Damn Frenchie's

We (meaning Monk, Rich and me) took our usual bus through the usual square grid of downtown Dream City. We got off at the subway station at the corner of Broadway (Portland, Oregon version) and Marine Drive ( Astoria, Oregon version). It's bus # 222 Downtown, if you care to look for it.

The platform had hundreds of downward sliding escalators, all but one leading down to empty air. You two yahoos plopped down at a small table which was somehow both inside the station and al fresco in Paris simultaneously. This was only natural, I thought, as you were both wearing matching shirts with horizontal black & white stripes and little French Berets. Your waiter, an obviously dead and rotting Sterling, was sneaking shots of Vile Brand whiskey into your tiny little espresso cups.

I took the only accessible escalator down to the lower levels of the station. Once I arrived I found that I could hear thousands of trains running overhead, all leading to different destinations directly in my head. The place I was standing was no longer a subway though. It morphed into a giant department store. The sign over the entrance said Welcome to Cat's Subterranean Subconscious Superstore. The goods displayed were all bits of previous dreams. A fully working model of the High-Rise Fancy Hotel, complete with lawyers office and Flavel house was on display. The staff was made up of all the various bus drivers from Dream City Bus Lines.

Fire breathing dragons sat calmly next to Portraits of Previously Promiscuous Prom Queens. For some reason, probably due to a conversation with the Monk yesterday, almost everything in the store was written in alliteration. Aisle after aisle of old girlfriends, dead buddies, half finished school projects, bits of poetry and long forgotten ideas led me to the Corner Coffee Caffe. The obligatory overly-enthusiastic coffee pouring chick from Havacupajava was there. She suggested inviting you "gents" down for a cuppa-duppa-do. You guys promptly appeared, berets, dead waiter and all, at the bar.

We had a swell time drinking little tiny cups of espresso filled with Vile Brand, even as all the famous dead guys drifted into the joint. Elvis arm wrestled Hemingway. Bogey beat-up Bacall. Jim Morrison crawled up on the stage, drunk as hell, and recited a poem titled Clapton Called A Callous Cacophony (by Cats). The Monk, who was sickened by the shitty whiskey and over abundance of alliteration, demanded that we reboard the bus. As we took the up staircase, we heard Jim from far below belting out "C'mon, c'mon, c'mon, now touch me babbbbbbe...

Then the fucking alarm clock went off at 5 AM and sent me off to work with just a touch of Vile Brand hang over. Worth the price of admission.