almost okay

10:05 am

I've been up an hour and barely feel like it's Saturday. The sun is out bright in a cloudless blue sky and temps are moderating from the extreme heat and humidity we had earlier in the week, the sticky stuff that makes the inside of my truck smell like an old tennis shoe.

I took the day off almost entirely yesterday, made a trip to Home Depot for a sturdier bag for traveling with my tools, then drove to a park in R.O. after lunch to read in the shade. I got flat on the ground and actually tumbled off to bits of nap while the clouds swept by overhead and the cooling northern wind passed over my body and rustled the leaves in the trees above me. After about an hour of lying there napping I finished my Strawberry Crush and went over to the only park bench I could see to read a chapter or two. Just then, some kids across the street and behind me started playing in the backyard pool, splashing, screaming and driving their dog insane, forcing loud, maniacal barking from the animal until I had to bookmark and leave. Fucking kids. Fucking dogs. I needed a drink.

Two at The Bar for Happy Hour, the bartender bending and smiling, back on form, walking in time to the music. She waltzed from one side of the bar to the other, sashaying her beautiful hips to “Stuck In The Middle”.

“You're walking right in time to the music,” I said. She smiled.

“I used to work at a club downtown,” she told me, one delectably fleshy elbow resting delicately on the bar in front of me, “The Something-Or-Other. It was an urban club.” She paused to put air quotes around 'urban', indicating that 'urban' really meant 'black'. “I was the only white person who worked there and they all told me the same thing.”

“Where's that at?” I asked. “It sounds familiar.”

“On the corner of Larned and Beaubian. Anyway, I've been dancing since I was little and I just do it without realizing it. I'm so used to dancing.”

“What, like jazz dance?” I asked, playing dumb and trying to keep her talking about herself.

“Jazz...tap...modern...Hawaiian...” she said. I was imagining her naked torso and her generous hips in a grass skirt, bare feet...sand...surf...a tropical drink served in a coconut...aahhh...

“Well it shows,” I said. “I could tell you were a dancer just by watching you tend bar. You're a natural.” She laughed. “Did you ever see 'Reservoir Dogs'?” I asked her.

“A long time ago,” she said. “I don't remember it.” Her forehead wrinkled. She was thinking.

“Well, there's this one scene where they're playing this same song,” I told her, “and the guy's torturing a cop. He's got the cop tied to a chair and he throws gasoline on him and he slashes his face and cuts his ear off.”

“Oooh,” she said, cringing, “That's awful.”

“It was,” I agreed, “but the point is, whenever I hear this song I always think of that. The guy in the movie, the bad guy, he's dancing around to the song having a good time and he just reaches down and cuts the cop's ear off and laughs at him.” She cringed some more, shivered. “Anyway, now you've given me a much nicer image to think about when I hear the song, and I thank you.”

From there I drove to Louis's house. I had agreed to go watch them play their final softball game down at a park in southwest Detroit near Mexican Town, mostly because the weather was so nice, but also because I was feeling vaguely sociable after my brief time at The Bar and didn't want to go home. I spent two and a half hours with a near full bladder and temps dropping into the mid-fifties watching a bunch of stiff, aging adults chase the ball around, an epic comedy of errant throws and dropped flies. There were a few dominant players, one tall black kid who could hit the ball so far that he was on second base by the time it struck the ground yards behind the outfielder. For the most part, though, it was painful to watch.

There was a parade of locals through the park as well, playing soccer, thoughtlessly walking toddlers around and onto the field. One twelve-year-old Mexican kid was there annoying everybody by asking if he could play. He had a canvas bag with him that looked like it had a bat or two, balls and his glove inside. He came up to me during the third inning and softly asked if he could use my cell phone to call his parents, his voice a meek squeak-whisper. I was afraid if I handed it to him he would run.

“I don't have a phone,” I lied. I'm sure he saw me check the time earlier, but I figured a lie was less cruel than just telling him a flat 'No' and 'Get away from me', which is really what I wanted to say. He found somebody else who had a phone and they let him call. Two innings later a red compact car picked him up and he was gone.

There was a tipsy-drunk older black guy who came up as though he knew everybody, probably comes to all the games. He put his stuff over by the bench then went to the party store for beer. They bought him a tall can for running the errand, I guess. I didn't ask the details. He seemed friendly enough, though I know drunks can be unpredictable, so I kept a good distance. I suddenly realized that I no longer felt sociable. At all. When the black guy said something about having to take a piss, a girl sitting on the bleachers right behind him, a girlfriend of one of the players, told him that she had just gone to the church across the street and that the basement was open. He put his beer down and walked in that direction. When he came back minutes later he was going on and on in a drunken slur, shaking his head... “They woon't lhet me in,” he said. “It'sh nho whonder why they call us 'n---ers'. I be damn. Huh-uh. Cain't uze the bafroom in here. Now you's white and they let you.”

“Maybe I snuck in and they didn't see me,” offered the poor girl. He just shook his head.

“Make me a-SHAMED to be a black man sometime, yez suh,” he said. “Had to gho off behin' the dhumpshter.” He muttered some more under his breath for a while, swore some, shook his head some more and drank from the tall golden can of beer until he settled down. He eventually produced a paperback book and began reading it intently, bowing his head down to see the pages, his eyes only six inches or so from the book. He had very thick glasses, and I'm assuming his prescription was probably not up to date. It probably didn't help to be in the shade with the sun dropping quickly.

Along about the middle of the game another guy pulled up in a mini van, banged it up and over the curb, parking it half on the grass right in front of a 'NO PARKING' sign. The van had bright yellow sides and a white roof and was crunched pretty badly in spots on the front, the grill punched out in places and a couple running lights smashed, the front fender crinkled. This guy was Mexican, wore a dirty white tee shirt and dirty jeans, looked as though he'd been rolling around in the street all day. He was wearing a baseball cap and had a short pony tail poking out in back. He walked straight to the chain link back stop, folded his arms, smoked a cigarette and watched the pitiful proceedings without saying a word. He then moved to the bleachers where he watched with what appeared to be keen interest for another inning or so, still without talking. As quickly as he had arrived he left, the loud muffler of the mini van signaling it had started and a double bang of the tires as they dropped off the curb before he puttered away.

I was beginning to itch, digging a hole in my cheek with the only fingernail I hadn't chewed off.

The last two innings saw the arrival of a short, fat girl who's age I couldn't guess. She looked to be anywhere from thirteen to eighteen, was bloated and pregnant. Either that or she'd swallowed a bowling ball, her gut round and out. A few minutes after she showed up, a couple of thin blond-haired girls came over, her children, aged four to five years old, one on a little pink bike and both carrying plastic bags. She yelled at them in a hoarse voice to “Hurry up! Come on!” There was a bent and battered guardrail that ran the length of the park to prevent cars from driving onto the grass, and the girls were so small they had difficulty getting over it. The oldest one banged her bike on it more than once before making the other side and the youngest eventually figured out that it was easier to just crawl under. When they got to Mom they opened the bags and all three began happily eating their dinner of chips and cola.

I made a long stroll across the parking lot to find a place to piss. I targeted a tall pine near the church, did my business and strolled back. The sun was nearly down by then and the final out of the game was made as I crossed the street. I sat down on the guardrail behind the bench and watched the last of the sun disappear as it shined a pink glow on the western face of the RenCen. The park was covered in shadows, the light really beginning to dim and the air had cooled dramatically. I shivered in my shorts and tee shirt. Louis held a beer high as though to offer me one. I walked up to the fence and declined. “I'm freezing,” I said. “Can you give me the keys so I can sit in the car?” Louis thumbed the unlock button and the car's lights flashed.

“Hey, it works from here,” he said.

“Thanks,” I said, and walked over to get out of the cool wind. It was nearly dark by the time everybody left, and my phone said it was 9:20.

Fun? Not really. I saw every sad and ugly form of humanity imaginable and the Mom and her kids nearly broke my heart. My sociable nature was stifled by pushy strangers and I had endured two hours with a shivering full bladder before it got dark enough for me to feel comfortable pissing in public.

We got dinner at Senior Lopez just up the street on Michigan Avenue, Louis kicking some jagged glass from a broken bottle to one side of the doorway on the sidewalk as we entered. The food was good. I had the beef taco dinner and washed it down with a couple of Tecate served with a bowl of limes and a salted glass. There were two guys sitting at a table across from us, one guy talking loudly on his phone for ten minutes, the half conversation enough to make me hate people even more. On the way out the other guy was arguing over the tab with the sweet and very cute waitress. More hate.

Home by eleven, in bed by eleven-fifteen, I read until my eyes wouldn't stay open. I managed to avoid more drinking even though all I could think of was the sad and ugly people I'd been forced to encounter during my day of leisure... the loud kids and their barking dog, the drunk, the Mexican, the Mom and her girls, and finally the two fucking annoying idiots at the restaurant. Luckily I was so fatigued by the entire experience, so overstimulated by it, that I couldn't force a single beer down my throat and certainly couldn't face the television.

No...sleep was what I needed. A good eight hours of it, no nightmares.

Thankfully, last night God spared both me and my liver.