An Ode to a Wedding

I felt sick with revelation the other day; a dark and disturbing truth slowly overtook my breathing. The foulness wasn’t the offense of me and my chum’s perversions nor the wretched location, but the putrid feel of human flesh being beaten and sold, as I’d imagine a moral man would feel watching a big scarred buck at a slave auction.

It was me, Kopechian, and the friendly fiend Cohen we endearingly call “The Jew”. We were huddled around a rustic, cheap table of the, what must have been based on it’s terrible case of the wobbles, weakest wood in a dusty, dirt-floor haunt in border town Mexico. In those days the drug cartels were yet to grow in to the charming organizations they now resemble in the way of death and destruction, but were then much like a pubescent boy learning to manage his awkward gait and negotiate his growing anatomy.

In a filthy, rat infested brothel packed with beasts; both females and donkeys, at the end of a 3 day binge, one grows aware of the burden of man, prisoners of biology as it were.

My 2 villainous friends and I had just murdered our umpteenth beer (in such company, one could hardly be trusted on to keep an accurate count, of course)

“I’m out of money.” The normally garrulous Kopechian conceded.
“I’ve got 10 dollars put in my sock for the cab, that’s it.”
The Jew, of course, would prepare and fight this assertion like a lawyer going to trial.
“What do you mean? Where did it all go? We only had 8 rounds today, last night I paid for the majority of the drinks and you still owe me for the hotel.”
“Yah, but that other stuff.”
“The lines you did off the concrete latrine soaked in piss? That’s your issue”
“Dude, whatever. I’ll pay you back; you know I’m good for it!”
“I know no such thing, deadbeat!”

I sat silent through the menial conversations of money, scanning the grimy, dingy bar. It existed as more than a bar, of course, it was multi-faceted in that in a few minutes down and out women with busted faces, out of shape bodies, and mouthy breathe would clumsily hoof around in worn cocktail dresses too tight and of dull colors that were once bright, like peacocks from New York Sewers.

Jew spoke with authority

“I’ve got the answer to the question at hand, gentleman” the last word emphasized with irony.
“We find the grossest one towards the end of the night. Not the very end of the night, mind you, it mustn’t be when the drunken idiot bouncers are aware, but around 4 am or so. At that time, even the fattest whore will have made some money. We corner her outside on the street after a fake proposition and steal her pocket purse. She ought to have at least $600. That’s $200 each if we play our hand right!”
“You’re a dumbass, because A) the hookers have to give the money to the house to hold and B.) You don’t think 3 white boys aren’t going to be the first people the Mexicans look at in a situation like this?!

“That’s the point! The bottom feeders never give all the money to the house! If they did that, they’d never eat, and look at that one” the Jew pointed across the cigarette smoke to the other side of the brothel, “she definitely eats!”

All this while, I’m still silent from the soreness and exhaustion of another 3 day campaign one happens in to from a hard living. Hating my life and the pain I brought my body from chronic chemical abuse of alcohol and drugs followed by the systems shock of complete sobriety for a string of 5 days, just to repeat the same defeatist lifestyle hurts too much to think upon, that even now as I recount this to you, I feel an uneasiness in my stomach! It’s the avoidance of thought, and, ultimately, disappointment, one feels that delays the inevitable truths, like not checking ones bank statement after a hard weekend of partying because of the fear and shame of ones utter irresponsibility.

As I try to wallow in fantasy, glorious thoughts began to shine through like sun rays through ominous storm clouds, I’m over this crumbling building in a foreign, lawless oasis of debauchery and self-destruction, tomorrow is a new day I think with the hard resolve and passionate fervor of a religious believer.

“3 Shots of Tequila!” jolts me back to reality.

What denigrates me and makes me inhumane is what at the same time flaws me and emboldens me as a human. Maybe it is human to exist as a vile and crude creature. Perhaps evil energy powers us and we are indeed created in a certain likeness. Peering through the finger print smudges of a cocaine mirror, I think, Can I see the devil in my features?

The cavernous, earthy bar did nothing to ease my mind and dispel any fear of my childish attitude, and, like a Mexican Raskilnikov, I would stew in a nihilistic cauldron, a dense mixture of pity and romantic self loathing.

I wish, dear reader, I could transcribe and give life to the treacherous and most devious thoughts that run through a man’s mind when simmered in such a broth. Everything universal is questioned and nothing in sum is wrong. Extremes can be solved for and shocking thoughts quickly fade to basic equations. What is rape, really, when compared to prostitution? What is heroin to a man abusing everything else?

Anyways, it’s about this time when the horns and accordions break me from my throbbing concentration and pull me back to the problem at hand. We remain broke in a foreign country. I don’t mind being broke, I’ve languished in poverty before and like a monk with his vow, would happily do it again. The strong man knows material wealth holds no truth, the minds influence minting the only currency an intelligent man needs. Influence sways everything; guilt, innocence, right, wrong, all mere academic questions.

This pattern tirelessly continues throughout the night, a delicate game of back and forth, like pong, focusing on what’s in front of me and slipping back in to the ramblings of a sickened mind.
“There goes the fat one walking outside” Cohn hissed.

The Jew. Really, only the most self-loathing best friend can love a guy like him. The juxtaposition of a complete asshole and empathetic friend is enough of harassment for most to deem it a terrible venture. A ridiculous, self loathing man, I say. Why else would one hold dear to their bosom someone who constantly proves undeniably the sharpest in any room, the wittiest and most clever at any party, and who possesses as fair a face, arguably, as our hero? Only a masochist, I argue.
Stay with me dear reader, I tell you that dark, troubling recollection of my mental anguish to illustrate in what disposition I struggle with on an everyday basis.

I was at a bar last night, alone, wistfully fingering the ridges of scars on my arms and hands when I happen across the ancient television that hung above the bar like a bulky, electronic spider too heavy for its web. The beautiful ethnic journalist on the local news program morphs from a cheery friend to a forlorn griever with the result of extracting emotion from everyone who watched numbly. In a random act of violence a poor woman was killed on the California border, to what us degenerates felt like was a far-off land. The picture shown on the screen was that of a homely, thick woman who remained nameless and unidentified. Further reports showed no identification, cards, pictures, or otherwise were found. The hot, macabre, foul feeling I told you about overtook me slowly at first, like a creeping tide on the shore, and then, like a switch was flipped, engulfing me like a violent storm wave as the picture was further painted! Only $600 hid away in the depths of undergarments was found on her person.

“I’ll be damned, the Jew had his figures right!!!”