Induced Labor

I joyfully drink the 2 parts heresy, to 1 parts good fortune with the composure of a masked villain having only the best of intentions. The blinding light, white heat of the sun binds me to the asphalt like a dinosaur tar pit swimming pool.

           “I got nothing”.

           Leaning against the wall and staring into the sky (or the ceiling) when in awkward (read most) social situations has worked thus far in keeping Morty Michigan from gaining the trust and admiration of his peer group. The slosh drizzle of cocktail hour and loud music covers up the growling groans of nervy stomach tussles. Finding himself dressing down to the level of an unfunny clown, quipping here and there in jokes clothed in desperation, and beating feat to be alone on dark city blocks, skirting bleeding light of the orange buzzing drone of the arc-sodium lamps, buzzing the fuzz on his situation, Mort wobbles like an electron.

          Zigzagging through the invalids and sinner saints of the post-corporate apocalypse, with the pungent odor of piss and unclean flesh wafting on the cooling, Sonoran breeze, Mort is busy squandering the little good will he has left in tow on some quick handshakes with the sinister ministers of the street. A Hong Kong smorgi awaits his floating brain. A taste in the air flutters just a touch. The pigeons, tired from their stray French-fry finding missions and their flying-street-rat struts down the avenue, flutter above, complaining to each other quietly in their wretched palm tree apartments.

“Is any of this negotiable?”

Master of muppets in the next bar filled with stranger dangers stuck in obscene poses, bottles to the ground, and Morty is well aware psychic bump and grind of veiled glances and finger tips on elbows on the way to let loose the bladders of debauchery. Cursory retro music is blaring over the sound system. Mort ponders the musical properties of cocaine and queers in that damned decade, or any damned decade for that matter. Stroking the goat growing under his chin, his mind side-strokes through a sea of probable outcomes for lives such as these, there is a chance the focusing on the impossible outcomes would be more fruitful in evading the truths that become to be self-evident when one with such a novel mind goes further into the wormhole of self-introspection.

Mort pointing at his beer, the following is said with the most negligible of slurs and eyes gazing past the external, past the candy-like curves of a barmaid in her prime, and into the depth of those eyes, “Ma’am, could I have another.”

Morty can never get over the eyes. He finds himself trapped like a fly in the blissful realm of possibility and stormy images and emotions rushing about on synaptic highways through foothills and dreams all cleverly compiled by alien programmers that makes spirit flesh; beauty. We’ll fail to fully mention here how the circuits to Mort’s ears cause his brain to cheer when he hears a woman sing in these foul years of our yearning. Years spent intertwined in the illusion is taking its toll on this man.

Bar time breathes down your neck, raising the gooseflesh, despite the warm numbness embraced in the sacred den of the velvet gypsies. The organs wear down like pistons and paint until what you’re basically left with is a sputtering engine, some potato chip crumbs wedges into the cracks and crevices of the vinyl upholstery, a broken Creedence tape, and a worn spot where feet and elbows have long since dug grooves into the interior.

Hand pushes face away. Pride pushes faith away. Night pushes away the day. A trail of tears pushes the fun away. How long will he keep on pushing on this way?

“Mother, may I have another.”