Vacation on the Moons of Saturn.

Woke up...got outta bed...raked a comb across my head…

Here I am at work early Sunday Morning and feeling tired from the pool game with the Interzone Boys last night. Peter Murphy is warbling over the radio. I'm sitting here at my computer terminal surrounded by the three other unfortunate-looking girls I work with. Oh, wait there is Mike...forgot...but, he's on the other side of the office, so he doesn't count. Damn good coffee and my supervisor brought fresh blueberry muffins. There is a God.

Last night, after I returned home from work, I showered, dressed, and made myself a whiskey sour as I waited for my friends to arrive. Listened to some Oingo Boingo CD's.

Now, I'm not much of a pool player, but when I was a wayward traveler I was known to be a pretty good billiard player. Played pool from San Diego to New York to Puerto Rico to Peru and back. However, I haven't played a game of pool in about two years and was apprehensive of me being rusty.

Alfredo, my dear brilliantly handsome friend, showed up at my door with Javier and Saul, two of his friends from his job. We sat for a while over tequila shots and talked awhile about how our generation had been cheated and lied to by the generation before us. Here it is 2004 and I do not have a flying car or a robot to do my laundry! What's up with that? When I was a kid, I'd thought I'd be taking vacations on the moons of Saturn by now. What a jip!

We all walked downtown to this huge pool hall a block off of Revolution Avenue. It was packed and we had to wait about fifteen minutes for a table. But we spent that time drinking cold beers and gawking at all the hot straight men milling about the room. I know what you are thinking, Dear Reader, why aren't you at a gay bar or disco? It is Saturday night. Nah...not my thing, anymore. I did that when I grew up in Hollywood, California in my salad days. Nothing is more boring than sitting in one of those atrocious places watching guys looking goofy on the dance floor trying out the latest moves...badly. I find the guys in those places so phony, trust me there are other places to hang out that are less offensive.

Finally, a table opened up and it was good times. There was this old drunk stumbling around the hall taking sips out of other people’s cups. I kept an eye on that fucker! Saul, being a scrawny little cutie, he's what you'd call "Man-pretty" tried to be as macho as possible when this girl tried to pick up on him. I like my friends, so bisexual...yet so sweet, too.

Alfredo was hungry and this little chubby man was going around the pool hall selling burritos and we bought a few and Holy crap! They were delicious! As I sat there munching my burrito, this shabby old bum shuffled in. He smelt like piss and his grey suit was blotched with black dirt, shiny over the dirt. He had a great mane of grizzled grey hair. As he walked by me, he smiled from a dark toothless hole and gave me a wink. Now from my sitting position, I had an unobstructed view of the entrance of the men’s restroom and the trough urinal. Okay, Alfredo and I was penis-peeping.

Anyways, the old bum wobbles over to the urinal and in one sweep, he pulls down his pants and takes a big shit right into the urinal. Loudly and abundantly. I mean, it was like chocolate fudge being blown out of the muffler of a '73 Oldsmobile. I sat there with my eyes glued, stone-faced, half-eaten burrito frozen at my lips, My God, I whispered. The men’s room stank after that. A worker entered and cursed in Spanish and had the unfortunate job of scooping the shit out.

Two a.m. rolled around and I mentioned that I had to go home because I had to work the next morning at 10:00 a.m., so we all dispersed. The four of us walked to a taxi stand and said our goodbyes. Alfredo was nice enough to stay the night, so I didn't get to sleep until around four. Went to sleep and dreamed of the moons of Saturn...