Dominican Dirt pt. 4

Part four? are you fucking kidding me? what a long-winded fuck, as if like Dickens i was being paid by the fucking word or better yet the fucking expletive, and so it occurred to me the other day as i was driving the lovely tree-lined suburban streets that i got it pretty fucking good, i was stoned and driving slowly and listening to some fucking dad rock that wasn't dad rock at all and grinning like the Dude at the state that i was in... on Monday i was the recipient of an unplanned root canal, well not totally unplanned but discovered that it needed to be done the Friday before and since my face was humming in pain i was given some pain killers that made for a rather unproductive weekend (that stretched a bit into the week) at the typer, stoned on grass and pills and eating yogurt and passing in and out of consciousness while the telly babbled gently in the background, but i digress, i was driving down the street and thinking i really need to finish that bit about the Dominican Dirt and get on with something else and if i was to continue to loosely abide by Henry Miller's eight rules i needed to get it cranked out, as if i have a deadline or a waiting audience...

I was driving in the car thinking, you can sub that line into a certain Jane's Addiction song, and i was laughing at how fucking Zen stoner i had become, rationalizing about how 85-90%  percent of my existence was absolutely fucking gorgeous and the other 10-15, maybe creeping higher or lower any given day, was utter dogshit, now as i thought this i figured that it was a pretty good fucking ratio and that if i had said 100% copacetic that i'd either by lying or insane or suicidal, as Longfellow once said "into each life a little rain must fall" and as Tom Waits expounded upon "but a little rain never hurt no one", i had no right to complain and i was thinking back to that night in the DR and that most people in my position would not be fucking about in some Caribbean mall with a guy who looked like a cross between an Argentine Man. U. washout and vaguely cartel-ish, but as the case may be there i was standing in said mall with my new acquaintance Moe...

It was at this point when i realized what was going on, the mall wasn't quite yet closed and there were still a few people other than the mall guards walking around, it seemed Moe had stepped in it a bit when he gave up Luciano's nickname, i smiled and told him all good, all taken care of, he lost his smile and said mary-wana fifty dollor, yeah man i said it's bueno, all taken care of, fifty dollor he repeats, i look at him puzzled, you got something better? i ask, his turn to be puzzled and again, fifty dollor mari-wana, he inches toward me and i give a quick scan, i step toward him and a bit forcefully tell him, the black guy i say, negro on motorbike has dinero, you want fifty dollars you talk to him, negro on motorbike i repeat, buenos noches i say, we're fucking done here i tell him and walk past him and out the door and back towards the resort, as i made the door and crossed the street to the lane that led up to the main entrance i took a glance or two over my shoulder to make sure i didn't have any company and once i made the main entrance i hooked a quick left and went straight into the casino and pulled up a seat at the bar, ordered a beer, and proceeded to watch my Cavs get taken apart...

I just so happened to pull up a seat between an overweight chap from the outskirts of Cleveland and his annoying brother-in-law on one side and a couple of swell kids from Staten Island named Joe and Bianca on the other, i was a bit stressed to say the least and it turned out the bro-in-law was from Chicago and giving his Cleveland counterpart shit, needless to say i was tempted to yank his fat fucking ass right off his stool and step on his throat but the last thing i really needed was more excitement tonight and so i turned a shoulder to them and drained my beer, ordered another and mumbled what a fucking nightmare, Joe heard me and said something about the game and him being a Lebron fan and we soon fell into conversation, i told him the nightmare wasn't just the game but the bullshit i had just gone through to score and he laughed and told me he could have saved me that hassle, that down at the end of the resort there were a bunch of shops, all named JC Penny and numbered, the kind that sold trinkets and "local art" and didn't believe in price tags,( haggle city) Joe told me that if you went in and bought the cheapest little pipe they immediately wanted to know if you want something for it, it was shit brown he laughed, and they tried to charge out the ass he said but i told them fuck you i'm from New York... so we got to talkin'...

After the initial exchange about scoring gear we shot the usual shit about sports and the like, of course he asked what i did and when i told him he fucking laughed out loud, i then produced pictures of the boyos and showed them to Bianca, an absolutely beautiful and sweet soul with a set of breasts that could distract the fucking Pope, Joe sold something to restaurants, they were just kids and i smiled when i told them i was old enough to be his dad, and then we got to talking about weed, i asked about all the fancy new stuff the kids did these days and spun a few yarns about the old days, they both looked at me like i was fucking bananas and Bianca smiled and said, but look at you now, it's crazy, i'd have never guessed, Joe and i got into talking strains and the in and outs of the NYC weed scene, he laughed at my luck in my fair city, he said he couldn't believe how much i knew about grass for being an old guy, it was good fun and a way to take the edge off, of course my Cavs went down that night and the next two after that as well...

Epilogue
I sort of made it a point to avoid Luciano's bar, it wasn't exactly a place i really ever needed to go and i didn't feel the need to find out if every thing was copacetic between him and his friends, most likely he'd want another tip and after smoking that horrible shit i was half thinking about asking for a partial refund, oh it worked okay for about an hour or so and i laughed every time i skinned up thinking about how the last time i smoked shit this bad i was the one hustling it, only a lot fucking cheaper than what i just paid... at the pool bar a day or two later i was talking to a Dominican girl from Miami, somehow the topic of smoke came up as it often does at the bar and i told her the story, she started laughing, i love my Dominican men she said, always on the make no matter what, she ordered a drink and continued, and you told them to fuck off, that's funny, you had it clocked , they won't do shit near a resort, they just know they can scam Americans, most people would've just gave up the cash, i shrugged, i do know my way around this game just a little bit and bid my farewell and swam off... On my last full day i was walking up some path at the resort that i hadn't been on, it was a main one but at this time of day was empty, the sun was beating down and a little motorbike went putting by with two workers on it, i looked up and saw Luciano who immediately yelled Hey!! with an air of unfriendliness to it, in keeping with the language barrier i grinned and yelled, Au Revoir Shoshanna!!! and kept right on walking...

(And there it is...)