Friday, March 24, 2006

Track snack

I am with some kind of tour group at a Nascar type racetrack. 2 or 3 female tour guides in blue and white outfits herd us towards the track. We spilt into groups of 5 or 6 and my group approaches a racecar sitting on the blacktop. It looks like a normal Nascar racecar that you see on tv. But then all of us climb into in it. I am standing up inside in the car and holding onto a roll bar that runs up from the floor and cross the ceiling just behind the driver seat. A driver wearing a jumpsuit like all the Nascar drivers do slides in the driver’s seat and starts up the engine. We zoom around the track and I stick my slightly out the window for a better view. The car sounds and looks like we’re going hundreds of miles an hour, but I don’t feel any wind or pressure. The feelings don’t match up, but the thing I think is odd is that no one is strapped in or buckled up. I wave to one of the tour guide girls as we go by where they are standing. She smiles at me and I think about flirting with her some more. But the car stops and lets us out at a different point on the track. The group is herded past a fence of horizontal wooden rails that look like raw lumber. We walk into a snack bar that looks like it belongs at an old drive in or little league park. I read the menu board listing coke and candy bars and try to decide if I want a hot dog.

Thursday, March 23, 2006

For the fans

I am at a basketball game. From the perspective of on the court I see a guy throw water on a referee. I assume it is water even though the guy is holding a big waxed paper cup that beer is served in. Somehow I know that the ref has slept with the guy’s wife. Then I am in the stands and one of the guys I am with starts beating up a guy in the row in front of him. He is waving some kind of pot or frying pan and keeps pressing it into the guy’s face, not hitting him with it, just rubbing it in his face as if it was a cream pie. I merge the two incidents into one in my mind. Suddenly there are several TV crews there with cameramen and reporter trying to shove mikes into our faces. I sit there stony faced but acknowledge one female reporter. She asks me a question about what is happening and points the mike at me. I say, “Buy less, Live more.” And feel proud of myself for taking advantage of the moment. I stand up and with the guys I am with behind me, walk through the crowd and down the steps. Our faces are tightly composed and I feel like by stonewalling we just glide through and out into the sunlight of the parking lot.