The Maul

The fucking mall. Look. The plan was to find a hat, but I decided on the way to hit up a place down the road and make an appointment to get a keyless entry installed in the Element. Let me say something about that midnight pearl beauty: It's magic. Black and clean. Black magic. Wait, here comes the first coursing of the vodka. The buzz.

STOP DRINKING IN THE DAY. YOU ARE NOTHING SPECIAL.

Here's the problem. I have an old, faded, green and white Vans foam trucker cap. Now: though I am racist (?) against hipsters, I use this foam trucker hat to protect my newly shaven skull when I pedal my bike around the beach. I needed a hat, bottom line. I got sidetracked by the Tokyo in this mall. No shit. A full-on section dedicated to the culture, and operated by it. It's amazing, a Japanese food court that leads into a Japanese grocery store, a big one. I perused the labels on the cellophane-wrapped fried fish frozen in the rictus of death, their little crisp bodies and expressions forever caught in decayed capture. I glanced at a label, something about fried milkfish.

SWITCH TO PRESENT TENSE, DRUNK ASS:

I look around, and my blood runs excited when I realize I'm the only white man in the store. I've never been overseas, but I wonder if this is any indication of how it must feel. I walk around like a giant. I haven't mentioned yet that I have a new hat, $28 dollars. A black Oakley cap I am wearing backwards, (is it backward, asshole?) while I sit in the Rainforest Cafe in the motherfucking mall and put away another vodka double. Disney. Mall. Feed the corruption. But there's no division anymore. The world is one big ball of connected everything, no matter how hard the artists try. I sit here, 300 good yards away from mini-Tokyo, drunk in the mall, charming a heavy bartender into stronger drinks, ignoring calls from the car place down the road because I'm an hour late to my appointment.

I order another double.

She reminds me of Natalie from The Facts of Life.

I came here to buy a fucking hat.