Hawaiian Shirts In The Electric Chair by Scott Laudati - HTML preview

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.