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Spittin'

by Robert Braid

I had already drunk too much to deal with a whiny pain-in-the-ass school girl who liked to bore the crap out of men who were too nice to sleep with, when the phone rang.

"Hello Francine. How are you?"

"I feel so macabre. Have you ever thought about killing yourself?"

"Funny you should ask. No."

"Oh, I feel so lonely."

"Is that so?"

"It's so strange, I'm surrounded by people and yet, . . . yet, . . I feel so alone. Isn't that so odd? I see people all the time and yet I feel, . . . I feel like I'm on a deserted island."

"You want to talk about it?" I put the receiver down and went to pour myself a drink. I took a bottle of the finest mix of southern French wines that one can buy at my wine shop out of the plastic bag and uncorked it. It made more noise than I had anticipated and I stood there hunched over with a bottle between my knees and a full corkscrew held in the air listening to see whether Francine heard me or not.

"Whah, whah, whah, whah, . . . .etc."

I grabbed an ex-jelly jar, went back and sat down on my bed only to discover that there was already a bottle open and a half full ex-olive jar on the floor that I had forgotten about. I picked up the glass, swirled its contents, examined its ruby color, sniffed its gracious bouquet, and sipped the light yet fruity wine. I mused with the idea of spitting as I swished it between my teeth. But as usual my habits worked faster than my creativity and I swallowed before I got a chance to realize that I really should have spit it on the wall and impressed my friends-to-be by calling it my masterpiece. No, my chef d'oeuvre! I was too poor to afford posters other than those I stole from the Metro walls and the least I could do was justify my poverty with art.

It's just as well. I rented the place from a prick who'd make me repaint the walls if he found out. Besides, being pretentious enough to impress even shits takes too much energy. So I canned the idea of becoming an artist, decided to be me for a while and took a slug.

The first wine lacked . . . character. "Yes, this wine lacks character!" I think I said that last bit aloud. I catch myself doing that once in a while and realized that if I called myself a writer I could probably get away with it if anyone caught me. So I picked up the receiver again.

"Hum, yes, . . . I know how you feel. Have you ever tried writing about it? Uh-huh, I see. . . "

This second wine looked rubier, bouqueted more graciously, tasted lighter and, surprisingly enough, fruitier. "They think they can fool me," I said, glad that at least that I know no one is listening to me. "These two labels look the same. But I, yes I have a superior palate."

Thoroughly content with myself and my palate, I couldn't stand the thought of having to pretend to listen to Francine.

"Oh, hold on a sec, would you, Francine? Someone's calling on the other line." So I hung up the phone. Technology doesn't suck when you know how to use it.

I recorked the inferior bottle and called it my "spitting wine". I sat down on the bed, leaned back with a jar of my favorite wine in the world and contemplated my next masterpiece.