I love the 80's

          I don't know why, after watching a gun battle in the parking lot attached to my apartment building last week, I still thought it was safe to leave my scooter parked outside, unchained.  I awoke a few days ago to the sun sleepily poking out of passing storm clouds, and warming my face with it's optimistic soft glow.  Birds were bellowing the same tune, and as I became engulfed in it's beauty I sat up to rub the sleep out of my eyes.  My bed sits right next to the window, so usually the first thing I see every morning is a dumpster and my scooter sitting in an empty parking lot, instead on this morning, I saw only a dumpster. "FUUUCK!" I screamed into the part of my brain responsible for operating and coordinating the rotten caverns that suppresses my emotions and reactions.     Had this part of my brain not been highly active that morning, I might have over reacted and done something like kill myself or worse, immediately purchased a new scooter on my credit card I recently opened to take a road trip with.   
           Thankfully though, that part of my brain still has enough juice left in it to fight off my true self.  I did, search for my scooter for about three hours though.  I walked half the city, going into every back ally way, looking in every dumpster and stopping by every pawn shop.  The only things I were able to find were homeless people and garbage, sometimes even piled on top of one another.  That shy playful sun that woke me up by playing patty cake with my eye lashes decided to say fuck it and left me searching for my scooter behind ghetto apartments in the pouring rain.  I found myself, after hopping a series of fences, in someones back yard.  In this back yard there was a small, in-ground pool overflowing with green water and leaves.  I sat there and watched the rain drops pound against the murky water for a moment before I teared up, I sucked the tears back into my eyes and blamed the rain for the wet stains on my cheek.  "FUCK!" It was raining so hard I forced water away from my lips with the enunciation of the letter F.  "Fuck."
          Startlingly, I wasn't crying because my beloved scooter was gone forever, probably being dissected in a underground welding shop by lepers. I wasn't even crying because a hurricane was dumping water on my head.  I had to suck tears back into my eyes because as I stared at the water rippling in the downpour, I thought of Cow.  Just two months ago, we were together and in Chicago.  We were standing by the sears tower, rain slipping through the sky scrappers in sheets of forewarning gray.  I saw Cows face in that pool, and I couldn't help but spiral into that memory. 
          I've been doing that a lot lately, going about my day perfectly content in whatever I may be doing when BAM, I pick up a Kiwi start sobbing because Cow and I ate a Kiwi together once and he said he didn't like them.  I swear to God, yesterday I was driving to work and 80's music on the radio when Naked Eyes came on singing their only hit, "Always something there to remind me."  I think I may be the only person in the world who has ever had an emotional response to that song other than promptly turning it off, but I cried like a little girl while singing the lyrics to my steering wheel.   But now, this is taking form in my memory of Scooty, my stolen scooter.  For instance today, I was helping a customer out to his car to load some smelly compost into his trunk.  He had tan lines that cut his biceps in half; I found myself becoming irate in my mind because not long ago, when I had a scooter and drove to work in the sun, I had tan lines that cut my biceps in half.   But now, because I don't have a scooter, I'm doomed to pay high gas prices and stay pasty white. 
          I've been fantasizing about what I would do if I had the people who stole my scooter chained in my living room to a cold metal chair.  I would definitely need a pair of pliers and a ball gag, you know, to silence the screams.  My mind even traveled to a fantasy in which I died on the highway while driving my new motorcycle to work.  Somehow my mom would meet the people who stole my scooter in this fantasy and scream, "Why did you steal it?  He would have never bought that motorcycle if you hadn't stolen his scooter.  His scooter couldn't go on the highway, but YOU are the reason he's dead because he bought a motorcycle. How can you live with yourselves."  This fantasy gets good when the scooter bandits are forced to live with that guilt for the rest of their lives.  I'm not sure if this type of thinking is normal or healthy, but it doesn't change the fact that my brain is wired in such a way that promotes over active imagination with an inclination to tragedy. 
          Jen's been really supportive through this difficult time for me, she even lets me drink her rum, quietly adding it to the long list of things I owe her.  I think she tacked the rum next to the 100 rolls of toilet paper I've used but never purchased.  I love her for this, which is why I'm moving with her to Florida in 6 months. She mentioned the move to me after visiting our friend Eric in St. Petersburg two weeks ago, where she taught baby dolphins algebra and para-sailed with German prostitutes. Or at least that's what it sounded like she said while screaming into my phone, "RYAN, you are moving here with me when our lease is up," and I instantly agreed to follow her.  I've needed to escape Kansas City for a few years now, and I think Florida might be the answer to my plea. 
          Jen's been promising Florida to me for almost five years now and had her car not broken down two summers ago, we would have been there already.  I'm thankful for this now, as my master plan was to become the biggest stand up comic in drag to sweep the nation.  I don't know why I thought this was a good idea, but I do know that I was so dead set on becoming a stand up drag sensation that had her car not fallen apart, my dick would be duck taped to my back hair right now.  That's one thing I learned when I lived with Star, my transsexual roommate, being a tranny whore is a lot of work.  In fact, cross dressing in general is one of the most time consuming hobby or lifestyles out there, next to hoarding unique sand granules.
          This time I'm planning to go with no plan, Jen on the other hand, is going to build a print publication empire and there is now doubt in my mind she will achieve this goal.  I know.  I worked for her at the newspaper she was EIC of.  She is a powerhouse cunt to work for, but she gets shit done and she's always well connected. I just want to get out so that I may find some peace, find myself in a city untouched by the ruins of failed relationships, stolen scooters, and an art community I feel nothing for.  I'm looking forward to scooting down a a strange Florida street, where there is nothing ever there to remind me.
          A place where Naked Eyes will fall on deaf ears.