A fat, middle-aged nightmare of a man lumbered into the liquor store where I work tonight. He looked like he had been sleeping on his mother's bathroom floor for the last seven years. His sweatpants had all the normal, terrible stains around his crotch and backside that an unfortunate amount of our 'regulars' tend to don. His bloodshot eyes BULGED and the fresh scrapes on his nose and forehead suggested that this man fell on his face. Often.
"Anybody spare a ride for a buck?" he offered, the spittle erupting forth with every 'b.' I jumped to dodge, but the nightmare man was unsympathetic, soldiering onward to the inevitably shitty bottom shelf of the vodka aisle.
He returned with a large bottle of Burnett's Blueberry, which I could instantly envision him downing over the course of the next three hours in his bathroom suite before shitting and vomiting the last of his internal organs over his tiled mattress and then settling in for a very brief and violent sort of nap. In another three hours, God-willing, he will inexplicably rise and immediately return to see me. Or someone like me who works at an all-night liquor store.
"Pubic Symphysis" he grunted as he reached into his pockets and spilled their entire contents onto the floor.
"Sorry?" I asked, frowning as he stooped and let out a loud series of curses against humanity.
He began to scoop up the seven dollars in nickels which he had decided to use for this specific transaction.
"Broke m'fuckin' pelvis. Pain is un-godly. Every step is like the entire crucifixion is happening just to me. To my ass, actually. Excruciating. Just walked twelve blocks. Took me three fuckin' hours. When I close my eyes, all I see is red hate. Red hate for days and weeks now. It should all be there," he motioned to the pile of nickels on the counter and shuffled out, exactly $1.23 short.
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