Amp'd Read Free Page B

end badly.”
    And here we are, in our own future of sorts: this moment where all the events and circumstances of our lives have led, here at the Four Corners where Dad asks me what my plans are to find local work and my ears begin to ring some more. I excuse myself and head to the bathroom, momentarily pulled to one side by the heaviness of my arm and the equilibrium-fucking combination of V 2 . Eyes veer from my path and avoid my clumsy trail, and as the bathroom door snaps shut behind me I imagine the rush from the diner to escape the awkwardness of my return. I make it to the toilet before throwing up breakfast, consoled at least that my drug dosage has already been absorbed into my bloodstream and cannot be so easily expelled.
    I stare at my own face in the mirror, still boyishly handsome enough for Michelle, with haunted eyes that tell me not to go back out there to face Dad and his hopes for my future, or the other diners and their discomfort, or Michelle’s bottomless pot of heart-palpitating cheeriness. And then the bathroom window offers the solution to all my problems.
    Â 
    JOBS YOU CAN’T HOLD WITH ONE ARM
    Baseball player
    Umpire
    Croupier
    Police officer
    Fireman
    Bartender
    Roofer
    Surgeon
    Skycap
    Bellhop
    Boxer
    Cowboy
    Goalie
    Crane operator
    Alligator wrangler
    Orchestra conductor
    Courtroom stenographer
    Airport landing signal officer
    EMT
    Astronaut
    Plate spinner
    And of course, Paperhanger

    Sure, someone will feel compelled to point out a guy who, against all odds, held one of these jobs, maybe still does. Like Jim Abbott, born without his lower right arm, who somehow managed to pitch for the Yankees, Angels, White Sox, and Mariners (all American League teams, so he wouldn’t have to bat). As if that invalidates the point. Exception does not disprove the rule, and the rule is, guys with one arm don’t have these jobs. And if you needed any of these jobs done and a guy with one arm showed up, you’d demand a guy with both. (I know I would.)

 
    SCHOOLED
    I’d escaped through the Four Corners bathroom window before, back during a time when I still believed I didn’t have to do things I didn’t want to do, and what I didn’t want to do then was finish an awkward lunch date with my teenaged chum Joel and two girls whose names I can’t remember. Not only was Joel stuck paying the check, but he had to suffer the stereo diatribe of the girls on a long, shameful walk home. It took an inordinate time for me to properly assess my escape as an unforgivably cruel act.
    This time the struggle with one less limb was greater and my good arm is dotted with splinters from the rotted window frame, my karma having traveled a quarter century to get here. Drifting down the narrow boulevard of our town’s best attempt at a “Main Street,” my options for hiding out are few: too early for the bar, the Loading Zone being closed; daunted by the two hands required for page thumbing at the bookstore; and loitering in the bank is likely to call the undue attention I’m trying to avoid.
    A beautiful woman at the bus stop scans her phone, and I want to approach and talk to her or pull up in my car and offer her a ride, only to head to the lake instead where we’ll laugh and enjoy each other’s company and maybe even have sex, in the car or by the lake, it won’t matter. Instead I can’t help but wonder if I’ll do any of those things again—meet a beautiful woman, drive a car, swim in a lake, laugh in the company of another, or have sex, in a car or by the lake or any place on Earth. It would take a very special woman to overlook my shortcoming—perhaps a blind one, but even then the charade would be difficult to keep up for long, and would probably end with screams.
    My best option for losing myself seems to be the used vinyl store, Broken Records, which offers to recommend it “open for business” status and rows of record albums