The Stable is a mediocre restaurant with the advantage of being the only one in the area with both liquor license and an outdoor dining area. Of course with all the restrictions lifted, you can eat inside as well. I’m not being unkind with my description; I’ve eaten there and been treated like shit, got served eh food and charged beaucoup dollars for Coronas. I used to support local businesses, but fuck it. Not worth it anymore. I’m less hassled by big business, and I don’t have to expect anything special.
I won’t dine inside either, so forget that suggestion. I think not; the vaccines clearly dwindle in level of protection just as any seasonal flu vaccine does; covid boosters are necessary for people about six months out from their last shot. Give or take.
We have four kinds of people when it comes to flu shots and the COVID-19 vaccine. The first is at one extreme end, and those think that their vaccine has rendered invulnerability in them. Not true. Especially if engaging in the risk of going without masks indoors or in outdoor crowded areas. Fucking stupid. And indoor dining isn’t such a great thing if to do it you must unmask. Empty table between two parties? Among them unvaccinated or asymptomatic carriers? Hell, people are buying fake vaccine cards and most places don’t ask you to show them. You want an onion bloom that much? Really?
At the other extreme end are those who don’t intend to get the vaccine at all. Some have been killed by their own decisions. Fucking stupid.
Somewhere between lie the groups of those who take the shot but still refuse to go out except when necessary and then only with a mask. Smart folks. I like them. And the final group is made up of vehement anti-vaxxers who use political power and influence to spread fear and disinformation. How many have they killed? I tell you truly: they have blood on their hands just as surely as if they had lined people up and shot them.
Perhaps it is the time elapsed from the beginning of the pandemic or the time passed since the vaccines became available. I’m not sure and I don’t want to act as if I know anything at all. However, complacency has set in. I see it, and people shock me with their disregard for personal safety and that of others.
I should tell you what really matters and what has come to be a pleasant surprise.
Youths, a couple of young men, greeting me in passing with “good afternoon,” a respectful term accorded to officers in the Army, but a required one, to be given with a salute and with “sir” following the greeting. They don’t know what it means to me to be given such a greeting even if just in passing, even if just as a civilian. I look at them and I see hope. We are not doomed if such young men exist.
On the other hand, in passing the Stable Restaurant last weekend, at a distance from but beside the outside dining area, a man sitting among two women and one man said something in answer to a remark from a woman, which I didn’t hear. It was obvious that she had said something, posed as a derogatory question, possibly regarding my attire and cane. In answer the man said, making sure I could hear, “Probably going to the Special Olympics.”
I turned and looked directly at him. I knew exactly which one said it and he was looking at me. I needed restraint. I was fuming, then quickly overcome with rage. Bloody fool, making a comment like that. Besides, he’s so stupid he didn’t know it was the Paralympics that were going on. A bigot with an IQ too low to know how to be a proper idiot.
I thought about putting a scare into him. He was being a cruel, mouthy guy who was showing off to the women. I thought that shit went out with adulthood, but no. It doesn’t matter, the age of alpha males; they’re just slaves to upbringing, genes and testosterone. In other words, dickheads.
He didn’t know how easily I could have killed him. No confrontation and no bullshit, just death. He’d be stinking up a coffin and I’d be stinking up a holding cell awaiting trial.
And many other men would have done it for real. Shit happens every day. Shit just like that.
I wouldn’t do it at the restaurant. I’d have waited quietly out of sight until he left, followed him to his car and done it there. Most would simply have shot him. That shit happens every day, too.
Before uttering insults, you first need to think about what can happen after the words are out of your mouth. And the truth is, there’s no way to anticipate everything. There’s no such thing as “everything” because human behaviour has no restrictions and no limits.
It wasn’t that I thought he had insulted me. Paralympic competitors are extremely strong-willed, focused and dedicated. What the dumbass had really done was to pay me a compliment and the women thought it was funny. As for the Special Olympics? That’s an even higher compliment. For reasons he cannot ever understand. Because he’s stupid. Bigoted. An elitist. A toss pot. And the women who laughed at his joke and directed his attention to me in the first place?
Not worth being angry at. The fucking hormones that drive them to draw insults out of grown men must be merciless, and they have to live with it. They’re the losers in this. A strong woman does not behave thus. They don’t have to. Any man who is cool with her being strong knows better than throwing insults at strangers to impress her. That kind of thing is not exactly conducive to romance. It plays a much larger role in adolescent courtship, which is unspeakably crude.
My anger passed after too long a time spent on it. That bastard isn’t worth it. He’s more worthy of prayers that he will change his tendency toward verbal cruelty before it catches up to him. I learned long ago, every insult, every slight, every cruel thought matters. You suffer more than your marks do; your evil builds up inside your heart and turns it forever dark. After a while you can’t do anything good. People get sick of it. They remember who you were and hate what you’ve become. You don’t want to end up like that. I’ve known people like that. They die lonely. Sometimes not by natural causes.
Don’t find out the hard way that God or karma can do things to you that you have earned for yourself. As with all things, a bill comes due, and sometimes the payment is more than you can handle.
Or bear.
Few will weep for you.
Anger, too, is a corrosive; all negative thoughts must exist as energy, and the longer you let it hold you in its power, the more damage you take. It’s true. I’ve lived like that.
Words really do hurt. What I got out of it all was the reinforcement that words really, really hurt. They can also lead to absolutely tragic events. In less than three seconds, I knew three ways to kill both men quickly and with little effort. If not so well known in the area, I suppose one of those ways could have finished with my escape and a level of shock enough to confuse witnesses.
Use words a bit more carefully. A “good afternoon” in passing can cure another’s heartache for hours.
Yet one cruel remark? That’s forever.
Memoirs of an American Asshole 