My brother lives in New Toronto across the street from a man who proudly wears the moniker of "Neighbourhood Drunk". People new in the neighbourhood of New Toronto receive a visit, my brother told me, from this man, so that he can state for the record, and in no uncertain terms that he is beyond a shadow of a doubt the "Neighbourhood Drunk".
Then, later in the evening, he'll come back and say, in confidence, that he isn't that much of a drunk--it's the bastards across the street that tell everyone he is.
And so it is into this neighbourhood I mixed the Ranchero, my Heart of Darkness.
The "Neighbourhood Drunk", Drunk A, used what was left of his legs to get over to my open window. They may have been crooked like a dog's hind legs, but he could get around on them pretty well, so long as he had a target to work towards and lean on when he arrived.
A- "That is. . .I'm not a homosexual. Okay? But your car has given me the biggest boner I have ever had. Seriously. It's given me a huge fuckin' erection. What a fuckin' car!"
B- "Thank you. It is pretty sweet."
More drunk talk followed, of which I listen to very little. The Heart of Darkness receives so much admiration from guys down on their luck, on a daily basis, who ask all the same questions and tell me what a fine fuckin' machine she is, that I've started to go on auto-pilot.
I'm guessing Steve Gutenberg has begun to do the same thing when people start asking him about what projects he's been working on lately--so I'm in good company.
I go in to my brother's house, which is surrounded by a white picket fence (literally) and dig in to my delicious meal. My sister-in-law is pretty handy around the kitchen. About twelve bites in, we hear the white picket fence latch open, and across the yard a shadow looms. The shadow's legs are crooked like a carpenter's square.
It's Drunk A.
I'm wondering if he's representing the role of "Neighbourhood Drunk" or "Not Nearly the Neighbourhood Drunk" right now. When he opens the door, the trail of urine staining his jogging pants shorts tells me that clearly, he is either quite drunk, or has a prostate problem.
Seeing as his opening line was NOT:
A- "Hey guys, can I come in. I just got some bad news from my urologist...I have a lazy prostate!"
But was instead:
A- "Guys, I'm sorry, but that car--if it was a chick I'd fuck it! I've got a big--sorry ladies--guys, you know what I mean. It's fucking hot!!"
Then he started doing something that I do fairly often. He made an "OK" sign with his hand, pressing his thumb and index finger together, and splaying the rest of his fingers like a peacock's tail, and started smacking his lips to make a kiss-kiss sound. And he did it, and did it, and did it, until everyone in the room was uncomfortable. Except me. I was trying to figure out if this display meant that I could no longer do the "OK" kiss-kiss action myself. Did this spectacle ruin it?
A left, kiss-kissing all the way to the curb.
I decided that it was still a useful act to resort to when words describing the fine quality of something failed me.
When I left, call it Monica Lewinski-like foresight, but I gave the exhaust pipe a real good looking over. I'm going to put it in the back of my closet and bide my time.
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