South Florida Novel [23 Jan 2004|09:48am]
 
South Florida - Atlantic side - is depressingly unique. Everywhere you 
go, store sound systems and restaurant stereos blare that particular 
schmear of techno pop - what is love baby don't hurt me - that starts 
the waiter's hips swinging and patrons' chins bobbing. You can feel the 
narcotics in the cotton air. Natives are unfazed by the basket weave of 
sickeningly opulent with malt liquor street corner, bristling against 
each other but together all the same. Boat-like Mercurys meet Monte 
Carlos and Hummers - they greet each other, a familiar wave of the 
finger and acknowledgment of the horn. Whether you've come to die or on 
this crabgrass learned to live, the same thread of urgent terror is fed 
to you by I-95.

Tara worked part-time at the Applebee's down the street from her high 
school. She liked her job and the peole she met there. Andy, the host 
who was sometimes paired with her on busy nights, had graduated two years 
ago and though they didn't remember each other (a bad sign in terms of 
the popularity of each), they bonded over the mutual experience of Mr. 
Rice and 10th grade Driver's Ed. With each fleeting free moment stolen 
during working hours, they found more in common: coffee with cream no 
sugar, Pearl Jam and post-Roth Van Halen, a side of Sarah McLachlan (but 
the friends don't know), Tarantino yes Scorcese no, dogs not cats, mutual 
overwhelming disgust with "adult" behavior. Differences: he smoked she 
didn't, her purple him red, her sports car him sedan, him read it she 
watch it.