Now Do a Silly One
A tableau of experiences
You can only get scared so many times in one day. I have lowered my instances to probably three major frights a day. One is for whatever public transit I am on, the second is for my health, and the third is for my future.
I remember I dated this alcoholic from Dayton, Ohio. I’d drive a long time just to be able to sleep in a room with only a mattress and dusty old PC. He let me into his Discord group chat and I scrolled up to see some messages about me. He said I was a bitch, but I was a bitch because I was from Canton, Ohio.
When I think about drinking, I never ever want to drink beer. When I’m forced to drink beer, I pretend I'm the main character of a young adult novel and it kind of soothes me, because they definitely all drink beer. The book will basically make the girl really mousy but still gorgeous, which, in my brain, I hope I’m also gorgeous. The girl will usually have to sit with a hot guy and it’ll be like, “the only thing they had was beer,” “it made my stomach churn, but not being drunk during this conversation would make it churn more….” “I realized I was on my fourth, while Carter was only on his second. That would explain my sudden desperation…”
Then the girl would get laid and still be skinny the next day, so it was okay she drank beer. This is what I think about when I have to drink beer.
I’m the perfect person to be accosted or to bring fortune to. I’m always alone, I'm always a young woman, and I'm always sitting in a park somewhere.
The first thing I do in any park is look at the dogs. On this particular day, there’s a beautiful dog park full of great dogs. I decide I can just go in and sit where the dog owners do. It makes me a little nervous, because someone might ask me “which one is yours?” like how parents ask other parents by the playground in movies, but thankfully I dodge most interactions.
I'm usually carrying 2 giant bags. There’s a sickly-looking German Shepherd that is shitting all over the fake green grass. A girl comes up to me after cleaning up all the watery sickly shit and says, “I know you have hand sanitizer.” I don’t respond verbally, I just pull out my hand sanitizer for her to use. She goes crazy looking at it; she’s never seen this brand and she’s loving it. She starts taking pictures of the sanitizer bottle in my hand.
After that, I leave the dog park. I sit next to a guy playing the guitar. I hang my bags on the green folding chair and decide he can have 3 dollars of mine. When I sit back down, I miscalculate. The chair folds under the weight of me, my bags, my lack of Ozempic. When I fall straight onto my ass, everybody in the immediate area kind of laughs. A few people ask if I'm okay. A park employee runs over to ask me if the chair is broken. I don’t really react to any of this. I stay until a girl walks over to give me free art. It’s a bunch of postcards with some sweet sayings written in calligraphy.
At 27, nobody assures me I'm young enough. I write a Reddit post in a private subreddit about how afraid I am of any kind of future. None of the girls tell me I am sooo young and have sooo much time left. They also lament about being 27, about being alone, about being scared.
I go to a cockfighting ring in Puerto Rico. Women get in for free and it’s a Saturday.
It’s an arena that reminds me of a panopticon; astro turf in the middle. The waitresses all have insane BBLs and I imagine them flying to Miami to get them. They step onto the playing field to serve drinks, they step over bloody feathers like it’s nothing. Men are leaning over the rails, yelling and waving pieces of paper.
On the upper level, angry chickens are in small glass cages waiting to fight. Men are behind plexiglass tending to them, coaching them like this is the NBA.
When it’s time for 2 roosters to battle, they put each of them into a glass sort of elevator; it's like the one from Willy Wonka. Both chickens descend onto the field from opposite sides via this machine. There are two attendants, one for each chicken. When the lift makes it to the battle ground, each worker grabs a chicken. They hit the chickens, they shake the chickens - they’re trying to rile the birds up. Then, they sort of make the chickens kiss each other - that’s to get the scent of the other. Ideally, the rooster is now associating his rage with the opponent. Both are put back into their respective plexiglass containers. A huge red clock is above the field. There’s 10 minutes on it and a buzzer will go off.
I watch 3 rounds of cock fighting.
The first is not quick. There is no sudden death.
I'm repulsed but I don’t look away. I don’t feel it’s right to ignore. You can’t turn off the evil in this world and it doesn’t stop happening just because you’ve decided to scroll past it on your phone. I watch a bloody angry chicken peck another one to death. I have tears in my eyes, but I won’t cry. This is a culture - one I don’t understand. Does that make it wrong? It’s not for me to say. I watch out of respect for the chickens, mostly. They don’t know it, but they’re performing. And they don’t know it, but they have fans.
A chicken lays limp on the ground. He is trying to move, but it’s just not working. The match ends and the attendants file in. A worker picks up the twitching rooster and in one quick motion, he snaps the chicken’s neck. It’s finally over.
You shouldn’t stop looking at what scares you. Even if it’s past your daily limit.
