Dux

I’m leaving on a jet plane soon, and my mind is dust in the wind, and for proof I present State’s evidence number one: me coming inside tonight from work and grabbing Alex by the shoulders yelling, “99c beer! Woman! And it’s GOOD beer!”

State’s evidence number 2: a 24 ounce can of Steel Reserve 211 malt liquor.

State’s evidence number 3: me, passed out at the computer an hour later to screenshots of Juliet Binoche dressed as a wartime nurse in the English Patient, two small children bouncing on the bed next to me in slow motion.

I wake, and remember that the boy was being chased by giant roly-polys in a dream we both had. He likes little boy things, like bombs and fire and funny looking insects. Are praying mantises aliens? Yes, they crawled into my head last night and laid their spawn. That’s why my hands are cramped into claw-like appendages. It has nothing to do with the bottle of bourbon I drank. Rawrr! Coo-ool!

I had a week in the blogosphere out of my wildest fantasies, people who I never thought noticed me sent me emails, superstars I thought detested me added me to their blogrolls. Lovely, lovely girls complimented me in their corners of the Internest, and I respond to praise like an unneutered Irish Setter: tilting my head to the right and showing my lipstick.

Alex doesn’t understand when I say, “But I just have to show my appreciation to them! And it has to be something special, something that they’ll remember. I want them to tell their friends, ‘He got me that which every girl wants.’ That would be poetry, right?”

“Da. Eef by poetry you mean oral sex.”

“Well, i kinda didn't.”

/uncomfortable silence

“Wait, whom are we talking about?”

State’s evidence is the euphemism I use for the nonsense that comes out of my mouth. I feed off foolishness, because for so many years I lived in the dark hole I called my brooding intellect phase. I would seek out all those kids in class who raised their hands when asked, ‘Have you ever felt misunderstood.’ I would seek them out so I could tell them, ‘You don’t understand me.’ But not out loud. In a corner somewhere nursing wounds that would have healed fine long ago had I only stopped picking at them.

State’s evidence number 4: Next year we’re carving jackolanterns for Halloween but stuffing them with ground beef and cabbage, because of all the trauma we put my mother-in-law through. Imagine going to a foreign country and seeing people hang perfectly good Tilapias atop pike poles with lit sparklers hanging from the gills. For some people, pumpkins are food.

State’s evidence number 5: Eyedrops mixed with vodka.

State’s evidence number 6: Breakaway scarves. Use your imagination.

State’s evidence number 7: Cue the ducks.