[the chicago chair incident]

Sarah and I broke up again. It was like the 5th time that year, and it was only early July. 3 days after Independence day to be exact. We were supposed to go up north to Traverse City, in the pinky finger of Michigan where most of my mother’s family lives. Her side was having the annual family reunion and I was going to bring my yuppie, fashionable, curvy, annoying, shoppaholic girlfriend. I don’t know that she was, really, ever my girlfriend. I mean we agreed to be in a committed relationship, but she made me hate myself so much for just being a crabby, judgmental complainer. We have a saying in Michigan between friends, “we complain a lot, because there is a lot to complain about.” But no dice. That wasn’t allowed. I mustn’t get annoyed with the fact that people are fucking retarded, and I don’t really like to waste my time with meaningless conversation about reality TV and sweaters. I was getting ready to head into work when I got the call.

“We need to talk”

“About what Sarah? Did you buy too many clothes again and max out your credit card?”

“Don’t be a dick” she responded.

I knew the end, again, was near, we reached our month and a half anniversary since the last time we broke up, when I freaked out, ran into the woods, and by woods I mean our rich friends parents beach house, to where I drank myself stupid, ate an entire pack of pep-to, and shit black for two days. We of course then got back together. I don’t know why. I was lonely and she… I think liked the idea of having a “metal” boyfriend or whatever label I got branded with because of my beard, tattoos and musical interests. It’s like that whole women secretly wanting to fix the bad boy ideal, that James Dean bullshit. Not that I was a bad boy, or needed to be fixed, as much as she just didn’t really love me, as much as she thought it would just be cool to date me. I just liked to smell her.

“I think we need to break up” she said.

“Again? Why? what the hell did I do this time?”

“It was what you don’t do” she said”

“Huh? What I don’t do? What the fuck don’t I do?”

“You don’t do anything”. “You whine and complain about your photography work. You complain about your job, which I got you.” she continued.

“Yes Sarah, you got me a job at a restaurant. Thanks. Also thanks for giving me heads up that you’ve fucked every dude that works there. That’s bullshit.” I snarled.

“Oh get over it, it’s in the past.” She responded, as usual.

“Right. Except I have to work with them. It’s kind of gross. I don’t bring around chicks I've fucked, and rubbed them in your face. That’s rude.”

“Whatever. We are breaking up. I can’t deal with your shit anymore. I can’t deal with you sitting around not doing anything and complaining about it as the world passes you by. You are so talented and not doing shit about it. This is over for good.”

All I could muster was, “Well thank you for dumping me right before I have to go to work.”

“Fuck you, everything is always about you isn’t it? She snapped. I could tell she was really getting pissed.

“Well, I am an only child. I don’t know any better.” I responded, while pouring myself a drink.

“No, you are an idiot, I have to go. This is over.” She lashed.

Then she hung up.

I made myself a drink, vodka and lemonade. It kind of tasted like Comet Cleanser, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to feel anything but what I was feeling. I threw up my heart into the toilet before I left, and headed out the door. It was about a 25 minute walk to the shitty restaurant, back in this shitty town, she so politely got me a job at.

I met Sarah on the internet…more or less. I had moved to Georgia from Michigan about a year and half before this latest break up. I had to get out of Michigan, it was killing me being there, and I needed a change of pace, so I packed up and moved to Athens, GA, to play in a band there. From Ann Arbor to Athens. From one stupid college town full of trust fund kids than can afford to sit around and not have jobs, and live the American Dream of not working, partying all the time, and making shitty art and passing it off as genius. Because really, what the fuck did they have to worry about? Isn’t that it? The American Dream? To have rich parents, so they pay for everything and you don’t have worry about shit? I don’t know, but I hated Georgia. The people were nice, and it was very cheap, but not for me. It’s the type of place people go to be lazy, because you can afford to be lazy. Too slow of a pace for myself. I had been talking with some friends, and they mentioned that this woman Sarah, thought I was adorable, which I am of course. Me being the lonely hopeless romantic that I was, naturally fell in love with her without knowing so much as to what she even looked like. They gave me her contact info, and we started a correspondence, and planned to go on a date when I was home for thanksgiving. Ironically enough, the first time I talked to her, another woman I had a very troubled and masochistic past with, was in Atlanta visiting me for Halloween.

Creepy Karla and I have a wicked love / hate relationship. I think that more than likely we will end up killing each other. Seriously. I think that one of us will get the taste of blood and go all the way and actually kill the other one, play in their blood, and then get famous for writing about it just like Issei Sagawa. However on this trip, she wasn’t really putting out, because knowing her, she was pissed at whatever of her various boyfriends she had, and ran away for a few days to come and blue-ball me. Insecurities make people do hilarious things. So I was delighted to get an email from this new prospect of love and happiness. A strong, yet delicate Princess, who will magically whisk me away and make me forget all my problems. She said something cute, and I wrote back something charming, and Creepy Karla was straightening her hair talking about what bar we were going to go to first, because that’s pretty much all we do, is drink and eat Mexican food, which I'm not complaining about because I love both, but I also really wanted to bone her, but that apparently wasn’t happening, so I had to divert my attention elsewhere.

A few weeks later I was home for thanksgiving and I met up with Sarah for our blind date. She wore this soft Robert Englund looking sweater, and smelled amazing. Her eyes were so soft. I walked up the steps to her front porch and instantly fell in love with her. She gave me a hug and I knew I was in trouble. She even bought me dinner, so I had an immediate stiffy. That was probably the most enjoyable date I ever had with her. It was all down hill from there. We hung out for a few days, and the hooks in each other were set. It was young love. It was adventurous. It was completely not capable of working. Within 2 weeks of being back in Georgia, Sarah informed me that she had vacation time that she needed to eat up, and that she was going to drive down to Athens, help me pack up my shit, and move me back to Michigan because I was so miserable, and she wanted to help. She even told me I could live with her, and she would help me find a job. I apparently found my dream mom… I mean girlfriend. Two days before my birthday, she arrived. She looked different than I remember, but she was still adorable and had this smile that just killed me. The kind that just makes me feel helpless and like I am five, waiting for her to pick me up and kiss me on the forehead. The kind that makes me scared to even talk for fear of saying to wrong thing, and her leave me. The kind of smile that could literally make my dick fall off, look up at me, laugh and run away screaming “you will never be a real man!”. They were pouty lips, and just the right length. They weren’t too thick, and not too thin. They were soft against my lips and were always so warm. It was all she needed to get whatever she wanted. I'm pretty sure she made it through college by just smiling at her male professors. Not that she was dumb, she was smart, and wrote exceptionally well, and was incredibly organized, but fuck all that. All she did was have to smile and dudes would do anything for her, and now she was here to move me back do the dirty glove, the place a year before I was so desperate to leave. Now I was going back, to face “reality” with this woman, whom I barely knew, and was heads over heels for. Someone whom I’d know for only 2 months, and had spent less than a collective of 48 hours with. But fuck it. It felt right. It felt like I was leaving Georgia, because I was.

I think the guilt of her rescuing me played a big part in my feeling like I had to be with her. I hated pretty much everything she did, and said. I hated her ideas, I hated her interests. I hated her opinions. I hated her taste in film, and music. I hated that everything I was into she pretended to be into. I hated that she didn’t want to do anything I was into, even though she pretended she cared. (redundant I know.) She dressed well though, and has a great sense of fashion, but what the fuck does that mean when one’s personality is based solely on projecting an image for others to “buy” or think you have. She’s one of those people who takes a degenerate such as myself, and figures out a way to market and sell this drunk rock and roll lifestyle to a bunch of other white, yuppies who are too scared to actually participate in a world that might not be approved by the head of rich white people, whomever the fuck that is. Be it her dad, or her boss, or the snobs she hangs out with, or even God. Even though… I'm pretty sure God is ok with rock and roll, and could really be stoked about people getting together and enjoying each other, I mean we are human, and that’s what separates us from running with the animals. That’s the whole point right? Besides, this seems way more positive, than shopping, or anything about capitalism in general. But you know, a nice pair of $500 jeans or $1000 shoes are way more wholesome than going to the Irock on the eastside of Detroit to watch some metal bands with “weird names” play and share their love of mythology, mysticism and the wonders of the universe over a couple of beers. It’s not the people that question who get paid, it’s the people that don’t question. People like myself are so busy thinking about shit, that we don’t have the attention to realize we could get rich off just being ourselves. However, people like Sarah, they know that because they don’t have any original thoughts, they can just throw 40 years of core tattoo history on a t-shirt and sell it to some fucking Guido from Long Island, or Jersey. But man, could she fuck. And she could get under my skin. I’ve never met anyone in my life that I loathed being around so much, but couldn’t stand to be apart from. I don’t know if it was love, or loneliness or that she just smelled so good that I couldn’t get her scent off me. All I know is it was a lose / lose situation and our plane was going down in flames rapidly, and repeatedly. We broke up the first time right around Valentines day. I spaced on this day, because I was busy mailing cemetery flowers, and a fake dead baby in a zip lock bag full of blood, to creepy Karla. That was one of the more romantic things I’ve ever done. I was also distracted because this cute Russian Jew chick I am old old friends with, got me really stoned and took me to this erotic art show in Detroit were she had some work on display and then surprised me with a pint of jack daniels and a desired to make me her Valentine. Valerie is amazing. She’s like the type of chick that you almost shouldn’t like because she looks like she’s 15, and you feel almost like a pervert for looking at her, even though she was pushing 25. She calls you daddy and always is whispering dirty stuff in your ear, while emanating her sweet vanilla scent. I did the “right” thing, and told her I had to go, and that I’d have to take a rain check. This of course, unintentionally sunk my hooks into her hard. I bailed and went over to Sarah’s to make a game plan on how to handle Valentines day. I was stoned and fell asleep watching Rambo.

“Sometimes I wake up and I don't know where I am. And I don't talk to anybody. Sometimes, a day. Sometimes, a week. Can't put it out of my mind.” I awoke to “It’s a Long Road” by Dan Hill blasting out of the TV. Fuccck! I thought. I'm gonna have to make dinner soon before she gets home from work. But what you have to realize is, that in Detroit, you cant just “go to a grocery store” because…well there aren’t any. Because there isn’t anything. Anywhere. Because its Detroit, and only fucking retards live downtown, or white people who want to say they live there, in-between getting their cars stolen every other week in the name in hipster blindness. Needless to say, after driving around for and hour and a half, and not getting anywhere, she called and said she was on her way home. I however, I had a back up plan. I really thought I did an ok job by suggesting we go to the bar we went to on our first date. This was not so romantic to her as she called me out on my bullshit attempt to rectify the situation after I promised her I would make dinner.

“I heard Sarah dumped you?” Cole, my surrogate little sister said calling to check up on me.

“yeah she did.” I melodramatically responded

“but then she got back together with you after you took her out for fried chicken and waffles?!” she laughed with question.

“yep!!!!!!” I laughed aloud.

“you are the only person I know that can win a girl back with fried chicken” Cole said, with that slight sarcasm, that indicates, though I can’t see her over the phone, I know she is shaking her head.

“thanks Cole. I do what I can”. I replied, proud of myself. Proud that, Yes, I took my yiuppie ex- girlfriend out to a friend chicken dinner, and she decided that I wasn’t so bad after all.

That lasted about a month before shit went down again, and my puppy dog head needed to be petted, and now here I was walking to work, pounding vodka as fast as I could. It was hot out and unbearably humid. Michigan is always soo humid. Not like Georgia, were it’s so hot alight. It gets so hot that it doesn’t even seem humid. Michigan is just shitty mosquito humid. I was trying to not break down because of the again break up, when I passed a tree. A tree that has never done anything to me, however it was there and so was my first, to meet against the trunk, and I yelled fuck! Because punching trees solves nothing. All in all, I'm not sure what I thought I’d gain with Sarah. Maybe it was because I liked the idea of having a responsible, hot, classy girlfriend with no personality or impulsions, someone who is completely driven by money and social status. Maybe deep down inside I lusted for that too. However, that conflicted with my whole ethics of “fuck the system” or whatever bullshit ideal I had of what counter culture was. I wasn’t going against the grain, I really wanted no part of the yuppies, or the punks or the hippies or whatever. I don’t really think any of them are right. I just want to see the world and meet the occasional people I meet and live my life from day to day as my mortality allows. That’s not a lot to ask for.

I walked into the kitchen of the restaurant I worked at. Matt, Sarah’s ex, who was the also the night manager was standing there.

“OH HI MATT” I yelled across the kitchen.

“are you drunk?” he politely asked.

“FUCK YEAH I AM! Can I bum a cigarette? “ I shot back.

“uhhh…I guess…you don’t smoke.” He said looking me up and down.

“Give me a fucking cigarette Matt.” I said, lowering my face, but still looking forward into his eyes.

He handed over a smoke, and I lit it in the kitchen, he just stared at me longer.

“what the hell is wrong with you?” he asked.

I just stared back him, probably looking like I was ready to slice his throat.

“oh…did Sarah dump you again?” he asked.

With out saying anything, I smiled, turned around and headed back out the door. But not before punching my fist through the drywall adjacent to the door.

“How drunk are you?” he slowly said, obviously not wanting to deal with me.

“Matt….I am a host at this piece of shit bar and grill. My girlfriend just dumped me. We are like you know, equals or something. I can work. I'm not like Tim who keeps a pint of vodka in his wait apron because He's trying to drink his gay away.” I spat back.

“Hey man, I’m really sorry, I know how much she means to you. That really sucks. Is there anything I can do? Maybe you should take the night off.” He said.

“MAYBE YOU SHOULD TAKE THE NIGHT OFF!!!” I yelled back at him.

Rick, a band mate of mine, and co-worker, walked upon our conversation and took one look at me.

“oh shit, did Sarah dump you again?” he said, wincing.

“FUCK YOU RICK.” I screamed back.

“I…I'm sorry dude. “ he said quietly.

I sat down in the alley behind the restaurant.
I looked through my phone thinking of who to call.
Who to call….who to call…..who to call….

PHIL.
OH FUCK.

Ringringringring.

“Hello?”

“PHIL!!!!! OHEEEYYYSUP. HOW ARE YOUS MANNNN?!” I slurred.

“oh hey dude….are, are you wasted?” he questioned.

“Oh shits yeah mang, I just, uh, well Sarah, shesa asas she dumped me again. You. Yoou wanna go to to Chicago this weekend?”
All I could think of, as she is always my escape plan with Sarah, is creepy Karla and her warm caress. Her crazy polish eyes. Her love for blood and horror movies and stuff that we bonded over that would gross most people out.

“uh….ok? sure. I’ve got nothing to do.” He confirmed.

I explained to him her dumping me, and how we were supposed to go to the family reunion together and blah blah. I told him to pick me up Thursday and we would rage for the weekend and I would try and get my dick wet with Creepy Karla.

I called Brad, who had moved to Chicago a few years previous, and made arrangements to crash with him. As for work… Fuck this place. I told Matt I was leaving and walked out. Fuck that job anyways. I think he was probably stoked I just left, as we didn’t get along usually, but for some reason he was strangely sympathetic. Maybe because he had been through the same shit with her before.

The rest of the week drunkenly came and went, and Phil came to pick me up for another debaucherous trip to Chicago. It was hot out, so we stocked up on water and weed. I had no idea what I wanted to come out of this weekend, other than I just needed to get away. I was running. I was running quickly, and had no intention of looking back. I just wanted her out of my head, out of my heart and out of my life. I wanted to just wake up and have her never existed. I was more upset at myself, for allowing myself to become so insecure, so weak, so childlike, that I beat myself up so much that I could barely stand. All because I wasn’t some lame dude with a steady job, a collard shirt, some frosty tip hair and a flavor-savor soul patch. I am an adult, so if I'm going to have facial hair, I'm going to have FUCKING FACIAL HAIR! Phil and I dorked out to new bands. Each one of us trading off tracks from new records we had acquired. He had just gotten divorced, and was in a weird place. While being married, and having a daughter he grew apart from his friends, and I think just needed some sort of release. Some sort of adventure. So of course we became friends, and instigators into retardation. The typical things that good friends do for each other. I had only known him a few months. We met during the memorial day retreat to Brad’s rich ass parents house, where we bonded over weed, babes and our mutual love for Richard Kern. He is a writer and is into Muy Thai. I have to say Phil has kept himself in great shape over the years, and has a temper as equally unbalanced to my own, so we are a pretty good duo of shit talk and limited patients.

We stopped at a BBQ joint a bit off the beaten path. A spot just classy enough to take the date you just met at the truck stop a few miles previous on the highway. I was trying to eat healthy and got some gay salad, which was silly. Here I am eating salad and Phil, whom is pretty ripped is pounding ribs. I sank into my half of the booth and wondered what dude Sarah was doing. I had always convinced myself she was out with other guys, all the time. This of course was not true. It was my own guilt of constantly hitting on, or banging other chicks behind her back because I secretly hated her, and that got projected on her, and some how in my head she was doing all the shit that I was really doing. It’s fucked up how people’s perceptions can get skewed when young, lonely, and desperate. We finished eating and had a brief chat with the waitress, who was considerably good looking, given we were in no where Michigan, off I-94, halfway between the yuppie college towns and Chicago, a town whose name comes from a French mutation of a Miami-Indian word meaning “skunk”. Ironic only because the town is built around a body of water that is constantly polluted, and lends itself to the shit show nature of its inhabitants, and here I am running to Chicago to escape Michigan, just like all the people who live there have, but they stayed, rather than just go to binge for a few days. Suckers. After some weed and jams, and lots of filling Phil in on all the things wrong between Sarah and I, and why I need this pilgrimage of self loathing so badly, we finally reach Brad’s apartment and unloaded our bodies from the car. It’s about 6 o’clock, and we get cleaned up for the evening. I decide I am going to shave, and be fresh, because I am going to try and get some Chicago strange. The funny thing about desperation is, when you care about how desperate you are, things never work out the way you want them do.

“Chuck is working the Police reunion show tonight” Brad says, “so he won’t meet up with us until later. Chuck is a paramedic, and was on call at the Police reunion show, incase shit went down. It’s fucked up that he is a paramedic. Chuck likes to drink. A LOT. It’s I guess comparable to the idea that David Lee Roth is a paramedic. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I have complete faith in Chuck that he is great at his job, I know he is. But being friends with him… and knowing him outside of his ambulance is fucked up.

We hit up rock star dog and got some wieners. There is something to be said about hot dogs covered in a bunch of weird stuff that isn’t normally on hot dogs, and then named after bands. We then headed to start the night at Estelle’s. A step above a dive, but still good punk jukebox and decent clientele. I was trying to hold it together and not be that guy that cries about how he just got dumped and to related every single thing that happens around him to something that happened with his girlfriend.

“THIS CUP OF COFFEE RIGHT HERE. REMINDS ME OF THAT TIME THAT WE DID THIS. AND THE DID THIS. AND THEN WE DID THIS AND BLAH BLAH”

“THIS CIGARETTE REMINDS ME OF THE TIME WE WERE AT THIS BAR AND WE WERE SHARING A CIGARETTE AND SHE LOOKED AT ME AND I LOOKE BACK AT HER AND THEN SHE LOOKED AT ME, AND IT WAS AWESOME…...”

We had a few beers and waited for the rest of the Chicago gang to get there. They were all Brad’s friends, who had become my friends over the years, and its nice to have a group of people whom you know ok enough, to just go hide and share with only what you want, but don’t need to get over the ice breaker awkwardness of so….what do you do….where are you from…. You can just hang out, and do your thing and medicate. I was trying to pace myself, but it wasn’t working. I did a shot with Brad. Then I did a shot with Drew. Then I did a shot with Phil. I wore sandals because it was hot out. That was probably a bad idea, because I kept stubbing my toes on everything. Chuck had just gotten off work and we went to the bar he was at.
There were a couple of prospects, but I couldn’t really bring myself to be social enough to get a girl to pay attention to me, and the whole “whoa is me I just got dumped please love me” routine is a slippery slope. Creepy Karla had to work, so she couldn’t come play. I began my drunken onslaught of trying to be cute via text message, which probably was more annoying than anything. I kept checking my phone ever 45 seconds to see if any girls were paying attention to my simple need for attention.

Drinks and drinks and things and things. You know how those nights are, where time slips away and no one quite knows where it goes. Change of location and people are starting to fade. Erin and Abby decide to go home. Some more beers please, and a little less past memories.

“Stop haunting me now / Cant shake you no how / just leave me alone” Billie holiday sang to me in my head. I stared out the front window of the bar, assuming that Sarah was fucking ten dudes at once, because she just happens to have that many holes.

“Maybe we should call Jess” Chuck says.

“Fuck you dude.” I reply.

Chuck and Erin moved to Chicago together a year previous to this. About the same time as another ex of mine did. Out of the kindness of my heart, I set her up with my friends, so she wouldn’t be alone. She of course fucked Chuck. Erin dumped Chuck, and there was a little bit of tension between everyone, because I choice to do something nice for someone who did nothing but waste my time, and always need me to take care of her.

I didn’t give a shit about Jess, but it did bother me that Chuck fucked her. Mostly because to him it was just another chick. But I dated her, and I had some emotional attachment to her, whether I wanted it or not, and that wasn’t going anywhere. I was secretly pissed. I was growing drunker and the monster inside me was starting to wake up. I was starting to run my mouth off. A dude at the bar bumped into me and I threw some elbow into him. “Shaaheeey waaatch it faggot” I yelled at him. He turned around as if he was going to step to me. Chuck and Phil were standing right there, and he took one look at us and apologized. I was starting to get that itch. You know like when you just need a release. Need to ease some tension. I was looking for things that weren’t there. Did that guy really just bump into me? Or did I just want to knock him out because Sarah dumped me, Chuck fucked my ex and I was just generally a miserable person?

“I think we are gonna head home, here is our house key” Brad said. He and his girlfriend were packing it in for the night.

“sayyya. I dontt thinksd we arewss gonna be outads much lateras dude.” I slur back.

“haha whatt? don’t be dumb.”

“Mee? I'm never dump. Err. Fuck you Brad.” I force out.

“ahh maybed wes should go home too" as I spit on the ground, turning to Phil.

“Ok, yeah maybe we should” he says, and we all walk outside.

It's pretty late. I would guess 3am.

A warm summer night. Me in my stupid sandals, and everyone is wasted. We head east down W. Chicago blvd and walk past The Continental. Chuck peers in the front window.

"Maybe we should get one more shot and some road beers" he announces.

My body is telling me no, but my mind. My mind is telling me yes.

"yeahh Chuck, letssss do that!" I shout.

Phil puts his head down laughing and agrees. Chuck walks up the bar and orders 3 shots of crown, and 3 bud lites. We pound the shots. I spin around. Wait… no my head spins around. Wait… no. My brain spins around. Something is spinning around. My feet haven’t moved. Ok. I’m standing in the same spot.

"YOU GUYS STOP MOVING" I yell.

"Just put your beer in your pocket" Chuck instructs.

"SOKKKAY" I respond.

We walk outside and down the block The Village Pizza sign is glowing like the land of antiquity.

"WE NEED PIZZA" I scream, thinking that pizza will soak up some of the failure to keep up with life.

The lights are bright as we walk in. Almost so bright that an asshole would put sun-glasses on to look at the illuminated menu.

"HAWAIIAN PIZZA PLEASE. LOTS OF BACON!!!" I yell at the casher.
He grins and acknowledges my demand. It's late enough that the heat has died down, and it’s beautiful outside. Rather than sit inside and eat, we take our feast outside to the patio tables, right next to the parking lot. There are 3 white patio tables. Each about 6 feet across. They are all in a row. Each table has 4 wooden folding chairs. We choose the northern most table. We unsystematically chose our seats. I chose the seat closest to me, which is at the southwest edge of the table. Chuck sits to my left, however, leaving one of the wooden folding chairs in-between us. Phil sits directly across from me. If you were to section the table off, we would be making a perfect 90degree triangle. We don’t so much as utter a word as we dig into our pizza. A small group sits down at the table next to us. I am huddled over my food eating as fast as I can. The group that has now entered our pizza sanctuary consists of one beautiful dark haired female, approximately 25 years old. She is wearing a dark blue shirt showing off her midriff, has decent breasts, and sharp cheekbones. She sits down on the north east side of their table. With her, is a rather portly male, roughly the same age. He is wearing a white shirt, thin rimmed glasses, and Chicago cubs baseball cap. He with a thud, sits down heavily right next to me. Across from the portly man, there a third male, also about the same age, is at least 6"5', and ripped as fuck. This individual is huge. Tight black shirt, slicked back hair, and looks like he could be the girls boyfriend. He sits directly in-between the other two, on the south east side of their table, and is the furthest person from me. Conversation between us continues and our neighbors begin their own conversation.
Our conversation is interrupted by a burst of the fat one yelling "I don’t give a fuck where she is from, fuck Montreal, I can’t stand French Canadians."

We all look up at each other and exchange glances that speak of "why does this man hate Canada? It is so cheap and people are so friendly".

"Whaaa Whets wrong with Montreal?" I ask.

The fat man turns around and says "it’s full of French Canadians, and what the fuck do you care?"

"Well ssss sisir, I have a good friend who is FFFFrench Canadian, and sssshe is from Montreal" I smoothly respond looking him in the eye.

"Good for you. Fuck them." he responds.

My tolerance for life is wearing thin, and I look directly across the table at Phil, who is commenting to the brunette girl on how her beautiful eyes. The large ripped guy is not paying any attention while he eats. I slowly pull my pocketknife out of my right pocket as I chew on my slice. I whip out the blade and stab it into the table next to my plate, and calmly say, "You know I would never get into a fight with food on my plate."

Chuck looks at me like "what the fuck dude".

Phil acknowledges me and says "of course not"

I take the last bite of crust, slowly standing up.
The fat man behind me, looks up from his food, and our eyes meet.
Phil’s face follows my hands.
Chuck’s eyes meet mine.

I look up at the sky. It is a city midnight blue. The orange of the streetlights blind the stars, but I know that they are there.

I reach to my left and slowly pick up the folding chair.

I turn towards this fat man, who has insulted a city I've never been too. A man who has insulted a friend that I haven’t talked to in years. A man who's only existence at this moment in time, is to try and destroy any humanity I have left in my thin lonely soul.

As the chair rises above my head, Phil’s eyes bulge out of his face. Chuck slowly stands up behind me. The girls perfect lips on her perfect mouth spread open as her jaw drops. The large ripped man is still sitting. The fat man is still fat.

As I bring the chair down, there is not one thought in my head. For a second, there is no Sarah. There is no desperation. There is no strife. There is no money. There is no hunger. There is stress. There is no fleeting photography career. There is only an empty canvas, in which any thing is possible. There is clarity. There is only me. This chair.,, and this fat mans head.

The chair came down over this mans head with most likely the most amount of force my drunk young arms could initiate. The bottom right leg caught his cheek bone and blood sprayed through the air like it was a garden hose spraying water all over the sunflowers that grew in my neighbors yard back in Michigan.

I looked up as the chair left my hands and shattered into countless pieces over this innocently guilty man.

The large ripped man flew across the table. He looked like super man, with his right fist clenched flying through the air, and in one leap connected his fist with my face. He suddenly had on a cape.

I heard the brunette scream.

My knees gave out under me and I slowly fell backwards, a parking lot light blinding me from what bomb I just dropped on the pizza shop. My head hit the pavement and rattled me sober. I sat up and felt warm blood running down my right arm.

The fat man was on the ground with blood all over his face.

The girl was hysterically screaming, and still looked beautiful.
The large ripped man had Phil on the ground punching him in the head.

"WHAT THE FUCK" he yelled!

Chuck jumped through the air knocking the large ripped man off of Phil.

JAIL!
YOU ARE GOING TO JAIL YOU FUCKING RETARD!!
SARAH WILL NEVER LOVE YOU IF YOU ARE IN JAIL!!

RUN!
YOU RUN NOW!!
YOU RUN NOW YOU FUCKING RETARD!!

I bolted.
The part of my brain that has some common sense told the other part of my brain who was fucked up and sad to run.

I ran.
I ran and ran and ran.
I fell.
I rolled into the street.
One cannot run in sandals when heavily intoxicated, especially after being punched in the face.

RUN!!!!!!!!!

I ran some more.
I finally lost my breath and collapse, at what I thought was a safe distance away. I crawled behind a dumpster in someone's backyard. I could hear the police. I could hear the dogs. I could hear the search helicopter.

"HEY FUCKING RETARD WHERE ARE YOU?!?! " they yelled.

The noise of the pursuit was making me deaf.

My cell phone rang.
I in astonishment pulled it out of my pocket, unbroken.
The caller ID said "Phil Day"

"Hell, hello?" I said.

"WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?" he laughed into the phone.

"Youuauah dddddon’t understandsss Phil!! PHILL it’sssss aaah casssss of Sarah. Whyyyyy won’t ssssshe love me? Whyssss she she she beeeing so meannnn?!"

"WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?" he screamed at me.

"IIIIIIIII am a sosssssorry Phil. It’ssssss casssss ooof Sarah! She makes me so so so sad" I said.

"FUCK HER" he yelled.

"Chuck, Chuck proooobably already did" I responded.

"DUDE WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?!" he asked again.

"I......I dont knowww. I'mmmma behindddd a dumpsterrrrr."

"Stay there. We are coming to find you."

"Okay." I laid down. I was probably lying on used condoms, and needles or some discharged baby, anything the gross streets of Chicago barfed and swept behind this dumpster. Anything at this point was better than jail.

I don’t know how Phil and Chuck found me, but they did.
The pulled me up and dusted me off, in that way that only happens in cartoons. I was fading in an out.

"Let me see your arm" Chuck said.

He pulled a few long bandages out of his cargo shorts pocket he happened to have on him from working the Police show, and fixed up my arm.

“Imma soo soo soo sorry” I slurred.

Phil had a black eye. Chuck had some small cuts on his face.

“It’s because of her!!!..................I’m so so sorry guys…….I don’t wanna go to jail!!!” I wailed.

Phil was dying laughing.

“Whaaaaaaasssssssss soo funny?” I trembled.

“You smashed a chair over that dudes head, for NO reason. That other dude supermaned the table, punched you out, and the next thing we know you are GONE.”

“I’mmmmm sooo sooo sorry” I cried.

“Shut up” yelled Phil.

“Listen” he explained “So the big dude has me on the ground punching me, and we just kind of at the same time are like….wait….why are we fighting?” and the dude gets off me and is all like ‘ where did your bro go?’

Chuck butts in “we were just like, dude! didn’t even know that dude!!!, we met him at the bar, and he wanted pizza, and we wanted pizza, so we came and got pizza together, and now we are beating the shit out of each other because of some dude that we didn’t know, that took off running.”

“Whaaat?” I said, trying to understand what he was saying.

“I was just like, FUCK THAT” Chuck continued, “We were all like, we are gonna find that kid and kick the shit out of him, because he got us in this shit?”

“Wait wait wait wait.” I stammered “You told the big dude that you didn’t know me, and that I wanted pizza?”

“Yeah” Chuck and Phil said together.

“Why?” I asked.
“So he wouldn’t come find you and pound the shit out of you for breaking a chair over his friends head!” Chuck yelled.

“I’m so so sorry guys” I said in tears. “It’s all because of Sarah. I'm so sorry. I just lost it.”

“Shut up,” barked Phil. “I haven’t gotten to punch a dude in a long time”.

“But you have a black eye” I said.

“Who gives a shit!!! That was the most fun I've had in a long time!” Phil yelled, triumphant that some adventure finally came his way.

“But…but but…” I stammered.

“No buts. That shit was hilarious. You seemed so calm, and in a flash you fucking smashed that dude over the head!” Chuck laughed.

“Wait…is he ok?!” I was trying hard not to burst into tears.
“well… I mean, you fucked him up, and broke his glasses. About another inch up his cheek bone and you would have stuck the chair leg through is eye, and he’d probably be blind.”

I started balling.

“It’s all because of Sarah!” I cried. “I'm so so sorry!”

“Dude! Stop!” Phil said grabbing me.

“Look. You bolted. They were wasted. We are wasted. The cops didn’t come. You got away. That dude will be ok. We had fun. You had fun…..well you didn’t have fun. But seriously, that was the craziest shit I've seen in a long time.”

The birds began chirping.
The sun was rising.
I’ve seen more sun rises in Chicago than anywhere else in the world.