pg. 25
ephedrine proves to act as medicinal this evening as i am ill with heavy lungs in lawrence, kansas... eyes wide, sweating and coughing with the most banal questions from young men such as...
"what size is that shirt?"
i point to the desired shirt, saying "medium or extra large."
"hmmm," he pauses. "i'll take a large."
"i only have medium or extra large," i correct him."
"yeah, i'll have a large."
"okay, i only have medium or xl."
"oh, oh..." he thinks for a moment. "i'll just have a large."
throat swollen in despair, my head falls ready for the matador's sword. "i hear the words coming outta my mouth. i hear 'medium or xl,' no large, no large at all. i'm curious, what do you hear?"
"oh! forget it..."
fine then, fine. the next follows in line asking "what color do you have that grey shirt in?"
"this grey shirt?"
"yeah."
"only grey."
"yeah."
"yeah, what?"
"that one... what color?"
"this shirt here?!" i touch the shirt, carefully enunciating my words with perfection while contemplating jamming a ballpoint pen into my left eye, grabbing a purple heart, and skippin home on the next flight.
"this grey shirt," i continue, "only comes in grey."
"what size do you have?"
"i have large and extra large."
"do you have a large black?"
it's bad enough that i'm a 26 year old man working retail in kansas, but to contemplate suicide, good lord, that's outta the question... and so far from home, too.
pg. 28
i remember the words of charles bukowski, "beware those who despise poverty and those who are proud of it" when at time such as this evening i get the occassional kid who gripes "10 dollars?! for a shirt? that ain't punk!"
"what do you want from me kid? a movie almost costs that much."
"i'll give ya 8 dollars and 50 cents for it."
alright, let the haggling begin, but what he doesn't know is that there will be no haggling. so yes, let's begin...
"8 dollars and 50 cents you say? how about 10 dollars?"
"8.75."
"10 dollars."
"9 dollars."
"it's tempting, but i'll go as low as 10 dollars."
"9.50."
"wow! this is getting hot! ummm... 10 dollars."
after he comes down off his punky high horse to give the cause a moment's rest, he digs into his pocket to hand me a twenty dollar bill.
"you had a twenty all this time?" i ask.
"yeah, uh," he stutter, "i need to get... you know, some beer."
"yeah? me too. hand it over." i sort through and make change handing him back a crisp ten. "now you have ten dollars to drink with and i have ten dollars to drink with. isn't that nice?"
i thought it to be funny, although i know he didn't.
pg. 38
since the beginning of the tour, bryan has been fairly adamant about eating at cracker barrel restaurants as opposed to waffle house, because they're not as cheap, although the food isn't all that more expensive than the majority of chain restaurants, not to mention that the inflated price is well worth the differencein quality from the food to the atmosphere, and what the hell that no stick waffle spray is, i hope i never know, but bryan's tone has changed a bit since he signed up for the "cracker barrel neighborhood club" which earns you points as you pay for not only meals, but anything for sale from the cracker barrel store. when you earn an astronomical amount of points, you receive a ten dollar voucher for any purchase on any food or non-food item. he can now be seen at any moment within the restaurant buying more expensive meals than anyone in hopes of reaching the goal that much quicker. today was as stated with him buying lavish plates of food and trinkets for family and girlfriend.
pg. 83
more crappy costumes and plumes flowing from robin hood pinstriped hats... on edge from substance abuse and lack of sleep... the people don't help much as they ask me while reading one of the stickers "how do you pronounce this?"
"are you kidding me?" i ask.
"piesters?"
"pietasters... come on man, remember hooked on phonics?"
or the two female employees who asked if they were from spain because they were playing mexican music... i tried to tell them about the black stoners in the islands playing their version of r&b and that it was called ska, but they thought i was saying "scott" so i left it at "yes they play mexican music, but they're from washington dc." they could handle that.