Writer’s Notebook, Black Composition Book, Small Arms

Black Composition Book: Small Arms 2009

[Characters are defined through their relationships to these institutions

Break out of the limits of the established norms

The drama of determinism

The tragedy of human waste-energies and talents all unused—contradicting the main value in our society that believes wasting your potential is the wrong thing to do. So I won’t waste my potential, even if I don’t know what that is.

Action moves like a series of waves and then recedes.

Problem with awareness is the problem of social alienation—leading to the reality of the tragic negation

Don’t talk to me about living the pure life, it’s just pure bull.

Life is not enough—so what do I want? —I want all eyes. Why Should I want this?]

Small Arms

I laugh…

I sell…

Last night I was playing pool. I always lose. I’ve been playing pool for at least ten years now. Still, I always lose. I sell small arms out of the trunk of my car. This is what I told a man who was 52. He had a pill bottle of cocaine, said he just wanted to play pool. So we did.

I made a good comeback, nobody could believe it, and I hit six balls in the pocket, all in steady rhythm. I didn’t even act impressed. I was.

“What you do?”  He asked as he kept rubbing his nose.

“What’s in the bottle?” I said

“Baby powder” he said

I asked nothing more.

“I sell things.” I ended it at that, shot again, and I made another ball.

“Damn, the boy has got the angle”, a man sitting in the corner said, and so I did, have the angle that is.

Another Ball dropped.

               The bar was dark. You can only hear the echoes of claps constantly fading into the air. We were playing pool. The game was even. I always lose. This time I had a chance. I was getting nervous.

“So you sell arms?” He said

“Out of the trunk of my car…”

“Interesting…”

“Very” I said

               The music was loud. Dancing beats. I hated this music. He said that he did too, said he hated my generation. I told him “I concurred.” “What?” he said. “I hate my generation” I said. He just laughed and made another ball. So did I.

One Ball left, solid. “He’s got the angle another guy” said, and by now there was three other people watching. A man I know, a homeless man named Hank, who well, let’s put it like this, he aint really homeless; and the other person is my good friend Kip, and he just got back from somewhere where he said he woke up lost and then found himself on the flight home. I said “how you feeling now Kip.” He said “Lost.” We laughed.

I pull back the stick and it feels like it’s the end of the world. I never win. The ball drops.

“That’s our boy”, the man I was playing pool with says. I’ve never met him before. I’m not his boy. I know this much, cause I killed my father.

I won my first game ever, and I don’t act impressed, nobody else is. You don’t get excited in this type of bar, because it’s just one of those bars where our shoes stick to the floor, not because of gum, but because you came to this bar to get a drink within a life we go unnoticed dragging through.

The man tells me his name is Morgan. He’s fifty two years old. He says that he’s dying and only has a few years left. I tell him that I’m on the road. He laughs and tells me he’s on the road too.

“Where you going?” I ask

“Argentina, leaving tomorrow.”

“Why you going?” I ask

“I’ve never lived my life.”

 “I’ve lived too much” I say.

We both laugh.

“Want to buy a gun” I ask. “Could be dangerous in South America”

“Yeah I do” he says.

We walk out to my car. I sell him two handguns and enough bullets to get the job done. He started to tell me what he was going to do. I said “stop, I don’t care.” He then tells me when he gets back he’ll bring me something from Argentina.

“Alright” I said.

I walk home. I watch college kids puke on the streets. I chain smoke and laugh.

This is what I do. I sell things. I sell small arms.