by Timothy L. Marsh
It’s one or two or three in the morning and it’s nothing you haven’t seen before or couldn’t imagine even if you hadn’t. The pool tables are in the back; the touch-screen juke is in the corner; the athletes are stuck in perpetual highlight on seven mounted televisions tuned to ESPN.
Somehow you’ve made the acquaintance of a bell-tubby little man who’s just gotten fired from his job and is happy about it, but concerned about the economy and the thought of looking for another gig. He’s weighed 225 pounds since he was twelve-years-old and once worked as a logger in Alaska before he was hit by a tree and shattered like movie glass. “Internal stress reflex,” he explains with something in his voice like the latches of Willy Loman’s briefcase flipping open.
Apparently internal stress reflex is how most loggers get killed on the job. It starts with a very old tree that has been standing around for hundreds of years. There’s a lot of pent up stress in these sorts of trees, and sometimes when that stress is released too quickly the trunk jerks out at the speed and force of a Greyhound cruiser and crushes to hell the unwitting little logger that ever started cutting into such a stuck and tired thing.
The tree broke 48 bones in his body including all of his face and six vertebrae, though he hasn’t a scar, limp or missing tooth to show for it. In the time you’ve been sitting together he’s also had his throat slit by an Eskimo gangbanger, been attacked by a colony of carpenter ants, and come within nine bee stings of setting a new Guinness world record for bee stings. No doubt he could have easily just barely survived a parachute malfunction or a plane crash in the Andes if, in the middle of all this Looney Tunes ill-luck and indestructibility, he didn’t also suddenly develop an extrasensory perception for the histories of strangers.
“I’ve had it all my life. Like a crystal ball in my head, except with the past. All I have to do is talk with a person and I can tell where he’s from, what he does, what his family is like, if he’s ever been married, got children. Everything.”
“Everything?”
“Like you. I can tell all about you. Like I can tell you got two brothers and that you’re the youngest. And that you’re not from around here. But from like out West someplace.”
“California.”
“See. And you’re a teacher or like a writer, right? Something with words. And your parents are still married.”
“Almost. I’m a teacher, yes. But my parents were murdered in a carjacking when I was a kid. Three Mexicans dragged them from their van outside Dodger Stadium and shot them in the street. They were Giants fans.”
“Oh yeah. I know some Giants fans.”
“They found the car in Guadalajara but never the men. So my brothers and I were sent to a Catholic orphanage in Santa Monica, which was very hard for us because we were Jewish. The nuns picked on us every day. They held us down and rubbed sunscreen in our eyes. They made us pray for the Clippers.”
“Oh. Right. The Clippers.”
It might occur to you at this point that this man has just spent the better part of the evening destroying himself for your companionship, and that the gracious thing to do would be to sip your beer and smile along the way he is used to. But this is one or two or three in the morning and you’re in no position for kindly solicitude.
“That chick’s got great tits,” he says with something in his voice like we could’ve been beautiful. “I think I’ll get her number.”
“I think I’ll sit here and catch the Dodgers’ score. For my parents.”
The waitress brings another bowl of peanuts. The touch-screen juke plays something by Queen. A single thirty-something slot machine blinks pick-up lines across the bar. Above, the seven mounted televisions have formed a nimbus of Derek Jeter highlights for whatever hill-of-beans reason and you hate the goddamn Yankees and don’t give a piss about Derek Jeter or anything he does.
If Derek Jeter were here right now you wouldn’t even act like you knew who he was.
Tim Marsh is in for some serious trouble, and you're in for some serious fun.
It’s one or two or three in the morning and it’s nothing you haven’t seen before or couldn’t imagine even if you hadn’t. The pool tables are in the back; the touch-screen juke is in the corner; the athletes are stuck in perpetual highlight on seven mounted televisions tuned to ESPN.
Somehow you’ve made the acquaintance of a bell-tubby little man who’s just gotten fired from his job and is happy about it, but concerned about the economy and the thought of looking for another gig. He’s weighed 225 pounds since he was twelve-years-old and once worked as a logger in Alaska before he was hit by a tree and shattered like movie glass. “Internal stress reflex,” he explains with something in his voice like the latches of Willy Loman’s briefcase flipping open.
Apparently internal stress reflex is how most loggers get killed on the job. It starts with a very old tree that has been standing around for hundreds of years. There’s a lot of pent up stress in these sorts of trees, and sometimes when that stress is released too quickly the trunk jerks out at the speed and force of a Greyhound cruiser and crushes to hell the unwitting little logger that ever started cutting into such a stuck and tired thing.
The tree broke 48 bones in his body including all of his face and six vertebrae, though he hasn’t a scar, limp or missing tooth to show for it. In the time you’ve been sitting together he’s also had his throat slit by an Eskimo gangbanger, been attacked by a colony of carpenter ants, and come within nine bee stings of setting a new Guinness world record for bee stings. No doubt he could have easily just barely survived a parachute malfunction or a plane crash in the Andes if, in the middle of all this Looney Tunes ill-luck and indestructibility, he didn’t also suddenly develop an extrasensory perception for the histories of strangers.
“I’ve had it all my life. Like a crystal ball in my head, except with the past. All I have to do is talk with a person and I can tell where he’s from, what he does, what his family is like, if he’s ever been married, got children. Everything.”
“Everything?”
“Like you. I can tell all about you. Like I can tell you got two brothers and that you’re the youngest. And that you’re not from around here. But from like out West someplace.”
“California.”
“See. And you’re a teacher or like a writer, right? Something with words. And your parents are still married.”
“Almost. I’m a teacher, yes. But my parents were murdered in a carjacking when I was a kid. Three Mexicans dragged them from their van outside Dodger Stadium and shot them in the street. They were Giants fans.”
“Oh yeah. I know some Giants fans.”
“They found the car in Guadalajara but never the men. So my brothers and I were sent to a Catholic orphanage in Santa Monica, which was very hard for us because we were Jewish. The nuns picked on us every day. They held us down and rubbed sunscreen in our eyes. They made us pray for the Clippers.”
“Oh. Right. The Clippers.”
It might occur to you at this point that this man has just spent the better part of the evening destroying himself for your companionship, and that the gracious thing to do would be to sip your beer and smile along the way he is used to. But this is one or two or three in the morning and you’re in no position for kindly solicitude.
“That chick’s got great tits,” he says with something in his voice like we could’ve been beautiful. “I think I’ll get her number.”
“I think I’ll sit here and catch the Dodgers’ score. For my parents.”
The waitress brings another bowl of peanuts. The touch-screen juke plays something by Queen. A single thirty-something slot machine blinks pick-up lines across the bar. Above, the seven mounted televisions have formed a nimbus of Derek Jeter highlights for whatever hill-of-beans reason and you hate the goddamn Yankees and don’t give a piss about Derek Jeter or anything he does.
If Derek Jeter were here right now you wouldn’t even act like you knew who he was.
Tim Marsh is in for some serious trouble, and you're in for some serious fun.
