When it comes to things in general, I’ve always been a private in an army of one that has always been undermanned and overrun...retreating bloodied and beaten over barbed wire or hiding in the shadows AWOL behind enemy lines...I’ve always been 10 minutes too late...or 10 minutes too early...or 10 years too early, or 10 years too late...my plans always falling into enemy hands and being thwarted...I used to feel like I was ahead of the times, but now I feel like I’m behind the times and falling, falling, free falling further...my dreams have been somebody’s else’s reality...I never got the breaks, only the brakes...slammed on and my head’s hit the steering wheel a lot of times...walked away dazed, dizzy, delirious, dumbfounded, discouraged, off-balance...never knew the right person...always knew plenty of the wrong people...never was in the right place at the right time...always in the wrong place at the wrong time...I was having a good time, but my mind was in a bad place...always on thin ice...why does everything have to be so freakin’ hard?...odd man out, short end of the straw...guess some people were born under a bad sign or an unlucky star if you believe in that kind of horoscopy thing...in life it seems, there are people who skate right through, and there are people who are constantly on thin ice with somebody there to throw you an anchor...no matter what you try to do, it comes out wrong...every move you make, you hear the ice cracking under you...you just wanna throw up your hands and quit sometimes and the water under that ice is cold, real cold…—last call now...already?...I don’t wanna go home, I just wanna sit here and stare at the Christmas lights that they have around the mirror behind the bar year round...it would be nice if they spent a couple of dollars to replace the string they got now that has a few burned out bulbs on it...they’ve only been burned out for a few years...really puts you in the spirit while downing a different type of spirit...it’s too late to pick anything up on the way home...hope I got some stuff at home...I think there’s some vodka sitting around someplace...so I stumble to the car and drive with one hand over one eye...that helps with the double vision...glad I don’t live far from the bar so I don’t have to drive my car too far...man it’s cold tonight...the cold goes right through these old decaying bones...it’s been really cold for two weeks...my front tire is about shot and ready to go flat anytime...flat as a hat, flat as a B flat...flat as the flat I live in...as flat as those tires on that ‘56 Buick in the junkyard down the street that masquerades as some guy’s front yard...it is pretty cool though that he’s got a beaten down 1960’s era city bus in his backyard...I gotta go by the mall one of these nights and pick up the kids some presents, but I ain’t got no idea what they want...I haven’t seen them in a while...they grow up fast don’t they?...god I hate when people say that but it’s true...yeah, yeah, Merry Christmas whoever you are I yell across the parking lot of my apartment complex— I’m so drunk I don’t even care...I feel good for a change and the cold air is invigorating...as long as I don’t freeze to death before I get inside...where the hell’s that key?...I’m goin’ through my pockets like somebody goin’ through a dead man’s pockets before the police get there...not that I’d know anything about that...I find the magic key and I stumble inside and I don’t even think about the vodka...I just collapse on the couch and listen to the quiet...close my eyes, the world spinning entirely too fast for my liking...I lay there comfy for five minutes and then I think...did I turn the car lights off?...I really don’t feel like getting up to go look...did I lock the door?...I think so...what the hell?...if someone needs the car that bad...I close my eyes and fall into another world...when I wake up entirely too early—the sun shining through the front window into my eyes...like 7 a.m. or something, I look out the front window and the lights are off...I guess the car was locked...it’s still there anyway...and I don’t see any damage to it, so I guess I made it home ok...I still got a few bucks so I’ll go back to the bar again tonight and see if they got those burned out lights working yet...and celebrate the coming of Christmas again...hello barstool my old friend, I’ve come to sit on you again...and with all my close personal friends that I don’t know...except for the bartender...if he’s working tonight.
