Leroy's #XX

Tonight after a home made wheat/sausage/banana pepper/black olive/peperoni pizza and a viewing of Monsters, Inc, ZZ and I went to Leroy's with our new Mancala game. There we saw Chuck briefly who introduced us to his internet girlfriend from New Zealand whom we had previously believed to be a figment of Chuck's lucid imagination. Inside, after being beaten three consecutive times by ZZ, our circle of friends began pouring in, hot off closing time from the downtown bars, all shit faced except Brain who has sucessfully remained sober for many years and happens to drive a roomy cab that fits everyone. Mary. Grant. Roxann. Gordon. And then... Jenn. Gordon's wife, the sourse of all this recent heavy anguish, is there with them! Hanging on to Gordon and kissing his face. And he kisses her back! What the fuck!?

Nobody said hello to us except Brian who is very good at staying out of people's buisness. Gordon did reach over the booth behind me, pat my shoulder, and weakly said, "Hey man." I quietly said, "What's up, Gordon," and turned away without waiting for a responce.

ZZ and I lost all consentration at our game but she refused to be driven away from our booth at Leroy's to SPITE the uncomfortable ferver in our small corner of the world. We waited until they all left to make our own descrete departure and on the long silent ride home, ZZ said, "We need to move."

What she meant by that (and later clarified to me) was that we need new friends and we need to get out of town for a while. Unfortunately I only have a few days of acrewed leave and I don't want to burn it now, I want to use it when the baby comes. But ZZ is not tied to a job. She is going to ask for two weeks off from Village Inn and if they don't want to give it to her she'll give them a two week's notice. We are both fine with that. She is going to Fort Lauderdale to visit her grandmother, her aunts, and her uncles. She has been very homesick and very patient in the knowledge that traveling to Florida just hasn't been feasible. But things have changed. We can afford that now.

I went back to Leroy's after ZZ went to sleep. I wasn't tired at 6 a.m. There at the counter, while I was writing a scene for Highway 9 (inwhich Jill and I get bored with the McNider Museum in Mason City and go for a walk on the thin ice of the creek behind the museum, and ultimately fall through) I met a fat man with medical cane (the type with four rubber nobs at the end) who asked me if I knew where he could hire a ghostwriter for a book he's working on. The subject matter, he said, was the early history of Anchorage through the eyes of his childhood. I was suckered. I asked him to tell me a little bit about it and he talked for an hour. Though his story was exteremely intriuging at first, I began lose interest and felt myself getting sleepy. I had to pay and leave.

No cash. All I had ordered was Decaf coffee (I know right, decaf? gross, what the hell was I thinking?) and all I had in my wallet was my Visa Check Card. The owner, Mrs. Won, told me to pay later. She doesn't want to lose out on the deal because of the surcharge she has to pay for payments made with plastic.

Home now. ZZ's still asleep, and Cruz Willembottom's voice in my head: "Those were the Blue Ticket days, you see. A Blue Ticket was given to someone you wanted out of town. It was their way to run out the chronic drunks and small time gangsters." (I'd like to give Jenn and Double O Blue Tickets.)

Anyway. Maybe someday one of you guys will read this. We haven't been our Blogging selves lately. I miss you guys and I think you should both come up here this fall to see our baby.

Peace and Love,
Mungo

PS. Here are some names we've been thinking of:
BOY, Phineas, Micah, Caleb, Mason, Waylen, Odin, Knut, Ole.
GIRL, Tegan, Jane.

Eddie, you can't give me grief about strange names. You're not allowed. And ST, you're not allowed to advise me on how to speel our baby's name.