Tag: pay phone

For a formital time in my past (starting when I was 91) I spent traveling primarily back and forth from The North to The South every year or so. I embraced my tortoise paced transient life style as I’d spend a year up to say 18 months up North until I got bored or more likely was in some sort of trouble who’s consequences were on the horizon. At that point I’d head down South and start the whole process over again (and again and yet once again) in an endless self destructive cycle.

It was during one of my times I spent in The Swamp I was reunited with a couple of friends who had returned to The South many moons before me. I found out my 2 friends Armenian and his long term girlfriend Eon where living with Armenian’s parent’s (Mr. & Mrs. Fuckedin- Thehead) house about 3 hours from where I was living at the time. I had been living down in The South approximately 6 months in a smaller than small town known as The Rat’s Ass. Armenian’s parent’s house was located in a smaller micro town called Zero for the past couple of years. I managed to get a copy of their phone number, went to the closest pay phone (yes kiddies this was in the lost time before smart/cell phones.) and gave them a call. We bullshitted for a few minutes and then decided we should meet up and to do so I should shut up shop and drive to Zero where I could also crash on the couch at Armenian’s parent’s place indefinitely.

Right after I arrived in the tiny town of Rat’s Ass I bought a used car from this shady little amateur risky dink fly by night “car dealerships” you know the kind. It was one of those places with a motley crew of  used cars crammed close to one another like Sardines on some small patch of dirt on the outskirts of town.  Of course as par of the course I had to haggle with this slimy schister of a sales man until we struck a deal on a car that fit my needs. So making the drive over to Zero would be easy as I had my own transportation and no real reason to stay in Rat’s Ass since I had a shit retail job (and I was stealing merchandise from my employer as well for quite awhile) ,and I lived with 3 random room mates in a glorified flop house. Once I talked to Armenian I went directly home, grabbed my shit, told my room mates I was leaving so fuck them and drove off into the dead of night never to be seen again.

I arrived at Armenian’s house around 1 am and met his parents for the first time. His father Yon was a life long alcoholic fuck up with a extensive rap sheet and a hardcore drug problem. While Armenian was growing up (when his dad wasn’t in jail or on a bender) made the monumental mistake to try and be his son’s friend instead of father. Armenian’s mother Yeg also had an seriously extreme on and off again passionate love affair with hardcore street drugs though she was fully functional (Armenian’s dad at this point was BARELY functional). A few weeks of smoking weed, drinking beer and doing fuck all we all agreed it was time to get the hell out of Armenian’s parent’s place and get our own. We started by looking at spots in neighboring town’s as Zero well, Zero lived up to its name and had absolutely nothing to offer. We were still crashing at Armenian’s parent’s pad at night while we spent our days looking at different housing options.

It was a picturesque Wednesday as the 3 of us loaded up in my car and headed out to continue the reality hunt and headed out of town. We hadn’t even hit the town limit when simultaneously Armenian and I notice slight whisps of smoke trickling out from the perimeter of the car hood. Figuring the car was simply overheating we pulled into a local restaurant’s parking lot right away, and I proceeded to park my car way in the back of the restaurant’s parking lot that was entirely empty. Armenian and I jumped out of my car as soon as we parked and went to pop the hood to locate the car’s issue at hand. As soon as we popped the hood of my car it was horribly obvious my car wasn’t overheating ,BUT ironically was on fire as indicated by the foul flames that leapt out at us when we popped the hood. Again we must remember this was the time before technology (and its enormously fast evolution in society) so we didn’t have a cell/smart phone we could use right then and there to call 911. As people did at this time in history we ran over to the restaurant to ask to use their phone (or their pay phone if that be the case)

I feel its important to clue you the reader in on a few facts of this situation other than my cars being engulfed in flame. I will be using a list once again to help keep things moving along.

1. Zero is a Podunk little town YET this one restaurant was the designated “Fancy Restaurant” around the town. In all honesty the restaurant was equivalent to a run of the mill Olive Garden (No disrespect to Olive Garden intended)
2. The population of Zero were low to lower income blue collar workers mixed with drug dealers and addicts alike. This most likely accounted for almost the entire parking lot of theirs to be vacantly devoid of cars and customers.
3. The 3 of us didn’t resemble anything like any sort of dress code nor fancy attire in any way what so ever. Eon was the best dressed of us all in a hippy dippy sundress, a white t-shirt with some cartoon scrawled on it and barefoot. Armenian looked the most out of place of us all. Armenian was around 6’3″, wore entirely black clothes, had skin so white you could see right through it if he held his hand up to the light, long fucking fire red hair (with goatee to match mind you) ,and generally looked like he might lunge at you at any second. I wasn’t much better off than Armenian truthfully. I was insanely under weight at a buck 125 ( I looked like a concentration camp victim my mother told me), shaved head, and was wearing a Slaytanic t-shirt with worn out blue jeans and a beat up pair of combat boots.

So as you or one might imagine when the 3 of us stumbled into the restaurant out of breath and a bit sweaty we turned heads like we had 2 heads to say the least. Once we entered the front door we were in a entrance way that resembled a short hallway that led up to the Hostess’s desk. We strode up to the desk and politely as well as quietly requested to use their phone. We were immediately and emphatically (not to mention as snidely as a stuck up wannabe fancy fuck could be) NO. We were then told we could however use the restaurant’s pay phone if we needed to make a phone call. Now the thing about their pay phone was it was located on the far wall right at the entrance to their main dining room where there handful of pretentious twats were sitting eating their over priced fake ass fine dinning lunches. At this point I was pissed off like a son of a bitch, here my car is burning and these restaurant rejects are giving me a unwarranted snotty ass attitude so this is what I did next to settle this unseen score. I walked over to their pay phone as fast as my feet could take me and then proceeded to dial 911. Once the 911 operator picked up and asked what was the problem I was calling about I virtually yelled as loud as possible directly into the main dining room of the restaurant “MY FUCKING CAR IS ON FIRE! ITS BEEN BURNING AWHILE AND I THINK ITS LIKELY TO FUCKING EXPLODE ANY FUCKING SECOND NOW!!!!” It was right then every piece of pompous shit eating lunch jumped out of their seat and vacated the restaurant running like their asses were on fire too in an attempt to move or save their cars for the obvious reasons. Now I must remind you I was parked all the way in the back of the lot nowhere near anyones car in the least.

The fire department was dispatched and arrived in record time, but at this point all the could do was extinguish the flames as my car was absolutely totaled at this point after burning for 10-15 minutes strait.  The prissy patrons of the restaurant all got in their cars and bailed, I never saw a single one go back in to pay or anything (I assume they all were going to use my car fire as a reason they shouldn’t have to pay their bill’s as it was a great inconvenience TO THEM) Anyway we called an acquaintance in town to come pick us up and give us a lift out of their. Our ride came over fast as fast can be ,and we loaded up and left leaving the burnt out wreck that was my car in the restaurants parking lot like a giant still smoldering piece of coal.