Part Two - Chapter Five

Monday, July 24, 2017

Jack

Morning, Ceci!

Did you ever waitress the breakfast shift?

Why are breakfast waitresses so beautiful? With their hair up, eggs any style, and endless re-fills?

I was a busboy on Fire Island, NY.

Loaded fish and supplies from the docks at 5 every morning. Worked straight through the dinner shift to midnight. The restaurant was run by two German navy officers. One in the kitchen. One on the floor. Rigid, profane, semi-violent. But since I worked the longest days, and could eat more of the kitchen German's food than anyone else, he loved me like a knife-wielding mother on the Child Abuse Registry.

In the morning, after loading supplies from the docks, he would stand over me, angelic, with a plate of french toast, watching me eat, and piling on more. By night, in "the shits" (the cyclone of the dinner rush), he was throwing food, throwing plates, menacing us with 12-inches of sharpened steel, while promising to kill us for everything we did and everything we did not.

In the end, his mother-love conquered all.

In the Fall, I went back to Oberlin 20 pounds fatter than I have ever been.

Ceci

Waitresses are beautiful because they keep coming back to talk to you and take care of you.

Something blue came in the mail today (sunglasses). Excellent stamp job!

I really like them, by the way.

Thank you!

Jack

Ha! Pretty sure they look better on you than they did on me.

Jack

I saw your picture. Tell me about the show.

Ceci

The pic that I just posted from Saturday night?

What a fun, amazing, magical summer night.

That place, the art park, it can't last long. It's too good.

Jack

Yeah. It looks like one of those places where everything is a continuous smile and eternally groovy, right up until everyone else shows up.

That picture is great. Are the natives dancing around a bonfire?

Ceci

Like the old Fourth Street fairs downtown. No corporate sponsors. No money changes hands.

Jack

Right. Like Harmony Park or the hippy St. Andrew's Church near Wayne State.

Ceci

Near Wayne State?

Jack

Right, when Rob and Becky Tyner and all the old MC5 hippies moved their whole grains and veggy chili caldrons from the Paradigm Loft to the vacant St. Andrew's Church.

Nothing there even got started till after 2 AM. I can still smell the cumin.

Ceci

The pic I posted is right around 1:45 AM, LOL. Can you believe it?

Jack

Badass.

It actually hurts me now to stay up that late. How did you pull it off?

Ceci

The Japanese say second childhood starts at 60.

I'm already saying I'm sixty. So there you go. I'm getting a jump start. Because.......

WHO CARES!! 👏👏👏

I napped before going out.

I'm so used to hardly any sleep over the last 17 years.

Jack

YES. Who the fuck cares?!! To hell with them!!

Second childhood. Arrested development. I think I'm still on my first.

Ceci

That may be the case with me too.

Jack

Never really saw the advantage of "Adult", and the related condition of seriousness.

Ceci

You mean...boring?

I did a lot of hard stuff over the years. I know when the going is good.

You jump off mountains for God sake!!

Jack

Yes. Boredom. It makes me itchy.

Yeah. And you play live sets, Where the Wild Things Are, around a bonfire, in Detroit, at 2 AM.

Ceci

Now that is a rarity. But still.

Jack

I imagine neither of us will consider stopping.

Just the opposite.

We'll do everything we can to keep it up.

I like everything about your photo, but specially the sparks, the caramel cola top, the vivid green bottom, and you looking off to the girl silhouetted by fire. 🔥

Ceci

It's good.

The amazing thing was when the train cars started clacking.

The flames sparked. The stars. The warmth of a summer night. It was perfection.

Jack

You are lapsing into a spell of poetry.

Go on, Thistle Momma.

Ceci

The song we had just begun playing is one of my favorites.

I got chills and thought, this is why I'm still doing this.

Jack

Right, it's worth all the work and suffering, if somewhere, tomorrow, there is just one more perfect moment.

Ceci

Exactly.

Jack

I miss you even though I only see you once a year. Makes no sense at all.

Ceci

It makes sense.

Maybe I'm a little bit of a lifeline.

We help each other.

[Dudes, vote⭐ for an endless summer of love and immaturity.]

Photos 1-4: Taken and owned by the authors, 2018.