The Street Savage

This article is vaguely about spring break, and totally about pizza and hamburgers.

Anonymous 1

What…uh…what…did you do..uh…last spring break?

I wasn’t in school. I didn’t have a spring break, so I hated myself.

Why weren’t you in school?

Um, because…

Well, you wouldn’t have been in school because it was spring break!

Yes, I wasn’t enrolled in school for that year. I took a break between undergrad and graduate.

You’re a graduate?

Yeah.

You graduated?

No.

No?

From undergraduate, yeah.

From undergraduate, you graduated?

From undergraduate, I graduated.

What were you doing during that time?

I was working for a health insurance company.

Was it healthy?

No, the opposite of healthy.

What? Did they force things down your throat that weren’t good to eat?

No, it was mentally unhealthy. It was kind of terrible to tell people that…

Mentally unhealthy, were they, like, forcing you to watch sitcoms all day?

No, it was the interaction with people that was depressing.

Did they have, like, a special power where, like, whenever they would talk to you, they had magical words, special words that would turn you stupid?

In a way, the rhetoric kind, of the health care business.

What are some magical, rhetorical, like uh…health care business words, that decrease people’s IQ?

Um…lifetime health care business maximum.

Anonymous 2

What are you doing over spring break?

Um…working.

Where?

At Old Chicago.

Will there be lots of gangsters that you have to contend with?

No.

Why?

Because we’re in Portland.

Oh not…how many years ago was it? Eighty years ago, was it? See, when I think of “old Chicago” I think like, the 1930s…

Yeah, about…

‘Cause, when you say “old Chicago” I think…

Pizza and beer!

See you didn’t specify, so I thought like, literally, you were going back in time to work at “old Chicago.” But you didn’t do that.

No, that would be cool though.

But people would think you were a witch.

You think?

No, it was still pretty modern…but they’d…they’d wanna study you.

Possibly.

What do you think they’d learn?

I don’t know, probably not a whole lot.

That you breathe…and that…you like to smoke…as I see…

I don’t know what else they’d learn.

Would they have pizza and beer in this old Chicago?

Yes. Lots of beer.

Well no, I’m thinking the ’20s, not the ’30s…Spring break, it’s fun time!

Yeah.

‘Specially when you have a time machine.

Yes. I probably wouldn’t be in the ’30s though.

No, you’d be in the ’20s…I’m thinking like the golden age of Chicago, the decadent age of Chicago would be the ’20s…murder?

Of course.

Drinking?

Plenty.

Sex?

[pensive] Yeah.

Pizza?

Maybe not pizza…maybe, uh…I don’t know.

Hamburgers?

Maybe just like some raw meat, kill an animal, for some raw meat.

Yeah, ’cause that’s what people did. They were hunter-gatherers in the ’20s, weren’t they?

Yes.

There weren’t hunter-gatherers in the ’20s! What are you talking about?

No, they had cars!

They had cars, but they didn’t use cars to go out and hunt animals! They had slaughterhouses for that like they do now! Geez.

All right.

Anonymous 3

What did you do over spring break last year?

Mmm…I don’t remember, I think I went to Las Vegas maybe.

Did you win any money?

Like 30 bucks.

What did you do with that $30?

Spent it on drinks.

Were they delicious drinks, like Coca-Cola and orange juice ‘n’ stuff?

No, I was in Vegas.

I know, they have Coca-Cola in Vegas don’t they?

WHISKEY!

Was it delicious whiskey?

Yeah, pretty good, expensive though. And it was especially delicious ’cause I could take it in a glass, out on the street and just walk down the street with it and just leave it out on the sidewalk.

What is this alcoholic wonderland like?

It’s a crazy, ugly, magnificent place! It’s an adult-Disneyland. I thought it was pretty disgusting myself actually…It was really surreal.

When I think adult-Disneyland, I think like, porn stars everywhere, kind of like Mickey Mouse…like walking around.

There was, like, obvious prostitutes walking around. There was sex, alcohol, gambling…

What about hamburgers? Hamburgers are pretty decadent! Do they have those in Vegas?

Mmm-hmm.

Cool!