Reading Fante at the Replay Lounge

Reading Fante at the Replay Lounge
8/12/08

The time printed on the ticket was 4:57PM and I just said “really?” very sarcastically. You see, the way the parking meters work in this town is that you plug money into them until 5:00PM and then you can park wherever you want until 8:00 the next morning. I only meant to run into the record store, see what records were there to buy with money I do not have right now, and come right back but no, 4:57PM. Some bored meter maid, and I know that term might be derogatory towards women but I have never in my life seen a male parking official, so I have dubbed it ok to refer to these women as meter maids.
I’d made a great find at the record store, too. So way to put a damper on it, meter maid. I like to think that if I’d spent less time dicking around I might have caught you, might have been able to convince you to not give me a ticket, and I think I could have. My argument is pretty solid. It goes as so: The smallest amount you can put into the meter is five cents, which buys you thirty minutes. I parked at this particular meter at 4:40PM and hence, if I’d put a nickel in I would have been giving you free money. That makes sense, doesn’t it? My back-up plan would have been to use my charm. I would have said something to the tune of “well, I’m parked right next to the Replay Lounge and your shift is almost over, so how about I buy you a beer? PBR is $1.75, does that sound good?” I’m sure she would have been at least twice my age, but it still would have been sweet.
But she’s gone, I never saw her like some phantom in the night, delivering tickets. It’s only two dollars but it still hurts, so what else can I do but be inspired to go into the Replay and buy a can of PBR. I grab a book from the car and go inside to the skinny girl with the angular hair cut. I like her. She knows what I want. Before I can say anything, she sees the two crumpled dollar bills in my hand and reaches hers into the icy cylinder and pulls out what I want. I say thank you and walk away, as “keep the change” is always implied. And I have worked out some logic that a bartender opening a beer for me equals twenty-five cents. That makes sense, right?
I find a booth outback where you can smoke, which is why the Replay is my favorite bar in town. It’s somewhere safe to go after work, when I just want a cheap beer. Where I just want to smoke and read something, it doesn’t really matter what. I like sitting in the booth that has one of the myriad fans pointed at it, which, although the fan makes it really hard to light a cigarette, it’s really nice in August. The fans blow ashes all over the tables. I listen to the songs playing over the speakers and apply every one of them to my own life.
I’m reading Fante’s Ask the Dust because of fate. I was shelf reading, which is what I do at the library when there is nothing to shelve. I sit in the stacks and make sure the books are in order by author, and then by title. I was sitting on the floor, organizing some early Fs, and I saw the book. I picked it up because it was thin, which I like because I am a terribly slow reader, and I’d heard Fante’s name thrown around with Bukowski in some song I heard once. Bukowski wrote the introduction, and after reading that I knew I had to read the book. I couldn’t read it all in one day, but I could read the first chapter and then take it home and put it under my pillow. I wouldn’t really put it under my pillow. I used to do that all the time when I was a kid, put books and other things under my pillow and sleep like that. I don’t know how I managed.
I keep rereading paragraphs, which I never do, and it’s taking me forever to get through this small book in the best way. It’s everything I could ever want from a writer. Prose that I would dream about reading before I even read it. Imagining the way the lines make me feel, the way they work together like synchronized swimmers. It makes me want to quit writing and burn everything I’ve written before this, and at the same time it makes me want to write a million novels. More towards the latter, I think. It makes me want to retreat to my desk littered with promotional copies of CDs, chewed up ink pens, empty bottles and a stick of deodorant (only kept on the desk because I would forget to use it otherwise). It makes me want to do that.