http://www.oystersandchocolate.com/Poetry/1427/WheelchairBound.aspx

This is a city. and a small, paranoid town. My adopted home…..

It’s 1am on a First Thursday. My drunk, and high(“I just smoked what they handed me-I dunno what it was”) friend John and I are making our illustrious journey from the Republic Cafe($3 Coors Light-damn the Pearl) to Voodoo Donuts. We are passed by no less than four cop cars….it must be “Dangerous Art Night”.

Arriving at Voodoo, I select a Cock and Balls donut-two round jelly type donuts attached to a(surprisingly long) twisted bar, filled with cream, and topped with chocolate…yum.

John chooses a plain chocolate. We head outside.

It’s a warm night, and there’s a convenient bench on the sidewalk. I cheerily rip off a piece of cock, and lick the oozing cream off my index finger.

“I’m going to kill him!” shouts a skinny white suburbanite, replete with over dressed girlfriend in brand new cowboy boots, who has just been thrown out of the bar next door. “Ooh, baby, let’s go home” coos the gf, who looks uncomfortably sober.

“Wow” says John, “Drama”.

And then Portland does it’s thing. A group of gamer-type college students arrive, and one-a chubby, bald boy in khakis and boots- begins miming the suburbanite-while alternately rubbing his nipples, and bald head. I laugh so hard I choke on a bite of ball. John’s shaking with laughter, and I know for a fact he’s got bladder control issues.

Then, while we’re laughing and choking, it gets weirder. A man in yellow parachute/bondage gear and suspenders offers bear hugs to whoever will stand still. A blind, British, punk, purple-haired man accidentally bumps into a short, sighted, British, behatted man, who becomes quite upset. While apologizing, the blind man’s cane becomes entangled in my wheelchair. Two lesbians on bicycles ride up, and stop, transfixed by the ensuing pandemonium. An extremely well dressed man in a fedora, with the air of a history professor, and a black lab, arrives and goes inside.

The mood is broken. The college kids leave, the blind man is led away by his friends, the suburbanite moves down the street. The lesbians go inside. The professor walks out with a small white bag.

John and I head to Magic Gardens. It’s just another night in PDX.