The Fifth Branch

Perspective. It makes an artist's rendering worth evaluating. It also turns boring into something worth writing about.

I have gotten tired of hearing parents make outlandish claims about their Johnny or Jane making good grades, scoring more than anyone else in futbol, or other ideas they have about what success means. Success in their world is not success in mine. Pardon me while I get the toothpicks out of my eyes that made me look alert while listening to another round of parental boasting.

Instead, I'll tell you where the real excitement lies. I sat on a barstool of a local saloon/bar/pub yesterday afternoon, nursing a headache I got from the whining and complaining robots who'd pulled my ears all morning about their boring jobs and robotic offspring. Maybe this easy, new 8-to-5 job isn't all it's cracked up to be. Or perhaps I've cracked up a few days after taking the job. BFD, right? Welcome to the real world.

Next to me sat an overweight fellow in his late 50s or early 60s, with bulbous red nose, floppy ears and thinning hair.

I stared at the lethiferous containers of liquor in front of me, the backs of the bottles reflected in the bar-length mirror.

A hand slapped me on the shoulder.

"Hey, man, you gotta smoke on ya?"

I looked at the fat, hairy-chested guy on the stool. "No, why?"

"Aw, fuck, I was hopin' you had one. I'm completely out."

"I quit a long time ago."

"Yeah? Fuckin' shame, ain't it? Bet you're some kinda left-wing, commie, environvegetarian or somethin'."

"Sure. But at least you're ol' lady's a good fuck."

The guy choked on his drink and laughed. "Yeah? Well, the joke's on you, faggot. She's got the clap."

I laughed with him for a few seconds and then slapped him on the back. "Well, she told me she was just glad to have a dick that could rise for the occasion. Said she was tired of sucking a piece of flat inner tube tire and was happy to get her hands on a hard baseball bat for once."

The guy stuck his right hand out. "Good for you. My name's Dan, by the way."

I shook his hand. "Robert. But most people call me Knuckles."

Dan looked me up and down. "Knucklehead, more like it."

I nodded. "Fuck you."

Dan got the bartender's attention and ordered another round for both of us. We sat in silence and stared at the liquor bottles while we drank. A few old barflies walked in and sat next to me. I'd seen them a while back, when my wife and I were part owners of a local Japanese restaurant, Nikko's, that had gone out of business. I always wondered what happened to all the regulars there, like Dana and Nick. I couldn't remember the barflies' names.

"Think they suck cock?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "I suppose. Guess they'd take their teeth out for ya."

Dan laughed, snorting into his highball glass. "So what's going on with you?"

"Not much."

"What's with the tie and coat? This ain't no formal joint."

"Just my uniform. Feel free to ignore it."

"You work at McDonald's in that?"

"Yeah. Makes it easier to hide the fries and burgers I steal just before I leave the place. I'd share some but don't want to get any of your wife's crabs on you."

Dan nodded and finished his drink. "Not a problem. You can have her. She couldn't handle me and said she prefers tiny dickheads, probably why you and her are so tight."

The woman next to me put her purse on the counter. It was covered in glittery stones. I hadn't seen one like it. The women at my office tended to carry cloth or leather purses with expensive designer labels as big as a man's belt buckle.

"That's a nice purse you got there."

"Thanks, honey. You got a cigarette on you? I'm starving for a smoke."

Dan laughed. "Lady, you're barkin' up the wrong tree. Knucklehead here is a dried-up whore when it comes to smokin'."

"That so? Well, I've watched him smoke a few cigars lately. He took 'em nice and slow so I know he's a man who appreciates a good thing when he's got it. Right, darling?"

I looked at Dan. "She's right. At my old place, a guy named Nick kept a special set of cigars in a humidor for us."

Dan slid off the stool and walked over to stand between the woman and me. "Well, if it's cigars you want, what say we head back to my place where I keep my own stash of good 'tobacco.'"

I moved my eyes between Dan and the woman next to me. Both of them had colorful tattoos on their arms. They held their faces tight, neither smiling nor frowning, the age-old sign of years of disappointments and letdowns.

The other woman sat in silence and looked straight ahead. I turned my head and saw that she was looking at my reflection in the mirror. She winked at me and smiled. I nodded back.

I put a 50-dollar bill on the table and pointed at all the drinks to the bartender. He took my meaning and gave me a thumbs-up sign.

I stepped off the stool. "I'll meet you all outside. I've got a call to make and'll see you in a couple of minutes. The drinks are paid off."

"Thanks, knuckleface. I'll chat with these nice ladies while you go tell your mommie where you are."

I nodded at all of them and walked to the back of the room to make a call. "Hey, darling. Yeah, I enjoyed the movie. A bit more violent than I expected. I was hoping for more science fiction stuff. What? I'm getting a bite to eat at the Tex-Mex place. What's your schedule? Oh, really? Well, I'll see you later tonight then. Love ya! Bye."

I looked up at the ceiling fan spinning around. Big Ass brand. A fake pigeon on one blade. I watched Dan and the two women walk to the front of the place.

Boring is sitting in an office all day, expecting to make your annual bonus or pay raise in order to get little Johnny or Jane those extracurricular training lessons you know will make you the pride and joy in your social scene (or at least what you think in your head makes it so).

I don't want boring. I like to skip work, missing that all-important meeting where everyone gives their two-minute presentation to the regional manager to justify their pay-grade, so I can get drunk on Cinco de Mayo, meet up with strangers and have a wild afternoon and early evening that I can't go into details about without revealing where I'd been before my wife came home from her job to find the kids and me not there yet.

Meanwhile, my little Johnny and Jane are stuck at the babysitter's house, learning how to play poker, cheat at cards and smoke cigarettes, which they will lie with me to their mother about what we'd been doing and where we'd all been, much more valuable lessons than a good back stroke, backhand or piano fingering will give them to succeed in life.

You see, I don't want well-behaved robots for offspring. Of course, my idea of success is probably different than yours. I'd much rather have a family tree that doesn't branch until the fifth generation that no one expressly talks about than the perfect genetic mix that gets you good points at school and job promotions every three years. I'd rather read about my kids earning their stripes in the newspaper crime reports than the social register. My kids'll be running the crime syndicates that your kids will unknowingly work for. What? Don't believe me? Oh, that's right. You're boring and have no idea what's really going on. That's okay. No need to feel insulted. The criminals who run (or in my case, fund) political systems want people like you.

Enough dictating this story to my MP3 player. I've got a couple of "dates" waiting in the parking lot for me. I'm sure by now one of them has picked Dan and one of them has picked me. I'm pretty sure we'll go to the house of one of them, located on the golf course across the highway, a prize won for her by her locally-famous divorce lawyer. Don't think either one of us is worried about our golf swing, though, do you?