The fact of the matter is I didn’t lose it. That doesn’t mean I didn’t get mad, but I didn’t have to put pictures of my temper on milk cartons, staple flyers to telephone poles or contact the local authorities to let them know it was lost. I kept my cool and didn’t kill anyone.
I wanted to. They had it coming, oh how they did.
But I didn’t. More on this in a bit.
So, like the rest of the cool people in this country I saw X2 on Friday and was extremely pleased. The good folks who made the movie did what I had hoped they would, and what I hope the second and third installments of The Matrix will do. They basically said: "You know all that shit we did in the first flick – all that background information, character development, groundwork about mutants and the way they fit into the world and our little team of heroes? Well I hope you do, because we aren’t going over that again. Sorry, Jack. Watch the first movie." They got down to the business of making a two hour and fifteen minute entertainment extravaganza. They expanded on character relationships, fleshed out a few things and added some new people and twists – most notably Nightcrawler. Sure, they distilled a few things down for the viewing audience, but they only have a few hours to work with, and they kept the parts that counted, and changed the things that could be done so without disrupting the X-Men franchise. I’m with Phreeq on this one – I was wanting to see X-Men III the very second I walked out of the theatre. Either that, or I would have gladly sat through a 4½-hour movie rather than 2¼-hours, if it meant the story continued. I say "bravo" to any filmmakers who can so thoroughly spellbind and entertain this jaded and critical moviegoer. Oh, and Wolverine dies. Gone. Never to return. Why are you still reading this paragraph? Weirdo.
Sunday night we celebrated Krazy’s birthday by having a tea party and cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off. Aw, who am I fooling. We hung out and all went drinking at The Dock. Krazy, Slinky, Lisa, PickleScoop, Goofy, RhondaLady and myself all had a loverly time inebriating ourselves – yea Guinness! After a while Slinky and Lisa bowed out to go perform some illicit activity elsewhere, and even later Pickle, the gay Eskimo, took his giraffes and left. That left a well-fed (thereby removing any chance of complete intoxication) Krazy, a well-drunk (thereby removing any chance of complete coherence) Goofy and a well-satiated RhondaLady and myself (maintaining a good, if not low-level feeling of warmth). After a while, we decided to move to the top floor so Krazy and Goofy could ogle women more thoroughly in the thicker crowd. I made the executive decision to go and "pay the rent" (i.e. chip a hunk of porcelain from the urinal with the force of my straining bladder). RhondaLady wanted a Corona, and asked if I’d pick one up upon my return from the euphemism.
So there I was standing at the bar, basking in the glow of a mild buzz and the euphoria earned from relieving myself of approximately 37¼ gallons of used beer. Around me on all sides were people clamoring for a drink from the bartender, mostly college age harlots with way too much cleavage for their emaciated frames. I’m patiently awaiting my turn for the red-haired fellow behind the bar to get me RhondaLady’s beer. I realize after a few minutes that the crowd of nubile toothpicks around me has cycled out a few times, and that I’m the only one who hasn’t been served. I’m gradually starting to feel that familiar prickle in my brain. The adrenaline is starting to slowly drip, as though from an IV into my cerebral cortex. I’m rapidly losing by carefully cultivated buzz. I make a very conscious effort to remain calm and see if this red-headed little prick behind the bar will bother to serve me, even with the distinct lack of a pair of hooters surgically Velcroed to my chest. How long can he hold out avoiding my eyes as I all but drill my initials into his forehead with my laser-vision? Twenty minutes later I turn and walk away with a great deal of effort, empty-handed. My impulse was to reach across the bar, fold this Irish prick like a handkerchief and stuff him into the olive jar in front of me. Fuck physics, I’d have done it.
So I return to the table hot. Real hot, but in control of myself. That carrot topped buzz-kill sucked the joy right out of me, but I was damned if I’d let it ruin the remainder of the evening – which a bar-fight and subsequent arrest most certainly would have. So, I commence to calm down. Goofy, who is seated to my right, is loaded to the point where he has ceased to notice where that cigarette in his left hand is weaving around. Namely, almost into my right arm. So, I pluck the lit cherry bare handed from it’s tip and flick it from the table as he attempts to reattach it. He threatens me with a few slurred bodily harms and relights his smoke. Again, he’s not paying attention to where he’s got that cigarette and nearly burns me again. He’s faster this time and manages to pull his hand away as I reach for the tip. I steeple my hands under my chin, rest my elbows on the table and smile at him – check that – I present him with a smile that holds no joy and promises pain. I’m already aggravated, and with no satisfaction. Nearly having a cigarette extinguished on my arm – twice – has me no less giddy. Goofy says "let me show you a little trick I learned", and proceeds to pick up his Zippo, flick it open, light it and press it to my arm. A flash low in my peripheral vision, the distinct smell of burnt hair and the distant sensation of hot metal tell me that he has burnt away some of my arm hair and is getting a good start on my actual arm. No pain – the IV drip in my brain won’t allow that, and I never break my smile and eye-lock with him. As I sit there unblinking, looking into Goofy’s mildly glazed eyes, all I can think about is how quickly I could snatch them from his skull and eat them.
The burning was meant to be a scare tactic, but Goofy’s brain, laced with booze wasn’t moving his body as quickly as it should and that Zippo hovered there for a few seconds longer than I’m sure he intended. Again, I managed to resist the temptation to hurt, maim, kill and generally blitzkrieg a human being. Several factors played into this. One: Goofy is, well, goofy. He earned that handle for a reason – and I don’t think he intended to be more than a niggling asshole. Two: It was Krazy’s birthday party, and I didn’t want to ruin that with a trip for him to visit an old friend at the morgue. Third: Goofy is generally a decent human being and a valued member of the little society we have all created amongst our friends.
I, uh, didn’t let it just go. I needed some satisfaction. I managed to restrict myself to a bit of juvenile revenge. I swiped the flint from Goofy’s Zippo when he stepped away to use the phone. Hey, my first two impulses were to throw Goofy in the lake, or at least his "A" grade 2003 Zippo. What a lovely sound either of them would have made as they splashed into the water – "bloonk!". Later reports have told me that he was confused and inconvenienced by the inability of his precious lighter to work. So that’s something, I guess. Oh, and he did apologize to me as well, but only after threats of harm to his person made by Krazy. Apology accepted with one stipulation – do it again… I don’t give a rat’s ass how drunk you are… and we’ll see how well you can flick the flint wheel of a Zippo with your prostate.
C’est la vie. It’s in the past. I do believe that both incidents suffered without sufficient response, coupled with a lack of sufficient sleep put me into the foul mood I was in yesterday. But nobody died, and I stayed out of jail, so it’s a small price to pay. I can’t guarantee that I’ll be this well behaved in the future.
*sigh*
Ah, well.