8/14/2019 The Broken Spoke

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 by Michael Bernard Panasuk 

The Broken Spoke on a Friday night holds no surprises, only hostages. A friend of minefrequents that freaky Honky Tonk. It’s his favorite watering hole or hole in the wall for assholes

and second hand Country Music: A Nashville landmark, landfill, land mine...

My buddy Biv desperately needs to get a life. He plans on gathering up the remnants of hisshattered soul at the Broken Spoke.

He made a personal appearance tonight. Placed himself prominently on display at the end of the

 bar where the worn out wannabe waitresses pickup over priced, watered down drinks, drop off 

dirty beer mugs, make small change, small talk, and take short breaks from all the manhandlingthey can handle in order to pay the rent on their one bedroom shit hole apartment.

Biv tosses back Absolut and cranberry juice. He’s happy to inform you that hangovers are

caused by dehydration. But cranberry juice negates alcohol abuse. To him, alcohol is a heavenly poison, a beverage with a vision. According to the Biv Wacker’s celebrated theory, you can

consume mass quantities of his concoction without suffering the annoying consequences of thefermented fruit sucking the liquid out of you.

But Biv was sipping a Brewski tonight with crushed ice in a Styrofoam cup. He’s paranoid about

germs on glass. Apparently, imbibing toxins from a reconstituted petroleum product is healthier than drinking from the same material that windows and mirrors are made from. He methodically

explained the differences. I don’t remember what he said. But when Biv adds up 2 and 2, it

often equals zero.

“I do need to get a life,” he shamelessly admitted.

But the band kept playing the same sad song out of tune and we couldn’t get it out of our ears.So we tried complaining to anyone who would listen, but the music was so loud no one could

hear us. Was it the guitar or the guitarist, the singer or a combination of abomination?

Whatever. They sucked bad and Biv remained light years away from obtaining a life.

However, he was drunk enough to tell me a story about washed-up Country singer, Freddy

Fender.

8/14/2019 The Broken Spoke

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“On tour, Freddy would get flat-out, fall down drunk after every show. Like clock work, he’d

 pass out at the bar and piss in his pants. One night after the show his guitarist said, ‘I’ll be right

 back, I’ve got to go to the bathroom. What the Hell, I’ll just piss on Freddy. He’ll never knowthe difference!’”

The moral of this immoral story applies to most of us. We get bogus bodily fluids dumped on usconstantly by big government, big business, and even best friends. They claim to be doing it in

our best interest. Do I need to wear a wet suit in my pursuit of truth and justice?

Jerks lurk in the shadows, hiding behind platitudes. Their condescending attitudes chiseled into

ancient plastic statues. They will kill you into submission, entice you with self-righteous

indignation, and embrace you with dishonorable disgrace. A little crime at a time. The enmity of 

the enemy. Who’s the guilty party you invited RSVP?

Biv works hard maintaining his insane existence. He’s developed a resistance to commercialism:

“Sometimes I feel like I’m from a different planet,” he confesses.

“Definitely not your garden variety psychopath!” he emphatically adds.

It makes me wonder, if the universe is expanding, why do real estate prices continue to rise? DoBiv’s weirdly whimsical observations exempt him from paying income tax? Or is he liable for 

an ‘ET’ excise tithe?

I need to consult or insult a messy congressional gentleman, or a Senaturd from DC or AC, or someone from the House of Mis-representatives. I like to keep my laws straight. Not that

there’s anything wrong with Gay Laws. Still, it’s extremely comforting to know that someone is

making a better living than I am by telling us how we should live our lives. Which is exactlywhat Biv needs since he’s incapable of doing it on his own.

Biv is in pain. He is a pain. He requires immediate psychiatric surgery, possibly a historicalhysterectomy. Maybe I can be of assistance. If he insists, I’ll persist, unless he puts up some

resistance: defense mechanisms kicking in like an army of donkeys at a carrot festival.

At that crucial juncture in Biv’s therapeutic junky life, I’ll order an Absolut and cranberry juice.

Then propose a toast to his toasted mental health, and wish him success and easy access to a

 parallel universe conveniently located at the Broken Spoke.

© 2009 Michael Bernard Panasuk