Sunday means the deck at Cobbleheads. It means the blues. If you didn't get drunk Friday or Saturday, this is a last chance before the weekend has been deposited on the trash heap of history. Estanislao Contreras, the poet of Chicano Fuck Songs, and Jack O'Connell, the great unpublished novelist and once related to Maclovio O'Malley, la Voz de los Vatos, through marriage, grab a table by the resaca.
E: Summer is coming. I hate summer.
J: Then breathe deeply and relish the moment.
E: I can't relish the moments. They pass too quickly. In the blink of an eye it's daylight savings time again. Where did the time go?
J: It just goes, bro. Time is a raging river and there is no stopping the rushing currents.
E: But there used to be tranquil pools that offered a brief respite from the rapids that were sweeping us toward the falls.
J: That's called youth, bro. You're an old fart and time can't bury you fast enough.
E: Does getting old mean that not anyone can be president and that at best you might achieve a small degree of mediocrity?
J: Knowledge is a terrible thing, bro. The more you think you know, the more you realize that you have been wallowing in a sty of stupidity all your life.
E: What the fuck are we still doing in Brownsville, vato?
J: Compromises that must be fulfilled, but other than those obligations, we weren't meant for anything better.
E: What about the little things in this world that we're suppose to appreciate? I thought a cool breeze or a field of flowers were sufficient reason to give thanks for our existence?
J: Maybe a shrimp cocktail would ease your existential pain?
E: I haven't been writing any good poetry lately.
J: I can't start a new novel. So?
E: When you're bald and burdened with a big belly, you need the satisfaction of accomplishment, but the clock is running out.
J: That's why you have to keep shooting. You might still hit a game-winning three-pointer and you'll be hoisted on the shoulders of your fans and carried down Elizabeth Street at the head of a Charro Days parade?
E: Did you go downtown during Charro Days?
J: Sadly, I missed the festivities again.
E: Did you vote?
J: Were there elections?
E: Puto! You don't give a fuck, do you?
J: I give a fuck, but it has to be worth the effort. Would you fuck an aging, fat chick with wrinkles that would offer you deeper penetration than her cunt? I didn't think so. Life to me is an aging, fat chick whom I have no desire to fuck. I should have a little apartment in Lisbon with a balcony overlooking a street scene. I just want to watch and allow my imagination to entertain me. How is life on the home front?
E: I rise in the morning and go to bed at night. During the interim I do my best to accommodate the persons and animals who are a part of my daily routine.
J: Keep your expectations low and accept the hand that you were dealt.
E: But I'm not even holding a pair of twos?
J: Then bet the house. We've reached a point in our lives that we ain't got nothin' to lose.
The friends stayed until dark. During one of the breaks, they joined the musicians for a joint in the parking lot. The days of snorting coke in the bathroom are over. After the smoke, they switched from beer to wine. For a moment Estanislao found the moment. For a moment Jack didn't find all the chicks on the deck fat, aging and withered with wrinkles. For a moment the moment sufficed.
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