In which everything is explained – Page 3

Water water everywhere but not a drop to drink

He hid that notion under his domey-doodle though.

Anywayhows, the Portuguese spaghetti was good as girlfarts, and then they hip-hopped it to showers after supper. Steel kept it cool and calm, though his blood crawled up in his eyes and he wanna run back to his bunk to drink, glug-a-glug-a-goo, damn he wished he put a flask in his locker, if he was rich, he’d put flasks everywhere just in case he got thirsty. He hid that notion under his domey-doodle though. He wanna be less smacky for liquor than Lem. It ain’t a real addiction-craving if some other nigga is craving it more. That’s what Steel thought as he showered. Water water everywhere but not a drop to drink.

From Steel the Roughneck

You know Steel stays listening to Some Nigga

Some nigga said the whole rig was counted as a boat under the law, so any alcohol was tantamount to boating under the influence, and you know Steel stays listening to Some Nigga.

A boat did come every week with fresh food, but the boat ain’t allowed to bring no booze. Rig policy. Most technically, nobody on rig was supposed to have any alcohol. It was against the rules. Some nigga said the whole rig was counted as a boat under the law, so any alcohol was tantamount to boating under the influence, and you know Steel stays listening to Some Nigga.

From Steel the Roughneck

Straight-up drunk as a trunk!

Steel be making good comparisons, you’re impressed by them.

It was apparent Jenner weren’t gonna make it home, as he tripped over a loose rock and almost fell, then bumped into a brick wall and did fall. He got right back up though, only to bump into a parked car and stagger across the sidewalk. He was struggling and a-stumbling! Straight-up drunk as a trunk! (An elephant’s trunk, not a car) (they drink through they trunks, it does make sense) (Steel be making good comparisons, you’re impressed by them)

From Steel & the Whiteboy Skater

Fallen soldiers

Well, that metaphor was outta control — outta control like a drunk! Or a war!

The concert turned out to be a house party — it wasn’t a concert followed by a party, it was a concert at a party! Fulla drinking! Fulla injecting IV drug use! Clouds of weed smoke! Bottles of liquor all over! All over like fallen soldiers in the battlefield of addiction! No, like soldiers toppling — like living soldiers getting toppled by the guns of using in a battlefield of willpower in a war of addiction — no, wait, the soldiers is like individual decisions to drink or not drink, and the guns is like willpower, or whatever the opposite of willpower is, the war is addiction itself. Well, that metaphor was outta control — outta control like a drunk! Or a war! There you go, Steel brought it back around again.

He was skinny — well-muscled but skinny, like a horse addict — Steel do know the signs! Sure nuff, he checked for trackmarks, and there they were like dead soldiers on Jenner’s elbow — another dead soldier metaphor! — this time, the needle is the war, the pain is the battlefield, and the trackmarks are the guns. No, the pain is the soldiers, the trackmarks are the battles — well, the remains of battlefields, and the dead soldiers are the… — nevermind, the metaphor is proper though, real meaningful if you think about it.

From Steel & the Whiteboy Skater

Whine like wine

Drunkie-doorights stay complaining! The only cure for that is more sobriety!

Steel let the whine bounce off him like wine — bouncy wine — if wine bounced — okay, that wordplay maybe don’t work, but Steel don’t let it bother him. Drunkie-doorights stay complaining! The only cure for that is more sobriety! And Christ!

From Steel & the Whiteboy Skater

The skate park of sobriety

On the skateboard of sobriety, I’mma be yo’, uh… wheels, I guess — I dunno how skateboards work.

Mucker struggled to sit up. “Look, man, I only agreed to go to AA cuz I gotta get the judge off my back.” Them whiteboy chest muscles was streaked with sweat.
“Uh-huh. Oldest story in the book,” Steel said. “Moses said the same thing!” He picked up the skateboard beside the mattress. “You a skateboarder?”
“Can’t hide anything from you.”
“Well, on the skateboard of sobriety, I’mma be yo’, uh… wheels, I guess — I dunno how skateboards work,” Steel said. He poked Mucker in the meat of his back.

“You got the hang of it.”
“That means I might keep moving even when you wanna stop-“
“Yep, that’s how skateboards work.”
“Cuz that is how you get from where you is to where you wanna be. The skate park of sobriety!” Steel said.

From Steel & the Whiteboy Skater

I sees it wit’ my ever-belovin’ eyeballs

“Bottles all ovuh, hallelujah! Only Jaysus can pick up aftuh me! Oh Lord hallelujah! Lord gimme strength to see! With eyes of knowin’!”

“You ain’t done quit. You is drunk right now, numbnut!” Steel wagged his finger at Mucker and gestured to the circle of empties all around. “You done lost a battle! This is a war, Mucker Talleus, and yo’ forces is surrounded by enemy soldiers! They’s comin’ at’choo wit’ the whites of they eyes! I sees it wit’ my ever-belovin’ eyeballs. Let he with eyes do see!” Steel stood and did a little having-eyes dance, which Mucker ignored. Mucker tried hard to pass out drunk again, but he was neither tired nor drunk. Steel’s dance turned into an impromptu gospel song, which he sung repeating his words. “Bottles all ovuh, hallelujah! Only Jaysus can pick up aftuh me! Oh Lord hallelujah! Lord gimme strength to see! With eyes of knowin’!”

From Steel & the Whiteboy Skater

On units of measure

He expected Buck to calculate how many quarters-of-a-half-gallon could be combined with some number of five-eighths-of-a-liter to result in a fourteen-liter total volume.

“So you gotta add three of the bifenthrin to one,” Mr. Taggart said. He patted Buck on the back, one hand lingering there over his shoulder muscle. “That gives you nine.”
Buck had no idea what that meant, but it was how Mr. Taggart talked. It was confusing because he mixed up units of measure that he assumed Buck remembered — some pesticides were measured in liters, while others were measured in gallons, or fluid ounces, and some came already diluted or not at all, and further, some additives (like surfactants) were measured in milliliters or fractions of a pint or quart.

Regardless of the official formulas provided by the pesticide manufacturer, the tanks in the truck were built to measure their output in fractions of liters or gallons, depending on the tank. So when Mr. Taggart said, “fill that tank to the two over three, that’ll take ten of the other, then just one more is four, plus three of the surfactant”, what he actually meant was “use that tank that has lines measuring its fill in gallons, and fill it with ten liters of pesticide, which will equal two and two-thirds gallons, then dilute it with one and a third gallons of water to get near four gallons total, which requires three fluid ounces of surfactant”.

It was very confusing. Every time Buck thought he had a handle on it, Mr. Taggart would say something like, “okay, for mosquitoes we need nine five-eighths of the crimpoline mixed with three and a quarter half-gallons of the geraniolic acid”. Yes, that’s right, he measured a formula using “nine five-eighths” (meaning nine units each equal to five eighths of a liter) to mix it with a volume measured in quarters of a half-gallon. He expected Buck to calculate how many quarters-of-a-half-gallon could be combined with some number of five-eighths-of-a-liter to result in a fourteen-liter total volume.

To make matters even more confusing, the formula to calculate how much to spray for mosquitoes gave a result in fluid ounces of the undiluted pesticide. To be more precise, it gave a result in fluid ounces per square meter, so Buck had to calculate the acreage of each property in square meters then combine pesticides in gallons and liters to convert, using the diluted density, into an amount of pesticide per fluid ounce, modified with surfactants by the droplet surface area in cubic millimeters, in order to calculate how much to fill the tank with.

Buck had never really been a math guy in school. He hadn’t even graduated.

From Ex-Con Cravings Can’t Be Refused

Mundanity über alles

He had seen everything the family business had to offer. It was a salad of humdrumity, plated on tedium and dressed in a viscous layer of ennui: databases and disputes about payroll software and paycheck garnishments, property tax abatements, negotiations over long-haul trucking and container ships at the filthy port of Houston. Mundanity über alles.