It was a tuesdee when Lester got his suite at the Hilton down the lane: 3 stars on account of cheap service from an onion face receptionist with a Cheshire grin saying: have a nice dee, when it actually it isn’t a nice dee but just a nice way of saying: don’t cum on our pillows to which Lester responded with a awkward grin almost pathetic in way saying: I have better and worse ways of toying with my splooge elsewhere, but thanks for the warning. Oh yes, it was a tuesdee, alright. Lester drops his bags on the floor and makes his way to the window, peeking his eyes through the dirty glass. He expected to see a view of the mountains and the trees and the waves of the river ahead, but there wasn’t any, but the view of a hotel building across the street. What he can see from his window, is a silver and gold and green building with a neon sign with cursive lettering saying: The Emerald Palace towering over the river and mountains. Lester wonders if Dorothy frequents there every now and again. She probably does. Hell, she probably is being gang-banged by the scarecrow, the tin-man, and the cowardly-lion as of now. And that mangy little peeping tom toto is having a good time watching from the comfort of his emerald-pillow cushion. What a sight.
Lester only has 1 hour by himself until he’s called to go to the dining hall for group therapy he has to endure. A lady with the candy corn glasses (probably the coordinator) told him through the telephone that a specialist wants to see Lester and wants to get to know him so he’s able to feel comfortable to go over his therapy. Lester is a very melancholic person, melancholic that he’s got to fly to be in a room filled with angry, sad, lonely, sex deprived, neurotic people such as himself and sit with ‘em and talk about his problems. The lady thinks that group therapy might help Lester loosen up and get some things off his chest. He's been acting funny lately at work, concerning his co-workers. He’s been drinking a lot lately. Way too much. An addict if you will. He’s been a drunken mess at work, slurring his words and becoming aggressive towards his co-workers. Especially Chad, who he despises very much. He thinks Chad should burn in hell and give the devil a hand job.
I guess you want me to cry, yeah? Well, I don’t have it in me to cry like a bitch. I am no mimsy bitch to cry my grievances on your shoulders, I'm just here because I have to be here. Hell, I didn’t even want to come here. Let alone sit with all of you people. But you are here now, Lester. It would be nice for you to open up to us and tell us why you are here. What is your journey, brother? Don’t be shy to confess it. Journey? We are here to hear you out. We won’t judge you. Where do I start with this journey you speak of? For starters … There is no journey. I have no life of my own. I work a 9 to 5 job at some office building. Sitting in a little cubicle. Filing paperwork. Faxing or printing. The whole 9 yards. It’s a piece of shit job, it pays well, I guess. The people there suck. Nothing but hollow, selfish, vain pieces of shit. I ain’t no saint either. It takes one piece of shit to know one. I don’t attend church so don’t convince me of going because I won’t go. Why do I have to go to some building when the good lord is everywhere. Sometimes I want to bash their skull in with a sledgehammer and jump off the building and end my life there. But I am just wishfully thinking. I think it’s sick. The job? No … this. I think it is sick to make someone go and pour their hearts out, and say things they don't want to. Just because folks are a little different doesn't make ‘em weird or a concern to society. I see it all the time, and I play a part of it as well, they talk about their virtues but never live up to their values. There is a difference between virtues and values. With virtues, the problem, the situation if you will—it is talked about, bitched about, cried about. But with values, it’s living up to it. I don’t live up to it, I will admit it. But hey, at least I am frank about it. But why exactly are you here, Lester? I guess I’m here, because I drink too much and that is a problem for me and for the people in my life, my co-workers. My elderly mother and my relatives. I drink because I want to, I like the thrill of it. It keeps me going and going and going and going until I go blotto and I have to sit in a room and poor my heart out to people like you and I know when I get back to my room, I will feel numb and I’d have the tv on playing a PBS program while I am stand by the door and let the noise drown the awful silence. And then I have to go to bed and then wake up, go to work. Where the awful silence—and the paperwork, the fax machine, and the sheer boredom–awaits me. And then there will be a point where I overhear chad in the break room and listen to him chat to his buddies on how he got to sleep with some girl from the front desk and goes on with the details while I eat my sandwich and listen. I get up and leave and stand by the doorway and feel disgusted about the whole thing, and then he would go on about how he slipped his cock in her mouth, and played with her breast, and how much he enjoyed the thrill of it … and I listened to it, and imagined myself watching her eat his cock and fuck. He will leave her lying on the bed, (naked, of course), and go to the bathroom, take a piss or shower (the hell I care) and I’d watch this girl slipping her fingers between her breast, circling it, as she feels it swelling up all while staring at the ceiling not knowing that I’m watching her from the closet; debating if I should go to the bathroom and slit Chad’s throat with a razor blade, or choke the woman to death. But that’s all in my head. Wishfully thinking. Not really living up to those thoughts. I know it ain’t gonna happen and I know when this is over, I will go home, come back to my loneliness like clockwork. Go to bed and wake up for work. go to bed, wake up for work. I guess if I have to say it then so be it, I do have a problem.
How was group therapy, honey? It was all right, ma. I did my best, I told ‘em what I thought and what I felt. And how did that turn out? Nobody ate with me during break, that’s for sure. Don’t worry, lovey, if you can’t fight em, join em. But I don’t want to, I don’t want to join ‘em, I don’t want to go out for coffee with ‘em, or even be associated with any of ‘em. I am here because I drink too much, you know that. But I know you are taking the first step to get better. How proud I am that you are doing that, you don’t know how happy I am to know you're getting better and soon back on your feet. You ought to lay off the sauce, sonny, it’s no good for you, you know that. You get so moody when you drink and when you don’t drink, you’re emotionally numb sometimes. You don’t want to end up at court again, do ya? That nasty Mr. Chad, how he spoke ill of you, spewing all them lies of you, saying that you follow him and his lady around, and that you called him a fornicator, and he said that you was a sodomite, and that you like to watch people behind their backs doing their own deeds, while they’re not looking. And he beat you up and you hit him back. That vulgar man, how could he come up with all these lies of my sweet boy, my sweet Lester. It ain’t true, you could never do a thing like that. That face of yours could never do harm. I look like a potato, ma. But you’re a very sweet potato. I don’t think I’m very sweet, I don’t feel like it. Hush up with your nonsense. What did you eat there? They had some clam chowder and some crackers, and drank a little grape soda on the side, it was nice. That’s good, I’m glad that you ate. Growing boys need their meals. Yeah, I suppose so. I gotta go, ma. I need to call it night and hit the hay. I will call you tomorrow. Okay, honey, I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Sweet dreams. God bless. Nighty night. Lester hangs up the phone and paces back and forth in his room, and makes his way to the window to look at the emerald palace across the street. Some of the windows have their curtains closed and some of them open. Lester is eyeing one of the windows expecting to catch a family eating supper together, or some girl taking her top off, undressing herself in her nightgown, thinking no one is watching. But there was not much to see from across the street. Not a soul in frame. Some of them are asleep, some folks are out and about. Instead, Lester got a view of a homeless man with black tar for a face sleeping on a mattress out in the cold. Lester had a long day, so did the homeless man but he’s still walking the road to salvation and glory.
Some people don’t like the homeless man, they find him disgusting and off-coloured, just another poor bum who got the short end of the stick. Although they use him up for their entertainment and exploitation, they don’t want him around their presence, so they leave him where they found him in the cold, and he continues to walk the long road to salvation and glory. He is not some magic Mexican nor a barbarian, but a man of his own word and keeps his word; he and Jesus Christ are best of friends. On good terms. He is the only one to listen to him spew his words.
Lester turns away from the window and turns the television box on, letting the noise of the PBS broadcast snuff the awful silence in the room, it’s just between him and PBS. He could get laid tonight, but who’s gonna screw a pudgy balding feller like Lester. His life is not like HBO or Netflix or SHOWTIME where the odds are on his favor, it doesn’t work that way, as much as he wish it did, but it doesn’t and he’s got to live with the fact that he is past his prime and that nobody wants to screw a fatty with sagging tits, not a very good picture, is it? And not a very good picture for HBO, either. All it is to Lester is just some grand glamor performance. Nothing but bullshit.
