tales from an agoraphobe.

All I wanted was to rent a couple of movies, buy cigarettes, have a drink at the bar and go home. I parked at a meter right in front of the video store, where the clerk was smoking a cigarette by the pillar. I still had my cigarette to finish, so I stayed out there with him. We both knew each other, but the neither of us said a word. It was awkward. He had seen me walk in there so many times by then.

I was looking for "Into The Wild," but they didn't have it. Instead, I rented "3:10 to Yuma" and "Inland Empire". Standing at the counter, waiting for the cashier to type in all my information, I didn't see the tub of licorice by my elbow. When I nudged my elbow, the tub of licorice spilled all over the floor, all 36 pieces. "Oh, fuck, fuck," I cried. The clerk whom I smoked with outside walked over and picked up everything. Embarrassed, I apologized, trying to make friends with everyone: they didn't seem to give a shit. I grabbed my videos and left the store. On the way to the bar, I stopped a gas station, just to buy a new pack of cigarettes, and as I was walking back to my car, a bum walked towards me; he was impossible to avoid. Before I had a chance to get inside the car, he gave his story about just getting out of prison and needing $70 to stay in a room for the night. Of course, I lied, saying that I had no more cash on me. All I wanted was to buy a pack of cigarettes and not be bothered.

On the way back home, I stopped at the bar three blocks from my apartment. The Forest had a parking lot with about 50 spaces. I parked at a space right in front of a liquor store. At the front door, the bouncer checked my driver's license. Judging from his looks, he thought that he was cooler than me, that sack of shit, that low-life piss-drinking motherfucking cocksucker. Walking past him, I heard a man yelling at me, from the left, coming from the liquor store, telling me not to park there, that the space was reserved for liquor store customers only. The clerk stood in front of my car, pointing at me. I sighed, rolled my eyes and said "oh my god". This piece of shit made me park in the next space over, where it didn't say "liquor store parking only". It said "laundromat parking only", and the space next to that said "dr. office parking only". The only space with no restrictions was in the far corner of the whole fucking lot.

Ready to beat something to death, I walked inside the bar. Everybody in there sat in groups, the majority of them looking like the actor types. On the right side, there were booths up against the wall, where couples made out; to the left was the bar counter. A female bartender with an amazing body worked behind there, doing everything as slowly as possible. I waited, quite possibly, five minutes before she even knew I was there. In the meantime, these four guys blocked my path to the counter. When one of them moved, there was a space that opened. Just as I was walking up to it, one of those fuckers stood in my way. For whatever reason, I waited for him to finish ordering, hoping that he would get the fuck out of the way soon enough, but as it turned out, he was paying his tab. Finally, the fucker signed the copy. He and the four guys left.

I was able to sit at a stool and order something. The female bartender gave me attention. I asked her what beers they had. She said them all, about 10 of them. After thinking about it for a second, I ordered a $5 Amstel Light. Feeling quite bitter, I took a long, deep swig, and afterward my head pounded in pain. Those people in there were giving me bad vibes, like they didn't want me there. It was then that i realized that all places sent either good or bad vibes, and all it took was a few breaths before I could tell that whether or not I was going to have a shitty time. And to think that all of this hatred was triggered by that motherfucker from the liquor store. Why couldn't I had just let such a petty incident fuck with me? Because he ruined my night by telling me what to do, I wanted to stab that piece of shit, over and over in the neck, then twist the blade clockwise through the side of his head, scramble his brain some, maybe slice off a piece of his ear, dig my hand through the gash in his head to pull out his shredded brains and use them to paint his sacred parking space. For dessert, I wanted to drive my car into the store, crashing through the windows and mowing over the shelves, perhaps start a fire and then light my next cigarette with the flames. I didn't do any of that though.

Before that night in the bar, I never left a place so quickly. It only took me less than three minutes for me to pound the whole beer. I couldn't handle people, like I used to; no wonder I had been smoking so much lately. Why can't they just relax, be peaceful and leave me alone?