he looked at me
as uninterested
and defeated as a 25 year old
on his way to a shitty job
in a shitty town
could, and asked,
“have you ever thought about a necktie?
I mean … why?”
it was a question someone
who hasn’t spent hours
driving alone,
to somewhere they didn’t want to go,
could never understand.
I looked at the landscape of the
New Jersey Turnpike, right at the
starting line of what was sure to be
another dead
and eternal winter, and
the air stank like a chemically enhanced
napalm fart.
then I looked down at my necktie
hoping, somehow, it wouldn’t be there.
it was.
I was a manufactured monkey like everyone else.
I lit a cigarette to dilute
the fart smell.
Ernest and I exchanged a silent nod.
we worked an
hour later than was scheduled.