to think that I can hold my own, but quite frankly, destruction at the hands of a woman sounds like just the ticket again. I've replenished my faculties enough to start thinking again about making Stupid Mistakes and raping my insides until all the organs are caked in scar tissue. It'll put hair on your chest, young man. Have faith in that much, and plunge into the fray. You will go the way of Obi-Wan. If they strike you down, you will become more powerful than they could ever imagine.
It will be the end for me, folks. A bayonet in my liver and a brown-haired seductress chewing off the last bits of my skin with bared, bloody teeth and a sweet smile.