Catfish 2

 Nothing looked better than those big Old Style cans in front of the brewery when the bus pulled into LaCrosse that morning.  But Mongo, he'd married some little blonde who would hardly let him out of the house, and Deke, he was always putting in overtime at the brewery.  Does that make any sense, working in a fucking brewery, and no time to drink beer?  And the only job I could get was at that Goddamn 7-11. 

 And it wasn’t long before that job got awfully old.  I had been hoping that we would be putting the old gang together.  Maybe Mongo would dump that blonde, and maybe Deke wouldn’t be putting in so much overtime and we’d have time to drink some beers, catch some fish, and girls, there would be girls around.  Damn I hadn’t had a girl since I’d left Champaign.  They say spring does that to you, turns your fancy is the way they put it.

 Like the girl in that Old Style poster behind the cash register caught my attention, dark-haired, halter-topped, her little tanned belly button right at the bottom of the poster just above where her belly began to curve forward as she was leaning forward to take a cold one from some guy, you could just see his hand, but the way she was looking at him you could tell he was probably going to get lucky.  Damn.

 And the old guy, the owner, standing in front of the poster, blocking my view, grumbling, always grumbling, didn’t like the way business was a little slow, didn’t like the way I didn’t pick up the broom when there weren’t any customers, sweep up a little, the place looked like a Goddamn pig sty, what the hell was he paying me for?

 And the candy section, some of those bars, the ones that didn’t sell so well, he rubbed his finger across them and showed it to me.

 “Dust!” he proclaimed.  “Who the hell is going to buy a dusty candy bar?  Would it kill you to go through them with a damp rag, polish them up a little?  What the hell am I paying you for?”

 And just then the tinkle sound of the front door as some smiling high school girls walked in and I turned around to look at them, and this apparently pissed him off even more because he put his hand on my shoulder and again with the “What the hell am I paying you for?”

 "Fuck you," I answered, "I'm going to California."  Didn’t know where that came from but once I’d said it, it felt so right, just like what I should be doing, just like the forty-niners, going out to strike it rich. 

 Of course I didn't know anybody in California, but what the hell, I've never had trouble making friends, and those California girls, you know they'd fall for a ruggedly outdoorishly, handsome guy like me, fall just like those oranges off the trees.  Yeah California was the place to go.

 As soon as I said it I was damn sure of it.  I had a Beach Boys tape on the floor of Mom's car and I stuck it into the player, and sang along at the top of my lungs all the way back to the house, "Wish they all could be California, wish they all could be California, wish they all could be California gurllllls."