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, ____, ( 04/08/01 anada408 ,
/ \ ,_____ (--|_\_,,_, _ _| _ __________ ,-.______ _,---._ __ _/ \
/ \+------ _| ) | |(_|(_|(_|_ .net------/ )----.-' `./-/ \
/ / ( |__, ( ( ,' `/ /|
\ / \ `-" \'\ / |
\ / "Giving Up the Crunchy" `. , \ \ / |
Y-------- ----------/`. ,'-`----Y |
/ by Infernal ( ; mEoW!@/| '
i________________________________________________| ,-. ,-'_______/ | /
| | | ( * | /
|____________________ Anada is cat-friendly! __) |__\ `.___________|/
`--' `--'
Eh, what a run of shit luck. Well, I don't wanna even say shit luck,
just cuz so much of it ain't got shit to do with luck, but it's more like me
just bein' a big dumbass and letting everything go to pot all around me. I
swear to God, the last year or so I been moving down the list of what my
last straw is. Like, first my last straw was when Jesse left, and I didn't
have no more girl, which I mean, I didn't think I'd be too sad to see the
bitch go, you know? It ain't like we was getting along, and that last fight
we had when she cracked me with the Mad Dog bottle and I backhanded her down
the steps, you'd think that'd be enough to keep two people away from each
other for the rest of forever, you know? She got a job and moved in with
her sister, though, and that was it. Just “fuck you and goodbye,” and then
after that I kept thinkin' about all the fun times we'd had after we first
hooked it up. Gettin' all sad and shit, and drinking even harder.
Then I wasn't working, and that was the last straw ñ I thought.
Like, how much lower can a man get when his old lady left him and he isn't
working? It got to be about a month after I got laid offa the window plant,
and I wasn't even out lookin' for a job, so it ain't too surprising that I
didn't find one. I kept meaning to, honest, but by the time I'd get my last
hangover shook off, the sun was going down, and then I'd get so bummed out
I'd go get some wine, and that was all she wrote.
Well, then one fine morning I woke up and the power was off. Now
THAT was a last straw if there was one. I hadda go down to the dollar store
and buy me some candles, and I hadda throw out the food in my fridge. Well,
the mustard and stuff ñ there wasn't much in there besides some old tacos
and a few old apples, shriveled up so they looked like an old nigger's ball
sack. Oh, and my jelly, but that wasn't doing me any good by that point
either, which I'll explain in a minute here.
Another two, three weeks and my gas got shut off, and that was the
end of my hot showers. Now, you wouldn't know it to see me now, but all
this time, as fuckered up as I was getting every night, I'd take a shower
every day when I woke up. Felt good, ëspecially if I slept all day and it
was hot out, and I'd laid there sweating. But I tried takin' a cold shower
exactly once, and that didn't do a damn thing for me ñ just made me shiver
my ass off and crawl back in my covers. After that, I just sorta gave up on
the whole thing. After a few days of feeling like the king of all scumbags,
I didn't give much of a shit any more. When I got to stinkin' too bad for
even myself, I'd run a washcloth under the tap and splash off the pits and
the nuts, and the back of my neck. Couldn't face getting under that cold
water no more, though.
Well, there ain't exactly a lot to do in an apartment with no lights
or hot water or nothing, so I been hanging out down to Evans Park with a
bunch of other rummies and bums. I tell you what, I've met some cool-ass
motherfuckers down there this last month or so. And I guess I kinda knew in
the back of my head I'd be joining them, since I ain't paid rent in shit
knows how long, but I swear I hadn't been thinking of it. My landlady's a
ditz, but she finally remembered to kick me out today, so I got four days to
get out. I ain't got much shit left, so I don't really care about that.
Roger and Squeak and Puerto Rican Louie already told me some good places to
crash when it's raining and shit, and most nights in the summer, you can
sleep right on that, whatayacallit, the little roof thing, the garbanzo or
whatever it is, in Evans Park. No one comes and hassles ya unless you sleep
too late and it's daytime.
Anyhow, a lot of other shit's gone by the wayside along the way, and
the biggest thing, even more of a drag than losing my place, is my teeth. I
was still a kid last time I went to the dentist, and even then it was some
sorta county relief fund thing, like my old man wouldn't have the money, so
this charity deal kicked in, and the dentist would stuff his fingers in yer
mouth like he was checking a goddamn horse, all pissed off like, because he
knows he ain't getting nothin' but good karma points for this appointment,
and those don't pay off those boat payments, right? So over the years, I
ain't been a stickler for brushing, you know, and gradually I started
noticin' some pain in my teeth when I'd drink coffee, or somethin' cold.
They got to the point where now, if I bite down too hard on anything,
it's like somebody jammed a hot needle in under my goddamn gums! And it
don't quit hurting either, not for a while. It sorta fades like the picture
at the end of a movie, real slow like, and it's prob'ly a good hour till I
can think about anything else besides how much my mouth hurts. So I gotta
be careful what I eat, and what side of my mouth I chew it on, all that
shit. And the worst thing of all is, I had to give up the crunchy peanut
butter.
Now laugh all you want, but in good times and bad, in sickness and in
health, all that shit, I used to eat a PB&J every day, no matter what. I
used to pack it in my lunch bucket when I worked at the window plant, and
dudes would go out to get a steak sub, or bring in leftovers their wife
cooked, and they'd say “what's with you, ya scrub? You're pullin' down good
money here and you eat that shit?” But peanut butter and jelly's always
been my favorite. You ain't gotta be a shrink to figure it out ñ that's
what I used to eat when I was a kid. Crunchy was because it was the kind my
ma liked, and me and her would have a PB&J after I got home from
kindergarten, before the old man got home from work. That was our time to
hang out, shoot the shit, you know, mom and kid stuff ñ how was school,
anything funny happen today, what's going on in the neighborhood. My old
man always talked to me like I was a boil on his ass he couldn't wait for to
go away, and the teachers all talked like we was retarded, but my Ma had it
right. She'd talk to me like I was a person, and I felt like I was.
I remember one time Billy Delaplant came over for lunch ñ we were
gonna play matchbox cars out back or somethin'. He got a PB&J right along
with us, and when he bit into it he looked like he'd took in a mouthful of
dog shit! “What's this stuff in the peanut butter?” he cried, through a
mouthful of Jif and Wonder Bread. He couldn't finish the sandwich, and me
and Ma laughed our asses off.
And I know it sounds kinda gay, but every time I'd eat a PB&J, no
matter what I'd done the night before, how much I'd drank, or who I'd fought
or fucked or caroused with, I always felt like I was connected back to them
days in the kitchen at home with Ma, when I could sit on the kitchen chair
and my feet didn't touch the floor, and the biggest dilemma of my day was
whether to cut the dry gumminess of my peanut butter with grape or raspberry
jelly. For a couple of minutes, I was five again, and it felt so damn good.
The last PB&J I had, and I shoulda quit eating them months before
this, was about six months ago. It was starting to really hurt to crunch
down on those peanuts, and it was ruining the effect for me, crowding out
all that happy memory stuff with worries about how I was ever gonna fix
these fucked up teeth. Well, I took my first bite of a big ol' sandwich,
with strawberry preserves oozing out the sides, and I like to have fainted.
There was a feeling like someone had taken a wedge and split my skull in
two, and when I spit that gob of sandwich out, there was a piece of one of
my back teeth in it. My mouth was open, and I could feel cold air hitting
raw nerves, and it brought tears to my eyes. It took the rest of the day
for my head to stop hurting, and I don't mind telling you, I sat there and
cried. Not even so much for the pain in my mouth, but for the feeling like
I'd closed a door I couldn't open again, or lost something important. I
kept closing my eyes and trying to think of being that little kid on the
chair in the kitchen with Ma, and I couldn't bring any of it to mind any
more ñ not even her face.
And it's been like that ever since. I bought a jar of creamy peanut
butter, and tried to eat some of that, and it was gross ñ it went down okay,
but it had this sort of sliminess to it, or just a sense of something being
vaguely wrong with it, like eating mashed potatoes with no salt or butter,
or drinking a warm beer. This was all months ago, and I still think about
peanut butter every day. I'm still more upset about losing the crunchy than
I am about losing my apartment. I mean, there's a chance (and I admit it's
a slim one, but there is a chance) that I'll get another apartment, and get
a job, and I'll stop this free fall and get back to a real life one of these
days. But it's gonna take more than I've got left to make it possible for
me to open that door again.
And without that connection to that happy little kid with the
limitless potential and the unconditional love of his Ma, then this rotten-
toothed husk is all I am ñ all that's left of me. I was birthed up like
this, and never lived a life of hope. I was born dying and have spent my
life diminishing. And if that's all there is of me, then what the hell's
the goddamned point? Huh?
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`-.^.-' (c) 2001 Anada e'zine by Infernal `-.^.-'
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