Learning how to work

Without a job I was a clique, worthless lost cause without a paycheck. My work ethic had matured since my days of dropping jobs like beats from a white trash bassy car stereo from a wreck on four wheels. Without a job, I sold CDs to a music store on Cary Street. I would usually have the shakes when I walked in there because I hadn’t taken the first drag of the day. My eyes would be hanging low from the lack of sleep last night thinking about what I didn’t have and what I would never be. The stares from the cashier would say it all. “He must be a junkie. Oh my God, He’s shaking.” All this for a pack of the cheapest cigarettes on the market and a forty of the cheapest malt liquor. The real kick to the groin happened when I sold Dexter Gordon live at Carnegie Hall. That’s when I figured I had to get a job and after about eight we-will-call-you and we-will-see-what- we-can-dos; it happened at Gusto’s Squid.
It was a brand new restaurant in the Fan district of Richmond. A sister restaurant of a very popular one in Carytown known for fine Italian dining in a very compact space. The customers were treated like cattle at feeding time then pushed out of the restaurant so another confined table could be filled again. People in town raved about the food served there, yet the wine was poured in little juice glasses (customary in Italy), the customer was always wrong in the cook’s eyes, and people knew of it from word of mouth not from corny ads in the local paper or the TV.
The mother’s newborn had the same compacted eating area, which was above a sub shop. The tables, covered by sky blue table cloths which were covered by tiny candles that had been used for last year’s Passover and by different shades of oils were small with chairs forcing themselves in to the confine space. There was a jukebox they played compact disk in a corner beside the coat rack. The bar served three kinds of beer, and wines that I never heard probably that cert of knowledge never presented itself at my old job, which was at an ice cream store. All this controlled by the bartender, Dr. Bob. Who wasn’t a real doctor, but he did wear a lab coat as well as make the perfect Manhattan.
The interview was just a simple question: “Do you want to wash dishes?”
This asked by my future boss with a long red beard and flannel shirt making him look like a lumberjack glazed over in scotch.
I had been avoiding restaurants, but I was so desperate for a job I regretfully accepted. They had me fill out my information form on a piece of paper from a legal pad; it wasn’t even a real application.
“Come in on Saturday at 10:00 am or around 10:30.”
I showed up Saturday at ten. My boss was late. I was smoking my second cigarette during my wait. He eventually showed up in a red pick up truck. His eyes were tired and his hair was covered in a blue bandana.
“Have you been waiting long?” he asked showing signs that he didn’t actually care if I was there; he had a job to do regardless.
“Nah.”
He unlocked the front door and we climbed the stairs up to Gusto’s, passing old black and white photographs man and woman smiling a day at the beach. There were others, the same man smoking a cigarette with an apron on or making pasta in the kitchen.
“Who’s that?”
“That’s the owner’s parents. He owns one half, I own the other.”
“Wow.” I couldn’t see myself owning anything that could make a profit.
“Saturdays are just a leisurely day of prepping for tonight. When you first show up you have to empty the trash from the night before. I’ll help you out today but not always.”
I nodded.
We gathered the trash at the bar, the wait station, the dish pit, the salad station, and the cook’s trash. They were all filled to the brim reeking of tomato sauce, stale wine, and uneaten seafood.
“How’s business?” I asked.
He nodded slightly and strummed his beard. “Business is good. This is my baby. I care a lot about what goes out of the kitchen.”
We slid the over baring trashcans to the back stairway he had no problem sliding them individually down the stairs using only one hand as a guide so the trash wouldn’t fall out. I on the other hand had to use my whole body to make sure not only the trashcans would tip over but also my feet were still on the floor.
The boss shook his head. “Woman,” he said under his breath.
We pulled the trash cans one by one to the dumpsters. He had no trouble lifting his to dump the trash out, but he had to help me with mine. He shook his head. We went back inside.
He led me into the kitchen. “All right. I want you to sweep and swab the deck from last night. I want you to give it a woman’s touch.”
He went to the bar to thumb through the receipts from last night. I located the broom and dustpan, and decided not to empty the dirty mop water that reeked of whatever. I then picked up the mats on the floor, and threw them on one side of the kitchen.
I started sweeping near the stove around his cooking area, underneath the cutting board where the muscles, clams, and squid were located. I swept under the table where the pasta was kept. Moving on to the deep fryer where squid was transformed to calamari, which lay across from the salad and bean station. The anecdotal linoleum was caked in flour, pressed to the floor. I had to use the broom handle to scoop it up so it could be swept away into the dustpan. I did this for a while then grabbed the mop, which was drowning in a bucket of blackened gray stench. I found some bleach and poured some in to cover up the smell. I started at the cooking station, and moved closer to the dish pit adding more weight to shoe marks, tomato stains, and the permanent flour on the floor. I took a piece of cardboard, and placed on the floor of the cooking station, and the salad station, and covered them with the mat that was there before.
I picked it up, and shook it wildly. Water, and particles of saturated food flung itself all over my white t-shirt and arms (I was used to this). Next I swept up small puddles of water and food, and put it all in the trash that I had just put a new trash bag in. Then I mopped, place a piece of cardboard down, and the mat. The mat was the savior for dishwashers from their slippery souls, and slides.
The boss came back to the kitchen and looked around. “Did you clean?”
“Yes.”
“What are you talking about? You didn’t give a woman’s touch.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. At the time it seemed like a day’s work. This kitchen was a dive: it would never be clean.
“I cleaned it,” I insisted.
“You’re gonna learn how to work here.”
Work? All I wanted was a paycheck.
“Do you know anything about mussels?” he said as he brought a plastic burlap bag of them from a freezer near the sinks.
“No.”
“How about clams?”
“No.”
“How about squid?”
“No.”
He sighed, “Have you ever worked the line?”
“No.”
He shook his head like I was wasting his time.
“These are mussels,” he said in a kindergarten teacher’s tone of voice. He proceeds to cut the bag of mussels opened on top of the bag. He turned the bag upside down so the mussels could spill in the sink. Then he turns on the faucet. He picked one up.
“You have to rip out the beards.”
The beard of a mussel looks similar to dark navy blue bristles on an overly used toothbrush.
The boss had a long orange beard that he stroked in disbelief while I fumbled around with the mussels. He shook his head again.
He went back to the freezer and brought out a bag that looked similar to the last only this one was filled with clams. He placed the bag in a sink beside the one the mussels were in. He walked over to a shelf holding plastic buckets and brought one over to where I was standing.
“You want to soak them first. Then you scrub them.”
He opened the bag with the same knife, emptied the bag of clams in the bucket, and swung the faucet over to it and filled it. When the water reached the top: it flowed over the side. He started to stir the clams with his hand.
“These are my friends. Be gentle. If you’re not gentle they’ll get pissed off and they’ll die!”
I nodded once and said, “Okay.”
He stopped stirring the clams, and looked at me ripping the beards.
“Get your hands moving; you’re going to slow.”
He started walking to the stove.
“Lucky for you, you’re starting today. Saturdays are usually just a leisurely day of prepping.”
This was a bad idea, I thought too myself.
He lit the stove and yelled back. “I need pots of water on the back burners.”
I left the mussels and went to the stack of pots on the grill beside the stove. I grabbed three, and went back to the sink to fill them up. He unwrapped all the inserts at his station, as I a struggled filling the first pot. Individually I brought one over with both hands. The boss shook his head.
After the last pot, I went back to the sink, and slowly but surely finished the mussels. I stirred the clams in the plastic bucket gently, wondering what I should do next. I walked up to the boss still apprehensive about my first day.
“What should I do now?”
He looked at me like I had just asked him where the kitchen was.
“Why don’t you scrub the clams?”
“What do you mean?”
He shook his head and walked over where the clams were soaking. I followed.
“Get another camboro,” he demanded.
“Uh what?”
He pointed to the shelf where he got the last one for the clams.
“Oh you mean a plastic bucket.”
He shook his head. I brought one over.
“Okay. You take the scrubby and a clam, and you scrub the top, the bottom, and the sides. Make sure you scrub hard. They’re gritty.”
He went back over, and I started scrubbing.
“Be gentle with my friends!”
I scrubbed hard thinking about the depressing life of a clam. They stay in and only leave when they feel the need to get food, and they depend on a hard shell for survival. The life of a clam is being blind to the outside.
“Are you done?”
“Not yet!” I yelled back.
“Get your hands movin’!”
I scrubbed the clams as quickly as I could.
“Coming over!”
“What?” I yelled back ignorantly of his ways in the kitchen.
He came over with a big pot of boiling water containing pasta, and stared at me for a little while I just stood there confused.
“Get the strainer.”
The strainer was up over my left shoulder, hanging on a hook. I got it down and held it by the handles on the sides while the boss poured the contents of the pot in. The boiling water went through the holes of the strainer.
“Now rinse it cold,” my boss demanded.
“What?”
He turned on the faucet, dosing the burning pasta with cold water.
“If you don’t rinse it cold the pasta will over cook.” He muttered.
I turned off the faucet and redirected the water through the hose connected to the sink, and continued rinsing the pasta cold.
“When you’re done with that put it in a camboro, and bring it back over to me. Then put another water up on the stove.”
He started walking back to his station. “Hurry up with the clams!”
I brought over the pasta, and started filling the pot of water back up. First burning my hands on the metallic handle, forgetting that it had just come off the stove. I grabbed a towel and wrapped it around the handle so it would burn my hands. I brought that over to the stove with both hands, struggling. My boss looked at me and shook his head.
“Hold it with one hand like a man!”
I shrugged my shoulders and went back to the clams. The boss eventually came back to the sinks. He stood beside me staring at my scrubbing skills. Then he picked up another scrubby and started helping me with the clams.
“You’re taking to long.”
“Well you know it’s my first day.”
He looked at me and shook his head wondering what the hell was he thinking when he hired me.
“After this you just have the squid to do.”
“I’ll go ahead and ask you. How do you do that?”
This time he grinned. “It’s easy.”
He took a big bag out of the freezer, and placed it on a dish rack beside me.
“First you need a knife and a cutting board.”
He found the knife hanging on the side with others, and picked up a cutting board from the floor underneath the slicer beside the white room. He put the cutting board on the trashcan, and went out the swinging doors. Later he came back with a bucket of ice from the bar.
“You have to keep the squid iced so it will stay fresh.”
He placed the bucket of ice beside him near the cutting board, and picked up a squid.
“First you rip it out of the capsule. Take the capsule in your hand and with two fingers scoop out the scum and shit out of it.”
“It looks like snot,” I concluded.
“Whatever gets the snot out of it.”
“Next, you take the knife and you cut above the eyeball, and you rip the two tentacles off the body. They’re the longest legs. You throw away what you cut off and the two tentacles. It’s easy. Now you do one.”
I picked up one squid, sizing it up first from the capsule to the longest smoothes slippery legs. I ripped the body out of the capsule. With my two fingers went deeper through the scum making a squish squash sound as the load inside slowly came out. My fingers slightly stuck together with a sea life residue. I felt a slight tug on my gag reflex. I cut above the eye, and ripped off the tentacles and threw both body parts away.
My boss brought over a camboro, and put some ice in it that I got from the bar.
“Make sure you keep it fresh.”
I put the capsule and what was left of the legs in the bucket.
“Slice the capsule up.”
The boss took the capsule out of the bucket with its bottom half full with ice, and sliced the capsule in rectangles.
“You got it?” The Boss asked.
“Yup.”
I started to scrub the remaining clams again.
“After the clams, can I get a cigarette?” I asked.
The boss shook his head. “Yeah sure.”
He went back to the stove, and I picked up the last clam realizing I still had squid left to do. I scrubbed it well then put it in the bucket of clams that I already scrubbed. I wiped off my hands with my apron, then turned to my boss.
“Where should I smoke?”
“Do you remember the door we took out the trash? The stairwell.”
I nodded, and went out the swinging doors, and forcefully pushed opened the door to the stair well. I sat down on the steps, glad that I could finally sit down.
My first day could be summed up in my boss’ words (said to the only waitress on duty), when I came back into the kitchen.
“Yo boy punk kids don’t know how to do shit!”
This microcosmic passage develops your character and has potential to develop a theme or idea for the book as a whole. It reminds me a bit of the catalogue descriptions Hemingway mastered in a number of books: simple tasks described in almost minute detail (fishing, pouring wine, smoking). I’m not sure yet how this may fit into your book’s structure but I like the way it moves and the voice you use to tell it.

Money (that's want I want) a comparative examination of the Beatles version and motown's version sung by Barret Strong

Everything you need to know about love is in the motown. In the early years several of the songs were written by a man named Berry Gorby. Barret Strong sang it for the lable he was a local act. Several bands have covered the song notably the Beatles.
Both versions have a piano that makes you want to move. The motown versions is straight up soul while the beatles version has John Lennon's screaming vocals.
I personally can't decide which one I like better.
The motown version has horns as well as piano and female background vocals. While The Beatles version just has four guys who obviously enjoy performing the song.The beatles have recently reissued their music for the public. You can even get it on itunes. Motown can be found anywhere just as long as you are willing to look. I bought motown gold from borders bookstore. It is a two disk set of forty songs. Money (that's what I want) can be found on the Beatles album with the beatles.

Lastly there are some things in this world that are free. A sunset, a spring day, free refills on coffee and sweet tea as well as that fortune cookie at the end of your meal at Peaking (chinese restaurant)

Remebering 9/11

I gave the boozer his nickname because he was the first one in our trio to turn twenty-one. He was still celebrating his birthday during tragic times. A couple of weeks after September 11 before the bombing, it was the Captain’s idea to bring out the cards so we could play poker.
I would walk around and see strangers with a glazed over look. Most people saw on tv. But it was as if they witnessed it in person. America had been invaded.
Since none of us had enough money to gamble, the boozer let us use an ample amount of change he had in a wooden bowl beside a fresh pot of chili.
One spoonful of that chili and your mouth would be left feeling like a stream of devils had flown down your throat leaving strains of hell on your tongue. Even A cold beer couldn’t extinguish the inferno. You just had to sit there and take it and hope you weren’t making a fool of yourself.
We were well into the game, as some of the boozer’s neighbors came to his apartment. They were two young girls who knew more about drinking and poker than their ages would suggest. One was seventeen, or so she said, and she had her eye on the Boozer, and he had his drenched beer eyes on her. The sixteen-year-old eyes with braces must have been in the crossfire of lipstick and eye shadow. rebellion . A few times she went to the refrigerator to get herself one of our beers, she would bend over, stretch her arm to retrieve a beer, which made her thong underwear ride higher against her back. I think it made the Captain guilty for staring. I saw it as a test of restraint or a war, so I reminded myself I was only there for the chili, the beer, and the poker, that was all.
The boozer raised the volume on his Irish music as the seventeen-year-old decided to try the chili. On her venture up to the pot of chili she bragged about her tolerance for spicy food. She swallowed an entire spoon full, and quickly found herself underneath the kitchen faucet, hoping luke warm tap water would be an efficient coolant for the rage burning on her tongue.
The sixteen-year-old lips immediately spoke; “I don’t eat in front of people I don’t know so well because of my braces.”
If she had tried it her tongue would have been the color of her lips that were now acting as brake lights for the so-called adults drinking away their memory. We didn’t want to go to jail for a few minutes of pleasure.
“Call!” announced the Captain.
We dropped our cards face up.
“Who won?” asked the Captain.
“I didn’t,” slurred the Boozer.
“At least you can make good chili,” I said.
“I think I won,” said the Captain.
“No, you didn’t,” I insisted, “ I won. I have two two-of-a-kind, and you only have one three-of-a-kind.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” protested the Captain.
“Bullshit man, I get the pot!” I stammered even though the change would never see the inside of our pockets, because it was the Boozer’s.
“I think three-of-a-kind does beat your hand,” mediated the Boozer.
“Bullshit!”
“I win!” The Captain slid the Boozer’s change over in his direction.
“We make up our own rules,” said the boozer, still lusting over the seventeen-year-old.
“In life and in poker,” I slurred proudly.
“I know I win.” The Captain was still rubbing it in. “My dad taught me how to play poker.”
“My dad taught me how to be a goalie in soccer, and you can see what good that did,” I said.
“Soccer’s cool,” said the Boozer, singing along with his Irish music.
The seventeen-year-old finally had feeling back in her tongue and announced she and the sixteen-year eyes were leaving. The Boozer’s roommate was coming up the steps.
“I have to go to,” said the Captain, “I have to wake up at 8:00 am tomorrow for work.” He’d always been the responsible one. He left with the young girls.
“Hey man, ya wanna go to a bar?” asked the Boozer’s roommate who just came in from work?
Immediately the Boozer picked up his jacket, “Yeah let’s go, but what about this guy? He is still underage?”
“Ah shit, he can use my friend’s ID,” he looked at me. “You look just like him.”
He went into his room and brought back the ID, and gave to me. His friend had a boxy forehead and a crooked nose. I hope I didn’t look that bad.
“It’ll work man, trust me.”
Three of us left while the Boozer’s Irish music played ... “Be easy and free... when you’re drinking with me...”
The bar was just a block away. The Boozer and his roommate showed the tattooed bouncer their IDs and they went in. I showed him mine.
“Man this ID expired three years ago.”
“Three years? Wow, this is embracing,” I said sarcastically.
I waved farewell to the Boozer and his roommate, who were now inside, and I decided to wander Main Street searching for a shoulder to tap. The weather wasn’t fitting with the norms of October, as I watched cars with 99 cent patriotism stuck beside the gas cap, and bumper stickers with the word REMEMBER were on the back driving by, as name brands with arms and legs passed hot air through their cell phones.
A man and the woman he was with, parallel parked in front of me. He got out and I went up to him as a sketchy drifter.
“Hey man would you mind buying me some beer?”
He kind of stomped his foot, and dropped his hands to his sides, then raised them up again like a Southern Baptist preacher. “God will strike me down at this spot if I don’t buy this kid some beer!”
He generously bought me a six-pack, and I rambled back home remembering my U.S. history, even then I knew it wasn’t going to be the beginning of WW III even after the World Trade Center went down.
I remember Einstein‘s words, “I don’t know what will be fought with, but I do know WWIV will be fought with sticks and stones.”
I had been writing in a journal since the seventh grade. I remembered another event that affected my life was Colombine. I was shaking like the World Trade Center, but I didn’t fall. I graduated. Even now I wonder who exactly was the terrorist; maybe it is the person who can just get away clean.
For me writing exercises an individual’s right to remember in his own voice how things were.

Charles Bukowski tangents

I finished reading Ham on Rye. It was pretty good but it didn't affect me like back when I read Love is a Dog from Hell in my late teens. Mr. Bukowski inspired me then like he did with the drunks, the unemployed dishwashers and college dropouts. I thought if he could do it then I could do it. I was inspired by others and other things but Mr. BUkowski has his place.
I saw a documentary about him that my brother had. It was great. But one thing that struck a nerve with it me was what was written on his gravestone. It read "Don't try." What if he really believed that. He would have been nothing not a writer not inspirational. He definitly wouldn't have written the many fine books. How could he say that as his final legacy?
I think about these time. The economical term oit we are in. America is indebt. People are laid off etc. Don't try? He grew up during the great depression and that is what he came away with.
I will still probably read more of his books.
I think about my writing. My book isn't selling because I haven't got a royalty check in awhile and I'm awaiting a rejection for my poetry chapbook. All this and I still can't quit it.
I think about the people who are laid off like my upstairs neighbor. It seems like on the news there always stories with people in this position. are you as tired of it as I am?
Maybe if I never picked of a Charles Bukowski book I would be in a position to help. Instead of an unemployed college dropout (I get disability from the military so don't worry about me)
Now I volunteer at a school full of children who have so many roadblocks intheir lives. They don't have alot of the opertunities I had growing up being the son of a principal. I wish they would rise above. Now it is kind of damned if you do damned if you don't. Either be in the unemplyment line or go to college and have a huge debt hanging over you head. What can anybody sayto that ?

State of Emergency
This was the first year Mac wasn’t at the mall shopping. He had no one to buy for. The crippling economy his alcoholism and his wife dying had left him homeless. Even after 25 years in the same factory he was made to lay on a piece of card board around his peers going through similar mess. A few days until Christmas and the only feeling he had was to escape the cold somehow.
Suddenly the snow fell. It was the size of lint that was sometime in the rich’s belly button. Then it got bigger, and bigger as it started to stick.
Mac had ten dollars in his pocket that he collected through hand outs from the passersbys doing their Christmas shopping. He felt like he could take that money and go to a restaurant for breakfast the next morning. It was a full day for him. He wanted to sleep now.
Mac stayed at Monroe Park. It was a large grassy field where his fellow bums stayed. This time a year they would use the garbage cans for a source of fire to help keep them warm. This usually didn’t last long however, because the fire department came like clock work to put the fire out.
Monroe Park was the only place they could go. Mac’s friends would call it Mase Park named after the owner of the Mase factory that some of them had been laid off from. They lost their jobs so the owner could pay for his kids college education and his wife new breast implants.
The neighborhood surrounding Mase park was a mix between lawyers doctors and teachers depending on how far you ventured in. Some hated the site of a bunch of homeless men sleeping on cardboard. Some of the residents would say it brought down the property value others would say someone should do something about that but they never knew what that was.
Mac had been staying there for several months now. He stood infront of one of the trashcan that was smoldering from the fire put out by the fire department. The ten dollars was burning a hole in his pocket. He figured if he could buy some liqure he could go to bed warm that night.
Several of the other men were talking about their day to who ever would listen, but mostly they just wanted to get warm. They weren’t looking forward to laying their head down on the wet snow.
That was when Spike another homeless man walked up with his friend Ted who had a whole box of something.
Spike and Ted were always together, but it was sometimes difficult to figure out who was leading who. Sometimes Spike was the boss, and sometime however very quiet Ted was the one leading the duo.
“Shapiro is having his Christmas party and the people catering it left the back gate opened. There’s liqure and wine. If you hurry you may even get something to eat.” Spike announced.
Several of the men left.
Mr. Shapiro was a defense attorney and he lived in a mansion- the only mansion in the neighborhood so everyone knew where it was.
Spike was a good friend of Mac’s, but under different circumstances they wouldn’t of been friends. The only thing that brought them together was Monroe Park. Earlier in their friendship they decided that who they were in the past didn’t matter. There was only now.
Spike place the box of boos infront of Mac. He then took out a bottle of single molt scotch and handed it to Mac.
Mac smiled at Spike and took it. He looked at the bottle and almost cried. It was the same scotch his wife saved months for to buy him for Christmas. Mac didn’t remember the year but he remembered how good it taste.
“Merry Christmas Spike.”
“Merry Christmas Mac.” Spike said smiling at the bottle in Mac’s hand.
Spike took out a bottle for himself, unscrew the cap and took a big gulp.
Mac shook his head. “You don’t gulp this kind of scotch. You sip it.”
Ted came over to the two men. He laid his box of boose down. He looked at the trashcan they were standing beside.
“Let’s make another fire.”
“Hey what’s the date?” Mac asked to whoever was listening.
“Christmas Eve.” Spike answered.
The snow was now falling in golf balls. The three men drank and drank until the other men came back with toothless grins, holding a case of wine.
“Does anyone know how to open a bottle of wine? I have the wine opener.” One of the men asked.
Mac went over with his bottle of scotch.
“I know how.”
He laid his bottle inbetween his feet. The man with the case of wine handed him the wine opener, and a bottle of wine.
“You have to screw it in the cork, watch the rabbit ears go up, and then push them down.” Mac explained.
The men cheered as the cork popped out.
Mac looked at the men and said.
“Enjoy the banquet gentlemen.”
The wine opener was passed to bottle to bottle. The corks popped individually.
Ted smiled as he drank. Spike’s head felt heavy but this didn’t stop him from singing Jolly ole Saint Nicolas. Mac joined in. After more chugs of scotch and wine the whole crowd joined in. The men sang Silent Night and jingle bells. The words they didn’t know they muttered incoherently.
They drank and drank. They may have been cold as the snow was up to a foot but they didn’t stop them from singing. Some men went back to Shapiro’s house for more boos and whatever they could find.
The residence suddenly came home from shopping. As they parked their cars and got out with their Christmas presents, they looked in disgust at the homeless men singing Christmas carols drunk as skunks.
Suddenly they heard a scream a block away where Shapiro’s mansion was. This stopped the singing.
Mac looked at Spike and they looked towards the house. Several men ran away with their arms full of bread, candy, and boos.
“Looks like Shapiro is on to us.” Spike laughed.
Some of the men laughed. Mac was worried. What was going to happen now?
The men now ate and drank as if it was a Christmas party. They were warm despite the chills of the snow. An hour went by of celebrations. Suddenly they heard sirens but the men stayed. They had nowhere else to be.
The cops pulled up with two patty wagons and a few cruisers. Some of the men left not knowing where they can go. Then it happened. The cops started shooting tear gas at the homeless men surrounding the smoldering trash cans drinking Shapiro’s boos. The snow was still falling.
Some of the men were running around with tears in their eyes yelling and screaming for it to stop. Mac looked at Ted and Spike.
“Lay down and put your face in the snow.”
The three men did this but occasionally looked up at the chaos as they finished their bottles of scotch.
The police then came running in full riot gear. They started swinging their night sticks beating anyone in their way. Ted Spike and Mac however just laid there.
“I have a bad feeling about this, Mac.” Spike said.
The crowd of boosers dispersed in their own directions. Several of the men left with bruises on their body from being beaten. The police officers stopped as they got to the three men with their faces in the snow.
“Where’d you get the scotch?” One police officer asked as picked up one of the men’s empty bottles.
The three men laughed drunkenly.
“Santa Clause.” Mac answered.
The same police officer tapped him on his head with his knight stick.
Two other police officers showed up.
“Were you gentlemen having a Christmas party?” One asked.
The three men just laughed.
The same police officer picked Ted up from the ground. Ted puked on his shoe.
“Drunk in public.” The same officer concluded.
The police officers picked up the other two men, and put the three of them in handcuffs. Then they led them to one of the paddy wagons. The men got inside.
“Was this your master plan?” Spike asked Mac.
“I’ll bet it will be warm.” Mac answered.
“Can we bring the scotch?” Spike asked one of the police officers.
“I don’t want any more scotch. In fact I don’t think I ever want to drink scotch again.” Ted moaned.
The police closed the doors behind the men who were now sitting down. Finally the paddy wagon drove off occasionally skidding on the snow whenever it put on the brakes.
The paddy wagon arrives at the police station which was decorated for Christmas. There was lights, reefs and a bright red Santa Clause.
The three men were ushered inside by three police officers. They noticed the decorations and smiled.
“These men are going to the drunk tank!” One of the police officers yelled.
Another police officer pressed a button and three doors open which were apart of three cells. Ted, Spike, and Mac went into their individual cells as if they had done this before. One of the police officers actually laughed when he saw this.
Inside the cell there was two bunk beds and a single toilet. The three men looked at each other through the bars. They were each laying down on the bottom bunk.
“Where were we?” Asked Mac.
Spiked belted out Joy to the world. The two other men followed, and they did this until they went to sleep on their own beds.