Popeye's Girlfriend

Max’s girlfriend, sarah called me up friday night around 9, she had this korean guest over at their house whom her mother wants her to take around the city, since max sleeps exactly at 9pm, sarah wanted me to join her for the night. I did anyway because she told me that our korean loves drinking alcohol too.

I picked them up at their house and our korean friend looked lost on what to wear, he had a cloth cap that looked like a sock rolled over his head and he wore shorts and sneakers and a belt bag where he had his stuffs, and his mouth was always slightly hanging open where he looked like he was always staring and you could see both his incisors sticking out too, I told sarah that she should have at least told our korean to wear pants. Anyway we took him to the bar joints in the city and sarah said we should try taking him to a korean bar and maybe he could spot his cousins there and we could just leave him, we took him to this watergate2 place which had many korean words outside. The place was dark and hell it was full of koreans and kimchi and a big screen tv which was showing some korean movie that me and sarah felt we just took a door leading to korea. Me and sarah sat by the wall facing our korean and we started talking, he asked me what was my full name and sarah told him

oliver

he paused and tried saying my name with his korean accent

oo-leev-voirl

then he paused again and he looked puzzled and said

popeye’s girlfriend?

And hell he kept calling me popeye’s girlfriend the whole night, I began asking him how did he find this country and the weather and all that crap and he said it is pretty hot here, he began talking about how they have snow in korea and he thinks its dung (he hasn’t learned to say shit yet) because they’re always told to clean snow when he was in military training. I asked him what he did during his military training days, he replied with two words

drive tank

I told him during my military training days we only had wood rifles to carry around the field and he look pretty surprised, I told him you could still whack your enemy with it anyway.

Me and sarah left watergate2 to get more beers someplace else, it was a friday night and there was many people walking around, I was pretty much uneasy and sarah kept on telling me not to mind them. Sarah is very pretty, cute and white if you’ve seen her, and she was a head turner when we were looking for a new bar that I had to walk in front of her so that people wont look in my direction, I was looking down when I walked so that I could just forget that there were many people and when I tried looking forward, hell froze over because carelle was standing about 2 meters from me. We held hands and I tried to smile and I just asked her how she was doing, my words were seconds apart because I didn’t feel like talking, I even forgot all about sarah who was already staring at us because she haven’t met carelle, but she knows pretty well what’s going on between me and her. Elle was with her family and this old man from france, she said she wanted to introduce me to this old french guy she's been hanging around with, I wasn’t looking at her direction and I wasn’t saying anything though elle could read nevermind from my face. She continued telling me it’s alright that it’s not what I think it is, and she pressed her hand harder and said

He’s just my friend ok?

Though everybody had already said otherwise some months back that its her boyfriend, I wouldn't give a crap about it anyway and she introduced me, I didn't say anything too. The french guy had a big stomach and wrinkles on his face that he could be old enough to be your father and all he did was sit and stare back and forth and up to the ceiling. Me and sarah then sat in the next table beside them, elle told me her aunt met my friend peter earlier. I said

I know

I knew because peter told me about her aunt when I was at his house earlier and he invited me for dinner, I just told elle I know because I didn’t feel like talking anything to her. And for crying out loud our korean came to the bar, he saw me on my sixth beer bottle that night and said.

whoa slow down popeye’s girlfriend slow down

He sat in front of us and I pulled and gave him a cigarette so he would talk twice as less while smoking, I didn’t bring my lighter and hell our korean walked around to look for one and bowed down to this guy like some nutcracker soldier when he lit his stick and it left everybody laughing, it was goddam embarrassing. When our korean came back to our table sarah asked him what he thinks about the frenchman in the next table, he paused again maybe trying to come up with his amazing words and said

He looks like grandpa

Saving Private Palma

Our secretary’s neighbor died last week, his death was the talk of their neighborhood and perhaps the rest of the country because he is a marine private who died in the line of duty in a small island down south in a campaign against enemy rebels last week.

This private just took one bullet during their gun battle, but it got him right on his forehead right above his eyebrow and it was enough to get somebody killed. But it was pretty much a decent death when you try to think about it because the other dead soldiers from his platoon came back home in pieces, and mostly without their heads on. From what the other marines told the private’s family, some of the dead soldiers had their arms, legs, eyeballs and reproductive extremities missing and the enemy rebels couldn’t have just shot them off, they were like animals that they had to dismember them off and leave these dead bodies in pieces outisde their territory as co-specie warnings not to come close, since probably their urine and feces didn’t smell strong enough to mark their frontier.

Animals tend to be territorial over nesting grounds or a food source, about a week ago these rebels caught an italian priest whom they are keeping in their hideout and whom these marines are looking for in the first place, and this italian is a very good food source for them and they're not giving him away so easily, not that they had him cooking italian spaghetti or pasta but this italian can rake in a good amount of money once his country starts looking for him.

Some say this private was the first one who got shot at the heat of their gun battle because he carried their radio equipments and the enemy had to take him out first before he could call for help. Our secretary also thought that way too because she remembered their neighbor to be a very placid boy and he would probably run like forrest gump if caught in a heavy gunfight. Our secretary took the day off yesterday because her daughter caught fever after staying up late watching soldiers at their neighbor's. It was the private’s birthday too yesterday and their town priest held mass for him because the private used to be an acolyte for that priest when he was a boy, anyway the priest couldn’t think of anything to say during the mass, the private’s mother had been crying like mad the past few days so he just sang a happy birthday song over the dead body and the mother fainted down to the ground.

Pennywise

I was invited to the first birthday of a high school classmate’s daughter yesterday, I came to the lunch party 2 hours after it started because lib always comes to parties late, the place was at some fourth floor lobby of some really expensive hotel and when I got there, I found max already taking deserts in the lunch table, and hell the food was strikingly good being the menu of some really expensive hotel but I wasn’t so eager to eat anyway. I was even wearing sloppy going to the place, it was raining hard that day and I had the bottom of my jeans folded twice over dirty sandals that I looked like I waded in the rain going there, I was driving though.

Peter and his wife were also at the table where I sat and I only ate a handful of grub, max then asked me to check out this crep bar in the restaurant, its spelled crepe but I’d rather spell it crep which is spelled closer to crap. I don’t remember eating crep because they always come in expensive, though in menu pictures they’re just some thin pancake neatly folded over some fruit with fancy swirls of syrup and cream which I bet folding and decorating the whole fancy foodstuff is making it expensive, should it come in a mess it will probably be threefold less cheaper. This probably explains why I had to go through the trouble of decorating my own crep at this party's restaurant, so that they could go easy on creativity costs.

I am quite fond of apple pies and my crep looked something like a bloated apple pie and peter’s wife had to ask where did I get such desert. Anyway the party was starting while I ate and the guests around me had their kids playing with this clown who was hosting the party, the clown could tell he was surrounded by rich kids, he started this game where he asks something from the kids and these kids go scamper here and there to get it for him for a prize. The clown was asking for these things everybody knew only rich kids can get from their parents, like car keys and credit cards, and hell he even asked for the most expensive mobile phone, and you could just forget about joining if your parents didn’t have a car or they got some crappy old mobile phone. I swear the clown could have also gone asking which car keys he asked for opens the most expensive car or which of those credit cards can loan the biggest, goddam clown was teaching kids the value of money too soon.

We left the party before it was over, we were to old to join the other kids with the clown anyway. Max asked me to check out his shih tzu puppies at his place, peter said those dogs are for girls and he asked to check out his rottweiler puppies over beer instead, since I was driving I just went back to work for the afternoon.