turning 30

Bukowski punched Hemingway in the face and licked the blood off his fist after taking a shot of Tequila.

“Wait a second here!” Holden was obviously the drunkest guy in the room. He swaggered over to the stool where Papa was asking Bukowski for a rematch. “Give me a chance at the champ! I can take ’em.”

Why don’t you want to fight me no more?” Hemingway looked at Holden square in the crossed eyes.

Holden studied the lines on Hemingway’s face. He was wearing a Gatsby cap, tweed jacket, and had a red handkerchief he could have used to lure a bull. “Too much respect… But, I think that cap belongs to a friend of mine.” Holden snatched the cap. “I’ve got a phone call to make, anyhow.” He ran over to a phone booth and started crying into the phone about Christmas trees.

Carver absorbed the scene from a table. He was sitting alone, coming up with extended soliloquies. He wrote them on napkins, then crossed half the words out.

Plath walked up to the table. “Buy me a drink?”

“Bankt-e-rupt. How bout you buy me one.”

Plath gave her warm smile. “Love too.”

Waits sat at the door, collecting the cover charge in his hat. He was having his best thirtieth birthday ever. A Hollywood type walked in with Zooey, script under his hand. Waits waved them in.

They sat at the bar. “This is _your_ project Zooey.”

“Who’s that guy in the phone booth?”