Thu, 19 May 2005

Everything Is Wrong With Me
First, you won’t believe me, but who even cares, because that’s not the point; the point here is, well, I better start at the beginning if I have any hope of ever getting to that.

Like all beginnings, this one starts in a roller rink.

“Okay, this one’s for the couples only, no singles out on the rink at this time,” said The Man At The Top Of The Booth, who had been torturing us all night with Air Supply and Foreigner songs despite our pleas for Slayer.

“DUUUUUUUDE! ANGEL OF DEATH!”

“Sorry, gents, this one’s meant for the young lovers out there,” which obviously didn’t include us. Most likely it was Seth’s idea to get tanked on cornhusker vodka and go roller skating — real roller skating, mind you, none of that pansy rollerblading action, we’re talking strictly ‘78 roller boogie time. And that’s what we thought we were in for; we stayed up all last night popping unmarked pills and watching across 115th street, car wash and the Mack in preparation for what we thought was gonna be a disco inferno, but we forgot that the ’70s had a whole ‘nother musical dark side to it.

“NOOOOOO! NOT REO SPEEDWAGON!” screamed Ana, which was enough to get her sent to the penalty box beneath the Tower Of Suffering for five minutes. Something had to be done, and fast. We had already blown what little cover we had when jimmy cheerios slammed into a wall after trying to speed-jump to the snack bar, so all eyes were on us. We went to the mini-arcade and played centipede and the journey video game whilst we whipped up a plan.

The DJ had to pee sometime. It was just inevitable. And we knew he didn’t just have a piss-bottle stashed away or the board of health woulda closed this place down long ago (it eventually did, by the way, but that’s after the fact). we stood on the bench to the left, pouring water from glass to glass and making gurgling noises. This eventually paid off, but we hadn’t decided who was going to be the intrepid soul willing to climb up and take control of the floor. Unfortunately, before we could say no, our old friend fast eddie satan scurried up the ladder, at which point all we could do was look confused.

Ed began to spin the record (“escape”, better known as “the pina coloda song”) faster and faster, sending the skating couples around the rink faster and faster. People began to look afraid, and a few were obviously out of control. “SKATEN ODER TOT, SCHWEINHUNDERN!” screamed Ed in his best pig-German as the young lovers enacted meth-soaked brownian movement, and finally the din broke into the raunchy version of “love to love you, baby”, which had those skaters still up and ambulatory gyrating and swooning like a pheromone experimentation lab.

Ed jumped out of the booth and flew the fifteen feet down to the floor, where he quietly said “my work here is done” and left, as did Seth, carrying the passed-out jimmy over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Ana, Julia and I stayed to watch the young suburban teens learn to master the pre-rut dance, and eventually the heat got to me and I passed out.

The DJ was fired the next day.
(12:12.05.19.2005) [/alpha] #