wrong parking spot, that’s all.
published first by Third Street Review, HERE
I saw this once from the living room window, okay?
It had been a stressful day. I knocked a couple whiskey colas back to take the edge off from credit card debt, mounting weeks of unemployment, and blue balls unsatisfied by masturbation. One of those hot summer days so the spiked cola with ice went down real nice.
Anyway. It started with screaming.
From my little house in its small lot you can look UP at two houses on a hill with a steep, steep, steep, shared driveway. The screaming came from up on high and was directed towards up on Higher. Angry. Something like: “what the FUCK, NIGGA, DAMN,” (his words, not mine). I didn’t think much of it. This was Atlanta, one of its many beautiful hoods; and, after all, I’m from the city, been here all my life. Here or there in cities all over anyway. I know a thing or two about minding my own business.
Quiet came after screaming, as it usually does. I was on the phone about some drab work thing concerning the woes of the unemployed or some such, blah blah, blah; the cause for my drinking.
Hour or so later, a long tow truck rolls down my one-way street. Now, if you remember the steep driveway and imagine a low-to-ground, long, and heavy tow truck, you can also imagine what happens next.
Whiskey cola glass #4 had emptied and next came my bladder, of course.
SQUEAL! zip!
Burning of rubber and the doing up of my fly, respectively. The truck now stuck; how fucked. It was at least two funny hours before truck #2, identical, came to fish truck #1, with its spinning tire and wedged undercarriage, off the steep, (now scraped), driveway. In the interim, Monty, the Screaming Man, my neighbor from up on high, came knocking. Turns out, all this came about because he parked in the wrong spot up on the hill’s shared driveway. You see, the neighbor of this neighbor was an enemy to monogamy, (he had no problem with unsatisfied-by-masturbation blue balls). Many women would come and go, scorned in one way or another. Finally, one had had enough and slashed all four tires of what she thought was HIS car. She also signed this work with a phrase she deemed effective, that is: “FUCK NIGGA,” (her words, not mine), on the side of the car.
Poetry is all around us, after all.
Monty the Screaming Man and his poor choice of parking felt this scorned woman’s wrath as collateral in the endless battle of sex and sexes. He warned me of this despite my penchant for minding my own business. I appreciated his candor despite my lack of appreciation for his interruption of my whiskey cola drinking. “Ah well,” he said. “Ah well,” I replied. We shook hands; he went back up the hill. Whiskey cola round #6 had been had by the time the third tow truck came, burps and giggles followed.
And so...
The van and its four flat tires with “FUCK NIGGA,” shabbily spray painted on its side, (van’s words, not mine), rolled slowly down the hill, mounted up on the newly arrived tow truck #3, and disappeared into the hot Atlanta late afternoon streets, riding shamefully on that long, low-hanging truck bed.
All this to say, next time, with all the longing women or all the starving men stumbling on and off your doorway like Screaming Man’s neighbor, take a cue from him and change parking spots with regularity. Additionally, whiskey ginger ale is a fine substitute for my favorite, whiskey cola. Finally, sometimes it’s good to watch it all from your windows, letting life; with all its sadness, dissatisfaction, confusion and the like pass outside unbothered, uninhibited, and with natural ease; remembering, all the while, to mind your own fuckin’ business.
Goodnight.
Thank you to Third Street Review for being the first home for this story.
written before i quit drinking,
TCB
