Damien Galeone

“Before cats go into heat there is a period of destructive behavior present,” I say. Then add, “My couch was in shambles.”

“Uh…”

“Did you know Steve Martin plays the banjo? He won a Grammy last year.” I sip my beer. “I want to win a Grammy.”

My interlocutor is staring at me over the top of her beer. “What?” she asks. And she is well within her rights to do so. For I have lost the ability to converse. And I blame Donald Barthelme.

I’ve always been susceptible to literature’s saucy influence. Watership Down forever ended rabbit as a dining option. My Bukowski phase was awkward for everyone.

Now it’s Barthelme and the staccato, stream of consciousness vignettes that make up his stories. I haven’t made sense in four days. The issue was pointed out earlier today, when Collin asked if my beer was good and I replied: “Emma and I are buying a website and we’re going to do our sex blog there.”

Collin, having had five years to get used to my weird conversation habits, rolled with the punches. “I am awaiting my fermentation vessels this week.”

We sat in quiet until I spoke up again. “Randomness countered.”

We drank.

But now I’m at a restaurant with a friend of a friend new to Prague and she’s not handling my Barthelme Speak as well as Collin did. Exacerbating the pain of the situation is the fact that she is so boring that I am surely being tortured for crimes against nature.

“How long have you been in Prague?” she asks.

“The fascinating thing about Pygmies is their aptitude with blow darts,” I say. “Would you eat a squirrel?”

Nothing.

“My friend’s dog eats his own poop.”

She goes to the bathroom without a word. While she’s there, surely crying in a stall and cursing our mutual friend, I try to gain conversational composure by shouting out every random phrase and question in my head. “Tacos on fire in Atlanta. French fries. I eat salt shakers. Why don’t French people shave?”

She returns. “I have to go now, my neck hurts.”

“Ah. I once threw a rock at a python.”

“I’ll pay.” She does.

We step outside.

“Goodbye,” she says.

“False advertising is having red and white checkered tablecloths and not serving pizza.”

She turns and walks away, “Bye,” she calls over her sore neck.

“Wait!”

She stops and turns. “What?”

“Never forget – long live the Guatemalan cheese man.”

She disappears. Quickly.

Next up in my Kindle: Juliette by the Marquis de Sade. This could be troublesome.