The Rape After: A Cola Machine Holds Truth
I am truly hopeless. Suicide has never been an option for me, I’ll check out when my numbers up, but I’m not about to wait around moaning and bitching about how shitty my existence has been . Oh, wait…I already have…
Damn. Best now to think back to happier times, better days, back when my life was easy, fast paced, and even somewhat interesting.
Hunter Olsen was the kind of guy your parents warn you about when growing up. He could get you into more trouble than you thought possible without even leaving his house. Saying the right thing and acting the wrong way was his calling in life. Of course he never really said much unless he was making an attempt at rapping. Hunter did something that few others can lay claim to, he created his own language. And not the kind of cheap “ghetto speak” you would expect from a rapper, no, that would have been too easy. His language consisted of single syllabels. A five minute speech could, in his language, be condensed into three seconds. It was the language of the “Bows”.
To understand this new vernacular, you need only be around two or three people speaking it for about a day or so. You learn it quick, even his own mother spoke fluent “Bow”. I was in attendance when Hunter’s autonomy began to take hold of his speech patterns. More than anything else, a lonely Faygo Cola machine was the trigger. As strange as it sounds, it is 110% true. It was Hunter, Justin, Brandon, and myself standing in front of the corner store, thirsty from the cotton-mouth our daily activities had bestowed upon us. The Faygo machine was a normal stop for us, but I feel I should go a bit more in depth here.
This was no usual soda machine. This machine had a mind all it’s own. Just because you put in a quarter did not mean you would be drinking carbonated, high fructose corn syrup. In the same fashion, just because you selected “Cola”, did not mean you would not receive grape flavored sugar instead. This machine always seemed, to myself at least, to be possessed by some spiteful Deity. So, on this night, for what ever reason took hold of him, Hunter demanded a sacrifice in honor of the “Faygo Gods”. The sacrifice? Sacrificial “Bows” were ceremoniously “dropped”.
That is to say, everyone began to elbow each other. Not just once or twice, no, we were dropping them left and right, with real force too. I’d say Brandon got it the worst. After it was over though, when the final “Bow” connected with my left shoulder blade, Hunter confronted the maniacal machine. The stamped head of Washington clicked into place. Hunter pressed the “Orange” button. Then…it happened. The event that would solidify both the act of the “sacrificial Bows” and the language itself.
Hunter got his orange soda, along with his quarter.
Both fell with a click and a bang. He was almost speechless, all he could say was,
“Buh?”, and so, the first word in the “Bow” language had been spoken. If you haven’t already drawn the conclusion yet, let me help you along. We cleaned out that machine with a single quarter, and got it back after the final diet soda can click-boomed down. We all knew this meant something, something amazing had just taken place. After loading all the cans in my car, I looked back to the machine to see Hunter placing the quarter on the pavement in front of the Faygo Cola machine…
He backed away slowly…
