written inaction

How to become a rapist in two easy steps.  Step 1: put on the facemask to protect your asthmatic lungs from the cold air.  Step 2: go for a run around Green Lake.  You won’t actually have to violate anyone, as the looks from everyone you pass will already indicate that you’ve done so.

I didn’t ask to be born with asthma, and honestly, it isn’t that bad.  I just need an inhaler and a facemask when I run in the cold.  This is too much to ask.  While it isn’t freezing today, it’s cold enough for my lungs to get torn up, so I wear a mask.  Or at least I do for the first mile.  After that point, I can’t bear the scorn from the people I pass anymore, and rather than do what’s healthy, I do what’s right—which is to show my face and get pneumonia in order to ease the minds of the housewives, college students, and select idiots that believe rapists wear facemasks, child molesters walk around with trash bags of candy, and criminals run carrying large iron balls while wearing white and black striped suits. 

When I get home it’s nearly time to start thinking about Venom.  I don’t really want to think about Venom.  I’m not proud that I’m a homebody, but the idea of going out with the sole purpose of “getting ridiculously fucked up” rarely appeals to me.  I am a nerd.  I would be happier going rock climbing.  Perhaps renting a good movie.  Maybe go out to a pool hall and have some drinks.  The self-destructive tendencies of real “partying” don’t really vibe with me.

Be that as it may, I throw my party hat on as I make some dinner and await the call from the guys.  Unfortunately we will be running light this evening.  Some of the ladies are out, and some are working.  But there will be a good group, and it is a group that was assembled in two days, which is not a lot of time, as I’m told.  “Why didn’t you say it was your birthday!?” Ar and Cor had said, but in all honesty, I’d forgotten.  Birthdays have never been that important to me, and even if they were, I wouldn’t be thinking of mine during this time-devoid-unemployment-space-vortex that I’m currently locked in.  It could be July for all I know.  I sleep on a couch.

Eventually the troops arrive, and we begin to pre-game.  I’m not into it, but Den always gets me going, and before long I’ve had a beer and a shot of bourbon.  Then they broke out the absinthe. 

I had never had absinthe, but had always been curious about it.  The idea of a hallucinogenic alcohol seemed just close enough to reasonable to try, and besides, if Oscar Wilde referred to it as “the green muse”, I owed it to him to try it.  Also, I didn’t really think it was going to do anything.  I was wrong.

The shot was minty and much thicker than I had expected, and though it did not produce dancing pink elephants or laughing bowling balls, I did feel more detached and airy than usual.  Whether or not this was a placebo, I cannot tell you, but the bowing ball probably could.

The bowling theme came from the fact that instead of Venom, we had gone to Sunset Bowl, which was a locally famous bowling alley with neon lights, a full bar, and a game room.  Also, the place was being torn down in three weeks, so it came equipped with a staff that generally didn’t seem to give a shit. 

Since it was a Saturday night and the place was packed, we reserved a lane and went into the game room, where we played the one working racing game, and Sape spent $13 trying to get a pair of sunglasses from the claw-hand machine.  It was about that point that everyone started to get a little tipsy, and it was then that the card came out. 

The card was an ongoing joke with 138. An ace playing card, it had come from a deck nude male playing cards and pictured a muscular man with an impressive erection leaning back contemplatively into the sun.  Long out of play, its purpose now was to be used as a tool of social and public humiliation for anyone in its possession.  Pay the bill the cute waitress has brought to your table?  The card falls out of your wallet.  Driving around town?  The card might be taped to your back window.  Having a birthday party at a bowling alley?  Someone might slip it into your back pocket just hard enough to hold it there as you go to the bathroom, get beer from the bar, or lose money to the claw machine.  This is how Mick got me with the card, which I noticed in the game room just the manager came to kick us out.

“You can’t drink in the game room!” she called in from the doorway.

“Why not?”  Asked Sape.

“It’s against the rules,” she said, walking away.

“Well FUCK the rules,” Sape hollered after her, taking a drink from his bowling-pin shaped Budweiser, “aren’t they tearing this shit hole down in a week anyway?  You’d have to be drunk to pay 50 cents for one of these shitty games anyway.”  With that, we left the game room, and with an accidental bump, the card found its way into Mick’s pocket. 

When we got on the lanes, everyone was relieved to find out that we could still drink, which we did, as was evidenced by the sharply dropping scores.  The bowing became secondary to the bowling scoreboard, an electronically projected item, which showed up on a large screen above the lanes.  I was the first victim, with “Riv” being innocuously changed to “Milhouse”, and eventually “Thrillhouse”.  From here, things went downhill quickly.  The names became rude, inappropriate, and ultimately pornographic, ending with the nightly winner “CuntWhoreFaceDisease”.  It was a proud day for Sunset bowl.

With the place still spinning for me, we went off to Dicks, the drunken requirement, and went back to Sape’s.  After devouring the contents of the translucent, grease-soaked bags, the group was not looking its liveliest as Eche burst in the door with a fresh 30-rack.  “Who wants to drink?” she asked, handing out beers, two of which were drunk before everyone—everyone—passed out where they lay.  Eventually Tuppence, who was not drunk, gave me a ride home.  As I crawled into my couch, I felt thankful for the friends that I’ve made here, and the good times that we have.  The thought warmed me right up until the point where I took off my pants and saw the card drop out of my back pocket.