Sonja and I headed to the mall for the first time this Christmas. I just wanted to get everybody, including the underagers, a case of beer this year. (When I was younger, during my Lemmy period, I bought everybody I knew a bottle of blue label Smirnoff and a handful of uppers. Only my mom was unsure of the gift. "Do I take the uppers before or after the vodka?") Sonja would not have it. The trip was not half bad though because before we went to the mall we went to the pub and did us some lunching and drinking. Sonja worked the wine while I sloshed down some welfare pints.
Out in the mall parking lot everybody was readier to start a civil war than the Hindus in India. Men were rolling down windows, exposing themselves to the black rain, calling to one another with the language their fathers and mothers used about the same they were drunkenly and ill-advisedly conceived, as we rolled slowly through the lot looking for a place to park. We saw one fist fight, pretty good one too. Everybody was watching the fight from the safety of their own cars like they watch a hockey fight on tv. I could see several people mouthing the words, "Kill the motherfucker!" as it became apparent which of the two men was the better fighter and driver.
People, people like you probably, I fucking swear, are more messed up than me. After what I saw today I figure I am probably just a little above average on the messed up scale. That's why the more and more there become of us, the less and less we spend time together. We freak each other out too much.
At the door to the mall Sonja gave all the money she had made playing keno in the pub to a couple firemen standing in front of their big manly rubber boots. Sonja could not believe her luck. "The one day all year the firemen are at the mall and you of all people are here with me." Sonja dreams of big rubber booted Swedish firemen when she is not dreaming about Volvos and Ikea. She made sure she bent down real low to put her money in the firemens' rubbers.
We did a little gift buying and eventually ended up in the only store I give a damn about in the whole mall since the mall does not have a liquor store - the record store. I ordered the new (Canadian) Subhumans re-issue and bought Cock Sparrer's 2007 Here We Stand for my music library. Great fucking punk rock by the old east end geezers. The knockout punch is called the Spirit of '76.
A voice rings out like a bell
Cutting through the chaos of hate and war
The inside of the mall was a different scene than the chaos of hate and war in the parking lot. Everybody is walking around like they have just smoked a pile of dope, which they probably have. The only people you have to look out for on the inside is the store clerks. They all fantasize about collecting the family guns and shooting everybody they can beginning with the first motherfucker to ask them for help and not stopping until the mall Santa is motionless in a pool of blood and candy canes.
1 comment:
Yes. I thought of you and Sonja and Anne Murray when I read about that Wal-Mart security guard getting trampled to death on Black Friday. The only store where people turned out in droves to take advantage of the ailing US economy in the run-up to Christmas.
Jesus, I thought; they must all have been reading Beer's blog.
By the way. On the subject of Cock Sparrer. I always enjoyed their raucous terrace singalong version of the Stones' "We Love You".
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