Taste the Rainbow ( from "Dollar Store Barbies" Rough Draft
There are places I like to go to that don't seem to change much. Mostly, I've been hanging out at the Cave Club. If you've ever been to a punk rock dive bar, you've been to the Cave Club. The walls are flat black, smelling of stale smoke and beer. The floor is sticky from wave after wave of beer mud, the combination of sweat, dirt and spilled beer that spreads out from the mosh pit. There's even blood in all that beer mud, some of it is mine. I guess, in some stupid way, the club and I are blood relatives and by extension all the other regulars are too.
So too is the bar. My friend Angie is always there. Sometimes, her brother in law, Thor helps out.I like him. He's good people and like a little brother to me. Butch is Angie's old man and he and I have been bros for about twenty years or more, since the first day of sixth grade. He's in Big Springs finishing up his last year on a five year bid for some crapped up smuggling charge. He got stuck holding a truck full of Mexican liquor without any tax stamps. They didn't want him, said he could walk and all he had to do is tell them who the truck really belonged to. I can only imagine what he told them to cram up their collective behinds when they came at him like that, trying to shake him like some stupid yo. He kept his mouth shut because he isn't a punk not because he's fearful. The dudes with the trucks know this. We've all known each other too long for anyone to think otherwise.
It was early, about eight o'clock. Nothing cool seems to happen until ten or so. The guys in the band were setting up and the sound guy was trying to find a way to make the loud buzzing in the PA go away. good luck. I was hanging out in my usual spot, a corner booth that felt like home. I don't really drink much. My Dad was a mean drunk, and I tend to stay sober and watch other people have a good time. I'm a real people watcher. My girl Anne, we hang out sometimes and make up stories about strangers when they walk by. That's another reason why I like the Cave Club. They don't find my ways creepy, not in the least. They know me.
Anyway, like I was saying, it was around eight and there weren't too many people. That's why I noticed the kid. When I say kid, I mean he was in his twenties with a short hair cut. His ears were just a bit too big for his head and he had a whipcord neck growing up out of his black leather jacket. He had a kind of raw sunburned look to his face. This kid was skinny and tall. He looked more like a cowboy or a Midwest college basketball player. His head did swivel around a couple of times in my direction. That was when I got a look at his tired, sad eyes. I know that look. I know what it's like to feel nervous even when you know you shouldn't. I've been there, where you want to be out and around people, but you can't stand to be out and around people, you want your life back.
I didn't think much of it, until one of the dirtbags from the brake shop, Chepo, bellied up to the bar and tried to start up a "deep conversation" with Angie. Everyone likes her. She's beautiful and sweet. She always has a joke and a smile for anyone. She brings tamales to the homeless guys behind the club, calls them her "crew", notices when one of them is missing or sick. Anyway, if she ever had a sancho, it wouldn't be this ass clown, Chepo.
Right on cue, he bumps the kid's drink and it goes over. He says something lame and douche-y like, "Watch where you're going, Nancy!". The kid turns fast to square off with him. All at once, a bunch of stuff happens. Angie says, "This one's on the house.." and starts making another rum and coke for the kid (That's a kids drink for sure..). I stand up casually at the booth, and say "..and the next one's on me, soldier." He sizes me up, knows that I'm not screwing around when I sit down and gesture to the "gunfighter's" seat, his back against the wall facing the door. When he sits down with his drink, I jerk my head to the door and say, "You got my back, right?".
"Yeah, aight. I guess so. It ain't no big deal"
" But that d___ at the bar, He's a complete hump and not worth the trouble. I think you made a stain
in his pants when you squared up on him....The back, not the front." That came out wrong, but still the kid kind of smiled and laughed.
"You in the service?", I asked.
"Just got out of the Army" , he paused, "Were you?"
"Yeah, me , A long time ago"
"Been home yet?," I ask, already knowing the answer. He shook his head no, slowly, with deep consideration.
"It's over rated. Take your time. It'll still be there when you want to." This was advice Butch's Dad gave me me long years ago. At the time, going home was at the very bottom of my list, a real crapfest.
Sometimes you can tell when someone needs to talk. I'm a good listener. Everybody tells me that. I think it's because listening to other people's problems makes me feel like I'm helping them,like I'm doing something good.It's just a good time for me Anne tells me I should have a talk show, but I cuss too much. She makes me laugh, which is about the best thing anyone can do for you.
"You know how you think you're a good guy and then you find out you're not?" He kind of says it fast, like he's been holding on to it for a while.
"Yeah" I say, "sometimes"
Here it comes, I think. I don't like hearing this kind of stuff, because it makes me feel powerless and sad all over again.
" I'm a..was a translator. I went to the DLI school and only shot my weapon during exercises and I was trained to drive a humvee and use the computer and radio systems.."
"Oh yeah. I carried field radios and learned all about them.." I added.
"Well, one day, one of the NCO's told me "We need you on the back of the truck, spooky, mission essential" : "whenever we went somewhere, I was in a vehicle not on the back of one"
" I jump in the back of the deuce and half with my weapon slung, and the guys make a space for me. Sarge gives me a big, huge bucket full of candy. ", start throwing this $#^& dawg, when we tell you to. Spread it around, yeah bro?
We pull through this narrow ass village and it's all dusty, tense, we have to slow way down cause the road is messed up. One of the guys says, "now dawg, throw that $^&;!" I start tossing the candy and from nowhere all these dirty kids are swarming around the truck.
the bigger ones come out too, and they try to drag the little ones away.One of them with a puffed up eye flips me the bird and starts yelling "khus "em'mukh khanzir!!" He's talking about a pig and my Mom's....
uh, )&;*%$#"
I beaned him in the face with a pack of skittles...hard. The other guys are laughing,
"That's gangsta!," they say..."cold!"
The kid staggers back clutching his good eye. We roll through surrounded by kids.
"Save some for the trip back, dawg..." the NCO tells me.
When we get back, he's kinda teasing me, telling me I done good and that I need to go out more often.
He gets quiet and asks, "for real, you know why we do it, throw candy, I mean?"
"kids love candy, hearts and minds, right?"
"Nah man, they always gonna hate us. . The Hajis ain't gonna light us up if they kids be all around us. That's why lil Popeye was trying to run 'em off, to give 'em a clean shot......%u$& him"
I used to think I was a nice guy...
"Yeah" I said slow, "me too".
