Each morning it takes a well planned series of alarms to get me out of my bed. The cell phone goes off at 7:00am, followed by a second alarm at 7:10am, and that gets "snoozed" a good three or four times. In the midst of all this cell phone ringing, my radio cuts on at 7:15am and stays on. I woke up this saturday morning smelling the stale smell of cigarette smoke in my hair, and the soured taste of cigarettes smoked and drinks drank from the night before. I laid in bed half asleep and half awake for a good fifteen minutes listening to stories on National Public Radio about the "INVISIBLE". It was about homelessness and the great number of homeless children. Individuals spoke about the corrupt foster home system, prostitution, drug dealings, and runaways. One woman told her story about being twelve years old and living with some man her uncle stuck her with. She was supposed to "take care of him" and he would take care of her. She slept with him in order to get things like shampoo and a toothbrush. She talked about living on the street. It was horrible. The thing that struck me as strange was that after all this filth in her life, somehow some agency helped her get back into school at age 18, and she went on to get a LAW degree at UCLA or some big southern Californian university. She's now 30 and totally fine. She's been proposed to at the top of the Eiffel Tower and is somehow still single. I don't understand how something so bad can be turned into something so great. I'm sure she makes tons of money now. She isn't scared to talk about her past. I don't know how I feel about the story. I still am trying to process the whole thing, but I'm still in a malaise from last night.
I didn't drink too much but the bartender gave me one more than I really cared for or could've cared for. I hadn't been out in a little while, so I found myself easily tanked, and even more easily amused. I heard a great story that I don't know how I missed out on, other than the fact that I must've left early that night. Evidently last Friday, Felicia (the kitchen cook at the bar) had it out with this regular who I'll just call "Sean" for the purposes of this story. Sean came into the bar and Felicia just finished ripping this guy Joe apart telling him how he was a slut and a whore, and how he was sick to be messing with this young kid who had been coming into the bar for a month or so. Joe had turned so many shades of red and had just put his head down and tried to smile it off but it was painfully obvious that he just had his ass handed to him in front of everyone at the bar. Felicia was just on a roll. Everyone was laughing and screaming. If there's one thing I love, it's a strong black woman who knows who she is. Felicia has lived many places and she's been brought up very tough, but overall, she is one amazing woman. Sean comes into the bar and Felicia starts on him, but she was not overly unkind. She was half-joking although it's a given that Sean isn't that well-liked by others and her words were probably from the heart. Sean is nice to everyone but can be rather annoying. He will treat you like a best friend, ask you how things are going, but you suddenly realize, I don't have the slightest clue who this guy is. At this point in the story there is a gap where I don't know exactly what happened. Sean called Felicia a bitch, and things escalated. Felicia walks off, sits down somewhere else. Felicia, being very pleasant and friendly normally tried to avoid her dark side from coming out by removing herself from the situation. Sean walks up to Felicia with open arms. He was going to hug her to apologize but she didn't look up at him. Felicia, sitting with her arms crossed tells him sternly but calmly "Don't touch me ." So Sean pops off at the mouth, "Well fuck you bitch!"
Felicia grabs a bottle and broke it over the bar and walked around to where he was at that point. I can just imagine tiny pieces of glass flying through the air, catching the light as they flew, and the sound of the breaking glass echoing in the small bar. She was talking to me about all this last night. She told me that when she looked at him, all she could see was red. All she could see when she looked at him was blood. We laughed about it but she made it clear that there was nothing funny about it and I think she embarrassed herself slightly by behaving the way she did last Friday night. As a joke, some of the regulars removed all glass items from the bar top a couple nights ago to play a joke on her. I wish I was in to see her face. I would have been on the floor, red in the face.
Never a dull moment. I'm sitting at the desk at the bank where I work. The skeleton crew is here for this dead Saturday. We're here until one. Currently, the lobby is empty. The tellers are twirling their thumbs, and George Michael is singing from above for an audience of five employees. I'm drinking water. I'm thinking about what I will do after work. Nothing comes to mind, so I guess sleep would be in order. Normally on days this dead, I would pull up the sex offender registry online and see which members are on it. You can even search by zip code to pull up offenders in your vacinity. You would be really surprised to see the people on that list. Some of them don't seem to fit the mold. I even saw a woman on there one time. The reason I mention this is because one of our members on the list just walked in. Everyone has access to this information but hardly anyone thinks to look it up.
I didn't drink too much but the bartender gave me one more than I really cared for or could've cared for. I hadn't been out in a little while, so I found myself easily tanked, and even more easily amused. I heard a great story that I don't know how I missed out on, other than the fact that I must've left early that night. Evidently last Friday, Felicia (the kitchen cook at the bar) had it out with this regular who I'll just call "Sean" for the purposes of this story. Sean came into the bar and Felicia just finished ripping this guy Joe apart telling him how he was a slut and a whore, and how he was sick to be messing with this young kid who had been coming into the bar for a month or so. Joe had turned so many shades of red and had just put his head down and tried to smile it off but it was painfully obvious that he just had his ass handed to him in front of everyone at the bar. Felicia was just on a roll. Everyone was laughing and screaming. If there's one thing I love, it's a strong black woman who knows who she is. Felicia has lived many places and she's been brought up very tough, but overall, she is one amazing woman. Sean comes into the bar and Felicia starts on him, but she was not overly unkind. She was half-joking although it's a given that Sean isn't that well-liked by others and her words were probably from the heart. Sean is nice to everyone but can be rather annoying. He will treat you like a best friend, ask you how things are going, but you suddenly realize, I don't have the slightest clue who this guy is. At this point in the story there is a gap where I don't know exactly what happened. Sean called Felicia a bitch, and things escalated. Felicia walks off, sits down somewhere else. Felicia, being very pleasant and friendly normally tried to avoid her dark side from coming out by removing herself from the situation. Sean walks up to Felicia with open arms. He was going to hug her to apologize but she didn't look up at him. Felicia, sitting with her arms crossed tells him sternly but calmly "Don't touch me ." So Sean pops off at the mouth, "Well fuck you bitch!"
Felicia grabs a bottle and broke it over the bar and walked around to where he was at that point. I can just imagine tiny pieces of glass flying through the air, catching the light as they flew, and the sound of the breaking glass echoing in the small bar. She was talking to me about all this last night. She told me that when she looked at him, all she could see was red. All she could see when she looked at him was blood. We laughed about it but she made it clear that there was nothing funny about it and I think she embarrassed herself slightly by behaving the way she did last Friday night. As a joke, some of the regulars removed all glass items from the bar top a couple nights ago to play a joke on her. I wish I was in to see her face. I would have been on the floor, red in the face.
Never a dull moment. I'm sitting at the desk at the bank where I work. The skeleton crew is here for this dead Saturday. We're here until one. Currently, the lobby is empty. The tellers are twirling their thumbs, and George Michael is singing from above for an audience of five employees. I'm drinking water. I'm thinking about what I will do after work. Nothing comes to mind, so I guess sleep would be in order. Normally on days this dead, I would pull up the sex offender registry online and see which members are on it. You can even search by zip code to pull up offenders in your vacinity. You would be really surprised to see the people on that list. Some of them don't seem to fit the mold. I even saw a woman on there one time. The reason I mention this is because one of our members on the list just walked in. Everyone has access to this information but hardly anyone thinks to look it up.
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