Today I had the luck to be sent back to Bridgeview. I ordered a porkchop from a little shack at 79th and Harlem early this afternoon. They make you wait outside in the freezing cold. There is no inside dining, just a moldy picnic bench under a plastic awning out front. I don't wear a jacket, a fact I recall sharing with you previously. I did not shiver despite the arctic gale. The other patrons were four firemen clad in full black rubber suits. They also wore those stupid pointy hats and had pickaxes hanging from their belts. They were scary and so were their walkie-talkies. I don't think they liked me.

My pork chop sandwich came with mustard and grilled onions just like a Maxwell Street polish sausage. A sharp bone in it stabbed through my cheek. Blood trickled out and a homeless guy started licking my face in case any of the pork chop juice seeped through. All he got was some mustard. I kicked him in the left kneecap and he fell to the ground and rolled onto his back, mewling like a baby chimpanzee. I pulled the bone out through my cheek and threw it at him like a dart. He pulled it out of his eye and nibbled on the meager flesh scraps loosely clinging to the bone. That might've been my flesh or the pigs, I don't care.

I looked at the firemen. They stopped chewing. Quickly they averted their collective gaze as if to say "We just spray water and catch babies flung from windows, we don't caulk cheeks, so don't look here for help." Maybe I was putting words in their brain, but I doubt it. The message was pretty clear to me.

I ordered a polish for the road. Hopefully I can seal the hole in my face with some congealed grilled onions. Otherwise everytime I drink sodapop I'm going to have fizzy foam squirting out. That might be fun at family gatherings but it's not very attractive at the library.

I'm sure it will heal eventually. That'll teach me to eat sandwiches with bones in them. 3:25 PM - Bottle Rocket Fire Alarm