Saturday, December 7, 2013

Art Intimidating Life - The Ruins of my Mental Empire: Part Ninety-Six

im a menace to myself
jeans and thongs weather
the loneliness of a dusk ridden sunday evening bus driver
im a beast....



i saw clerks when i was probably a touch too young - like most of the best and favourite films of mine - its a fucking funny film - i just watched it for the first time in a long time and found myself laughing out loud alone on a saturday night on the couch - thirty seven dicks?! - i remember when i first saw that film as a kid i got the desire to get a job in a convenience store - and at the age of twenty one or so, i got that job - and it was somehow perfect - it was a local place, a small place, but it was under the disguise of being an independent place - it was run by major, major, major fucking oil company - but they had this little place and put a cute little name on it - and yeah, when i was twenty or something, maybe nineteen, i got a job there - two nights a week - four pee-em to midnight - it was cool - i had the after school rush of school kids buying chips and shit from four pee-em on wards, then the peak hour fucks all frustrated and shit for no reason other than they were stuck in traffic to get nowhere but home so they can watch pathetic television while ignoring a family they secretly hate and despise - after that i was alone - i did my thing - i made mix tapes and played them on the broken cassette player we had there - i rang up radio stations and said hello and requested songs.... and a few other things like this...

did i ever get held up? - the first question to come from people at shitty parties when i tell them about my history - my past - no - i didnt get held up - i wish i did though - i was told not to fight them off, but to give them what they wanted and get rid of them as fast as possible - keep an eye on the measuring tape as they leave - if i was ever held up i like to think i would have fought back - i mean, fuck them - cut me, i dont care - shoot me, i'll live - i think it was the fact there was 24hour surveillance cameras working, so i knew anything dramatic that happened to me would be caught on camera, and look fucking cool

once this guy came stumbling in drunk, and i thought - oh, ok, here we go - he sat down on the floor before me - he had a backpack that he took off and placed before him - at this stage i was just sitting back thinking - yeah, alright, just some drunk guy wanting to buy cigarettes - it was then this guy pulled out a massive knife, like one of those massive meat-slamming kitchen knives, and started hacking away at his backpack - ripping it open anyway he could - i dont think i understood the severity of the situation at the time, as i just stood back with my hair and sideburns and watched the scene take place - eventually he ripped open his bag and pulled out a couple of bundles of massive dodgy looking fifty dollar notes and bought a packet of cigarettes and left

there was this junkie girl who came in and treated me like shit - im usually cool and sympathetic to people suffering from addiction and/or people who arent doing so well - but this girl was a rude, nasty, and unkind evil bitch - no room for her in my life - as she left after she bought and complained about her cigarettes, she accidently dropped twenty dollars on the floor - now, please - i hope you understand that i would always raise something like this to anyone at risk of losing anything they deserve - but this girl - no - i took pleasure in pocketing that twenty dollar note and buying some beer or a cd with it - i remember her walking away as i slipped it in my pocket - it was a sunny afternoon

it was winter and i saw a melbourne connex train carriage get hauled and towed down sprinvale road- it was a split second vision, and it was real - but it was amazing, and the thought that without that split secord it woulsve been something amazing i wouldve missed forever - but yeah, i saw that

another winter night was strange - i was closing up, and by this stage everything was a routine, to the fcuking second - for some reason i had it against my boss, so i was working to the second - they hired some guy who was like some david brent type, but tried to be an enforcer of some sort - didnt work with me, so i cursed him throughout my mind, and said fuck it, im leaving work at midnight on the dot - anyway, it was winter, and i was listening to arab strap on the shitty cassette player they had - i carried it over onto my discman on the walk home - and the fog moved like smoke through water - ive never seen any fog like it before or since - it was like a lava lamp stumbling home after midnight - heavy smokey fog, so much so that you could taste it, smell it - i saw it all cream my local neighbourhood as i walked home alone, as i ignored all the familiar sights and landmarks - i always think of that moment whenever i listen to the arab strap

there were these two teenage girls who lived down the road- their dad came in from time to time to buy milk or bread - bald and bearded - anyway, these two girls came in after school and bought their shit, and they were cool - they felt relaxed in the store, and we had some laughs - i think one of them was buying smokes, and she was always bringing in her passport as proof of age - i thought that was cool - yeah, smoke up and i'll see you in lativa - anyway, one night these two girls walked in the store and it was dark outside - they said - can u lock the doors? theres a man outside following us... - i looked outside and there was this man, probably thirty-something, ten years older than me, looking directly at me from the petrol pumps outside - i had the ability to lock the doors from behind the counter, so i did, and told the girls it was okay - they hung out for a bit and talked amongst themselves until the guy left and their dad walked them home

he was covered in blood and came running inside, telling me to lock the doors - i did so and asked what was going on - before he could answer, this face-tattooed nut and ball sack came running to the doors trying to jam them open - banging on the windows in front of my station/haven, it was clear he wanted to get-at the dude in the store with me - the dude covered in blood, eager for the doors to be locked - just relax man! - calm down okay! - i shouted through the glass as the man outside banged and elbowed the glass, trying to get to the bloodied man inside with me - i called triple zero and asked for some cops - the operator asked about the situation and i said - yeah, he's bleeding from the head, but i think he's okay, im more worried about the psycho outside - i asked the guy if he wanted an ambulance and he said no, but the operator thought it would be best - so they came - the cops and the ambos - eventually it worked out that the guy in the store with me had caused some shit in the bottle shop next door, and he was the fucking instigator of some massive drama - the psycho outside my window was the good guy, and i was locked inside with the fuck-bag - anyway - before too long the cops and ambos turned up and took care of these guys and whatever shit they were playing - i just sat back and looked cool as shit with the red and blue lights flashing all over me

i dont know much about cars, but i know she was driving a cheap girly one - she walked into the store after pumping ten dollars worth on pump number eleven - typical - and there was no question about it - blonde - slim - athletic - cute face - twenty something daddys girl- an arse that salutes the sun-rise, if you know what i mean - baseball cap - so im like - ok, yeah, cool ,nice - she comes to the counter and says to me - ...velvet underground! is this the radio? - now, im a massive velvet underground fan, and a taken man, but hearing this from this preconceived bimbo blew my fluro-lit-mind - it was the radio and it was triple r, and so i told her so - she said - oh nice, i'll get that doors cd out of my player and tune it, im a subscriber, are you? - i am, and i love the doors

i was changing the price of fuel one afternoon - maybe around 6pm - there was this small box at the foot of thr price stand  - i turned it over and it was full of used syringes - around twenty of them

there was this woman who lived down the street - i got the feeling she was a prostitute - i felt for her - she was nice to me - always - anyway, she'd sometimes come in to buy cigarettes, but a lot of the time she'd just use the public telephone we had in the store -  yeah, when they were still around - i remember one time she was whispering into the phone as i hung back and gave her space - before i came to realising, she screamed into the phone - if i had a gun id shot him and then shoot myself!!  - there were times id do a sweep and clean up the store and find empty satchels of anti-depressants hidden in convenient convenient-store corners - she once told me she was raped at the age of ten - i tried my best, but unfortunately the best one young man can do isn't enough to help those who need it - i'll never forget her and i hope shes okay

he looked like jay - as in, jay and silent bob - he'd buy smokes and ones he landed a best of pink floyd on the counter which somehow inspired me to buy more floyd - he'd always come in - he lived down the road - making call on the public phone in his track-suit pants and long hair - i remember once this police raid squad park outside the store and suited up in bullet proof vests and clip boards - i knew they were going to bust the long haired kick-boxing pink floyd loving drug dealer, but i just sat back and watched - i dont know how i fell about that - he was a nice guy - made me laugh a lot - and i dig pink floyd

there were some nights, when i worked the graveyard shift, midnight to seven or eight aa em - over eight hours, id serve 2 people - 4 including the milkman and breadman - the rest of the time id just wander around - thinking about myself, my life, who i am and what i will become - what i was doing, and what i was doing it for - corridors of coke and smokes and motor oil

it's now almost seven or eight years since i worked at that place - it not longer exists - it's a car-park now, an over-ground-one at that - i hope all the scumbags, drug dealers, school girls, prostitutes, and dailing commuting complainers are happy enough and cool enough with whatever they are doing right now - for some strange reason, i love them all - i'll always remember therm, in the same way i forget most of the people i by-pass in my silly little life