As No Favor To You

I part-time it down at the Taco Mac in Alpharetta. The reason: that's where the good white money is. I've avoided making my bucks in Cumming because, well, it's Cumming. There's good white money here, but there's also cheap white coins, and soiled worn dollar bills here too, if you catch my meaning. Point is the majority of Cumming is lower middle class, and, though I agree they probably shouldn't, they don't tip so high.

Let me tell you about Taco Mac. It's mostly a wing and beer joint for families who need to stare at sports highlights and Fox News while they shove greasy food and over priced beer into their fat white* faces. It boasts, like, a million different beers in its inventory. My point is it is no real bar. It's basically as if the owner of a Friday's or an Applebee's looked around and said "Do we really need sooo much shit everywhere?" Other than that and the beer count, there's no real difference. This is important.

So, as they do from time to time, and it is not lost on me that this happened very near to the lunar eclipse, some days back some of the hill folk wondered into Alpharetta and into the Taco Mac I work. And, friends, they were in a sad way. We learned that they had just come from a funeral. Of course there was no way to guess that as the men folk wore camouflage and the women in jeans and what I'm guessing were their best knitted "tops." The only one of them that was dressed appropriately** was the 16 yr old girl in her Sunday dress.

The deceased they were grieving was a friend and brother to the group. He was 25. He died while dicking around with a loaded gun. For funnsies he put it in his mouth, assuming it was unloaded, and pulled the trigger. In front of friends. At a party.

The grieving gathered made no show of how stupid this is. They called him their homeboy and called him fucking awesome. They would take turns going outside to the patio, this was about 2 in the afternoon, and sobbing openly for all to see and ask what is wrong, which they gladly and stoicly answered.

Have a beer in your grief, friends.*** Hell, have a good strong shot. Don't order shit called Alligator Tears, Kamikazes, Buttery Nipples, Red Snappers, anything with Schnapps, or frozen. And don't argue with the bartender about how she doesn't make them like you like. And I'm fine with getting drunk. I'm fine with an Irish wake. But in a family restaurant? A white collar sports bar?

Should any of you, my friends, die in such a ridiculous manner... Well, I can't promise you much. I won't call you a dumb fuck in front of your mother or father, but that's about it. I'll wear a suit to your funeral. And should I feel the need to check into the nearest Olive Garden or Outback Steakhouse to drink away your memory and your stupid shot up face I will tell my cute waitress that you died shoving me out of the way of a derailed train. And that is no favor to you I'm sorry to say. It is so that cute waitress will put her hand on my shoulder and look me in the eye and tell me how sorry she is, instead of the truth which would only garner an awkward "Oh" and her go off to the kitchen and snicker about a dead dipshit and his/her presumably dipshit friends. I won't let you do that to me, friends. Not in this life or the next.

Jody

* My use of "white" here is to speak to the socio-economic climates of Alpharetta and Cumming. If you are white and can wade through your liberal white guilt to call me out on this I will call you a supremist. If you are white and conservative and therefore without capacity for guilt, shame, or empathy then I will say just that to you and you probably won't get it. If you are black and feel like calling me out on my usage of "white" then I will call you an Uncle Tom. If you are Latino I'll remind you that you'll never really be considered American, and so on and so forth. I will take the time to let you know that as an Injun who has spent plenty o' time among the white people and my brown people on the reservation I have learned to love, respect, and covet the hell out of white women. There, concessions have been made.

**Appropriate as judged by me.

***Funny thing is, after a viewing of a deceased friend me and a couple of others did go to a Taco Mac. It was the only place open and nearby. We had a couple of beers. We talked mostly about how long it had been since we saw each other. We caught up on each other's lives. It was nice.

Testing Some Thangs

Just letting you folks know I'm still out here. And I'm still watching.