It was a small store front
among a series of awkward side-by-side bays
retail space
all let by the same
uninspired realty and management company
year after year after year
after year
either a
front or maintained as a legit tax write-off
no matter
business was created to fuck
other people
Please the insult people take you shouldnt forget This isnt personal
Its business
Gawddamn he loved those
businessmen most
Teeing themselves up
smiling
smug and so so very pretty
and certain
on occasion not frequently he followed up their business conjecture
with
stepping back standing away
momentarily
squaring his shoulders to their
balls
feet shoulder width apart knees slightly bent
wagging his No. 1 wood
where
the drawl came from he hadnt the slightest idea
it
just sounded so fucking appropriate
-- Nothing personal Purely business
stepping forward shifting his weight onto the balls of his
feet he rocked them
he supposed they could take that
insult anyway they wanted when they returned from Lalaland
the bullshit they thought theyre
entitled to
The store front was located at
the edge of Old Town which was
desirable in a one
hundred year old
village erected at the crossroads of wagon routes running west to the ocean and
east
and
El Camino Real north to south
a historic artery between twenty-one
military and religious Spanish Missions
established by Catholic priests of the
Franciscan Order to infect Native Indian tribes
every grade school child was
taught to memorize and recite those Mission names
History
Ah to be the Victor to write History through their
eyes alone
It is how Lies become Fact
Old Town for as long as hed lived there was constantly
being touted for renovation
in an attempt to reinvigorate the District
Old Town was the first cancer cell formed
but it failed to metastasize
and
then lost steam over the remaining 20th Century dialed down into a maudlin
shitcoloured bedroom
community
When the store front opened it
was inspiring
he
attended the Grand Opening
he wished its starry-eyed
entrepreneur/curator
good fortune and better luck
he firmly supported the Arts
although he supposed Art as
Beauty inevitably was in the eye of the Beholder
the Art he found displayed on
easels and hung from partitions behind its plateglass windows
were less than
inviting
over the past year its efforts
simmered down into Sex Sells propositions
scantily
clad women underwater valiantly attempting to impersonate
mermaids
believed compleat
by their
photographer
if
compleat mean tail fins fish scales and tits
their tits reflecting off the surfaces belly
he had chosen not to walk near
the store for some time
evidently not a fan of merfantasy
Yesterday it was gone
its guts evaporated
its
black and green tiled floor strewn with a single paint-spattered aluminum foot
ladder
and scraps and tatters of paper like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle never to
be pieced together
waiting on the firm minimum-waged hand
and a push broom
providing another ash
heap for History
1414, Saturday,
28 3. 15
1604, Sunday, 29 3.
15
