Losing in Gainesville (9781940430331) by Brian Costello Page A

to donate plasma, then buy a real dinner at Publix with the money, try to write something, fall asleep.
    Â 
    Â 
    WILLIAM RETURNS FROM THE TOUR
    Â 
    Fourteen states, twelve days, three narrowly averted inter-band fistfights, one unaverted inter-band fistfight, one cancelled show, one set cut short because no one showed up and the barstaff wanted to close early, one guitar amp dying a smoky death mid-way through another set, one instance of the drummer waking up naked with a missing suitcase and no idea where in Columbus he might be, and the final three days and nights spent subsisting on nothing but wonder bread and bologna stolen from a corner store near the Fireside Bowl in Chicago later, you’re back in the walk-in cooler behind the restaurant getting high with your equally tattooed and pierced dinner-shift manager, who asks you “So how was the tour, bro?” after exhaling the skunkweedy joint and passing it to you, and you’re either not sure or not willing to answer the question, even if your manager asks this because he plays bass in Salo’s Children—another band in the hardcore scene—and wants the vicarious thrill of actually playing outside Florida, because you figure your bass playing manager must know, deep down, that Salo’s Children suck and will never get the chance to leave F.L.A.
    â€œNever again,” you say before smoking, and that’s all you want to say right now. You think of the fifth of Floridian Comfort in your car, and you want it now, but you wait, because you know, once you get started, you’ll elaborate on “Never again,” and the elaborations on the ultimately monotonous hurry-up-slow-down nature of touring, interspersed with the occasional weird and sometimes even wonderful adventures far from home will continue past closing the kitchen tonight and lead you to the usual impromptu front porch party somewhere around here, and there will be no shutting up. The pot keeps you in the moment, heightening the smells of frozen dough and cold sauce, preserved vegetables and damp pasta. Stoned now, you say, “It’s weird being back here,” and that part of it is even harder to explain—to be back in this tiny walk-in cooler in your black Gatorroni’s by the Slice work shirt, dough-stained black work slacks, red bandana soaking up the Florida kitchen sweat—so you don’t.
    â€œI’ll tell you about it later.” You’re now high enough to get through the dishwashing, table-wiping, food-serving shift. You pass the manager what remains of the joint, and step out into the hot parking lot and into the hotter kitchen—a five-second change of eighty degrees.
    Your ex-girlfriend, now dating your ex-best friend after finding out you hooked up with his ex-girlfriend, stands by the dishtank holding a red plastic tray with two veggie slices. She works the registers with your ex-ex-girlfriend and your current girlfriend.
    â€œTake these to the outside tables,” she says, hostile yet noncommittal. Deliberately, she’s looking to the front of the restaurant and away from you. She has dyed red streaks in her short black hair now, the circle-plus female symbol newly-tattooed on her inner left arm. You’re trying real hard to not laugh at these latest developments.
    You relieve her of the tray, knowing your streak of going nine days without wishing for the horrific death of your ex-girlfriend has snapped. “The dumbass who ordered them is too drunk to come back to the counter,” she says. She flashes a Florida-trademarked mean-grin, passive-aggressive rudeness couched in the faintest of barely polite smiles. “Even makes you seem sober.”
    â€œIt’s great seeing you again too.” She rolls her eyes, returns to the counter. Yes, it’s great to be back in Gainesville, back in the kitchen of Gatorroni’s by the Slice. Picking up where you left off.
    You walk past the counter, smile at