From my barstool, I didn\u2019t pay attention to who was playing the noon game. The Jets, Jags, Browns, I didn\u2019t care. I only wanted a heavy buzz before the Pats took the field at three. I\u2019d been invited to a small dinner party at six by an old friend, Greta. She told me there would be artists, doctors, lawyers, and they needed an everyday working man to feel superior. I signed up.<\/p>\n
I spent the afternoon at the Copper Top talking to the bartender, Anna; a dog named Sir Walter, and a plethora of drunk faces cheering for the Pats who decimated the Steelers by more than thirty points. The clock above the bar read \u201csix\u201d when the game ended, I\u2019d been walking the line between buzzed and drunk for the last hour. I staggered out to my hatchback car and drove to Star Market in Five Points. Greta told me to bring something, I bought a twelve pack of beer and decided on a chocolate pie with loads of whipped cream. Who doesn\u2019t like pie? I thought.<\/p>\n
I opened one of the beers in the parking lot, downed it, and put my car into gear and drove through Five Points, across Governors\u2019 Drive, and found Greta\u2019s little street. Colorful fall leaves, a dozen pride flags, and stickers all over her front windows about the importance of Art, NPR, and PBS littered her yard. I put the beer under my arm and held the pie in the palm of my hand like a chef bringing a tenderloin to the table of a gooey lipped dictator.<\/p>\n
\u201cCome in,\u201d Greta shouted after I knocked.<\/p>\n
A slow violin song played on the stereo. No rock music. No blues. No jazz. Simply a sad violin sinking melancholy sounds into the wall, a drama machine. In the back of the house, I heard conversation. I walked in half thinking people would say, \u201cHi,\u201d but they were all too far concerned with their opinions about the state of the world, no facts, simply their opinions. I showed them the chocolate pie, but no one cared. I offered everyone a beer, but they declined in favor of an ancient artisan wine they had been drinking. Later, I\u2019d find out the grapes were crushed by the soft feet of dainty artists in a giant wooden barrel. They danced inside the wooden barrel, stomped the grapes, and chanted Buddhist words of peace all while laughing when no one said anything funny. Pretend laughs for the pretend people.<\/p>\n
I took a seat across from three students of the luxury. One, a man named, Gregoire Livingston. Black fluffy hair rested on his exquisitely crafted blue sweater, a black leather necklace with a silver Unk at the end blinded me. To Gregoire\u2019s left, an ancient crone with silver hair in dreads with little plastic leaves decorated inside sipped the ancient white wine and refused to look at my face. To the Crone\u2019s left sat a Doctor of Medicine, Sissy Cavendish. She\u2019d been carrying on how she just returned from South Asia. She spent months among the flies, snakes, and monkeys who kept stealing morphine from needy patients to get high. She was angry that she had to return to work at Huntsville Hospital working for close to two-hundred grand per year. Her time in Asia living among the high as fuck monkeys, making a lowly twenty grand a year was where her heart lived. Greta was busy stirring a pot with a pineapple sticking out of the top.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd your name is?\u201d Gregoire asked me with a pinkie sticking out before he took a sip of his artisan wine.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrancis,\u201d I replied, opening a fresh beer. \u201cAre y\u2019all sure you don\u2019t want a beer?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBeer is for men,\u201d The Crone interrupted, \u201cAnd I\u2019ve simply had enough of MEN.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cExcuse me,\u201d Sissy Cavendish said. \u201cI was talking here.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh please, Sissy. We have a guest.\u201d Crone replied, turning her head to the side with a sigh.<\/p>\n
\u201cGreta told us you\u2019re a poet,\u201d Gregoire said.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot really. I go to work every day, then go to bed.\u201d I replied, opening another beer.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a writer,\u201d Sissy Cavendish said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd a damn fine writer of culture,\u201d Crone said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, Sissy. I really liked that deep dive into the inner workings of poverty in 6th<\/sup> Century Europe. I think you should submit it to the Havard Review.\u201d Gregoire said.<\/p>\n They all started to giggle and touched each other\u2019s wine glasses as a show of appreciation.<\/p>\n \u201cMy art is really starting to take off,\u201d Gregoire said. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to find time in between taking care of all the orphaned farts in Alabama.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a good cause, Gregoire,\u201d The Crone said. \u201cWithout you, who knows where the orphaned farts would end up. Before you got involved, they showed up at my house and upset the Goddess. I do NOT like to upset Mother Earthen Manifest of the Equal Heart Journey.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat do you do for art?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m glad you asked,\u201d he replied. \u201cI pick up tiny blades of grass with great care.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat for?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTo make tiny violins with, of course. Like, um, what else?\u201d he said with an air of cunt.<\/p>\n \u201cDo you play the tiny grass violins?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFrancis,\u201d he said like I born eleven seconds ago, \u201cYou hear the music Greta is playing?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe sad violin music?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ll have you know that\u2019s from my one-man grass string violin concert at The Flying Monkey.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a packed house, too,\u201d Sissy shouted. \u201cI fell in love with Gregoire right then and there.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou two are a couple?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes. We are to be married on March 4th<\/sup> of some year.\u201d Gregoire said.<\/p>\n \u201cAs soon as Mother Earthen Manifest of the Equal Heart Journey approves,\u201d Sissy said.<\/p>\n The crap. The enormous, stinking, crap filled the room. Growing bigger, busting pipes, and soiling sheets, the table in front of me smelled like Patchouli was holding onto its last astrology chart.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Goddess knows all,\u201d The Crone said. \u201cSoon you two will be able to procreate and make little Cavendishes.\u201d<\/p>\n I looked up and watched Greta furiously chop celery like her life depended on it. She smiled whenever one of them mentioned their jobs, artistic endeavors, or Mother Earthen.<\/p>\n \u201cWho are your favorite poets?\u201d The Crone asked.<\/p>\n \u201cI like Bukowski, Carver, James Wright.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBukowski?!!!\u201d The Crone yelled. Her handcrafted colorful beads that wrapped around her neck like Mr. T\u2019s gold fell off her neck and shattered on the table. \u201cStrike one, Francis! That man should burn up and die.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe is dead.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBurn his words.\u201d Crone looked up at the ceiling, \u201cGoddess burn that man\u2019s words!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI thought you people were against banning books.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh, we are, kind of, \u201cGregoire said. \u201cBut I say, \u2018no banning books,\u2019 for status. We are totally for burning books that don\u2019t fit our narrative.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWell, now we know you have zero literary taste,\u201d The Crone said. \u201cWhat do you do for work?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m a butcher.\u201d<\/p>\n There was this silence, this continuing silence. A gasp, someone farted. Gregoire collected it. The Crone stood up and began chanting and running in place. Her baggy Rastafarian colored clothing shook twenty gallons of sacred oils out into the air. I sneezed a dozen times.<\/p>\n \u201cGreta, you invited this mother fucker here?\u201d Sissy shouted.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s a poet. You said you wanted to meet a real poet.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, a man wearing a Kasaya. I at least expected a damn Kasaya. Not a man with God damn blood on his hands. I expected a man in robes to recite poems about goldfish and swallows. Not a life taker.\u201d<\/p>\n Gregoire stood up and pounded one inch off his glass full of artisan wine. \u201cGreta, you let a murderer into your home.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s for supper,\u201d I asked, hoping to calm them down.<\/p>\n \u201cPineapple and tofu stew and for dessert fistfuls of air.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat kind of food is that.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cVegan! You murdering, dirty, son-of-a-bitch,\u201d Sissy Cavendish shouted.<\/p>\n \u201cEating air? Isn\u2019t that the same as breathing? I asked. Mistake.<\/p>\n The Crone gathered herself and sat down. She reached across the table and took my hand. Her lips narrowed, the ancient waddle under her neck shook, she began to chant.<\/p>\n \u201cHoly Mother Earth, manifest this lost soul onto the path of Coexist.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis isn\u2019t coexisting,\u201d I said. \u201cBut keep going, I\u2019m having fun.\u201d<\/p>\n Gregoire busted out an acoustic guitar of nowhere, and I mean out of nowhere. Like he carried an \u201cin case of an emergency break open this sensitive acoustic guitar.\u201d \u00a0Sissy stood behind her future lover, and they began to sing the \u201cHare Krsna Mantra.\u201d The Crone waved her body behind them with her hands in the air, and her face pointed up to the clouds. Greta chopped a single tiny carrot and tossed it into the stew.<\/p>\n \u201cI think we\u2019ve gotten rid of the bad Ju Ju,\u201d the Crone said, taking a seat. Sissy Cavendish and Gregoire Livingston both agreed and stopped singing.<\/p>\n \u201cI traded football for this,\u201d I mumbled to myself.<\/p>\n \u201cExcuse me?\u201d Sissy said. \u201cDid you say, football? That macho manly man game?\u201d<\/p>\n The guitar reappeared and Sissy and Gregoire chanted and sang louder and faster. The Crone did the Russian Prisiadki dance behind them and slammed miniature steel cymbals in between her fingers.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m calling on my gypsy ancestors to help this man of the football, butcher of the living and hater of literature.\u201d<\/p>\n The room began to spin. I felt sick. I was in the middle of a living cult. Those who proclaim love need love more than any human being on earth. Those who scream out into the abyss for peace need understanding and peace more than any living creature. Those who speak the language of tofu will soon eat the flesh of the living.<\/p>\n As the kitchen decorated in dead flowers, tiny leaves, basil, photos of oboes and French horns swallowed all of us, Lauren, Greta\u2019s sister walked through the door. The chanting stopped, as did the gypsy dances of the damned. Her body, covered in a grey dress that ran to her mid-thigh, black stockings connected to the snaps of black garters up high over her black combat boots.<\/p>\n \u201cI brought some whiskey back from Japan,\u201d Lauren said, opening a fancy wooden box painted white with a Japanese symbol on the front.<\/p>\n I stared at the different woman inside Greta\u2019s house. And although she smelled of peaceful protesting, she also looked like she\u2019d tell a rug to fuck off if given the chance.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ll try some,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n Lauren poured a shot, and it went down smoothly on top of the dozen beers and five other whiskey shots I had taken earlier that day.<\/p>\n \u201cThanks,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n \u201cVegan dinner is almost ready,\u201d Greta said.<\/p>\n \u201cNone for me,\u201d Lauren said to her sister. \u201cI just ate a burger at Goldies.\u201d<\/p>\n I waited for more chants, more dancing. A s\u00e9ance to break out, complete with candles and astrology charts. It never came.<\/p>\n \u201cWait, I cut meat for a living, and I get shitty James Taylor songs?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s okay for Lauren,\u201d Gregoire said. \u201cShe ate local. If you eat local, you get a pass.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLocal is the way,\u201d the Crone said. \u201cAnd Francis. I\u2019ll only ask once. Don\u2019t say harsh words about James Taylor.\u201d She touched her heart and sighed. \u201cWhat I wouldn\u2019t give to run my fingers through his three hairs, touch his fleece vest. I\u2019m a HARDCORE feminist, but I\u2019d iron his pleated Khakis any day of the week if he asked me to. If James Taylor demanded sex if I weren\u2019t in the mood, well, not even the Goddess would turn down a man who drips such sex and tenderness.\u201d<\/p>\n I opened another beer and kicked back. Lauren sat next to me, and we began talking about her trip to Japan. She told me about her life as a traveling nurse, and how she helped the sick and the job afforded her free travel to check out people in different states and countries. We exchanged phone numbers. Not because we had a mutual liking for one another, but to find a friend in the middle of violent judgmental \u201cpeace,\u201d made the minutes feel less like hours.<\/p>\n We both understood the other guests didn\u2019t find a secret meaning to life through astrology, chanting, praying to a god or goddess. Secrets were not revealed by grasping onto the latest fad found through a reel or heard in a drum circle. That a lot of people only grasped onto those things because they fear death, fear that what they think and say is utterly meaningless in the end. And I get that, because I get the same types of anxieties and grasp onto my own things to find meaning in the middle of the absurd. Lauren understood too, but like me, she also could see through the bullshit.<\/p>\n \u201cWant another shot, Francis?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, I\u2019ll have some more of that Jap\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n But before I could finish the word Japanese, they accused me of saying, \u201cJap.\u201d That I was a racist not worthy of their artisan wine talk. Not allowed to sit at the table of the great vegan goddesses. \u201cI\u2019ll pray for you,\u201d the Crone said.<\/p>\n \u201cWill you really?\u201d I replied.<\/p>\n \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n I grabbed my non vegan pie, and my new age free beers and walked towards the door.<\/p>\n \u201cYou know what?\u201d I said, they all looked back at me.<\/p>\n \u201cJames Taylor fucking SUCKS!\u201d As I closed the door Lauren smiled at me. We are still friends to this day.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I drove back to my friend Chris Dayton\u2019s house. It was a little after ten, he must\u2019ve been asleep because the entire house was dark. I opened a beer, put on my headphones, and cranked Johnny Thunders\u2019 \u201cBorn to Lose.\u201d Chris\u2019s cat came outside, jumped on the black iron table, and sat with me. I petted him a while underneath the November sky. Lauren shot me a text. I opened it. It was a photo of her giving the middle finger to Greta\u2019s pineapple stew.<\/p>\n Hunger raged through my body, but I didn\u2019t want to eat. Disbelief is best mixed with an empty stomach. I drank two more beers and listened to another dozen songs: The Kinks, Iggy Pop, Otis Redding. Lauren sent another text, \u201cI don\u2019t think the Crone hated you, she probably actually wanted to fuck you.\u201d She ended the text with an \u201cLOL.\u201d I snatched the pie, tore the top off, used my hand as a giant spoon and dug deep into the center of the whipped chocolate pie and slammed scoop after scoop into my wide open, meaty mouth. The midnight clouds tasted breathless.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The enormous, stinking, crap filled the room. 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