Tantrum

Yogurtland, just below 3rd on the east side of LaBrea Blvd, Thursday, April 7th, 9:45pm-

Totally fucking packed.

-A line of assorted people out the door. The night is hot. We make our way in, I grab a cup, pretend to squirt hand sanitizer from the 3 gallon dispenser into my cup…my daughters do not laugh, they do not smile, they are exactly one month from turning 13, everything I do is unappealing.

We crawl toward the first flavor, plain tart, my favorite. Down the line is coconut, vanilla wafer, dutch chocolate, arctic vanilla, red velvet cake batter, pistachio, taro, butterfinger...it’s all fucking great. There are so many flavors, people can’t help themselves, some are pushing, some walking around getting in the way. Some try to make it to the bathroom. I spy the slummers, who have tiny paper sample cups…like little junkies they hang off the smores machine, taking hits and eyeballing everyone else as if to say, “no, you suck.”

We inch forward.

We get closer to the fruit and dry toppings bar, we’re still 5 feet away, when I notice 3 fat Armenian girls, no they’re Spanish…maybe Russian gypsies. They are inching in ahead of me from my left, kind of elbowing, I give them the benefit of the doubt for a moment, thinking they’re lost or looking. Then the first one takes one step more… and I let loose, “THERE’S A LINE!!”

I say it clear, direct.

I use a tone of impending doom and violence, and a volume that makes the glass in the stores window brace.

It is with authority.

It is with a hammer.

The first one blanches, but she does not heed, does not care, she will be heard, “If all here will pay, so be it…let’s see him try… and bring his fucking sad heat.”
She begins to talk back. Her words make no sense, it’s noise, she’s underwater, she is a cartoon.

I begin,

“WE, ARE IN THE LINE!!

YOU ARE NOT!

THE LINE BEGINS FOR YOU, BACK THERE!!"

Silence.

All those in the store feel sick.

The power of this silence makes me more righteous, more violent, more angry, more, more, MORE, MORE, MORE!!!

This is my time. I am right. This is my tantrum. I will be heard. This is my frightening moment. I will be the tormentor. All will witness.
All will pay.
ALL WILL LIVE WITH THIS IN THEIR DREAMS.
ALL WILL LIVE IN DARKNESS.

She begins yelling now, faster…her friends chime in like gerbils, I see lips, tongues, teeth and eyes, flashing, flipping, pursing… they are young, insolent, they are fucks. Her brother is on me, but I am faster. I grab him by the back of the hair, a large fistful and yank. -He drops his cup of pomegranate raspberry tart. I thrust his eyes into a machine of New York Cheesecake. He begins to fall down, I balance the weight of him on my knee and hold his limp, right hand up to the lever and gear of the dispenser. I fish his fat finger into the gear and begin to watch as the torque snaps it bringing him and his sister to attention. The cold yellow dairy goo begins to shit in his hair.