Zero Degrees Of Separation
Bacon-wrapped hot dog venders are culinary angels. On any given evening in Los Angeles, you will find a little flat-top cooker cart emitting a sweltering aroma of sizzling bacon and hot dogs. Some of these cooks are colorful characters. I’ve seen many turn over the dogs with quick tong action while pitching the product like a medicine man from bygone days. When they add onions, bell and jalapeño peppers topped with mayonnaise, mustard and ketchup, the aroma hits nirvana. Not much salesmanship is needed. There’s usually a salivating line waiting to suck down a dog.
Within a few minutes, the creation in my hand is devoured. One wasn’t enough. I see another cart fifty feet away. This time I skip the onions and bell peppers. The bacon dog disappears soon after. I hop on the Red Line subway. I exit and escalate onto Santa Monica and Vermont to another sweltering aroma – a Mexicatesson with outside barbecues cooking rows of whole chickens. I’m still hungry.
I arrive home with a sacked chicken burrito. Tired, I take a few bites then tuck myself into bed for the passout. Did I mention the five strong craft beers I consumed pre-bacon dog devouring?
My alarm is set to six a.m. Deep sleep brings deep dreams. Somewhere in my dream, I’m racing against a clock. I’m at my mother’s house watching her and my two brothers clean the garage in the early morning. A garden hose is involved. The spray smells like bacon dogs. My family does not see me. I’m invisible as I call out over and over for someone to give me a ride to work. No one hears. When I call out once more, the silent response becomes an eerie echo. Abandoned in the garage, time is now desperate.
As I toss and turn in my bed with a sour stomach, the abrupt end of the dream wakes me up in a confused stupor. My neighbors must have heard the desperate cries from my sleep. Analyzing will make matters worse. All I know is that it’s three a.m. and I have to shit.
“Was the desperate nature of the dream a courtesy notice? Don’t analyze! You just told yourself this. Go! Get out of bed and shit, boy!” It goes well. I still have a few hours until alarm chime, and I fall back to sleep.
Wake up time has me in hustle to make the earliest bus. I’m out the door quickly. As I walk, my bowels adjust to a stretched stride and blood flow. I cross the traffic light and wait, but the bellowing rumble is too great. I contemplate.
“If I board the next bus, there are plenty of outs in case I can’t hold on.”
There is no way in hell I’m going anywhere. I have one choice – to get my ass back home.
I do the Chaplin back up the street. When one is in trouble, instincts dictate preparation: a loosening of the belt buckle, clicking the right key in a fist of palm sweat to quickly unlock the front door. Door open, I hurdle half my queen bed with the graceful finesse of O.J. in those Hertz commercials. My eyes bulge as I make the approach.
The sphincter belches a slew of goo before my ass hits the seat. While in an out-of-breath-head-slumped-in-hands ecstasy, I reach for toilet paper. My smoker’s cough kicks in as another round of mushed bacon dog knocks and exits my anxious and throbbing anus. It stings. Ecstasy gone, this is the last of it. I don’t look in the bowl this time, for my focus is on clearing my bloody nose after a sneezing fit.
I sit there, in all my shitting, coughing, sneezing, and wiping, contemplating the City of Angels, bacon dogs, crapping, dreams, life, and a beloved athlete disgraced by his raging temper. I know I need to get back on the road to work, but not before a thought of dietary concern: would the consumption of soy-based bacon dogs affect the consistency of my bowel movements? I take the thought in another direction. I am now serving soy-based hot dogs to drunken hipsters swaggering out of a chic, bourbon bar at two a.m.
As I finish wiping my ass, I realize the great potential for luring trust funded, hipster grubbiness toward the sweltering fumes of my hot dog cart. I exhale my sales pitch under a breath of contempt:
“Step right up for a healthy dose of colon-cleansing, soy-based and peppered indie-rock bacon dogs. And for the meat eaters among you, I’ve got your Kosher beef wrapped in greasy pig blankets. Bon Appétit!”
As I head back out for another commute attempt, the rush of thoughts reinstate the absurdity that is my life. I realize the true degree of separation between me and my fellow humans: zero. Socrates wrote that “the only true wisdom is knowing you know nothing”. This is true, but it sure as hell felt good knowing my instincts met with reason when my bowels said, “Fuck you, here it comes!”