I Threw a Bottle At Someone Tonight
I’m sitting at a table at Dahlak, an Ethiopian bar in West Philly. Byron, who helped me with my plumbing, is sitting across from me at a different table. Byron looks like a skinny male version of Della “Touched By A Morbidly Obese Angel” Reese, and sees himself as a bottomless well of advice.
“How’s Melissa?” he asks.
“I don’t know,” I say. “Actually, let me rephrase that. ‘I don’t care’.”
Byron scowls. “I remember when you was in love,” he says.
“Yeah, that was awhile ago,” I say, knowing I’m going to have to repeat the same story i’ve said twice before to the stupid drunk. “That was before she left me high and dry, two weeks before we were supposed to move in.”
Byron shakes his head like a schoolmarm. He leans toward me and says “You shoulda asked her to marry you, you shoulda married her.”
“I asked her THREE FUCKING TIMES,” I said, holding up my fingers. “Three times. She said no each time.”
Byron shakes his head. “You don’t ask her,” he says, “You TELL her you’re getting married,” and he shakes his head again, like he’s Baba fuckin’ Yaga.
“Oh fuck YOU,” I say, and I get up. “Fuck you, you fucking idiot,” I yell and I throw my full bottle of beer at his head and walk out of the bar. Some people are smoking a joint. I need a hit, but my finger brushes the alarm on my keyring, and everyone scatters. I drive home.
“You TELL her.” Oh, and that’s just it, you just say how things are going to be and -poof- that’s how it is.
Byron, things are different from when your great-great-grandparents were brought here against their will and sold at Philadelphia Head House to the highest bidder. You don’t just tell women what to do and that’s the end of it.
You’d figure the Civil War, the Underground Railroad, and the Suffrage Movement would have told you that, but then you ARE a graduate of the Philadelphia Public School System.
5 Responses to “I Threw a Bottle At Someone Tonight”
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June 27th, 2006 at 3:48 pm
eh, guess you shoulda gone to tritone!
June 27th, 2006 at 4:04 pm
I DID got to Tritone.
I went to dahlak later.
June 27th, 2006 at 5:23 pm
oh.
hope they don’t ban you at dahlak.
June 27th, 2006 at 6:21 pm
I doubt it. The bartender didn’t see, I missed the guy, and I left toute suite.
November 28th, 2007 at 2:12 pm
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