Beneath The Dutch

Chapter 12: This Rat's Got Wings

Thu, 04 Aug 2011 11:02:32 -0400

I flew down the stairs and burst open the door of Tony’s stale apartment and I breathed deep the air of the world around me. Sunshine soaking into the stone covered sidewalks, reflecting off the white lines of the shoulder of the road, penetrating every window and alleyway with light, everything felt so real. Almost surreal. Like God turned up the contrast on everything when I wasn’t looking. The air felt cleaner, the grass greener, the streets felt safer and my head felt lighter. It almost brought me to tears.

I got myself together to start to plan. What day would be best to stay sober? I had already wasted the opportunity today by ripping face not a few moments ago. I have to think about what day of the week is best to endure without any substances. All this planning made me think of the times I’d plan out a day for shrooms or acid.

Mondays are obviously no good; a return to the state of work and school and usually rain. It always seems to rain on Monday morning in this city. I can’t start my week sober. I think Tuesday might be worse, because at least with Monday you have the fool’s hope that the week will end soon, but Tuesday reassures you that the end is far and dark. Wednesday is a possibility; you’ve gotten half way through your work week, but at the same time you feel as if you should reward yourself with a little bud and pizza. Thursday is a no go because its payday, I always reup on payday and you have to smoke a little before you buy it. Friday and Saturday…fuck that shit. Sunday, though…the day of the Lord, the day of rest and peace; although it seems sacraligious to smoke weed on this day, it almost seems hypocritical not to just reflecting on all the lazy Sunday’s I’ve had. I think the best day might be to get though Wednesday without any substances in my body.

I looked at my cell phone and discovered that today is Wednesday. I have to get through a week of hazy thoughts and inibriation before I can complete the task ahead of me! What if I forget about it? Can I take my allergy medicine and still be “sober”? What if I simply can’t do it?!…No! I’m a fucking man. I can do anything I put my mind to. I’ve excelled for over 7 years in the education and work world completely stoned, I can go a sparce 24 hours without it. Thankfully, I had a week to ween myself off of the stuff before diving head first into a day without it.

I felt that it might be time to get food into my system. I went down to the Jambalaya place on the corner of Market and Main. It’s late spring and they always bring in their famous “GaterBurgers” around this time of year. I always wonder how a place in the Northeast obtains alligator meat, but I figure it’s better that I never know the means of how they get it. I went inside and saw Kurt at the counter. Kurt’s my buddy who works at Wendy’s, always gets me and Tony free burgers when I come in during the night shift. Solid dude, wondering what he wants at a Jambalaya place…considering he’s vegan.

“Hey man, what’s happening?” I said to Kurt. He turned to me looking more pissed off than I have ever seen anyone and said “Do you know what these fuckers are doing here?” I answered carefully “Uhm, selling food?” “These scumbags are capturing and murdering an endangered species to sell to unknowing consumers. Those Alligator Burgers are an abomination and should be made illegal. It’s people like them that are fucking up entire ecosystems by taking away already endangered predators to be ground up into disgusting meat patties. It’s sickening!” He stormed towards the door and said to the man behind the counter “You haven’t seen the last of me. Stop selling those burgers or I’ll shut down your whole fucking establishment!” and he slammed the door behind him.

“Jesus…” the greasy man behind the counter said “If he’s that upset ‘bout the gaters, I hope he don’t find out ‘bout our chicken wings. Anyways, what can I do ya for, sir?” I hesitated “Uhh, I think I’m gonna go. Maybe somewhere less…hostile.” and i quickly exited the restaurant. As I left I could hear him grumble “Fuckin’ hippies.”

I decided at that point the most peaceful thing I could do is go home and make another peanut butter and jelly sandwich in the safety of my apartment. I started in the direction home on my board, but suddenly was stopped by another spectacle of humanity. Two very athletic young men had apparently experienced a small accident while driving. Instead of simply calling the authorities to sort out this matter and getting eachother’s information by looking at their insurance cards and drivers licenses, they thought it better to get out of their vehicles and fight eachother in the middle of the street. To make it better, they had to take their shirts off to show off their glamour muscles and tribal tattoos. I wanted to simply skate past it, but a crowd had formed on each sidewalk so I had to walk through to get past the stupidity. It sickened me to watch these people enjoy this gladiator fight of the modern day. They cheered them on and heckled em as if they were at a cock fight. I knew for many, this was the highlight of their week.

No one would move when I tried to politely get through the mob, so I entered the circle that had been formed around the two brutes. I decided to head towards the two damaged cars and the sidestreet they currently blocked. Without thinking, I headed in that direction, but was quickly met by the tussle of two large men who started wrestling with me underneath them. The man on top threw a punch that landed just short of his target, but hit me dead in the jaw. “How the fuck do you miss a punch that close” I thought. But soon after a couple more hit his target and myself and I, for the second time in one day, blacked out on asphault.

The show must go on!

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 23:42:08 -0400

AND GO ON IT SHALL. READY TO BE CONSUMED, CHAPTER 11 (the first in over a year). I WILL BE UPDATING FREQUENTLY MOTHERFUCKER <3

Chapter 11: Brain Stew

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 23:35:00 -0400

(yup! The first chapter in over a year)

I stirred out a long dark blur and woke up to a familiar sight; my legs propped up on the edge of Tony’s couch. I rubbed my eyes to get a better view of everything. My shin was bandaged and blood was seeping through the wrapping. I started to raise my head and felt a horrible pain in my neck and skull. It was at that point that I remembered that I wrecked myself earlier that day. I must have went into a mini coma. I wonder how Tony managed to get me back to his apartment…

Wondering if I was alone, I called out “Tony!” and heard a mumbled reply from the kitchen. He quickly entered the room and said “You fucked yourself up real good. I’ve never seen someone black out like that. You’re lucky Leo drove to the skatepark or else I would’ve had to call an ambulance or something. You should probably rip the bong before you try to do anything…you might even need stitches.” Not looking to insult my friend and caretaker, I slowly propped myself up and grabbed the bong from the coffee table. I reached into my pocket to grab my baggie, but it wasn’t there. “Hey man, did Leo take my weed or something?” Tony said “He wanted gas money to go across town, but I didn’t have any, so I gave him what was left of your baggie. I’m sorry dude. There should be some in the drawer of the table, help yourself.” I followed his orders and helped myself to a generously dense bowlpack.

As I ripped, I thought of all the trouble I’ve gotten in with Tony. Usually it involves skating, but it mostly involved skating away from gas stations with stolen chips or beers. Thankfully neither of us are stupid enough to carry more bud than we should, but it still makes me wonder why all of these shitty things happen when I’m with Tony. Maybe he’s bad luck. Maybe were both just dumb kids and our combined stupidity somehow gets us out of trouble for petty crimes like shoplifting and trespassing. I thought about it a little more, but then my head stopped hurting so I decided to get into the kitchen and make a PBJ. Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches are without a doubt, the greatest creation of the modern age.

I got out the necessary materials and began to make a couple sandwiches, once again helping myself to generous portions. After constructing two monstrous slabs of nuts and fruit, and pouring myself a tall glass of milk, I went back to the couch to enjoy them while watching an episode of Degrassi. Watching that show always makes me feel better about my own life. Sure, I’m sorta broke and sometimes get carried away with weed and drinking, but the kids on this show are all kinds of fucked. One is an alcoholic aneorexic daughter of a father with cancer and a best friend who is a hooker. Oh, I think she did coke once too. Also, I don’t like eating alone, so watching TV while eating always makes me feel a little less weird.

Tony eventually came out of the kitchen with a bowl full of the cheesiest, gooiest homemade macoroni and cheese I have ever had the pleasure to behold. It must’ve been the spawn of a one night stand between Velveeta and Stouffer’s. Everything about it made me want cheese. Everywhere. I asked him for a bite, and he put a couple noodles on the edge of his fork and offered it to me. This head wound rules. Those few noodles reminded me what it was like to live and be free. Nothing can compare to the warmth of mac n cheese. Not all the sex and weed in the world would make me as complete.

Filled with this newly found vigor for life, I grabbed my board and went down the stairs. I was on a mission, a life’s work to do something I had never done before. I was going to spend an entire day completely sober.

follow my music?

Tue, 30 Nov 2010 23:23:37 -0500

this may not ever be read, but I write music and play shows in tons of different places. you guys liked it when I was trying to write a book, maybe you’ll like my music too. FFO The Gaslight Anthem, i guess.

http://stevelayman.tumblr.com/

what are you up to? when will you post more chapters? are you doing alright?

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 01:10:18 -0500

I’ve been mad busy and I lost the account info to this for the longest time. I have a lot of interesting real life stories to throw into this stories. and i’m doing just fine, thanks for asking!

stop by and leave a story :]

Fri, 05 Nov 2010 19:37:06 -0400

definitely.

ALGERNON CADWALLADER @ SUNY ONEONTA!!!

Fri, 05 Nov 2010 19:36:28 -0400

weightandmalice:

This Sunday, November 7th
@ SUNY Oneonta
The Waterfront Cafe in Hunt Union

ALGERNON CADWALLADER
CHALK TALK
CATTLE DRUMS
PALMKITE

6PM - 3$ SUCO Students/5$ Everyone Else

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=168810973135823

REBLOG

What's your favorite method of getting THC into your body?

Fri, 24 Sep 2010 01:22:37 -0400

bongrips for sure. pretty much everything about hitting bongs makes getting high better even if it’s not very good weed.

if i wanna get real twizzy i go with a brownie or something, but that’s only i’ve got the whole day to kill.

vaporizers are just weird to me, i’m not sure why.

http://dutchmastour.tumblr.com/ask

Thu, 23 Sep 2010 11:36:45 -0400

ask me questions about the book.

ask me why i stopped writing it for 2 months.

ask me what to expect in future chapters.

ask me anything

http://dutchmastour.tumblr.com/ask

YO WUZGEWD?

Wed, 22 Sep 2010 15:49:52 -0400

Long story short, I lost the account info to this blog and couldn’t get on.

I’ve got a lot of shit to write out so expect some stuff in the coming weeks!

Chapter 10: Rat Salad

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 19:19:12 -0400

I woke up moments before the alarm went off. I leapt out of my bed, completely rejuvenated. Waking up from fifteen hours of sleep after a really good dream is the best way to start the day. I was in a medieval castle and these barbarians came with dragons and started attacking our castle, so I summoned this crazy giant which basically looked like Sloth from the Goonies except this one was the size of the castle. I sent Super-Sloth to kill all the dragon and he sprouts eagle wings and starts grabbing dragons by the throat and hurling them over the hillside. Needless to say, we kicked the shit out of the barbarian forces. After the battle was over, we went to their fortress for a get together to make amends, and I boned this Amazon. It was pretty sick. She didn’t even want to cuddle. Probably the best dream anyone could ever have.

Even though I clearly slept through every class I had to go to today, it didn’t matter. I didn’t have to work that night & I don’t have any work due for Thursday’s class; I had the whole afternoon and evening to burn, skate and watch The Office. I started my Wednesday the way any sophisticated man could hope to start their day; a large helping of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Black Sabbath. I didn’t notice my face getting ripped off by the shredding jams with all that delicious cereal in my mouth. Everything tastes so good the morning after smoking, especially Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

After breakfast, I rolled a joint and went into the bathroom. I was blowing smoke into the toilet bowl while “Electric Funeral” was blasting the backside of the bathroom door. I decided it’d be a good idea to stand on top of the toilet and then jump into the shower from there. I turned on the hot water, ripped off my clothes and stumbled onto the top of my toilet. Right before leaping to the shower I screamed at the top of my lungs “I AM IRON MAN!” and jumped. My left foot caught the top of the tub and I hit my face really hard on the bathroom wall. At that point the album was skipping and my toilet bowl stage dive was infinitely less cool than I thought it was.

After a long, bloody shower, I got dressed, grabbed a roll of toilet paper to make corks for my nostrils, got on my skateboard and headed to the skatepark. I thought that I would listen to something a lot faster than Black Sabbath while I skate to keep from hurting myself again, so I turned on some Black Flag and bombed hill after hill to get to the skatepark at the bottom of Lark Street. I got to the park around 3. I looked around and saw a few teenage kids, some twelve year old girls who were hanging out with them and my friend Leo. Leo is this idiot savant, except he’s good at everything. He’s an incredible skater, he writes some of the best songs and he’s been on the Dean’s list every semester he’s been here. He also has the best stories to tell when we’re all baked.

I skated over to Leo and asked him “What’s up, Leo Dacrappybro?” He started looking around after I asked him that, like he was looking for a reason to ignore our conversation or something, needless to say he was being whack today. He said “Uh, not much dude, just uh, skating. You wanna play SKATE”? I couldn’t ever beat Leo in a game of skate, but I was feeling real good that day, so I said “Fuck it. Let’s play SKATE.” He looked at me after I agreed, almost like he was about to reconsider, then turned around and skated over to the half pipe. This was really unlike Leo. He’s usually really funny and fun to be around, he was being an uptight herb today. He also knows I don’t do vert very well. I thought we’d just be having fun but apparently he wanted an actual competition. Well, I’ve been practicing, he’s fucked.

Leo got to the edge of the halfpipe and dropped into the pipe. He rode on the far end and came back to the top, got off his board and said “Well, drop in. That’s my first trick; drop in and be able to have enough speed to get back up to this end. That’s it”. He was seriously being an asshole, he knows I can’t drop in. But I’m not a pussy, so I decided I might as well give it a try. I’d been watching some interesting skate videos that have shown me some really interesting tricks I wanna try, mostly old school stuff, but still. I was hoping Chad Muska would be helping me today. I inched over to the edge of the ramp, stalled on the lip, looked down and whispered “I am Iron Man!” and dropped in. I was doing fine until I got to the bottom and I had too much weight on the back of the board. My skateboard shot out in front of me and I fell right on my ass and hit my head really hard on the ramp… and I don’t really remember what happened after that…fucking killed though.

Chapter 9: I've Heard He's A Pretty Good Read...

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 16:23:36 -0400

A few more hours went by and I was able to go home. I punched out, lit up another cigarette and walked home. I didn’t have the drive or energy to skate home that night. I was more in the mood to look around at everything tonight anyway. I had a lot on my mind, walking usually helps me clear my head. I watched the ashes build up on the end of my cigarette as I walked on the shoulder of the road. I ashed out over the railing of the bridge, listening to the flowing water’s dull roar fill the night air with white noise. I decided to take my ex girlfriend’s advice and listen to Modest Mouse after work. She always said that Modest Mouse always helped her think and keep her insane after working a corporate job all day, after spending hours on end pretending to be normal. I never really got into Modest Mouse, but their song “Custom Concern” always clears my head, so I decided I’d give that album a second try as I walked home.

I unlocked the door of my house to smell the residue of weed I had smoked earlier that day and ramen I cooked for breakfast. The smell of marijuana and artificial chicken seasoning filled my entire house, it made me feel sick. I got my teapot full of water and went upstairs. I lit and incense and grabbed “Blonde on Blonde” out of my record collection. There is nothing more relaxing than sitting in your bed, listening to folk music, reading books and smoking weed with boat shoes on and a fan blowing gently on your face, hot tea on the nightstand. I grabbed my copy of Bukowski’s “The Post Office” and picked up where I left off. I can see why so many people my age like his books, he just writes about being tired, drunk and disgusted with dumb people. Most kids my age are always drunk, most of them work shitty jobs, most of them think they are smarter than they really are. I guess I can identify with his writing, I hate my job and I don’t really like most people, but I don’t drink. If Bukowski got high all the time instead, I could only imagine how his books would read.

The teapot hissed from downstairs and I raced down to get it off the stove. I placed a teabag on the bottom of my thermos and poured the hot water in. I really hate weak tea, so I just throw the teabag in and never take it out. I want to taste the flavor, especially with green tea. I walked upstairs with my searing hot thermos and kept reading, listening to Bob Dylan croon within my bedroom. My roommates were either over at their girlfriends’ apartments at night or they were passed out drunk. I don’t live with friends, I live with some kids who rent a really cheap house in town. I don’t want to pay more money than what is necessary, and I’m not home much as it is. I’m usually at Tony’s, so this house is basically just a place where we all shower and sometimes eat and sleep. They leave me alone because I always pay my rent on time, utilities are included so I really only have to throw these kids an extra 25$ a month for cable and internet. None of us talk, which is weird because they are all communications majors. I feel like they’d have to interview me or something for some whack project, but we all keep to ourselves. Five hermit crabs in one large shell; no one grows too large, no one moves.

I normally don’t have this much on my mind. I am usually pretty worry free. I don’t ever think about my exes, about the past or about anything like that. I don’t know what has gotten into me lately; I am starting to care about the future, being way more responsible, making big plans and following through on my school work. I think I may read too many books, it makes me think and rethink and overanalyze everything! I honestly can’t understand how anyone stays sober. They would just get consumed by thinking and just get angry and sad knowing that eventually we’ll all die and nothing we do will matter. God damn, I thought I was done with this existential bullshit. I read too much.

I filled a bowl with what I had left from yesterday’s purchase and smoked away all these pestering thoughts. I felt everything lift from my head and out into the air, like smoke off the tip of an incense burning on a bookshelf, every worry I had floated off into the ceiling. I dropped the book, starred into the popcorn ceiling and laughed until I fell asleep. Nothing bad can ever happen to me while I am high. I can never feel hurt, I can never feel pain; there is only tranquility. Bob Dylan and the smell of ocean rain sang me to sleep. I dreamt of skydiving off the moon onto the earth, I flew down like a meteor and crashed onto Hawaii. I surfed with Kurt Cobain and Franz Kafka and had drinks with Tito from Rocket Power. It was that morning that I wished I went to that school in California. I woke up and my copy of “The Post Office” was flipped open to a page that had an interesting passage that I reread four times last night: “But now and then, a woman walks up, full blossom, a woman just bursting out of her dress…a sex creature, a curse, the end of it all.” It reminded me of my ex. Heady.

Chapter 8: Fridays On Tuesday

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 14:43:24 -0400

Tony and I skated as hard we could, mongo stomping our way down Main street, dodging cars and people as best as we could. Tony fell off his board after trying to avoid getting hit by a car and I accidently ran some people over and fell off mine. We grabbed our boards and started sprinting for the one place we knew we could hide from cops. We couldn’t see where the police were at that point, but we sure as hell weren’t going to turn around to find out. A few more blocks of sprinting and we made it to our safe haven, the parking lot of the plaza that I work in. We skated to the back of TGI Fridays and came in the backdoor to hide in the kitchen.

I live in a suburban area and more importantly, a college town; everything is corporate here. There are very few privately owned businesses in this area, and the few that exist are dominated by the weird townies. All the suburban people and college students come to the east side of town to shop at Wal-Mart, hang out in the mall and go into the plaza where TGI Fridays, The Boston Market, Red Lobster, Subway and all the other corporate chain sit-in restaurants are. These stores are what keep the crappy part of town crappy, although I’d rather eat the pizza on the bad side of town than Dominoes any day. Tony and I went into the walk in freezer to hide for a little bit. It was only 3 in the afternoon, most of the cooks were out back smoking cigarettes anyway and the night dishwashers weren’t going to show up for another hour. We were surrounded by boxes full of pre-cooked entrees and appetizers, to Tony’s surprise.

Have you ever wondered why you can buy our appetizers in stores? It’s because all of our food is precooked like that, only we don’t sell the entrees in grocery stores. Everything you eat at almost any corporate sit-in restaurant was not cooked, but microwaved. Save your money and make your own dinner.

Tony and I stayed in the freezer for about 20 minutes before one of the cooks came back looking for some steaks. He looked at us for a little, caught the smell of what we’ve been doing and shook his head, grabbed the steak from over Tony’s head on a shelf and closed the door behind him. Deciding it had been long enough for us to leave, we grabbed a box of the cheddar bacon potato skins and we headed back to Tony’s house to watch some episodes of The Office before I had to come back to Fridays to work.

Tony turned on the episode of The Office where the temp Ryan accidentally started a fire in the microwave and everyone is hanging out in the parking lot. The scene where Dwight is listening to “Everybody Hurts” in his car alone always makes me laugh. “I hope the war lasts forever so Ryan gets drafted!”: that line always gets me. That and the scene where they start playing who would you do and everyone wants to fuck Pam. I’m not gonna front, I’d fuck Pam, but that scene couldn’t have been done any better; it’s so awkward for every single person in the circle when Michael starts talking.

At about 4:30 I left Tony’s house with a slice of pepper pizza, headed back to my house to change into my nice 7 dollar black button up shirt and black dress pants and my brown penny loafers. I always wear the brown penny loafers so the other waiters and waitresses are fully aware I am the only man who works there who isn’t gay, and that my lack of color coordination is a clear indication of that fact. I’ve been a waiter at Fridays since the middle of my sophomore year of college. Before I was working at some local deli, but then the owner decided that he wanted to become a vegetarian so he closed up shop, but that’s beside the point. I started working at Fridays so I could make a lot of money in tips. I’d like to think I’m an interesting person to talk to and a lot of the suburban middle aged people can appreciate my dry sense of humor and tip accordingly. Even during the school year I usually make about 50$ a night, weekends are anywhere from 100-300$, depending on the time of year. I feel like Fridays rob these people by making them pay 15$ for a microwaved steak, but I don’t eat the food here and the pay is good, so I can’t really complain. These people keep coming back, so clearly they don’t know or care that they’re getting cheated out of a good meal.

My only complaint with my job is that I can’t get high before or during work. I mainly don’t get high before work because then I get hungry and get tempted to eat some of the customers food while I’m carrying it to them. Also, time stops for me when I am high, so a five hour shift feels like three days, I’d rather get out in five hours. Finally, my boss is not an idiot. he’s worked in a kitchen before, he knows the cooks and dishwashers are usually high off their minds (sometimes on coke) but as far as the front staff is concerned, they better be stone sober or they’re gone in a heartbeat. He knows I get high, but he’s made it clear I better leave that stuff at home if I want to keep my job. He’s a pretty chill guy, for a 38 year old manager of a TGI Fridays.

I was in the middle of Tuesday night server shift, 8pm, expecting to leave around 11. The night was pretty much dead, a few families here and there, a couple college couples and one dude who was eating alone. Just having collected the tip from my last table, I told my supervisor I was stepping outside to have a smoke. As I was walking outside, I felt my phone buzz in my pocket. I looked at the screen and Garrett was calling me. I reluctantly picked up and said “Hey”. His end was really loud, I forgot he was probably already at the bar for his dumb show. He starts yelling into the phone “Yo faggot, where the fuck are you? I go on in an hour, bro! Anyways, those cops in Wendy’s were coming over to us because I dropped my wallet on the way to your table. You guys freaked out so they thought you were up to something. It was pretty funny, not gonna lie! But yeah, I gotta go, I’m already pretty wasted, see you later premature ejaculator!”

The night sky was a light purple since the sun had not set yet, stars scattered around, the moon hanging over The Boston Market like a mobile in an infant’s bedroom. I leaned against the front wall of Fridays with my American Spirit clenched between my index and middle finger when I started thinking about the trip we were planning this weekend. What if we don’t find what were looking for in Washington? What if Tony or Sophie back out at the last minute and I have to try to go alone? What if this portal, or this universe doesn’t actually exist and were just looking for something I thought about when I was insanely high? Do I smoke too much weed? Am I just another burnout? Am I as whack as Garrett and I’m just too stoned all the time to realize how lame I am? Why do I still work at TGI Fridays? Why am I going to be a teacher? All this stuff had to wait till the weekend, I had work every night this week till Friday. I rubbed my butt into the sidewalk and returned inside to punch the clock, still wondering if all this self discovery I’m thinking about is actually deep philosophical epiphany or just stoner-talk.

WRITING CHAPTER 8 RIGHT NOW

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 13:23:38 -0400

http://www.tumblr.com/directory/recommend/books/dutchmastour

Recommend me while I write the next chapter. I wanna see myself in the Directory page before the end of the week! More chapters to come! Sorry about last chapters cliffhanger, I got a few complaints about that. All will be resolved tonight.

Chapter 7: A Dirty Maneuver

Sat, 26 Jun 2010 19:05:13 -0400

I love America. Most kids of today despise this country, but I fucking love this place. So many kids I know get on this tangent about how Suburbia has molded Americans into boring, hedonistic monsters who just want to watch Lost on Netflix, drink Box Wine and order Dominoes every night. They say suburbs suck the life out of America. I grew up in Suburbia and I loved it. The streets are well paved making skating way more fun. There are no cops anywhere in a suburb so not only can I take a walk in my neighborhood while smoking joints, but I won’t ever get busted for skating in the streets or grinding the curbs. Weird neighbors keep to themselves and all my friends lived there till we all went to college. I personally don’t see why so many kids have a grudge against Suburbia. I find it kind of peaceful. If it isn’t an argument about Suburbia it’s some mess about the War or Wal-Mart or something. The war doesn’t concern me because I skateboard or ride my bike everywhere, and when I can’t ride there, I walk or I take the bus. I am above the influence of the oil crisis. Also, Wal-Mart is probably the greatest place for any college kid. You can buy name-brand food for practically nothing, or buy the store brand for literally nothing. I take a trip every now and again with my backpack and take a few boxes of Great Value rotini wheat pasta. Wal-Mart has a policy that if you get caught stealing less than five dollars worth of merchandise they won’t press charges. I haven’t been caught yet and will never go hungry thanks to that monstrous corporation.

I got started on that tangent because I wanted to talk about the greatest part of America: The Fast Food industry we have created; more importantly, Wendy’s. Wendy’s is the be-all-end-all greatest place to eat food in the entire universe, hands down. For starters, my friend Kurt works the nightshift every night and scores me free burgers when I’ve been burning; he even lets me in the dining area after hours so I can eat indoors. Three dollars and twenty cents can buy me a delicious chicken patty with cheese and bacon and mayo on it along with a small fry and a drink. Where can you get value like that? Fucking nowhere; rhetorical question! The burgers actually taste like hamburgers, not processed shit like at McDonalds. I’m not gonna front, McDonalds is the king of breakfast, but they can’t make a consistently good burger. Obviously Burger King can, but we don’t have a Burger King in our town, so if I want a tasty burger, I go to Wendy’s. I figure if I’m paying money for food, which I rarely do, I better treat myself right. Although, I’m not always in the mood for burgers and chicken sandwiches; sometimes I find myself in the mood for something zesty and awesome. When I am incredibly broke, I take trips to Taco Bell eat some 5 Layer Nachos or a Cheesy Gordita Crunch. Oh, and the Cinammon Twists! Unfortunately we can only take these trips with Sophie since we can’t go inside…

A few summers ago my friend Kurt used to work at Taco Bell, working the night shift. Tony and I had skated to Taco Bell one night to get 2 grande meals, all soft tacos and make our patented Mt.Baja’s Brew, where we mix 2/3 Baja Blast with 1/3 regular Mountain Dew to get the perfect, Toxic Avenger shade of green out of our beverage. It’s a science, but I digress. We showed up around 1:45 and ordered our food and Kurt let us in the dining area. An hour past and we had eaten our food and we’re just hanging out stoned out of our minds, full of authentic Mexican cuisine. We hadn’t noticed, but Kurt had left the store to have a cigarette, so he left Tony and I inside of Taco Bell; completely alone at 2:47 in the morning. It was at that point when Tony turned to me and said “Dude! We’re alone in Taco Bell right now! This is Crazy!” I was annoyed with him that night because he didn’t make the brew and was drinking Cherry Coke instead and I just said “Whatever, drink your cherry coke, bitch!” And then I felt something. Something started grinding at the gears of my digestive track, clenching my intestines with nausea. I wasn’t going to vomit, this was going to be much worse! I had to take the Browns to the superbowl! Without saying a word I stood up and raced to the bathroom, but Kurt had locked it up already. With the feces timebomb ticking away inside me, I decided the only thing I could possibly do was to take a large drink cup and shit into that. And so I did, I shit into the cup for a solid five minutes. I was amazed Kurt hadn’t come back in the time it took me to shit. It could’ve been shorter, everything lasts longer when you’re high. I did my business, left the shit filled cup on the counter for Kurt since I didn’t think throwing it out would be a good idea either, and we both split with our Grande Meals and our skateboards. Kurt got fired the next day, we were banned from Taco Bell for life and I swore off combining poorly made special brownies and Taco Bell.

Let’s get back to my last semester though. Tony and I were sitting in Wendy’s after our skate session. We both got the new BBQ Bacon Deluxe Value Meals and we were more than enjoying ourselves when our least favorite person showed up. Garrett decided he wanted to eat fast food today, and thought we’d be cool with him pulling a chair over to a two person table and eating with us without being invited over. Garrett, on top of being a Class A Herb is also a very loud chewer. He reeked of weed, wearing a oversized tie-dye t-shirt and chewing like a cow, he couldn’t possibly draw more attention to us. I was especially paranoid because of all the people in suits that were at Wendy’s at the time, along with a few cops at the other end of the restaurant. He started taking about his band’s gig at the Shiraz that night, went on and on about this new tasty lick he wrote to put into one of their new songs. We were trying really hard to seem like we were interested in his conversation, but not only are all of his stories whack and lame, we were also very high and unable to focus on what anyone was saying. Garrett kept talking louder and louder, getting all excited about his dumb band and we noticed that the cops at the other end of the restaurant had taken notice and stood up, starring at our table. I got Tony’s attention and made him look over at the cops who were starring at us. We slowly grabbed our boards and ran out of Wendy’s, only to see the police running out of the other door to get into their car and chase after us! I fucking hate Garrett.

LETS GET ME LISTED ON BOOKS

Sat, 26 Jun 2010 18:09:47 -0400

http://www.tumblr.com/directory/recommend/books/dutchmastour

please and thanks! new chapter tomorrow!

over 100 followers

Sat, 26 Jun 2010 01:56:43 -0400

rad! keep spreading the word. new chapter Sunday.

i’m 7 followers away from having 100 followers. spread the word. more chapters within the...

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 00:29:17 -0400

i’m 7 followers away from having 100 followers.

spread the word. more chapters within the week.

Chapter 6: Shredding Sofas

Sun, 20 Jun 2010 23:15:45 -0400

I went up to Tony’s apartment to find that our friend Sophie was there too, drinking tea and reading another Kurt Vonnegut book. I think she’s obsessed with the guy. Last year she was obsessed with Chuck Palahniuk books. She stopped reading them when she concluded that every single Chuck book has the exact same plot as Fight Club. I don’t understand where she drew that conclusion from at all, but Sophie hasn’t always been right in the head. She’s probably the only girl I’ve ever met that works in a coffee shop and doesn’t burn; a real diamond in the rough. Now she reads Kurt Vonnegut all the time, drinking tea and listening to Freelance Whales or anything Bon Iver related. If I haven’t known her forever, I’d write her off as another stupid hipster. It helps that she’s an attractive hipster.

Tony turned on some Futurama while we devoured some General Tso’s Pizza with a side of Mountain Dew. I packed a few bowls with Tony and Sophie bummed a few cigarettes off me and we kept watching Futurama episodes we’ve all seen one too many times. Tony turned on the episode where the Professor creates the box that contains a parallel universe and that reminded me of the awesome roadtrip Tony and I would be taking that weekend. I must’ve started thinking out loud because Sophie started asking me questions about the weed universe. So I filled her in on my multiple universe theories and the roadtrip Tony and I had planned for the coming weekend when she asked us “Well, how are you going to get there? Neither of you have cars, you don’t even have a license and Tony still has a suspended license from that one night in January.” Tony and I looked at each other, thinking how retarded we must be to not have thought about this sooner. We thought about what we should do for a while until Sophie broke the silence with “Do you guys just want me to drive you? I don’t have anything better to do this weekend anyway, it could be fun” and just like that, our problems were over.

As hours passed on Tony’s couch, I got more tense and jittery, urging and longing to go enjoy the nice day outside. So anxious to shred, it was almost ruining the high I had. I wasn’t having that so I turned to Tony and asked him “Hey man, you wanna go shred at the skatepark?” He starred up at the ceiling for a little bit, sighed and said “Dude…that’s on the other side of town”. We sat in silence for about a minute, both trapped in thought and I asked “So do you want to go”?

“Yes. Duh. Just let me get my board and take a piss and we’ll go. Wait, Sophie, are you going to come skate too?”

“…are you serious?”

“…yes? …no.”

“…I’m leaving. Bye guys.”

Tony left the room to go to the bathroom. As I waited for him to come back, I started zoning out, looking at the empty pizza box. It reminded me of this one time we were in Tony’s house and we were helping his brother move out. He had all these boxes he was going to put all of his stuff in, so Tony and I took one of the boxes and stood on opposite ends of the staircase and just started throwing it to one another. We were obscenely high, so the Box Game was probably the most fun we could’ve had while helping someone move out. The game escalated from a game of catch to a game of dodgeball with boxes. I had never seen boxes move so fast. The end of that game was me hitting Tony in the head with a box and him landing head first into a doorframe, fully convinced that he had a concussion from the box and the door.

I decided to bring the game back. I grabbed the empty pizza box and tip-toed to the bathroom door. I stood outside the bathroom waiting for Tony to come out so I could destroy him with the pizza box, almost bursting out laughing the whole time. After an eternity of waiting, the familiar sounds of a toilet flushing came from the other side of the door. The knob turned and Tony walked out, surprised to see me standing outside the door. His face was immediately covered with a pizza box. I fell to the floor laughing at the look on his face. He started chasing after me so I bolted for the living room to try to not get tackled, but he speared me onto the couch and we wrestled for a bit on his dusty old sofa. We tumbled to the floor along with some couch cushions. We stopped fighting and got a really good idea. We took the removed cushions and went to the top of his stairs. I put the cushion under my knees and flew down his staircase like a five year old going down a snow-covered hill in an inflatable tube. I reached the bottom of the stairs completely unharmed only to have Tony steamroll over me with his cushion. We sat at the bottom of the staircase laughing uncontrollably while the other people in his apartment looked out of their doors to see what all the noise was coming from. To make the situation less awkward for everyone; we ran back upstairs, grabbed our boards and headed to the skatepark.

Chapter 5: The Green River

Sun, 20 Jun 2010 22:23:57 -0400

The sun was shining above me, painting the pavement beneath my board with warmth and spreading color all around the grass and homes that surrounded me. The sunglasses I was wearing gave everything around me a crimson tint, like the world was bleeding due to the extreme heat, almost like I was on the sun. It was one o’clock in the afternoon; I was bombing down Elm Street en route to the Church Street Getty, wind in my face and Jimi Hendrix’s “Electric Ladyland” flying through my ears. “Crosstown Traffic” started playing the minute I hit Main Street, it was almost too surreal to be real life. Weaving through traffic and pedestrians, I was flying like a crane.

With a pack of American Spirits in my pocket and Voodoo Children on the brain, I gave Tony a call to see if he’d be down to shred the skatepark. Tony always finds reasons to not want to skate. Usually it’s something lame like “I have to go to work” or “I have class this afternoon” but I just think he has a hard time skating and smoking at the same time so he tries to avoid skating. I guess he’s just growing up and skating isn’t much fun to him anymore. Things change, but I guess that’s life. I thought I’d give it another shot. I went into The Green River to give him a call. The Green River is this head shop on the corner of Main and Chestnut that I go into to get incense mostly. Their pieces are usually really whack and I’m not really a fan of their tapestries. Although, I did get this really awesome felt blacklight poster of a wizard riding a dragon with a lightning bolt in his hand and that thing is cool as hell, but for the most part I just go into The Green River for the good smell. That, and the name is in direct reference to the CCR album.

When I walked inside I saw some dude at the counter talking to my friend Chaz who owns the place. Garrett was talking to him about some whack ass band he was listening to, probably Animal Collective or some second rate hipster garbage. Garrett is the kind of dude no one ever wants to be around. He’s weird, he always wants in on the circle when clearly nobody wants him around and the worst part is whenever he gets high he always starts telling these really uninteresting stories that nobody wants to hear, like some shit about going to the dentist and the dentist telling him he had a missing molar or something at age 7 or something else that’s completely pointless; or even worse he starts talking about all the shows his shitty jam band has played at shitty bars in town when clearly nobody cares about his bar band. Unfortunately he made eye contact with me, so I was more or less obligated to talk to him.

The kid got this smug smile on his face and asked “Grinding some sick halfpipes, bro?” and made a gesture at my skateboard. I don’t know what planet this kid comes from, but most kids I know don’t go into halfpipes just to grind. That aside, I told him “Yeah man, I was gonna head over to the skatepark in a little bit, maybe meet up with some people, since it’s such a nice day and everything…” “Yeah dude, sounds legit!”… I have to make something known right now. The only thing I hate more than the word ‘bro’ is the word ‘legit’. I don’t like the word. I don’t know when kids my age got so lazy and decided to condense and shorten all their words into stuff like ‘totes’ and ‘probs’ and ‘obvs’ and all this whack ass shit, but I have no problem saying the word legitimate or brother to people. I’m not so fucking lame that I can’t add the extra syllables to commonly used words in the English language. I really don’t like burnouts like Garrett; they give burnouts like me a bad name.

“Yeah, I’m cutting class right now, I gotta practice with Yellow Tailed Octopus in a little bit. We have another gig at The Shiraz tonight, you should come through, man. It should be a good time. I can probably sneak you in the back, get you some pitchers, it’ll be pretty legit. What do you think, bro?” I hesitated before I answered “Nah dude, sorry. I gotta work tonight. But thanks for the offer, Hashed Brotato. I think I’m gonna go hippy-hop some semi trucks now. I’ll catch you later, Garrett.” I quickly ducked out of The Green River and looked at my phone to read a text from Tony that said “come over. general tso pizza and new season of futurama on netflix”. With that, I lit up an Am-Spir and headed for Tony’s apartment. Maybe after a bowl or two I can convince him to come skate for once.