Drunken Dispatches

This guy in a Polo shirt comes up to our table to give us a lecture on “keeping it real.”

He was a Filipino American from somewhere in Washington state. Born in South Luzon, he flew home to keep it real.

“I didn’t even finish high school,” he says, because getting accreditation from the local Department of Education was like “jumping through fucking flaming hoops.”

So, fuck that, he says, he will just read books and learn about the real world.

He tells me he feels sorry for me because I am paid much less than what I should be getting for what I do. He says I should be my own boss. He says he is angry for me and that I should be angry too.

“I believe in socialism, man. Do you believe in socialism?,” he asks as I pretend to fall asleep. It was not a debate I was letting myself get dragged into. Not because it was invalid but because the truths he was offering were nothing new. Nothing I have not yet seen or heard of, not having been anywhere near Washington state.

“Do you believe in socialism?,” he asks again as I lean on my friend in my mock stupor.

When I look up, our socialist comrade has moved on, leaving us with several bottles of unpaid beer and a cigarette pack much lighter than before he began talking revolution.