national pastime

The tv in the bar shows a concert were teenage girls run around in short shorts with microphone headsets. They are inventing new ways to hump the air. The other two men in the bar pretend not to watch. I'm not ashamed. I have a bigger problem. I've got it for a teenage girl right here in this bowling alley. I have no illusions- this girl is dumb as a box of rocks. She comes in trying to get drinks a couple nights a week. Tongue-tied, I just shake my head; anyway, she's usually already drunk. This girl could hardly be sixteen. Love's a bitch. I chuckle to myself a bit.
Her name is Bobby. I don't mean to go on about her, I'm just a dirty old man- I know my balls will decide its too stuffy, and stop camping out in my brain. But I'm in a dry spell. In fact, my life has sort of been a dry spell. I can't say I've had a decent crush since I was Bobby's age. After that, I joined the damned military and shipped out to Taiwan. I wasn't hardened by the horrors of war or anything, but I saw enough stupid cock chasing its own tail to sour me on the concept.I left there defeated, but not like Vietnam. I left Taiwan knowing that China will rule the modern world. In our temporary barracks, I understood that America is a visitor on this planet, a pushy guest. I was a mechanic, and not a very good one. I always looked for shortcuts. I had this experiment to see how much of a truck's guts could be taken out and still have it running. If I could follow the shortcuts far enough, I figured I'd realize the truck wasn't even neccessary. But anyway, I came back, to Walmart, statestores painted blue instead of red, filled with shit from the same Chinese factories. And here I am, tending bar in a bowling alley, hot on a high schooler with her thong hanging out on purpose. Right now I can see her flirting with some college boys. They're put off by her, but still horny of course. She catches me watching her, and gets it in her head to come over to my bar. The other two men here have left.
"Hey handsome." She says, leaning over the counter.
"I don't ever give you a drink, Bobby."
She steps back, smiling devilishly, and I swear to God, unbuttons the front of her pants. I see her cheap Walmart satin Chinese made panties, and the curve of her skinny crotch. To look away I turn and grab a Budwieser, humiliated, mumbling something like, "Don't do do that" I plant the beer on the counter. As she buttons back up, I follow up with a pathetic, "get out of here." She leans back over the counter, grabs the beer, and plants an amateurish kiss right on my lips. The front of my pants heats up. She skips out of the bar, beer trophy in her hand, thong hanging out.

Bruce sits down at my bar. He smoothes his bald head. He says something about the arabs and oil.
"The arabs have nothing to do with it, Bruce. The oil is being redirected. It's going to China."
"Not everything is about China."
"No. Everything is about China. They're the winning team. Shanghai's adding 1000 skyscrapers in the next ten years. Read it in the paper."
"Communists will never be happy."
" You seen those Chinese construction shows?"
Like the body builder ones? Wierd stuff."
"It's the national pastime over there. Construction workers are sports hereos. They take steroids and genetic engineering and what not. It's all on tv, like they're teams. They go crazy for it. Cities compete against each other."
We sit and mull this over. Bobby laughs in the distance, spilling beer on the lanes. I don't care if Bruce finds out I gave her a drink. "The wierdest thing is there isn't even a use for the buildings yet. And to keep the sport fair they all build the same few buildings. So they got a bunch of empty identical buildings all over the place. The peasants come out of the farms to these new cities, right? But there's no jobs in the buildings yet. So they give up their sons to the construction teams to build more. China's not an accidental place, Bruce. They're getting ready for something."
"It's always doomsday with you." Bruce says to me. I shrugg. I've got half a theory that they're planning to ship us all over there, every last American. They're building day care centers for us, because they realized it would be cheaper to ship every person once than to ship the trillions of tons of plastic shit we get every year.
"It's gonna have to be my last night tending here, Bruce."
"What? You're kidding right? Where's my two weeks?"
"Something's come up."
"You're fucking me, you know that?"
I shrug apolegetically.
He breaks eye contact with me and stands up to leave. "Thanks for nothing." As I leave the almost empty bowling alley, I hear Bobby and some kids giggling in the men's room. I can't hide my disappointment from myself. I imagine the ceiling tiles over the lanes breaking free, all at once, swooping down slowly to circle me. They become a geometric cocoon that can take me anywhere. The world has a million crannies meant to absorb you forever. But not me. This bowling alley doesn't own me. That harlot of a girl doesn't own me. And China's never going to get its hands on me again.
The secret to driving drunk is to never drive sober. You just adjust, like to snow or bad brakes. I'm coming up to a dead deer on the side of the road; it's been there for a few days. Each time I pass it I wonder if I killed it. Tthere are, after all, some new unexplained dents on my truck. I know that the deer's body could just as easily be mine. But I'm not worried. The truth is I haven't used my body, except for sleep, in years. In the morning, after I get over the fearfulness of waking up, I seep right out of my skin. I only come back after dark to make sure I don't evaporate into the night air.