Notes From The Wayside

Alabam’ don’t give a damn.

And neither does Cupertino. Let no hurricane put its chocks in forward progress, no. The new Apple X-Gonna-Take-It-From-Ya featuring SUPEREYES technology was announced today: O, happy day, Enthusiasts. No headphone jack or TouchHump® tech for this one, just a proprietary IV stick that collects your DNA straight from your brachiocephalic and unlocks the new OS, which is laden with features you’ve never imagined, or wanted, or will ever use.

The emojis fucking move, man.

Apple promises that your DNA will remain secret right up until the second their lobbyists get Congress to make it legal to sell.

Don’t know what you got ’til it’s gone.

And if you can’t trust Cinderella’s Tom Keifer, then who can you trust? I think that sentiment is in the Bible, too, but the Bible has absolutely no guitar solos, and is therefore untrustworthy. (There’s a horn player who can really blow in one of the stories, but fuck jazz.)

No electricity means no air conditioning and no refrigeration. The food has already rotted and soon the walls and carpeting will, too; it’s as if humans weren’t supposed to live here. We won’t soon, no matter if the power comes back on or not. The traffic lights are randomly working–two on and then one off and then three on and two off–and so I creep through the intersections while every shithead around me plays on Facebook and speeds past me.

Everything is not abnormal, though: the cops still have black kids handcuffed and sitting on the curb on the Main Drag. Nice of them to keep up appearances. I’m still getting calls offering to reduce the fees on my credit cards.

“Which card?” I ask.

“Whichever,” they respond.

I got a pocketful of quarters
And I’m heading to the arcade.

The shutters have been drawn back, mostly. There are several kinds:

• Rolldowns, for the businesses.
• Sliders for the rich folks that meet in the middle of the window and lock KAHCHUMP with just a flick of the wrist.
• Aluminum slats that store in the bedroom closets of poor folks.

My mother has sliders. I have slats. She has power. I do not. I am sitting in a bar called Elmo’s There are white women in tube tops and black women in their daytime wigs. One of those new-fashioned jukeboxes that look like massive smart phones and cost a buck for two songs. No matter where you sit, you can watch ex-jocks discuss the Broncos’ win. Two Golden Tee machines with the trackballs that go SHWISH.

Pac-Man, too.

To my left is an art school girl with a tattoo of a rose on her thigh. It is half-colored in; she is saving up to finish it. She has a sketchbook and a bottle of Beck’s, and she is practicing drawing eyeballs. I am the only in the room wearing his baseball cap the proper way; everyone else has theirs on backwards.

Linkin Park? Avenged Sevenfold? Hoobastank? Jesus, are they playing Hoobastank? They are playing the music you would expect a bar in Florida to be playing at 3:45 in the afternoon. I have my earbuds halfway into my brain and 10/19/73 blaring.

When the waitress wipes down the table, I can see down her tank top. She brings me a Heineken and asks me if everything’s all right.

I take my earbuds out to be polite.

“Ehhhh,” I say.

She laughs as though I had told a joke.

I think about hitting on the art school girl. My week’s ruined, why not hers?

Treat me like a fool…

Florida Power & Light keeps texting me.

“Avoid downed power lines, especially the ones jerking around and spitting sparks.”

“Flood water is not potable.”

“Don’t run generators indoors.”

I’m beginning to think Florida Power & Light has a low opinion of my intelligence.

I do not sniff the coke,
I only smoke the sensemilla.

There may be no easier game than “Spot the coke dealer” in a Florida bar. He’s chewing on a swizzle stick and has his hat on backwards and looks like Justin Timberlake.

Smoke, smoke, smoke that cigarette.

You can still smoke in bars in Florida because of course you can still smoke in bars in Florida. This is the kind of place where the waitress brings you your drinks with a butt dangling from their mouth.

Gabba gabba
We accept you
We accept you
One of us.

I have turned my hat around backwards, ordered chicken wings, pre-ordered my iPhone X-Gonne-Take-It-From-Ya, removed my trousers and put on shorts, tongue-kissed the downed power lines. I am Florida Man, yes I am, and me and the gators are gonna figure out this four-way stop sign and blast Nickelback until the jewels fall out of our assholes.

I am assuming alligators have assholes.