Solitaire (cool your jets, it's fiction)

An eccentric person has no right to balk at some teasing, maybe some outright ridicule. They said the guy who designed the steam engine was nuts, and I hear tell his wardrobe was even more conservative than mine. Mrs. Henry next door says I look like I'm dressed for a flood. They're capri pants. Men in Italy wear capri pants, I think. I know the ladies do, at least, and this is supposed to be a genderless society. But lately Mr. Paul has been ragging about the motorcycle I bought. He calls it a 'rice rocket,' and he's at least half right, I should have bought either American, or anyplace other then my bikes birthplace. It's like the child of Rube Goldberg and Aileen Wuornos. A real piece of shit. This is another bad year for appliances and transportation. I think I'm getting arthritis.


Then, last year, it was the chain saw. Like usual, and I know I'm a bit of a schmuck, I got one out of a discount warehouse online, which made me wonder if it employed bald headed Jews with a short temper, like the places I used to shop in when I was kid. Society is changing much too fast for the average guy to get a grip on. Same as the goddam bike, there's something fishy with the idle screw, you can't adjust the thing properly, so there's problems with the chain saw. Either I burned out the engine, or else it needs a new spark plug. Doesn't matter at this point, because I lost interest in the project I had in mind.

There's a sweet old couple in the shanty in back of my hovel, and they keep rubbing it in about how reliable their chain saw is. All their appliances work like gems. And then they have to lay it on about the weeds I have growing. I asked if I could borrow their weed whacker. "Ain't sure I trust a man like you with a gas engine, Little Brucie." Imagine that, a 92 year old bag calling me 'Little Brucie.' I'm average height! And the name is Bruce, not 'Little Brucie."

"Them weeds is grown too thick to cut down with a weed whacker. I'd go at them oaks and maples with a chain saw, if you ever get one that works." Even her husband thinks he's a comedian. There aren't any trees. They are weeds with thick trunks, and I think their weed whacker would handle them just fine. Not really sure, though. It isn't my province.

People in this borough are clannish. That's why I don't seem to connect to well with people here. I moved here a long time ago, been waiting for my life to fill in and get more sympatico. It never does. I just live alone like a washed up hermit. Watching the afternoon movie, cashing my disability checks, saving a few pennies a month for a new saw. Once you go off your schedule too long, it gets hard pick up where you left off. Living in the boonies, like this, can have a bad effect on your outlook.

I was planning to perform a massacre with that chain saw, and now I'm just tired. Arthritis gets much worse, and it will all have been an idle dream.