I have these spots I used to go to, these havens where I used to be looked at by the girls. And the thing is, they know it. The guys, that is. They stomp around and think constantly about fistfighting, and they have girls.
I’ve cut a few losses, and been doused by the lucky, or those who wait like sedentary granite around what they want, their worlds mayonnaise sandwiches with pickles and chipotle pepper… sometimes in sweats you send a hand through a steel cross beam, and the girls on TV just rid another brassiere, so the thrift store board games are your valence.
But they’re not open on Sundays. Bukowski once said that it’s best to do your shopping and errands on Mondays and Tuesdays, just so you can avoid people (which might explain why his best work was actually set in jails), but here on a Sunday I want a cheap board game for three bucks… I don’t want a girlfriend, or a car or anything, just a game, here where there are no adult bookstores, where people know each other rudimentarily with one glance, where hammerheaded patrolmen harbor the machine, locks and keys in the land of the free.