It's all the same game, everyone just playing differently; the coked-up playboy and the senile old bag upstairs no different except in style, both addicts of the same opiate, that fickle, ephemeral prize at the end of every impulse, Happiness we call it, or pleasure perhaps, or maybe the word anti-emptiness would be more accurate, just a way to fill up the cup, to fill in the time, although words and names mean nothing, really, nothing means anything except the prize, or, rather, the pursuit of the prize, the game, and everyone a player, like the sadist sticking cigarette butts on the belly of the sleeping dog, the assemblage of boys tossing brownish red balls through suspended aluminum hoops, watching the scene from a chair on the stoop, like the Wall Street tycoon with a c-note on the table and a pair of tits in his face, the unemployed artist transcribing memories onto an HP laptop laced with failed attempts and saccharine stories stuffed with fluff, the old men playing dominos on the corner, in Brooklyn and Kingston and Katmandu, the comedian in Cardiff and the gap-toothed lubber laughing in the front row and the lubber's brother sitting down to dinner with a mouth full of finely-cooked cow, the scent of a sirloin on the grill, no frills on the flight but the stewardess is spicy, like a wet dream, like the 16-year-old boy catching his first blow-job and from a girl who thinks she's doing it for love, the house wife isn't doing it for love but she's getting it good from the mailman anyway, the husband off at the office massaging his ego with erratic orders barked at self-imposed slaves happily sucking up to the promise of their own suckers to one day subjugate, or emancipate, take the newspaper on your way to defecate, sweet bodily expulsion, like the lies spewed forth from the pulpit by the pederast in the painted robe drinking in the docile eyes of his sullen starched-white-collar-wearing flock of followers drunk on false promises yet drunk nonetheless, drunk like the jolly fat man moving to the beat, the aquiline young beauty gyrating to the pulse of the ear-phone-equipped maestro orchestrating from the elevated the booth, the architect of music and the imbiber of melody both players, much like man whose pencil dances across the page recreating the face of the dark-haired girl paying him ten bucks to preserve her prurience on a piece of charcoal-smudged paper, the grandpa reading his book, the long-haired adrenaline addicts sitting on boards floating on waves watching the orange sun drop beneath the sea, the dugout fishermen sucking white nectar from the coconut and dreaming of days when he was young, young like the pretty vixen prancing through the street trading lascivious stares glaring from the eyes of libidinous men wearing hammers and hard-hats and coffee-stained halitosis while precocious little children absorb the world through naked questions and hungry eyes with little hands grabbing hold of the soft-knit sleeve of the woman who feeds them love because she herself was starved as a child, the poet with his lips wrapped around a multi-colored pipe swallowing herb-laden revelations marked with reverie, the cop with a big stick and stunted self-confidence hassling the foul-smelling heathens toting brown bags of anesthesia, a woman alone in her car singing at the stoplight, the stern-side view of the moonlight bestowed to the bearded sailor ripping through the Caribbean night, like spontaneous laughter slipping out from behind the curtain, giggles and gaffs and practical jokes, watching The Simpsons and reading Stendhal, or yelling at the Yankees, pleasant like a hot shower, a warm blanket, a cold mango-kiwi-strawberry smoothie with protein supplement and ginseng extract, tuna tartar and a mint-dipped lamb chop, and a sweaty fuck right afterwards, with a girl, with a guy, with both, or with neither, just a lubed-up right hand and a wad of wet Kleenex, another bike ride, a phone call home, a kiss on the doorstep, or maybe just a handshake and a parting laugh, a grin, words exchanged or silences sustained, mutual disdain over the hypocritical political refrain from the mouths of megalomaniacal men who take pride in the privilege of power, the weathered old woman sitting alone on a bench in Cologne smoking a cigarette soaked with sweet melancholy, like the old man sucking on memories at the grave of the only heart he ever loved, or the loveless deviant in love with his hate, the band of boys attending the ballet in order to rate the breast size of the pink-clad anorexic artists of grace, the goat herder marking the pace of the sun as the shadow climbs across the plains, just the same as the Santa Monica harlot in chase of fame, like the woman willing to change her name for the price of a ring, just another day-dreamer wondering what next to sing, the Taiwanese teenager humming to herself so as to drown out the drone of the sweatshop swamped with sewing machines and bloody fingers, the fashionable seaside denizens denigrating skin on the beaches of Biarritz, along the pedestrian paths of Ipanema, just a short walk away from the hungry hands digging through dirt and trash, or unwrapping that hidden stash, of Columbian Whites or Panama Red, the junkies injecting the juice of the dragon down on Avenue D, dispossessed of home and property yet still the bum grins his toothless grin alongside the violinist playing for curbside demonstrations of appreciation, the instigators of equality demonstrating their indignation with banners and sonorous slogans, venceremos! they chant in the Plaza, for the glory of the fight, the pride in the finished product, the big promotion, the parents are proud because the kid has been admitted to the fine university and the kid is glad because his parents are glad and because he’s sick of living with them, so flee to the jungles to swing on the vines, or go to Mendoza and get drunk from the wine, bowl a frame or buy a ticket to see the ball game, performers in pin-stripes, spectators to bull fights, bankers with buried heads and bulging pockets, some dumb boy in love with the wrong girl and can’t do nothing to stop it, so drink it, paint it, splatter the page with lyrical rage, but either way its all the same, just another person playing the game.

JERRY TOTH graduated from Cornell University, and was briefly and painfully employed as a lucrative lackey on the fast track towards a dull life in the suburbs until he resigned his post in order to explore various forms of unemployment in various countries while working diligently on various unpublished works of misunderstood literature.