Mel’s leaning toward bacon . . . The ceiling fan twirrhhing along his neck, carrying the smell of hot bubbling grease, frying and deep frying . . . Footfalls of approaching waitress . . . Swivels his head on that twirrhhing trajectory, cigarette dangling from weathered Texan mouth.
“I gotta goda sleep, but I gotta do somethin first.”
Middle-aged waitress with thick amphibious features and natural frown line, doing life in lime-green polyester. Alice sewn into heart.
“Sorry sweetie,” says she in husky smoker voice, “no smoking.”
“Am I smoking? Is this cigarette lit? Listen, sugar, blowin smoke outta my ass here, as usual, with no plan or destination, knitting my scale model of the universe without regard for logistics or realism or for that matter my dwindling yarn supply. As though my tepid, unfocused approach to success were a front, a show, a charade, concealing something deeper, something greater, more important, less fatuous. Much less fatuous. Listen, sugar, I want you to bring me food. I am living a charade, yes, but what if I were also living more than that? Unbeknownst to myself? This is the secret fantasy of just about everyone. Myths abound in every culture, told in oral, literary, movie form . . . Listen, sugar, I want you to bring me food. Not a menu, not some stupid municipal bylaw, food. A cheeseburger with bacon, tomatoes, relish, mustard, earwax, toe jam, brain tissue, and mayonnaise on a kaiser bun. French fries with gravy on the side, a glass of radioactive water now and an orange Windex with my food.”
“Comin right up.”
“Because by god I will produce something. Even a deadbeat like me can aspire to greater things. Glory is not impossible. Not when you have an imagination like a horsehoof in the face.”
Some time after she has left, Mel asks, “Did my food come?”
But no one’s sitting with him to answer.
Live your dreams, folks.
