sublingua

The heart with a mind of its own.

(Be present.)

The mind with a heart of its own.

(It's past.)

The dream that is your waking life.

(Go there now.)

The Demon Who Refuses The Digits
Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2004

Continuing the Mike story:

Mike and his wife Barbara and a few other couples from his work (Mike worked and Barbara seriously just hung around his work all day long with the two kids in tow) invited me to "couples night" at the strip club. And I was, like, you want me to go to a fucking strip club? I work way too hard for my money to be stuffing it in some chick's underwear. Sorry. So I didn't go.

Mike and Barbara invited me to one of their kid's birthday parties. And I was, like, oh, sorry, I have to work that day. But I did get him a gift, alright? The kid is almost always blameless anyway. (Interestingly, Barbara, during the birthing of one of her giant-headed offspring, had had some kind of stroke that left her partially paralyzed on one side. It was something you noticed right away, and she was understandably self-conscious of it, but she seemed capable of taking care of her family, if a little dependent on Mike.)

Anyway, the invitations continued. Mike and Barbara always issuing them and my always refusing them with some excuse or another. (They were mostly legit excuses as I was one of the managers of the restaurant and had no time left to socialize after sixty and seventy hours of work.) I just didn't want to socialize with people who I was paid to serve, to be nice to. That's just wierd to me. (I also didn't socialize with the people I worked with at the time. And that was for several reasons: I didn't have the energy. I was the boss and didn't want them thinking that our partying together was reason enough for them to walk all over me at work. And so one.) But then one day Mike came into the restaurant solo. I have to tell you that he never, never came in on his own. He always always had Barbara and family in tow or on the very rare days when she stayed home, he would come in with some of the other annoying salespeople from work. Anyway, it was near the end of my shift and I was back in the office doing end of shift stuff, closing out cash drawers, logging sales, whatever. And one of the waitresses came back (a brassy blonde psych major from Long Island who one day took it upon herself to teach me the correct pronunciation of "Maun-TAUWK!") and she said, "Mike's here, he wants you to go say hello." And I was, like, not too fucking happy about this because it was the end of my ten-hour shift and I was exhausted and I still had a lot of shit to do before I could leave for the day. But what could I do? I pasted on a big fucking fake smile and went out to the front of the house to say hello to Mike. He had ordered a light lunch--having been in only a few hours earlier for a huge breakfast with some coworkers--and was waiting for it. I leaned against the booth and said hello. He asked me if I wanted to sit, so I sat. He started talking to me and somehow the conversation came around to whether or not I had his phone number. I told him that Barbara had given me their phone number when she invited me to the birthday party. He said, "Oh, let me give you my cell phone number. I don't think Barbara gave you that one. Anyway, she doesn't get messages that anyone leaves for me on that phone."

Right? Right.

He wrote his own personal cell phone number on one of his cards and handed it over to me. Just then, Long Island brought out his lunch and I used that as an excuse to get up and go into the back of the house. Long Island came back from delivering his lunch and said, "Oh, so he gave you his phone numbah?" And I said, "Yeah, his own personal cell phone number." I showed it to her and then I ripped it into pieces and put it in the trash.

And that was Mike.

retreat or surrender

More lies:
Waking Sleeping Demons II - Sunday, Oct. 30, 2011
Waking Sleeping Demons - Saturday, Oct. 29, 2011
time - Friday, May. 20, 2011
- - Wednesday, Oct. 06, 2010
The Return - Tuesday, Oct. 05, 2010

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