Wayne the Pain and the Buddha Good Luck Strings

I've finally figured out why I've been having a run of 'bad' luck lately. It’s my Buddha good luck strings. They've worn off and rotted away about two or three months ago. While wearing them good things were happening, or at least bad things weren't made worse. Since the last one fell off my wrist and slithered down the shower drain I've had one crisis after another. These friggin' things actually work! Although I must have inadvertently cut off the one where Mama prayed I hit the lottery for millions. I have to try to figure out a way to mark the ones I want to keep on. Maybe have the best ones prayed over and tied onto my right wrist, and the average ones put on my left wrist, to be chopped off after three days time; the strings, not my wrist.

During football season one good friend of mine, Big Wayne, swore by the luck of these Buddha strings, after he teamed up with me on some football squares and we won the pool three/four weeks in a row, he took to seeking me out whenever he needed a bit of luck and would ask me to rub my lucky Buddha strings on the football pool squares we would buy together. Said the damned things worked great. I'd rub them on his big bald cement-block of a head for some extra luck, and he'd buy me a beer. I've tried to get him to come over to Thailand and get some of his own Buddha good luck strings, but he says he won't go, as last time he was in SEA the little brown people over there were shooting at him and trying to kill him, his memories aren't pleasant for the most part. His own damned fault I'd say. He volunteered for the first tour of duty, crazy bastard. 101^st Airborne, Screaming Eagles, he was. To show you how nuts he was, after the first tour, he volunteered, and did a second one. I try to tell him no-one is shooting at me over there now, at least not yet, but he won't listen. Besides Wayno did some R&R in the LOS, so he knows what's what and is just being stubborn.

His times over there in the late 60's have left him an obsessive compulsive, his disorder being fairly severe, enough to get him some government money out of it, and annoying enough to make me leave after he parks his truck the first time, instead of waiting until the twentieth or thirtieth time he tries to line up his truck, the curb, and the car in front and behind of him when parking in front of the bar we hang out at. It has to be done a certain way, in a certain precise order, and lined up according to some celestial star map in his head or something.

"Hey Wayno, I'll be in the barroom. Your beer will be on the bar. Try to park the fucking truck and come in and drink your beer before it gets warm, okay?"

"Fuck you, Cent." is his usual reply.

Watching him close the lock on his locker in work is nerve wracking, he'll check the damned thing twenty times to see if it's locked correctly, and actually turn back to the locker room after we've left to, you guessed it, go check and see if he locked his locker.

"Wayne, where you going?" I query.

"I'm just gonna check my locker before we go." he'll reply.

"What? The first twenty or thirty times were not sufficient for you? Forget your fucking lock, Wayne. No one wants to steal your smelly ass work boots and ratty old sweatshirt anyways. Let's go. I'm hungry!" I'll rib him in exasperation.

"Fuck you, Cent," is the standard reply.

I let him go check his lock again while I grab the car and warm it up, and set the radio to my station. Once he comes out and gets in the car I drive away quickly, so he can't decide to go check his lock again.

"So, how's the lock Wayne? All locked up?" I tease him as we drive away.

"Fuck you, Cent." I get in reply.

"Brilliant rebuttal, Wayne. Beers are on you for lunch brother." I inform him.

"Huh? Why?' he stutters.

"Why? Because I've just wasted 15 minutes of my fucking lunch waiting for you to lock your friggin' locker! That's why!"

I get his standard reply, but he does buy the beers. He knows I'm just trying to help him out.

Although I wish he'd just take his meds instead.

Wayne might be a pain in the neck sometimes, but when a brawl breaks out in the seedy bars where the beers are cheapest, and the natives restless, Wayne is the guy you want at your back, believe me. I've seen him take out a Joey from East Boston Mafia wanna-be who was aiming a gun at his cement-block head. Wayne is dangerous when someone pisses him off by pointing a gun at him. The Joey should have just pulled the trigger, 'cause the beating he got was severe and of long lasting effect. Wanna-be is a used-to-be-a wanna-be now. Ask me to tell the story of that night sometime over a brew or two.

Wayne's a big boy, and ‘not all there’ sometimes as we say in Boston, but, like I said, he's on my side, so I don't mind he's a little nutty. He's only tried to kill me twice, mostly because of my smart-assed mouth, but I've found it's easy to beat him. I just yell very loudly and excitedly, "GRENADE!!!" and when he lets go of my throat and dives into the gutter, or onto the barroom floor, I skedaddle for the door or slip around the closest corner, and beat feet until he's calmed down.

Wayne's been acting weird lately. He's got a mia noi, a young Chelsea lass, who has her own problems as well, and she is messing up his head. She is pressuring him big time to get a divorce and marry her nutty ass. I'm keeping my big smart-mouth shut though. I believe it's every middle-aged man's right to act a fool over some young pussy; and really, who am I to talk?

I wish I could get him over to Thailand though. To get his own Buddha lucky strings. He's going to need all the luck he can get once his wife of 30 some odd years (and believe me they were odd years, I've got some stories, the woman's a fucking saint) finds out he's got some young stuff on the side. He's a dead man walking is my buddy Wayno. He'll wish he was back in the Vietnam jungles getting shot at by little brown people when his wife catches him. I don't want to be around when the axe drops on him. It's going to be bloody.

Maybe I'll bring some strings back with me for him and have my wife teach me the proper things to say for good luck as I tie them on his wrist. Or maybe I'll have the Cambodian Monks in the village down the street from my house do it, if they also do that stuff I believe. Whatever.

All I know is, I'm going back to get mine … soon. I need some more Buddha lucky strings, among other things.

Cent
(The central Scrutinizer)

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