Reykjavík Grapevine - 28.08.2010, Side 39

PRICE AROUND
BIG PORTION
1.100 - 1.400 ISK
OPENING HOURS
Daily from
11:30 - 20:30
Weekends from
11:30 - 20:30
OVER
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SES50
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LAUGAVEGI 59
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» Starts with a shot of the infamous
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» Smoked puffin with blueberry
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» Icelandic sea-trout with peppers-salsa
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» Pan-fried monkfish with lobster sauce
» Grilled Icelandic lamb Samfaina
» Minke Whale with cranberry-sauce
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The only kitchen
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27
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 13 — 2010
The rancid repertoire of the intravenous
fiend strikes fear in the hearts of
everyman Joe. Sprawled like a sack of
waste across the backseat, seeking
either another fix or extreme unction—
the latter in lieu of the former. His tether
at an end much like mine in regards to
him. The next scumbag to board take
heed, for I’ll bear this no longer.
Tonight is a trudging futility. A
dreadful stretch of useless time towards
an identical tomorrow night. Devastating
blasts of death metal are the sole solace.
I feel at any moment some nitwit
will run a light and bring me oblivion
wrapped in bent, twisted automobile
parts. I feel I might be trapped here
interminably, life slowly ticking away at
red lights and traffic jams. My future
spent waiting for the next fucking fare,
the next goddamn scrap of cash paying
the way for this cycle to revolve ad
infinitum.
The road unfolds endless, cold and
hard. It’s as if I’m swallowing it whole as
it disappears under the hood. Ennui and
impatience in a tug-of-war. I’ve had it
with this. The never-ending nights and
the crawling days. The wealth of drunken
idiots and dearth of business. This trade
breeds bitterness. The lifers—soured stiff
by decades of waiting—bitch, gripe and
gossip like old maids. Those not already
stupid by birth have grown dumb by
prolonged idleness and full of malice
from the strain of difficult, inebriated
clientele. Now they grasp madly at
nothingness as watch their livelihood
slip slowly away as business comes ever
closer to a standstill and working even
longer hours is useless if everyone is
doing it, since no matter how you slice it,
the pie don’t get no bigger.
At random gas station number one,
the joy of drunk driving is displayed in a
loud crash sending vibrations through
the windows facing the pumps. One less
pump than two seconds ago, mowed
down by some utter imbecile with
wheels screeching in desperation to
reverse from his own destruction. Fuel
seeps from the hose and the vehicle
hightails away, its license number etched
into the memory of every single witness.
She is a Greek tragedy. She is the
wailing of a mafia funeral all bundled up
in hysterical anguish and mad remorse.
“Wasn’t no suicide,” she cries in a voice
real shoddy and lispy and grating and
insane. “It was you who offed him! You
introduced him to those awful people…”,
she exclaims through a veil of tears as
her tortured conviction gives rise to
long suffering sighs from the victim of
her wild accusations. Wine has made
her delirious, alcohol insane, and the
spectacle of her tugs at heartstrings as
it tickles the funny bone. Twenty years
of her mourning he has suffered ‘til the
patina of guilt wore off his now jaded
exterior. “Yes, I offed him” he admits
wearily. “It was all me... You happy
now?” But she can never be happy
again, no matter the amount of hard
liquor her sorrow yearns to drown in, for
the deeper the well of drink, the deeper
regret fights to stay afloat. She alights
outside her house slower than a dead
man’s heartbeat. Her purse is gone,
along with her mind. Her feet find no
purchase on the frozen ground and she
is unable both to climb a flight of stairs
and open a door lock. She tumbles to
a fall. We leave her there to die from
exposure.
“Travis Bickle” Is Back
And boy, is he depressed
Opinion | Travis Bickle