The Black Guy and the Fat Italian with the Ridiculous Handlebar Moustache

On my way home from work, I drove past an accident on West Carson Street, at the intersection right on the edge of McKees Rocks. I didn’t see it happen, but I did arrive moments later, and could easily infer how it had happened with the quick look that I stole as I drove past. There was a PT Cruiser driven by a black woman with her husband or boyfriend seated in the passenger seat. She had a giant, complicated, immaculate haircut and fingernails like neon-colored daggers that I could see clearly from my car. He had a shaved head and a well-groomed mustache. They both appeared to be in their mid to late 30s and were dressed very nondescriptly. No aspect of their personage seemed at all dangerous or should have elicited fear in any way. They had just been rear-ended by a fat Italian guy in a Pontiac. He was bald, had a ridiculous handlebar mustache, and was wearing a polo shirt. It looked like he was in his 40s, though it was hard to say exactly. Likely, the PT Cruiser stopped quickly at the light, and the Pontiac didn’t follow suit quickly enough. There was no visible damage. They must not have collided too hard. No damage…at least not at a glance, and really…nobody’s fault. You still need to exchange insurance information, though. At least get out and confirm that everybody is okay and offer a phone number. The Italian guy didn’t want to get out of his car. The woman was being pretty calm, and just seemed irritated, but her husband/boyfriend was livid and standing outside the vehicle, yelling intensely. The Italian guy was yelling back with equal intensity, albeit from inside his car. The last part I saw was the woman getting out and approaching the Pontiac. She probably had plans for being more diplomatic than either of the two men. Good for her. Women can be great that way. The whole thing kind of reminded me of Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing, only set in Pittsburgh and without all the cool music. I can only imagine if/how the conflict ever got resolved. Traffic in that lane was beginning to back up.

Everything Rose

The heat rose. The street rose. The buses and cars rose. The pedestrians rose. The buildings rose. The volume rose. My blood rose. We all came up from the ground. We all came. We all rose. Nothing would ever fall again.

Neon Burn

The neon lights are burning the street. The bus exhaust is burning my nose. The sirens are burning my ears. The moon is burning the sky. That girl’s nipples are about to burn through her shirt. The bourbon I drank back at the bar is still burning in my throat. The words you said are still burning in my mind. We’re all sadists, and everything is on fire.

Hot Stupid

Stupidity sucks, even if it’s hot. Even if it’s wearing leather pants, smells like vanilla, and has an ass like an apple. Stupidity sucks, even if it’s nice to look at while it’s walking around outside without a coat when it’s 20 degrees and the whole world is frozen.

Crawl

The gallery crawl happens downtown on the first Friday of each month. These galleries are all very hip and cultural, and I don’t bother applying to these ones. My work would never get in. I can only visit. Normally the work is bad anyway. Tonight, however, it’s awesome. They’ve got some intense African drumming going on, too. Seems like the real thing, as best I can tell. All black guys dressed in brightly colored clothes. They look like they’re probably adhering pretty closely to the traditional article. They’re all wearing matching garb, kind of like a uniform. Most have dreadlocks. There are some really big, beefy-looking guys pounding away, and a feeble little old guy who appears to be the leader. He can work a crowd of white suburbanites like nobody’s business. We’re hanging on his every word. The music is loud, furious, and throbbing. If Slayer were acoustic and African, this is what they would sound like. F u c k i n g a w e s o m e. There’s nobody under the roof who isn’t dancing. There’s beer too, and that always makes cool stuff cooler. Walking to the next gallery, I pass a porn store and a white tranny, walking with a really good-lookin’ black chick. I suppose she might be a tranny too. I can’t tell, and I don’t care. They’re radiant, glowing in the neon lights, heading into the bar across the street. They will take no shit from anybody on their way there. Part of me wants to follow them into the bar. I bet they’ve got more soul than any or all of the hip-looking college kids hanging their bullshit cartoons in these downtown galleries. It’s getting cold, and the heavy, drying taste of beer spit fills my mouth. I’ll likely need to piss soon. The next gallery has a bathroom, and more beer. I stop there. Hit the mens’ room. I can feel the heat of my piss radiating back from the urinal. No backspray, just heat. It was gross but reassuring. I’m hot, and therefore still alive. There’s a gay bar beside the gallery, and I’m pretty sure it’s the one the black chick and the tranny went into. I give it a long hard think, and determine that I’d look like an asshole if I went in there. I’m pretty sure I’d be an asshole if I went in there. In the next gallery there’s a confused Christian hippy girl with an acoustic guitar and enough sappy songs about Jesus to choke a whale. She looks like she needs to eat something. The plot-loss is devastating. Behind me, I catch a glimpse of the overflowing cleavage of a snobby-looking, pretentious, artsy bitch in her late 30s. She’s sporting a plunging neckline and giant bright red glasses. She’s laughing, and her tits are jiggling wonderfully. I’m sure she’s upper-middle class, enlightened, and lives on organic food. If she owned an art gallery, she wouldn’t even let me in the front door, but she’s got a great rack, and she’s showing it off really well. At the end of the night, I can’t complain.