(a project)

The song:

Dry as the back of my mouth after a sip of red wine with a bad cork, like your humor which you think is funnier than it is. Meat hook fingers, hooked nose. I’ve had it with your nose but you can pick a song on the jukebox with my quarter. All’s fair. You got the one in the last town.

Fair isn’t fine you say, whiskey isn’t rye but rye is whiskey, and amble towards the woman who has imbibed too much of either or both. Her feet sport cowboy boots that have seen better days but she can still shuffle. I think she is too old, but her old is probably still young enough for you.

Too many cops in this town. We should head further West but the clock is ticking on us and the Ford.

We should have played cops and robbers. Cops and robbers is cleaner.

Make it matter, hook-nosed miscreant, make it matter. Her bra strap is falling off her shoulder though her halter top stays on – shoulders like canned ham, like the kind that hoisted babies once, but they don’t so much anymore. They are shoulders that lift shots to mouth, shoulders that shake a gelatinous shimmy to strangers with floppy hair.

Shelby is a married man. Somewhere.

The bartender would like us to pay our tab, Shelby. The bartender would like us to go.

While I wrote this I remembered how fucking great Queens of the Stone Age are, which- if you read this blog- might come as a surprise to you that someone as single minded as myself could forget…but I did. Please don’t let that happen again. Enjoy:

Queens of the Stone Age—Skin on Skin
Amazon

the story