Mysteriously Jacked

We both chose the Pan Roasted Chicken Thigh.  It was one of the best lunch choices I have made in a very long time.  With a lager beer.  As always, C.C. and I lingered long after finishing the food.  We sent photos to our friend who moved to the Midwest.  She used to come with us on lunch dates.  She is in Fairbanks, Alaska just now bagging her last of the 50 states, one of her goals when she moved.  We laughed at the good time she was missing.  

After my night at the Moderne, I should have felt like shit.  Surprisingly, I felt more energetic and alive yesterday than I have for a very long time.  I have no explanation for that.  It truly beats me, but I was totally jacked all day.  I was not ready to settle down as night approached, but I no longer feel like going out on the town alone.  

I stopped in a Walgreen's liquor store on the way home from my mother's.  A young Black kid was working behind the counter.  A Mexican worker was in line in front of me buying a 48 pack of Corona.  I guess that's what it was.  It was big.  Being Friday, I was imagining what was about to take place.  It would be fun.  So. . . it's like the beginning of a redneck joke.  

"A Black boy, a Mexican, and a hippie are in a liquor store."

O.K.  The redneck wouldn't have said "Black boy," but I get in enough trouble for what I say here.  

Anyway. . . the kid behind the counter was rapping some shit and dancing around while he rang the Mexican up.  

"Nah, man. . . you gotta sing what's on the radio."

The store always plays popular music too loudly over its speakers.  It is always awful.  

The kid laughed and the Mexican turned around to look at me, then he began laughing, too.  

"I can't," said the kid.  "I wish I could."

The Mexican paid and left with a nod and a smile.  I told the kid I needed the Glen Fiddich that was locked up in a cabinet.  The cabinet door has been off track for about six months or so, and every time one of the cashiers has to open it, it is a struggle.  

"They haven't fixed that thing yet?" I said in mock horror to the kid.  "Claim an injury from it.  I'll be your witness.  You can get worker's comp."

He started laughing.  

"No, man, they'd drug test me.  I wouldn't get shit."

When he was back behind the counter and ringing me up, he asked, "Can I see your I.D.?"  

Walgreens makes them I.D. everyone no matter their age.  The kid took a quick glance and rang me up.

"Really?  You needed to see an I.D.?  What the fuck?"

He laughed but I felt something behind me.  I hadn't seen her come into the store.  

"Oh. . . I'm sorry, uh. . . I. . . uh. . . . "

The kid started talking to someone.  That's when I noticed his phone on the counter.  He was FaceTiming while he worked.

"Hey man. . . thanks.  Give my best to your mom," I said nodding to his phone.  It wasn't until I got to the parking lot that I thought about how wrong that could have gone.  But I was still grooving on the whole thing--The Black kid, the Mexican, and the Hippie.  "It's been like that my whole life.  I'm cool like that," I thought, laughing at myself.  Cool White Boy.  

Whatever.  

I stopped at the grocers and bought chicken thighs and drumsticks.  I was going to cook 'em up and eat 'em.  But I was going to cook up more than I could eat so I could have 'em anytime I wanted some snack.  I had concocted a diet idea.  Chicken.  I was going to eat a lot of chicken.  Instead of having a sweet and starchy breakfast bun or bread of some sort in the morning with coffee (what? I never told you?), I'd have a chicken leg and an apple.  That's the way my twisted mind was working, anyway.  Protein.  D-O-G--chicken.  

I decided to cook them in the enameled cast iron Dutch oven.  I'd brown them on the stovetop then put them in the oven for twenty minutes.  Salt, pepper, red pepper, and teriyaki sauce.  A salad and jasmine rice.  A citrusy New Zealand white.  

Holy Moly. . . that's the way to cook a chicken!  You've not had anything like it. . . unless you have done this, too.  But wow.  

My friend who went to the Zach Bryan concert texted me.  A selfie.  She had a gash across her nose and under her eye which was swollen and purple.  

"Oh, no!  What happened?"

"Bitch pissed me off."

She's a beautiful hillbilly from W. Virginia, so maybe. . . but no. . . she had to be shitting me.  

"Truly?  Or did you just get drunk and fall down?"

She let that hang for awhile before she wrote.  

"I was staying in an air B&B.  I got up to go to the bathroom but couldn't find the light switch.  I tripped over the shower stall and fell.  Yea. . . alcohol was involved."  

I told her about my night at the Moderne.  

"Holy shit.  Did you black out?"

"What?  No.  You would never even know I'd been drinking.  I don't get drunk like other people do."

It's true.  I don't stagger or slur.  I don't have trouble remembering things the next day.  It probably isn't a good thing, though.  For my health, I mean.  

Later on, I had company.  I offered a drink.  The chicken and rice was still out, and she asked if she could have some.  Sure, I said.  I let her plate her own.  Predictably, she purred and swooned over the meal.  

"I should have made asparagus with it." 

"Yea, that would be good." 

She hadn't heard of Sierra Ferrell before, so I pulled up a YouTube clip.  We ended up watching two concerts that I hadn't seen before.  Good God she is great.  

When my friend left, I cleaned up the kitchen and prepped the coffee maker.  It was almost midnight.  What happened to the whiskey?  The bottle must have spilled.  

I still wasn't tired.  I wasn't ready to sleep, but it was past my bedtime, so. . . I nibbled a gummy.  I just don't do well with that shit, though.  I woke up a couple hours later, dazed and confused.  

I didn't get out of bed until eight.  We'll see if I feel as jacked today.  

I doubt it.  

But the sun is getting high in the sky and I need to get the day started.  A little exercise and maybe some hippie shops.  

Here's something new from David Rawlings and Gillian Welch.  They sound good again.  I'm glad.