Pekar's script had me drawing fisticuffs later than usual into Friday night while
zegas held up his end of the studio lettering a 4pp comic I wrote for him to illustrate called "Broken." We listened to DMX and early RUN-DMC while drinking booze and making comix. Got a random call from my old ex-Russian girlfriend Julia, inviting us out to a birthday party at a bar called ORCHID. Ames picked us up in his car where he gave me a copy of a new book he advance blurbed called JACK FISH by J Milligan, and we motored to the lower east side. Driving reminded Ames of when he was recently in Florida [or some other state, I forget], where he would pull up in his car to old men on street corners and ask "How much?" as a joke. This would confuse and sometimes anger the bums as Ames pulled away before getting a walking cane or a bottle of Night Train crashing through his windshield. So, of course, a couple of opportune moments had us sitting idle on a street corner, waiting for the red to turn green, when Ames would roll down the window and
zegas would take the bait and shout "How much?" to pedestrians. I yelled at the both of 'em to cut it out. I knew if static were to ensue, I'd be the one rolling up sleeves.I don't do trendy bars nor can I hang with a bouncer parked at the front door. Bouncers usually mean trouble and trouble usually costs ten bucks per whiskey on the rocks. Which is a New York crime. Plus, I hate to show my I.D. I've got white hair in my beard. Get a clue, lunkhead. And, I'm just no good in a place for kids learning to get their drink on. So, we hung out with the Russians while the bar filled up with clean shaven brokers a decade younger than me. It was nice to briefly catch up with Julia but her attention was occupied by budding romance and so I got to sip expensive Makers Mark and ogle
zegas get Rico Suave on a girl [I knew all those hours of erasing my pages and filling in those blacks would pay off]. The voyeurism got boring quick and a third wheel I'm not. Not wanting to party poop, I suggested we skedaddle back to Smith street in Brooklyn whereupon I depleted both The Zombie Hut and Brooklyn Social's whiskey cabinets. "Last night, I put a thief in my mouth and it stole my brain."
David Mamet, THE SPANISH PRISONER
I think my brother's empty icebox depressed me enough to drown in alcoholic toxin many times over. And boy howdy did I ever pay for it on Saturday. I didn't start my hangover until the sun went down and so I had no spark to take the evening by storm. Instead, I invited Ames and
zegas [and his roommate Jason] over for some Horror Movies 101, and schooled the boys in the 25-year difference between HALLOWEEN and FREDDY VS. JASON. I'd never heard Ames scream so loud. Michael Myers rules supreme.