“If you could punch any famous person in the face once for $200. Do you take the offer? If yes, who do you punch?”I asked Carlos Boozer this question back in '12 hoping to spark some sort of lively conversation I desperately needed in that depressing restaurant. To my surprise, that famous grin of his quickly fell away as I watched his eyes lose focus. His mind sunk back in on itself and unearthed a memory that I'm sure was better left buried deep in his subconscious.Suddenly, the cacophony of plates and forks and chewing and burping of that crowded, for reasons sure as hell unknown to me, Applebee's faded into nothing but a dull, droning hum, a blurred experience off in the distance. He pushed away his half of the 2 for $20 deal, which I believe we both ordered the chicken tenders platter, and slouched back in his sticky chair. The faux leather squeezed and squeaked sickly under his well muscled buttocks as he stared up at the dusty, lazily spinning, unbalanced ceiling fan as if searching for the right words to tell, as if those dirty blades had the right script all laid out for him.A few awkward moments passed, then a sudden, sharp, digestive gurgled cut the silence as the chicken strips caused havoc in my guts. I winced, but tried to remain dignified. Booz is the kinda guy who really respects hanging tough in high pressure situations, so even as that processed faux-food twisted it’s jagged blade in bowels, I nodded to Carlos in a way that said, “Care to elaborate, big guy?”"Aight." He closed his eyes tightly and rubbed his hand over his perfectly manicured beard. "I'll tell you about the time Jo punched a guy"I shooed a fly off of the stagnant barbecue sauce. I didn't want the distraction an insect like that brings. Booze cleared his throat loudly followed by a shout of completely tone deaf enthusiasm, but behind that yell, was a terror. A half-drunk waitress dropped a glass somewhere back there, her third one that night, and it wouldn’t be her last."Jo and I were at PoleKatz in the middle of the 2010-2011 season, ya know" He half-chuckled to himself, "Big boys doing what big boys do best. Well, after more than a couple $23 cocktails, Jo gives me the nudge, and I know ya know what I'm talking about. The nudge. Ya know what I'm talking about. So, I stand up and yell, 'GET IT, JO!' and me and him step outside."It was cold out, but nothing I ain't used to. Jo pulls out the most ornate hand-crafted joint I had ever seen, and have ever seen since. He had it in a special carrying case and everything so that it wouldn't get all messed up in his coat. It was a team joint, too. We had to both smoke it at the same time for it to work properly. So, he sparks it up and we get to unraveling this puzzle."About 41 minutes pass, and we're still working on this joint. I'm starting to get cold, Jo's starting to get cold, but we're players, ya know? We don't back down from a challenge. Players play. Gamers game. We don’t back down, ever. Ya know? All of a sudden, we see this dude walking towards us, and we're back behind PoleKatz, ya know? Nobody should be walking back here. This dude gets a little closer and, damn, it's Colin Farrell. Fucking Colin Farrell, man."You know how I've always wanted to punch Colin Farrell. Ya know, ever since he completely fucked up Alexander the Great. Man, that movie could have been so good, man. That history is so rich. So, seeing him saunter on over like he knows us just filled me with rage. I never felt my fist balled so tightly as it was when this scrawny little goblin dumb hat wearing motherfucker walked up to us like he belonged there. That smug little face, that sly son of a bitch smile. He knew what he did to Alexander the Great. He knew what he did and he was just walking around all proud of it, ya know?"Jo knew my feelings about Colin Farrell and put away that fantastically puzzling joint of his back into its carrying case. He elbowed me in the ribs a bit and showed me about $200 worth of singles wadded up and held together with a Luvabulls money band. He winked. Me and Jo had a special connection, ya know? I can tell what that cat was thinking, and so just like that, I punched. My meaty fist connected with that twerp's face, but there was something wrong with it all."His face tore away like paper, like I punched a paper cutout of my most hated Hollywood star. His head tore open to reveal an endless black void. I'm telling you, man, I don't know how long me and Jo looked into that abyss, and I don't know exactly what I saw in that impossibly infinite space in his head, but me and Jo got super scared. Jo kicked this husk of Colin in the stomach and the paper shell that was his body collapsed onto the cold, wet asphalt."I was like, 'I don't know what that was. I don't want to know what hell that was.' Ya know? and we just ran. We left him there, dude. We just left that paper Colin Farrell to soak in that dirty PoleKatz alley water. We were shook, man. I couldn’t get that void outta my head and I don’t even know what I saw. Shit man, I went 3-11 in my next game, man, but Jo played pretty good."He sat there with his hands folded over one another and elbows propped up on the flimsy particle board table. It groaned under his weight, ready to give out, give up like the rest of the people did with their lives here at Applebee's. He nodded his head gently, quietly awaiting my response.I felt my anus clench to try and hold back the bubbling brew those chicken tenders have stirred up in my system. In truth, now that his story was over, I no longer had the necessary distraction needed to deal with this substance playing as food to pass through my insides. Each twist and convulsion in my stomach was a desperate plea from my guts and a warning for anyone in earshot.Colin Farrell? With a void for a face? It just didn’t make much sense, though my ability to process the story was well hindered. Squirming, I accidentally swept off my unwashed, so unused, silverware which hit some snot nosed brat right in the leg. He cried in vain as his emotionless parents sadly slopped microwaved hamburger into their mouths and slurped down sugar water. They were dull to it, dull the world, and yet, as that kiddo screamed in agony that was very much so disproportionate to the damage he received, I believed those parents envied his ability to feel alive, to be passionate, to feel anything.Boozer was unaffected by all the noise and digestive problems I was having, too far gone in his own mind reliving his strange tale over and over again. Lost in that void, seeing the things he wished he never saw. I should have felt that same weight, that fear, that existential dread of experiencing something so strange and unexplainable, but I just had to tighten my sphincter as tight as she goes.I think I may have said something like, "You win some, you lose some" and perhaps mumbled something about if they ever did finish that joint. Carlos started laughing and clapped his hands a half dozen times deafeningly loud. The plastic cups of Diet Pepsi rattled and one fell over landing directly on the lipstick stain from some previous guest untold meals ago."MY BAD!" he yelled and then threw down a cool $20 bill on the table. Just like that, our dinner was done, and I was back in Carlos Boozer's Rolls Royce Ghost heading home to do battle with those chicken tenders.About five minutes into the drive, I asked Booz to turn down the music because the vibrations were dangerously close to brown noting me. At that point I was sweating and my skin was cold and clammy. I had that “need to take a shit” fever. Writhing in my seat, I was hardly able to take it any longer. Of course, Boozer was fine. He was always fine. He looked over to me with arched, happy eyebrows and a fun smile, completely oblivious to my internal maelstrom. Finally, I told him we had to stop somewhere because I had urgent and violent diarrhea.Motherfucker. He said, “Ah okay, there’s an Applebee’s right up ahead here. Let’s stop there and you can take a shit, man.”My heart dropped a bit. That fucking place again? Was he really going to bring me back to another Applebee’s? Why, Carlos, why? Why did we always end up there? What choice did I have though? So, he pulled up to the parking lot, and I hurried out. I noticed Booz laughing at me with the long strides of his casual following pace.I get in, and the place is thankfully empty, or at least mostly so. A lone bartender waved me down with a pained smile as I rushed past him with an awkward gait. I just threw a thumb back to Carlos to let him know that I’m a legitimate pooper and not some highway on-ramp bum looking to turn an F+ establishment into an official F-. Of course she didn’t care, her life was forfeit long ago, well before I stepped into that so-called restaurant.I’ll spare you the excruciating details of my time on that toilet, but please know that all your assumptions are correct. The whole affair was over in a few minutes, but I needed a good ten on the throne to recover and catch my breath. Those tenders are no joke, a chaotic blitzkrieg of senseless violence and wanton destruction. I was ravaged, but managed to salvage enough pride to stand up again.I stepped out of the stall ashamed and embarrassed for myself, but then I tried to remember that that’s just what the food does, not how I actually felt. Shaking away that feeling, I started lathering up my ruined hands at the sink when over to my left, who should I see?Colin Farrell.He was smiling to himself in the mirror, jutting his chin out as if only to admire his own chin. He wasn’t even known for his chin in the movies. Was he there the whole time? Was he standing there in front of that dried spit and dirty water residue covered mirror while I confessed my gastronomical sins to the devil in priests’ clothing? He splashed some tepid water on his face joyfully and then looked over to me and then nodded to the water like, “Yeah pal, this stuff right here, this stuff is where it’s at.” I just walked out and dried my hands off on my untucked shirt.Carlos was at the bar laughing loudly at a commercial. I was able to tell, even at a distance, his hands were sticky with that special kind of stickiness that comes with margaritas sloppily mixed in an unwashed plastic glass with a cactus stem. Carlos continued to chuckle to himself as the bartender, with vacuous, soulless eyes, idly mopped a dirty rag back and forth on the bar top, polishing the filth ingrained pseudo-wood. I put an almost dried hand on Booz’s shoulder and opened my mouth to say something, anything, but an unwanted burp rolled out instead. That was enough though.“He’s here, isn’t he?” Booz lowered his voice to a growling whisper. Any jovial feelings he had were gone now. “Excuse us.” he said to the bartender, who only expressed a sharp exhale of the breath through their nose, not indicating any sort of feeling or thought on the situation, just a bare minimum acknowledgement of our existence.We got up and turned around. The Applebee’s was empty. Even though I never believed anyone ever belonged in an Applebee’s, especially at an hour like this when it’s much more important to be with your family and loved ones, I still silence eerie. The valueless bric-a-brac on the walls took on a menacing tackiness, a malevolent presence. It was like finding a doll that isn't yours in your attic facing directly out the window staring at that spot in the driveway you park your car in every single night. I shuddered.I nudged Booz right in the black half of his man tattoo. I took a small amount of comfort in his burliness, I always did, but that didn’t alleviate my concern for what was waiting in the bathroom. We had to leave, and we had to leave right that instant. I turned around to get the bartender’s attention, trying to settle the bill, trying to do the right thing here. I don’t know why I thought those $5 margaritas were even worth that much. I looked and looked, leaning over the bar trying to find that bartender but nope. He was gone. The bathroom door swung open, and I peeled my sleeves off the bartop, not wanting to see him.I could feel Carlos bristle like a dog on guard. It was really a big game moment from him. The same look he gave the refs when he was whistled for a foul he didn’t commit, a foul he would never commit, a foul he promised his wife and kids that he would never dream of committing.That motherfucker. He strolled on out with that fucking smirk on his face and adjusted his wool cap, or beanie as we called it back then. Colin walked right up to Booz and smirked that smirk even harder, and then he gave a haughty little shrug like, “Yeah, what are you gonna do about it?”Boozer punched him square in the face. Colin Farrell tore open from forehead to naval, flayed like the T-1000 at the end of Terminator 2 after Arnie rolls up on that big cog and pops him one with that grenade gun thing. Only instead of some really sweet looking industrial lava and twisted steel, there was nothing but the blackest darkness I had ever seen beyond that rift. I stared deeply into that void, through it, through all of it to the end of time and back to the beginning again. I saw infinity, felt it in my brain, the horror, the unending horror of the never ending. I felt myself age and die thousands of times over, living lives so utterly useless and insignificant, that a piece of my soul withered and torn and gone into the oblivion. Whispers and screams from knowledge and remnants of the universe, the multiverse, of myself, myselves, twisted prying at my brain, my pineal gland swollen, burning, bulging, me, my essence ripped out and thrust in over and over in an endless chain, an endless useless chain of soul-wrecking mediocrity and inconsequential actions, my individuality made into a cosmic joke with no audience, no purpose, no body, nobody, no true purpose, so small, so infinitesimal, the blurred dissonance of complete lack of comprehension, disorienting me, throwing me in an out of balance on the nothingness I don’t even have legs to stand on, don’t deserve them, never have, never existed.Then I felt that rebounder’s grip on my mortal husk. I had lived 13,976 lives in an instant with their pathetic meaninglessness seared into my psyche, but now I was back to reality. All around me, the tacky shit on the walls, the tchotchkes and trinkets and banal pieces of decor that makes you wonder if the sole purpose of their creation was to adorn the sad walls of a sad place, were being pulled into the hungry black void that was once Colin Farrell. The out line of his body remained, his hat remained, that stupid beanie. It wobbled on top of that black hole of a man, mocking us mere mortals.Holding me like a little baby, Booz pivoted around a large fish with the paint chipping away, went up and under a bevy of fake vintage gas station signs, and then spun around spun around some pictures of celebrities that we all know and recognize instantly. Their faces were twisted with agony. All the while, he was using me like a basketball to keep his balance.We were only about 55.4% of the way to the door when a carousel horse knocked us both to the ground. We hit the floor hard and were slow to get up. Give us credit now, we tied our shoes extra tight and stood back up to face the Colin Farrell Void.“I don’t think we can stop him.” Carlos said stoically, his sharp cheekbones tightened, accentuating his even sharper beard lines. Trash quality dishes and silverware were being sucked in from the kitchen, and that’s when I saw it. Our way out. The microwave was rattling with the other appliances of the bare minimum restaurant kitchen and right next to it was a half-thawed frozen bag of chicken tenders. My guts audibly winced at the sight of them again, but what else could work?I pointed out the tenders and drew up a play for Booz and me. Using his 258 lb frame, he was able to set screen after screen for me, blocking one hackneyed bullshit thing after another. Colin Farrell Void must have sensed what we were trying to do, because that’s when he really started to suck. Bolts of black lightning ripped through the air like lashing tendrils. The flicking tongues of elder things in untold words sunk into me like jellyfish stingers, disorienting me all over again. It was getting to Booz, too, but he managed to squeeze himself into a booth with a marvelous flop and a farty squeak.“GO! GO! GO!” He screamed out, his patented smile returning seeing me get to the kitchen despite Colin Farrell Void’s best efforts. I ripped open the bag of chicken vender. The half-thawed nature of them made them look like they were covered in a late-March slush, only in a ruddy color. After a brief Vietnam flashback, remembering all the lives lost in the battle of my bowels only moments earlier, though, in some ways, it was literally lifetimes ago, I managed to slam all the tenders I could into the microwave.In a bit of ill-advised showboating, I set the cook time to “6:66” which quickly readjusted to “7:06” making me regret not just putting “4:20” in, but the point was that the bomb was primed and ready. I passed that baby over to Carlos and let him do the rest.His footwork was incredible, absolutely flawless. He danced around the corny decor, weaved in and out of traffic until he was a mere few feet away from Colin Farrell Void. I’d like to say that he yelled with the passion we all loved so well, what made him famous, what put the Utah Jazz on the map, but there was a quiet heroism to his dunk. With a two-handed stuff, that tender bomb was in. Colin Farrell Void was shocked, and ceased his gravitational pull.Carlos ran away, catching up with me at the door.“HOW LONG WE GOT?!” He yelled, though it was eerily silent now.I grabbed his muscular elbows and replied, “I’m not sure! It’s not plugged in! This sucker can go off at any-”And just like that, a stray bolt of evil black lightning struck the microwave. The resulting explosion of breading and filler meat must have clashed with Colin Farrel Void’s own unknowable evil in a cataclysmic way. First, a shockwave smelling of old fry oil sent us through the door, then an implosion swallowed up the entire Applebee’s. All that was left was a dirty foundation, as clean as that place had ever been.After a few moments of stunned staring, both our mouths agape, Boozer broke the silence with his classic belly laugh and I couldn’t help but join in. After a few more minutes of relieved chuckling, we both agree that Applebee’s is still better than Cleveland even after all that. Then it was back in the Rolls Royce.To this day, I still maintain that that was Carlos Boozer’s best dunk of his career. via /r/chicagobulls https://ift.tt/37xFd1f
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