Folk Tales On Postcards # 1

“The Projectionist”

Like any true student of the wild I loved to drink. And when I drank, I loved to fight. Not just anyone, mind you. No, no. That wouldn’t do. Had a certain type I preferred to fill the quota with and I wasn’t happy if my quota wasn’t met after beer fifteen.

Polo shirts with popped collars. Heads full of hair gel. Sperry boat shoe wearing motherfuckers. The ones who used and treated women like shit. But mean. When I stepped up to one of those glow in the dark, bleached teeth assholes for the sole purpose to press pain and laugh, and sing profane sacrifice to ceilings blocking my sky-MY SKY!

Fake men as these, had to be the kick below the belt vicious fucking types. Hidden under World’s Greatest Golfer sun visors. Their only idea of outdoor adventure. Pathetic sure but no back downs. No cowards full of gulps and step backs need apply. I called out the mean and the viscous. But maybe clowns willing to laugh back with me as we told bad jokes after with broken knuckles that no one would get but us.

Dark comedy.

The kind you don’t and won’t find funny. But the kind you’ll keep reading to see if I’m alright.

That’s the only way I could made it work. Justify and rationalize. They had to be just as ready and honored to be asked to this dance, this bash set to my watch by blameful bonfire as me. I knew it when I found them. Could see it through our haze. Heard it through the sounds of shitty local one man bands on stage in the corner. But see, I was clever. Fucking smelled the scent, those fighter’s pheromones. Bullseye like that broken dart board by the mirrors hanging by a thread. A kidnapped bat finally freed of the captivity in harsh light and reason to fly into the belfry of barflies, and blood, and bruised bone. Rushed before the rose of dawn or maybe just police sirens.

In those days some of them didn’t understand at first that I was much meaner than I looked. My sober look. Half me. Less than ten beers. Jovial and approachable. Actually kind. But then the clock ticked by my informal midnight and I’d speak and it was quite different.

Voice transformed. Mutated before me shakey and heightened but battle confident in knowing that what came next was nothing more than illegal, athletic abstraction upon concrete. Eyes cleared and stern, still in lupine green, and then they knew. Goddamn knew by chimes struck just godlike below the surface of blurry vision. Poorly planned out and executed. Inebriated Jackson Pollocks of the bloody noses spitting out our faults.

Me, of the five dollar all you can drink titans, demigod of the dimly lit, watered down bourbon weary and teary eyed, challenging false idols in shoes with no fucking socks. Tricking myself again. I had a quota to meet after all. And I always hit it. One hundred percent proof life was worth living my sock wearing friends with no collars and teeth that can hide in the darkness right along with me and the wolf I keep.