mule

nightfall, another hot gulf coast night, found us walkin' down the tracks to a show at crawlspace, a second floor artist-run gallery overlooking this machine shop. chase was runnin' the space then, and had some drawings by a tall gangly vampire fella on the wall. comin' up the rickety wooden steps i bumped into betty, who threw me a sweet if slightly off-kilter smile.

i took a quick jaunt around the show and then settled into the comfy sofa in the boutique area. chase took a quick hit off his wood pipe and then proceeded to show us this cool new video game he had just picked up, "kamachama yo' mama". cardboard critters, woolen doo-dads and other knick-knacks stared down at us from the wall as we focused in on the little 10 inch color screen.

it was 'bout then that betty launched into one of her stories. this one started (like all the others) with a smile that slowly spread from one side of her face to the other, followed by a gleam in the leading eye.

"yeah, my boyfriend and i, we were down in mexico, and he had this great plan to buy up boatloads of liquor at great prices and then smuggle it back into the states so we could have it for some big parties, like. he had seen it done in the movies before, so we knew it could work."

"so he bought up all this booze and then stuffed it into a backpack, and loaded it on me to carry over." (long pause) "he knew they wouldn't suspect me, so he went on ahead and crossed over, then i followed a few minutes later, hee-hee."

suddenly she was distracted..."hey that's an awesome video piece you designed, chase." (he had been playing "kamachama yo' mama" this whole time) "how'd you do that anyway, i mean how'd you make that video? you oughta market that thing to burger king, they'd go for that big time, you know what i mean?"

"that sounds great, betty", chase said absentmindedly and continued to rack up the points on his game. we looked on as the night heat closed in on another round of drinks and more stories from betty.