Long night tonight

Welcome to the first entry of my blog- I've been feeling pretty weird these days, and doing this thing seems to help. I've had kind of a fucked up couple of weeks, and work tonight was a hassle.

I work over at Reel Life on Bedford, and goddamn if the customers weren't breaking balls tonight.

I mean, fuck- I'm 31 years old, I work in a video store, my whole shoulder is still killing me from the bite I got from that weird animal a couple of weeks ago, and you gotta bust my balls that "The Burbs" isn't out on DVD?

Still, it was real nice to see the Red Sox win it tonight. I grew up in Boston, and one of the only bonds I still have to where I grew up is the Red Sox. It's a bummer there's no hockey too. At least the Pats are still kicking ass. It'd be sweet to see them beat the Jets next week.

Anyway, I guess I should tell the story- As it was a nice night, I was walking back home over the Williamsburg bridge a few weeks ago, (I guess it was late September) and I'll tell you, I'm never doing that again. I'd been drinking at Lansky Lounge (mistake #1), and when I got done, it was about 2:30. I was pretty drunk (mistake #2) and because it was a full moon and a beautiful night, I thought that there would be enough light to make it over in style.

Also, I'd smoked a fat one with this Indian guy (India Indian, not Native American- c'mon, I'm not a dick over here) and the idea of checking out the skyline on the bridge seemed appealing to me.

So anyway, as I get out on the bridge, I get a little paranoid. No biggie, I'm stoned, and I distract myself by staring straight up and checking out the bridge. That shit TOTALLY works, BTW. Anyway, when I'm about half way across, and on the way back down, I see this- THING, kind of shambling up the other way.

I look over my shoulder, and it's a long way back. Now I start to get a little worried. It looks like a dog, kinda slumped over and walking funny, but you know- bigger than a normal dog. Now I'm thinking that it's one of those goddamn pit bulls you see getting tugged around by one of those tiny, tattooed Williamsburg chicks. Seriously, you know those goddamn dogs I'm talking about, the ones that are on those big chains, like not a chain for a dog, more like a chain for an anchor? It's like, Jesus, I'm really sorry that something bad happened with you and your uncle when you were a kid, but do you have to take it out on the rest of us?

Still, I'm cool with dogs- I figure I'm already halfway across, and if you show your fear, that's when they get you. So I proceed forward (mistake #3). I get about 50 yards from this fucking thing, and no shit, this sound comes out of it that's like this long, rumbling, snarling growl. When you can hear a growl from 50 yards off, well fuck it. I'm stoned, not stupid. I turned around, and started walking the other way.

It was the howl that got me running.

You know how much it sucks to walk your ass off to get somewhere in this city, realize that you can't go that way, and you're gonna have to wait for a goddamn J train that's gonna take you forever just to get home?

It's worse when you're sprinting away from an undefined animal that wants to, you know- eat you.

I only remember bits and pieces of the rest.

The sounds from behind me- I could hear footsteps running at me- the weird thing is they changed- like it was kind of a loping, galloping sound at first, but as it got louder, it changed to a run. Like a human run- like there was a person behind me chasing me. I mean, I know it was that thing, cause all that was drowning out the fucking howling were my own screams.

I'm not a pussy or anything, but fuck, YOU get chased down by a snarling mutant pit bull running on two legs at three in the morning with a belly full of beer and nice ass weed-high on, and see if you sound any better than a shrieking 8 year-old girl. Seriously, try it- I'll tip my hat to you.

It hit me in the back and I rolled. It definitely had fur, and we rolled for about 15 feet. The weird thing about it was is that the only thing that hurt was my back, from that thing initially knocking me down. There was a burst of pain in my shoulder when it bit me, but the scratches, bruises and scrapes didn't hurt till I woke up in the hospital, which sucked even worse since I don't have health insurance.

I'm still kind of fucked on that end, BTW.

Here's my Health plan, if you give a shit.

The cops said I wasn't the only one they found on the bridge, but I was the only one alive. Over on the Williamsburg side they found a couple of dead hipsters who got torn apart, and on the Manhattan side they found another dead guy, this one naked (!) who was all scratched up and had gotten shot a couple times.

How about that- nice timing to take a naked stroll across a bridge. I mean, I got it pretty bad, but at least when I was running I didn't have to worry about this thing biting my junk off.

The good part about it is one of the hipsters had an iPod with him and I totally told the cops it was mine.

Pretty sweet, right?

Anyway, my shoulder's getting sore and it's getting late- more tomorrow-