Wednesday Night
After are last seminar we leave to Orlando. Our flight leaves at 6:10 AM, so we want to be close to the airport.
We stop and eat at the Waffle House, which is a southern institution. Six of us sit at the counter. The resteraunt is not very large, maybe 900 sq feet, It resembles more of an old school diner more than anything modern. The menus double as placemats. The tired, 50 something waitress and the short order cook, mid 20's and plain with a hankering for Mykul, are busy trying to figure something out at the register and are as frustrated as a dog with a head cone. It takes 40 minutes to get our food. While we are waiting a fiction of transvestites comes in and sits in two booths in the corner. Their conversation is more interesting than ours. Above the grill the short order cook stares at a reminder, "Hash Browns, Not Hash Tans' I guess some short order cook was a little too concerned about speed and not color.
We have to meet in the lobby at 4:50 AM to catch the shuttle. Mykul and and I and Matt decide to drink and stay awake instead of sleep. At 3:45 I am the only one awake. I drink the last of my Colt 45 and flip through a book of poetry I have brought with me.
"why do we go on
with our minds and
pockets full of dust"
Good question Bukowski.
In the morning, I am the most awake. Matt smells like a skid row boxer pretending to be more a man than he is. The flight is almost empty to Saint Louis. Who in their right mind would be on a plane at 6:AM. Matt is still drunk ( amatuer). We lie across the three seats and sleep. Matt's head is hanging out in the isle. While he sleeps off his drunk his legs keep twitching banging the seats infront of him. The poor girl sitting there finally moves tired of the indirect abuse. Finally one of the stewardesses confronts Matt.
" Are you drunk, you can't fly if your drunk."
Matt smell like an knocked over bottle of cheap vodka.
"No mam, I am just really tired.
"If your drunk, I will make sure you never fly."
Matt pleads with her,
"No I am just REALLY tired."
The stewardess relents.
We land in St Louis and somehow lose Matt. I think of poor Matt drunk and really tired and his cell phone battery out of juice lost in St Louis, but not for very long....it's his problem not mine. ( amatuer).
I board the plane and sitting in the seat behind me is Matt. How in the hell....... We take off and Matt is sleeping stretched out across the three seats of the MD 80 and starts kicking the back of my seat with his twitching legs. After the 9th time I am about to fucking punch him in the back, but staying awake all night and two Dramamine finally kick in. When I wake up we are landing in SLC. The stewardess welcomes us and tells us the good news. Its 18 fucking degrees!
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