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Dynamite Dave
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Conversations
- Hits: 1130
It's the Dynamite-Dave rap. I sing it to him when we're slow:
"I'm Dynamite Dave,
And I'm here to save,
Your soul.
No Eternal Damnation,
let Dave be your Salvation..."
He smiles, he likes it. Then he thinks for a second and frowns:
"But you're not Dynamite Dave...I am!"
Four-Fingered Frankie
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 1138
"Kit-Kat" he says, and does a Vulcan Salute. He's talking to the hostess. I'm eavesdropping and puzzled.
- "Kit-Kat?"
"Kit-Kat. 2 in the pink, 2 in the stink. Just call me four-fingered Frankie...."
Paranoid Schizophrenia
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 1355
We're staying late, waiting for the last tables to leave, and he starts to talk. He's quit smoking, 2 weeks now, never felt better, doesn't even miss it, and this might in part explain it.
They're out to get him, the people at the shelter.
He thought that maybe the mob had gotten to them, was figuring the other people at the shelter we're being paid $5, maybe $10 grand to keep an eye on him, but someone at the shelter told him that it could be done for only a couple of hundred dollars.
I'm pretty sure no one's out to get him and I'm starting to get uncomfortably close to a diagnosis. Before I'd given him the benefit of the doubt, it could be any number of things, it still could, but right now there's one symptom that's glaringly obvious.
No, no, we don't understand, they can't get him and he's just trying to protect us all from the enemy and now he reaches for his bible, he's going to prove to us that he's the chosen one, he'll just flip it open and God will speak to him through it as often he does...
It's the "Reach Out" bible, cloth-bound with peoples images visible in the psychedelic 70's lettering. He closes his eyes and selects a verse:
"Observe the month of Abib, and keep the passover unto the LORD thy God: for in the month of Abib the LORD thy God brought thee forth out of Egypt by night."
-"Well, that's not right, but he usually gives me the insights I'm looking for" he apologizes, then begins another rant.
He's completely gone. We're all going to hell and he has the chosen mark upon him and has been sent to save us. Not just hell, either, there are people ...
I challenge his believe that everyone's out to get him, that his world is made of enemies, but he won't hear it. The people at the shelter, they know things about him they couldn't possibly know, unless the Doctor at the Rockyview told them...
The other church he belonged to, it was a scam, they were trying to get at him, he's lucky he escaped; he's going to have to figure it all out by himself, you can't trust anyone...
Uh-huh.
He found a diamond in his duffel bag, it's a small one, but he digs it out of his pocket to show us, he found it or it was sent by God and he's going to have it made into a promise ring for the girl at the dry cleaners who smiled at him today...
And he holds up his take-away coffee mug, stainless steel with the word "Dynamite" written round the top, it makes him childishly happy, "Dynamite Dave", he doesn't need to say it, I know.
The tables, eventually they leave, late, but I've finished my assessment.
The Cursed Wallet
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 1907
I've this old Louis Vuitton wallet, I've had it forever, it was a gift.
Not the sort of thing I would buy for myself.
But in the last few years it's started to fall apart. The holder for the drivers license has lost its seam, and the library card and bus tickets have started to burst out of the credit-card slots. There are lottery tickets, dry cleaning receipts and pawn stubs where most people keep their money.
It wasn't made for this sort of abuse.
It's cursed; a wallet, as a gift, is always supposed to have some money in it. This one came empty, and has pretty much remained empty ever since.
One could think of other reasons it's empty, like my erratic work and romantic history, children out of wedlock, poor financial planning, but that would be patent superstition.
Still, I like it. It's a sort of symbol of the decaying aristocracy, the tattier it gets, the more weathered, the more the seams burst apart, the greater my attachment, Louis Vuitton is not supposed to be tatty or worn, it's the wallet of appearances, Louis Vuitton wasn't made for bus passes or library cards, Louis Vuitton customers drive Mercedes and only read books that they've bought...I rather cherish the incongruity of my ownership of it...
The owner of the restaurant, it's the day after the Christmas break, he's asked me a question that necessitates the reaching for my wallet, a pretext, and when I pull it out he notices that it's the same old one I had before the Christmas break, he wonders aloud why I haven't switched to the new one; I hasten to reassure him that it's only a matter of time, I've been busy, and after work when I get home move my essentials into the new wallet.
This new wallet, it came with no money in it, it's cursed.
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