Pirates of the Retail Wasteland Read Online Free PDF Page A

cup,
    discarded, scattered to the four winds,
    et où sont les neiges, et où sont les neiges?
    If it’s better to burn out than fade away
    like an athlete dying young on the finish line,
    his heart bursting like a sudden solo
    in a Miles Davis record,
    then it’s better to put your head in the oven
    just like Sylvia Plath, who never
    did a sit-up to my knowledge,
    than to dry up like the last few drops
    of aforementioned blood,
    sitting in your wheelchair,
    trying with the little strength remaining
    to sputter “Drop and give me twenty”
    to the nursing home attendant.
    Drop. Sputter.
    Drop. Sputter.
    Drop and give me.
    Sputter.
    Twenty.

    Thank you.”

    There was a smattering of applause, and Dustin jumped off the stage and came back to the table.
    “One of your better efforts,” said Anna. Beatnik poetry suited Dustin pretty well.
    “Thanks,” said Dustin. “Think it’ll convince Coach Hunter to kill himself?”
    “I doubt it,” said Brian. “I’m not really sure he can read anything other than football playbooks.”
    “That’s a good point,” said James. “Maybe we should write up a depressing playbook or something.”
    I tried to imagine a playbook that said something like “27 pass the ball to 12. 12 start running, and just keep running and running, because everything is pointless anyway.”
    We sat there and drank our coffee. I kept my coat on so Anna couldn’t see what a good job she’d done giving me the hickey—I was afraid that would just make her want to give me another one on the other side of my neck. Still, her foot was brushing against mine, and I was pretty sure she was doing it on purpose.
    Meanwhile, Brian and Edie were up to their usual routine of making Bambi eyes at each other, and Edie occasionally sucked on Brian’s fingers like they were pacifiers or something. It was disgusting, but it kept her from talking, which could occasionally be a blessing.
    Finally, Brian withdrew his hand from Edie’s mouth to look at his watch. “It’s probably about halftime,” he said. “You guys want to head out of here?”
    “What for?” Anna asked.
    “I feel like getting a burger,” he said. “A cheap one.”
    “We’ll probably have to go up to Cedar Avenue to get a cheap one,” I said. “It’s quite a walk.”
    “It’s only a couple blocks farther than the high school.”
    Edie made a nasty face. We all generally preferred Sip and the places that were left in the triangle to the retail wasteland on Cedar Avenue, but Edie hated even to set foot on that street.
    “Do we have to?” she asked.
    “You won’t die,” said Anna. “It’s not like you’ll disintegrate the minute you step into a Burger Box parking lot.”
    “I might,” she insisted.
    “You won’t,” said Anna. “The government stopped setting booby traps to catch communists in fast-food parking lots when the Berlin Wall fell.”
    “C’mon,” said Brian. “Pretty please?”
    Brian was a cool guy. Clearly, any man who is into both mechanical things and fire is destined to do great things in life. But if there’s anything more disturbing than seeing your dad with a Mohawk, it’s seeing a pyro saying “pretty please.”
    Edie rolled her eyes and said “Whatever,” and we dropped our money off on the table. James and Dustin stayed behind; Dustin was busy scribbling another poem on a napkin, and James was busily looking over his shoulder.
    We headed out into the cold and started walking back north, toward the high school. The wind had picked up a bit since we’d been in the coffee shop, and now it felt like an arctic wasteland outside. I felt like we were trekking through the frozen wilderness toward Shangri-la or something, except that the destination was not a tropical paradise—it was probably going to be a gas station that sold cheap frozen burgers.
    Brian and Edie clung to each other really tightly, kissing frequently, and for a moment I worried that their lips might stick together, the way your