Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Watertown, Chapter 1, Poldy








BERESHIT
“GOD that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made of hand.”
--Acts 17:24

“When the Lord saw how great was man’s wickedness on earth, and how no desire that his heart conceived was ever anything but evil, he regretted that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was grieved.”
--Genesis 6:5

"If capitalism is criticized for treating human beings like Commodities, what are we to say of an institution — the state — that treats human beings like garbage?"
-- Historian Ralph Raico

"It weren’t the storm but what came after that nailed us."
--Anonymous


WATERTOWN
Chapter One

Warm wind danced his hair about his face. Jack peered out the window as the Santa Fe Super Chief brushed to a stop. The April sun glinted through the trees, the leaves bursting green in the early light. Seven hills ringed St. Michaels, rounding out the lilting town. Jack squinted up at the clouds as their shadows floated across the streets and up the hills. He mouthed their names: King Hill, Queen Hill, Devil’s Backbone, Wyeth’s Hill, Aventine, Esquiline, and Palatine. Crazy town, he whispered.

Jack stood up. He slung his rucksack across his shoulder. He walked down the aisle and jumped out the door onto the platform. He turned to face the train. The Super Chief let out two long blasts. The air brakes hissed. The conductor stuck his head out of the caboose window and nodded. The engineer up front snapped his fingers twice. Checking his pocket watch, the engineer clasped shut the hunting case. The train whistle let off two short blasts. The pinions engaged. The Super Chief chugged and rolled away.

The engineer waved. Jack waved back. He stood and watched the train gather speed and curl along the tracks at the edge of the shimmering river. When the Super Chief disappeared around the bend, Jack stepped across the platform and stopped. He turned around, looked down and jumped on the tracks. Crunching gravel underfoot, he crossed the tracks and walked on. He stopped, and looked to the town spread out beyond the platform. Cocking his head, he could hear the Westerly winds roar in his left ear. He turned and faced the river, watching it silently move and sparkle behind a giant wall of Sycamores.

He hadn’t been home in years. On the train he had imagined himself sprinting all the way home. Instead, he stared at the river. Minutes crept by. Jack finally shook his head and came to life and laughing out loud he shambled down the sloping valley floor, squeezing past the Sycamores and the saplings. The ground cleared off as he approached the river below. Foxtail moored the shore. Moss-covered boulders lay tumbled, piled upon a sand bar near the shore.

Jack jumped onto the nearest outcrop. He hopped from one boulder to the next until finally he stopped on a massive rock sticking out six feet from the shore. He dropped his rucksack on top of the rock and sat down, crossed-legged.

Staring down at the water, he marveled at how muddy and high it seemed, more so than he had ever remembered. His eyes followed the traces of eddies and riffles flowing across smooth-buried rocks just below the water’s surface. Looking out across the other side to the west, he could see a line of Sycamore trees, some with their branches canopied over the water. Directly beyond, large bluffs stood off in the hazy blue-green distance. Jack could just make out a small town nestled in the foothills; a few half-hidden houses and a gas station. The tops of their galvanized tin roofs reflected the rising sun.

To the south, along the river’s edge, he could just see the top of a Ferris wheel from sticking up over the trees. It was an old wooden, creaky thing built at the turn of the century. But fifty years later, here it was, still upright. Jack wondered if the Midway still ran. He gazed back at the half-hidden river.

Jack’s father used to take him hunting pheasant and camping along the bluffs over on the Kansas side of the river. He remembered how his father had calmly and gently explained how the river once had been part of a deep inland ocean. He also had told him about Lewis and Clark, how they were working their way from downstream St. Louis, had decamped somewhere close by and had stumbled upon an Indian hunting party. The Indians made faces at the wanderers and were just about to attack when one of the travelers, Sacagawea, a young girl of just barely sixteen and carrying her newborn baby boy, ended the standoff when she suddenly realized that one of the braves was actually her brother, and they embraced.

He wondered about such a chance encounter in the woods and along the river before the town had ever been born. He heard a “plop” and a water moccasin in a tree branch had just dropped into the water, darting away with its head above water.

Jack heard another noise: a low vibrating sound of an engine close by. A flat-bottom Johnboat soon came from up around the bend, skirting the shore, heading for the chute in the middle of the river.

A man in glasses wearing a Khaki uniform sat upright at the till. When the boat moved directly into Jack’s line of vision, the man spotted Jack. The man clenched his jaw, and the sun glinted off his glasses. Jack put up his arm to block the flash of light. Jack rose slowly and stiffly.
The man in the boat swiftly gunned the engine, turning directly towards Jack.
Jack crossed arms and watched him approach.

The boat stopped and idled about sixty feet from the rocks. The man started yelling over the outboard motor.

“You there!” he cried out. “You there on the rocks. What are you’re doing there.”
Jack stood silent. He could see the man’s sharp cheeks, his furrowed brow and cleft chin.“Get outta’ there,” the man shouted. “You don’t belong here.”“Hell if I don’t,” Jack shot back.“This river’s rising, you dumb-ass fool. You got no business here. Now run along, boy.”“Screw you, mister, you don't own this water!”“Shut up. We’re monitoring this river, and you best move out, like right now. Now move out or else.”“Else, what?”

Jack unfolded his arms and remained standing. After about a minute, the man in the Johnboat mumbled something and spat into the river and turned away. The man then stood upright and looked straight ahead and gunned the boat upstream towards the Pony Express Bridge. He and the boat soon disappeared past the concrete pylons. “This town ain’t worth a spit,” Jack muttered to himself out loud. A mosquito whined in his ear. Jack swatted at it and the buzz went away. He hopped over the rocks and started walking back to town, shaking his head in disgust, cursing under his breath.It was trickier going uphill back to the train station. Along the way, he bushwhacked a tree branch and it swung back, scratching his face and drawing blood from his cheek. He wiped it off with a forearm, and looking at his torn sleeve, he noticed that while the cut didn’t seem deep, it bled a lot.

Jack hiked around the train station and made his way past the platform and entered Felix Street, the town’s main avenue. St. Joseph now spread out before him as he walked down the center of the street leading away from the station. He spied a solitary car far off moving away from his direction. On his left, he noticed the brick courthouse and its golden dome, planted firmly on the town’s main square. Across the street, stood a two-story county jail, with rusty iron bars on the windows up top. A big hand-painted star was embossed on the front door. Turning to the right, Jack saw the old familiar dusty, one-story worn-out brick shops, lined up like sentries on duty. It was still early and the shops weren’t open yet. He made his way up the street. Looking up towards one of the highest hills, Jack could see the twin spires of the Immaculate Conception church, each of the spires capped by a silver cross sparkling white heat in the morning sun. A slight breeze picked up, and chimes tinkled far off. The trees bent low in the breeze, heavy with new laden branches and buds. They seemed to be praying like angels as they bowed and then lifted up again, Jack thought. He remembered Easter Sunday was just a week away.

As the sun rose higher, he began to sweat. A trickle ran down his neck. He walked for nearly a mile and was deep into town when he stopped. Not wanting to draw too much attention, Jack slipped through two buildings and into a back alley that separated the shops from a line of small bungalows. He found a small patch of manicured grass with a shade tree in the center. Using his rucksack for a pillow, Jack lay down, and soon, lulled by the wind, he fell asleep.

Several hours passed. When Jack finally opened his eyes, he felt the sun directly overhead. As he rose, he noticed a man in a black suit staring at him from the back of the building where he had stopped.The man was trim, and with a shock of white hair. He was wearing black-rim glasses. The man smiled, crow's feet crinkling around his eyes.

"Hello there, young un," the man said.

Jack put his hand to his eyes to block out the sun. "Hiya, hope you don't mind me. I’was just resting here a bit."

The man came forward, and walking over to Jack he extended a hand to help him up. Jack rose, dusted himself off and picked up his rucksack.

"Hmm. I gotta say you look awfully thin and threadbare there young friend," the man said. "When's the last time you ate, son?"

"I dunno," Jack replied. "Might have been yesterday. Can’t really remember, ‘cept it may have been some hardboiled eggs at the station bar. Just got in from Chi-cargo. Spent my money on train fare to get here."

The man peered into Jack's eyes, and then slowly gazed down at Jack's feet. "Chicago, huh? Well, I bet you could use a new pair of work boots."

"Sure could," Jack said looking down, smiling back.

"Come with me, I got plenty to choose from."The man wrapped his arm about Jack's shoulders, leading him to the back of the building."My name's Poldy... Leopold Vander Roemer," the man said."I'm Jack. Actually it’s John Boudreaux, but mostly they just call me Jack."“They just call me Poldy.” Poldy walked Jack up the stairs and led him inside the building. Jack peered into a series of rooms full of arranged flowers and rows of empty chairs in each one.

"Mr. Bowman is at the Immaculate Conception," Poldy explained. "They had a wake for Mr. John R. McDaniel last night. I still got some sandwiches left, if you want some."Jack nodded his head, taking in the scenery of the wood-polished floors and the stained glass windows. Poldy led him to a room. "Wait here."

Jack did as he was told. Poldy disappeared and returned after about five minutes with a chambray shirt and a pair of workman's boots.

"Here try these on. They look like they just might be your size," Poldy said, handing the boots and the shirt to Jack.

"Geez, mister, I do appreciate this but..."

"Oh, come on, don’t fuss, I got plenty where these come from. You see, the family, they rarely wants them back. They bring in the good clothes, you know, um, for later on."Jack sat down on one of the wooden chairs lining the wall in the hallway and quickly began undoing the laces of his boots."That’s right, you try those on. I'll be right back."Poldy disappeared into one of the back rooms. Jack stripped off his shirt, threw it into his rucksack and put on the flannel shirt Poldy had given him. It was too long in the sleeves, so Jack rolled the cuffs back. The boots were a perfect match. Jack was inspecting the quality of the soles when Poldy re-entered the room.

"Here's a couple of sandwiches left over from last night’s vigil. Eat the egg salad first. The summer sausage will last a little bit longer. Here’s a cold glass of buttermilk, too. I bet you're thirstier than all get out. Go on. Go on."

Jack took the glass from Poldy and drained it. He wiped his mouth with his forearm and gave the glass back to Poldy while stuffing the summer sausage sandwich in his rucksack. He unwrapped the wax paper around the egg salad sandwich and was about to take a bite when he stopped, mouth agape.

"Say, Poldy," Jack began. "Thanks all the same. Think I'll just eat this outside seeing as I don't want to cause a mess in here being so clean and all.""Ho ho! Poldy said, his eyes crinkling in the corners.

“No need to worry ‘bout that, son. No one here right now will ever care about a few breadcrumbs, believe me. But, if you gotta get, use the front door. Where you headed, anyway?"

"Home," said Jack. "Mountain Grove. I was feeling mighty puny for a while there, mister, so thanks a million."

"Don't mind at all," Poldy said, leading Jack down the hallway to the front door. Poldy opened the massive wooden double doors. The sun momentarily blinded Jack, but after a few seconds he could make out the doors and he walked out into the sunshine.

"Mr. Bowman and the McDaniels will be coming back soon, so it’s about time these doors opened up. Now you have a safe trip, son, and you take better care of yourself. Sooner or later we all wind up in a place like this, but you, you got your whole life stretched out."

Poldy winked at him and stood on the porch, smiling down at him. Jack grinned back. He started walking down the sidewalk, feeling immensely better as he munched on the egg salad sandwich. He turned part way around and waved to Poldy standing on the front porch, watching him. Poldy waved back.

Jack continued eating his sandwich and carefully folded the wax paper and put it into his shirt pocket. As he did so, his fingers brushed against something inside the shirt pocket. Jack pulled it out. He fingered two bills folded together with a paper clip, a twenty-dollar bill and a five-dollar bill. Jack laughed out loud, and quickened his steps.

Sunday, October 08, 2006

Make Light, the Sun


Make Light, the Sun
The one thing fine
I shall miss the most
Apples and pears
That Simpleton Praxilla
He was right, you know
And the barefoot vagabond
He knew, too
(always claimed he didn't)
You may add to that
The brilliant stars
All faces of the moon
And, yes
Cucumbers
In their season, too

Young Men Old






Young men old toil hard, spinning their hearts in sawdust bars
Streaming whiskey rivulets of tears, blinded by all the hard-boiled years
Their murdered cries and lotus lies wound the wood in places where water never rises
Young men old come and go drinking dry the night saloons
Rage and swear they grip the night, rent the air, shaking fists and slurring moans
From dusk to dawn beneath the wobbly moon they roam the floors of rotted rooms
Stagger home and rise again each noon
They seek the gilded face in such a place to slake the dying thirsty parts
That ache inside the dulled and hollow stomach hearts of low-slung boys, fallen children men
These beaten children men in all the towns they crave the honey milk
Seek the friendless friend to suckle from her soothing breasts
She who always comes to smooth her silk on sullen cellar beds
Is gone again when they awake from weary restless sleep comes the rose of dawn to shine on them so radiant in their retreat
Young men old pass their days and tortured nights in bottles clear as gin
Drinking bitter wine and salted ale from broken pots and splintered pails
To fill the hole that never ends
Young men old spill their souls in devil water to pass away the hours,
Toil and spin to try and lift by chance the ancient sun
Make born again that hero sun
To fill the empty afternoons with light
And laughter all about the nighttime rooms
Wisps and shapes nodding shades smile all around to someone else
Nothing more than a melted holy vision in a cup raised high
To fill the hole that never ends
Sends them back to drink again

Bolt sky blue
White cloud shades
Fields of sun-dipped flowers
Where Johnnie and Sam run to hide
Behind the hay barn tower warm and high
Where the tree green wind whispers wonders
Whistling past the creatured grass and marbled water

Ever long the morning day
That winds its way to afternoon
Dries the windrows high and showers
Drifting motes of sun drop sparkles
Feeds the dampened earthen musk
Folds the hours of fevered laughter
Tilts the slanted shadows into dusk
Bends the hand that always beckons
Moves the cricket songs to motion
Soothes the feathered roosted oceans
Daylong sun descends below the hills
Mother calls and boys run home

Young men old toil and plot to break their lot of midnight sin
Yet the siren song of spirits poured drowns their will and makes them ache
To drink the drink of the day last past; they forget and then cast off to spill awake
On desert shores where wretches stir to find they fit the sallow skin of old men young
Mercy's borrowed gift then returns them only this - the tortured song of a misspent youth

Old men young sing such sailor songs, bend low to spy their whiskered ghosts
Trudging home upon a darkened path to find their footed rest beside the toasted hearth
Then, when supper ends, old men young they drift and nod while Death's half-sister unfurls her claret satin curtain
Old men young they lift their bones to climb forgotten stairs
Creaking hearts in trembling hands and only one thing certain
Leads them to see full moon seas and land, land far off
Sail on until they pass the shoals until they touch the land again
Wooded meadows where sailors drop to dream no more of salt
But a wooden pillowed bed is all they need for now

Old men young toss and turn, pray their souls to keep
Still and pure in time's wide river black and deep
Old men young they plead to break that spell
Toil and spin to catch forgotten faces
Feel the lost embraces
Reclaim their rightful honor
Bring back the lost white mourning doves
and in their sinking murmurs
Be someone
Whom someone once more will love again

Saturday, October 07, 2006

Estrus

Scream by day,
Wail by night
Claws that scratch,
Jaws that bite
My beans and I
Beat a hasty retreat
Just in time
To dodge a well-aimed plate

Some call it love,
I say it ain’t

Yellville

New York
you chewed me up and you spat me out
a daydream king
constantly scanning your spiral towers
like a mixed up tourist clown
a monk on the run, i get these blues for you
whenever it rains
in vain for you
when i was young once and twenty five
you threw me down among
your hustlers and your pimps
down on 42nd street
your peep show grimace showing your ass
beneath your corporate
ladders
the do I? oh my?
conversation
grabbing me by my balls
directing my vagabond baby feet
upon your bitter path
to the sunny sides
in between your shadow canyons
taking me where i laughed at strangers
and the awful empty anger
the hustling parade of a child in danger
what's in harlem?
where's the bronx?
a never ending melody
hanging over me in my sleep
you stole my singalong
brain fevering over you in june
stumbling down your boho streets
deep in the bowery sink
soho noho
past the village
the dew drop inn
on bleecker street
all the way to battery park
drunk in love
with your big bright lies
and your bottom line
riding your ferries
jumping turnstiles to the trains
where i clung for life, a single
sweet innocent boy of your masses
whom you ignored
but thass okay
new york
i never tire of your empire
or your story
even in my dreams of you i gaze
up at the blue breeze day
and i sneak back to those tower days
i remember the pissed off bartender down
at gough's tavern waving the early drunks away
with a shoo and a wand of his balled up fist
sipping that regular coffee
fetching the shitfaced editors
back up to the third floor machine
for the grey lady truth
to edit all the world
new yawk
you're killing me here
the best pieces of me tossed
like coins along the tombs
teamsters
and strippers charging $5oo
for a hollar
Attica and tom wicker
new york
you threw me out
i wasn't ready for your feast
the hum of the east
you chased my tail like an iron beast
all the way back through
the april snow
through the the new jersey turnpike
straight through to pennsylvania where i smoked
all the way nonstop to indiana
when i stopped to take a leak
in the bubble dark
standing beside a beat-up plymouth fury
staring at the ink of western sky
you were my unkissed smile
yeah, you had me down, a longing
looking over my shoulder back at you
in your crowning glory, you and your winking lights
my tea tea teacher
telling me
what to do
moving through mussourah!
back home and even beyond
i had to get away from you, new york
crossing the big great corny plains
your charms, your arms
tapping out the slow burn memory
i left kansas by the roadside flat
and colorado rose
to greet me in my coffee dawn
i was so naive back then
when i crossed the continental divide
in utah my headlights dimmed out
and i drove as fast as i could
to get you out of my climbing sight
from what I and you together we might have been
still, new york
you were my wet dream, my pretend zen
you were my angry angel baby
an unkind heart
a tainted pearl
a fresh hot pretzel
whetting my appetite
when i was broke
there you were, new york
me and you, i can't get over you
somewhere in my youth
i couldn't hang on to you
but you fed me gershwin dreams
showers and show tunes
rich and happy eyes
sweet and not so gentle
yeah, so here i am
cursed and blessed by
so many aprils so far away from you
new york, you still wound me
slip through, knocking me off my feet
i got it bad for you, new yawk
and that ain't good for the both of us
thinking about you too often
i kissed your monuments goodbye
columbus circle and grant's tomb
i elected to delete you from my brain
the wonder of you, new york
i couldn't ever let go of you, though
i hear you calling
new york
even if i pretend that
me and ranger bob
we left you for the other coast
and here i am
new york
same old dream
i think of you
your story
new york, every day
i look up for your glory
the tall of your forever
you work so hard
the sun strikes hard
your riker's island rainbow
let me go, you did
so i peed on the railroad tracks
and then - time to blow
to the other side
still, i read about you new york
and my heart bursts for you
that same old dream, i can't believe
the dismal chance of our romance
one look at you and your staten island ferry
riverside drive and the upper east side
i still miss you new yawk
walking down amsterdam avenue
meeting myself again in my dreams
i hunger for your weather beaten
john gotti sidewalks
all that i hold sacred
like your
yom kippur Rosh Hashanah goodbye
someone told you, or maybe not
the story of my personal atonement
when i found you new york
you were so little
i met you jealous, smoking in my dreams
a dangling butt, me smiling
holding you in my hand
new york
i don't even have a chance
no matter if now someone else i met
can i be untrue from you when i am away
from you
though you
chewed me up and
you spat me out
and it's like this cat
but you don't hear it from me
i'm no longer scared, just scarred
from you new york
or am I just a self-deluded liar
i used to have it so bad for you
i miss your famous nathan hot dogs
and tad's fabulous steakhouse
and the whitehorse tavern
and brooklyn, aw shit, brooklyn
and coney island skinny dipping
in the dawn of a may in the ocean
you about to kick me out for
slamming too much wine at the tavern o' the green
drunk like a fuckass tourist
at central park
looking out for all the ducks
the cabbie tells me, nigerian he,
that i am fucked, still
i always tip you big, new york
watching wednesday september flyin back in
astoria queens
steinway and dittmars station
i took that A train uptown
N train downtown
smoked the herb at washington square
drinking brahmin bull and bushmills straight
starin down at gracie mansion
back in the day of davy dinkins
i came back to you
and i can't get you out
of my mouth or out of my head
you are too supreme
just the sight of you
new york
what good does it do?
when i am near to you
i see a face in every
window of your towers
the very thought of you
new york
when i come back
to yellville
will you revile
me
leave me downhearted
beat my downtrodden ass
cause i can't get started
i am so still
in love with you
new york
but you don't care
about one more hick clown

like me
in love
with the big
big town

Rude Grrrl

There was a skinny girl sitting in his swing. He stood by the monkey bars, watching her. She was twisting in the swing, letting it unravel while dragging her feet slowly in the dirt. She had freckles on her nose and a shock of short hair the color of burnt cinnamon.

He walked up to the swings and stopped a few feet in front of her. She opened her eyes and stared and he thought he heard her growl. Her eyes turned into slits.

"Hey," he started slowly. "You're sitting on my swing."

"Doofus! You don't own the playground," she snapped.

He felt something inside him deflate. For some reason he didn't know why, he just simply laughed. He reached into his paper bag and held out a turkey sandwich.

"Here. Turkey, with Miracle Whip," he said, adding, "You like Miracle Whip?"

She lunged out of the swing, grabbed the sandwich, sniffed it and nibbled around the edges cautiously.

She twisted her head and squinted up at him. He looked away.

"That's my school right there," he said, pointing his stick off to his right and up the hill.

"You're the new kid, huh?"

"Duh," she replied, munching on his sandwich. "What's yer name, kid."

"Spice," he said, still staring at the school. "Yours?"

"Spice? Spice?" she repeated, gleefully cackling. Little specs of sandwich flew out of her mouth.

"Yeah, it's a hoaky story, if you wanna know the truth."

He stepped forward and sat down in the swing next to her.

"Spice?" she repeated. "Ha! Spice isn't a name. You should be called Pepper, or Ginger, or maybe Basil! Ha ha ha!"

"My Nana nicknamed me," he said, slowly starting to swing. "I remind her of my dad - says I'm a dead ringer. He's been gone a long time. She still has a bottle of his Old Spice up on her dresser. She won't throw it away."

"I'd throw that stinky piece of shit away." She edged menacingly closer. He was glad the swing couldn't reach too much closer.

"What's your name?" he asked her.

"Nolene," she said, grinning. "Get it? I ain't got no legs. Wanna have some fun?"

"Yeah, a girl in a swing with no legs. I know that dumb joke," he said, slightly frowning. "How old are you, anyway?"

"Twelve."

"Me, too."

He looked away and then returned her stare.

"Your name ain't Nolene. That's a ridiculous name."

"You'll see," she said. "You'll hear all about me at school."

"Well, I guess I will."

"I have to go," she said. She rose suddenly and dug into her pocket.

"Here you go, Basil boy. Happy Valentine's!"

She tossed an envelope on his lap.

"Hey!" he called after her. "Hey! See you at school!"

"Not if I see you first!" she yelled as she sprinted away. "You're about as smart as a padlock without a key!"

As she ran off, he bent down to investigate the envelope. He peeled it open and dried rose petals fell out.

"Smells better than shtinky Old Spice, don't it?"

She had stopped about a hundred yards off, hands at her hips. She turned and looked over her shoulder once before she disappeared through the trees.

He slowly started to swing. He mouthed her name. The shadows slanted and the sky turned pink and blue as the sun began sinking behind the hills.

He wondered if she would talk to him in the halls at school. He thought it would be a good thing to have a rude girl for a friend.

He closed his eyes and listened to the swing creaking, the envelope still clenched in his hand. One by one, the remaining petals fell out, and slowly, lifted up by the breeze, they each floated away.

Friday, October 06, 2006

Aiiiiiiiiiiiiii! Billectric and Buckethead!


SEE: There's this feller who lives in the outback of the Jacksonville jungle in FLA, USA. Smells kind of funny and is fixated about chopping wood. I had the honor of reading/endorsing his book, Time Adjustors and Other Stories. If you like sci fi, corpses, cutups and monster mashes, Bill-e is your dude. Visit his delirium if you dare...muwaaaaaahaaaaaa!

Or, if you're into scenes of thievery of ancient sea beat scrolls, check out this wet the bed grabber. Don't say you were not warned.

Thursday, October 05, 2006

Bad Dad



The summer of my first kiss - with Suzie Schiaponyak - we heard the news on the radio that my old man had kidnapped Donna, his fourth wife. School, my third grade, had just let out for the year, and it was the first Sunday night that I got to stay out late.

It was dusk, and I was playing cars in the gravel dirt in the schoolyard across from my grandmother's house, where I lived with my mother and older brother. Jerry Barber, my best friend, and I were using sticks and a plastic shovel to build a network of roads for our matchbox cars.

I was furiously digging away the gravel rocks to get down to the moist, cool earth when I heard a door slam and footsteps racing toward me.

It was my brother and he stopped to catch his breath just at the edge of the chain link fence that surrounded the school yard and the church parking lot. "You're not gonna believe this," he shouted. "Big Sam's on the news! He kidnapped Donna!"

I looked up wordlessly.

Jerry, squatting beside me, turned up his St. Joe face. My brother nodded his head several times.

"Oh yeah," he said, panting. "We just heard it on the radio. "Oh yeah," he yelled again. "I was listening to the Royals on the radio with Babci when they said: 'We interrupt this broadcast to tell you about a Kansas City man who's kidnapped a Savannah woman.'

And then they said his name!"

Really!"

Jerry mouthed a "wow."

I shot up and ran across the schoolyard and started climbing the fence even though my mother could probably see me and had warned me not to do it ever since my brother had nearly torn his arm clean off doing the same thing.

I hopped the fence and ran across the street, following my brother who had already raced inside my grandmother's house.

Now, let me tell you about my grandmother's house.

First, it always smelled like boiled cabbage, because she seemed to make stuffed cabbage rolls just about every day for some reason. The smell was like a combination of wet rags and rotten eggs. Second, she was the tightest woman I ever knew.

Second: She would rather light a candle than pay extra for the electric lights, so it was always gloomy as hell inside.

Finally, she was deeply religious and had these shrines and madonna pictures all over the house that were really creepy, especially the bleeding Jesus cross she put on the wall facing our bed.

The one thing she really did like was to listen to baseball games on the radio.

For a Polish woman who could barely speak English, this sounds odd now, but we loved her for that and for the thin, crepe-like Polish pancakes she made for us every Sunday - the ones you sprinked sugar on and rolled up like a carpet before chopping into bite-sized pieces.

Plus, she let us drink coffee with as much sugar as we wanted.

When I entered the house, the candles were lit in the front living room. My brother and Babci were in the kitchen, which was in the back of the house.

She had this old table-top, tube-stacked radio and she would bend down next to the speaker to listen closer. My brother, wide-eyed, sat across from her and was pounding the formica top of the table with the flat palms of his hands.

I took up a seat next to my brother and started slapping the table, too.
"What happened? What happened Babci?

Tell us, tell us!"

Grandma shot me an angry look and put up a finger to shush.

"Bad boys! Bad boys! Stop it with the hands, stop it!" she said, and I could see a drop of spit spurt towards me.

My brother looked at me and we both grinned.

Big Sam a kidnapper!

The radio announcer was saying something about a hot pursuit. And I couldn't make much sense of it. We sat there for several minutes and then my mother wandered in.

She had been sleeping, and her eyes were puffy.

"What is it, mamo?

I heard Sammy say something."

My grandmother turned to my mother and began speaking in Polish.

Whenever they talked in Polish, it always seemed as if they were yelling at each other and somebody was going to get clobbered, although they could be talking about the weather and you'd never know. One would repeatedly interrupt the other and about the only words I could ever understood was "ta", which meant yes, and "gendobre" or thank-you and yakshemash, and how are you? and I forget whatever that means.

Anyway, pretty soon my Granpa Joe comes shuffling up out of the basement stairs. Now Granpa Joe had this walrus mustache and pale, watery eyes the color of a faded blue marble and by this time has pretty much lost his mind, arrives.

That spring, he used to walk up and down the alleys, picking broken toys out of the trash barrels, and half-ass fixing them and handing them out to kids during recess. The kids all called him crazy Unca Joe and I would try to disappear whenever he came around like that. Still, it was cool of him to teach my brother and I how to make a farting sound by placing one hand under your armpit and flexing your other elbow.

Granpa Joe preferred the basement to living upstairs with the rest of us kids and the women. We never dared venture down there since it looked like some kind of dungeon. Plus, we weren't allowed to go there ever since my brother had lit one of Granpa Joe's musty old suits with a match and nearly burned the house down.

Granpa Joe started saying something to my mom and Babci and they just ignored him. He stood in the doorway for about a minute, looked at us and winked at me. Then he shuffled back downstairs.

In the meantime, we could hear the guy on the radio saying that my old man had taken Donna against her will and was last seen leaving the TraveLodge motel on the Belt Highway.

My mother ordered us to go to bed.

We immediately howled back in protest. "Now, because I said so! This minute, go!"

"Mom, it's not a school night, school's over for the Summer!" my brother yelled, as he rushed to dodge her waving hand. This irritated my mother to no great end.

"March!" she said and pointed to our room.

My brother and I slowly eased off our chairs and slouched out to our bednight doom.

About an hour later, we were lying in our bunks when we saw the red flashing police lights and heard the knock on the door.

Sammy and I crept out of bed and snuck around the corner to see and hear.

A policeman was at the front door talking to my mother. My mother trembled. My grandmother was at the door too, rubbing her two hands one over the other.

We couldn't hear what was happening.

After about fifteen minutes, the policeman left.

We scattered and jumped into our bunk beds. My mother entered the room, looked around, and closed the door.

Years later, my Uncle Jerry told me the real story. My old man had started going to college and was taking a lot of diet pills to study.

Apparently he hadn't slept in nearly two weeks and became psychotic from sleep deprivation. He drove over to his ex-wife Donna's house and forced her to drive around with him. He didn't have a weapon or anything but he was scary enough that Donna went with him anyway and called the police from a gas station, while my dad was freaking out about "bug" people staring at him from the bushes at the edge of the gas station.

The police finally caught up with him after a confrontation at the motel where he had checked in. He surrendered and Donna took off with one of the policeman. They never charged my father, him being an ex-cop and all. They just took him to the State Hospital in a strait jacket.

The funny thing was, he would put my mom in there a year later.

Song of a Misspent Youth


My old man, kook that he was, warned me never to tell a woman how much money I made or where I lived or what I did for a living. Of course, he had married five times.

He spent a lifetime on the run and because he didn't trust banks, the fields between here and the Missouri River all the way to Chicago are filled with mason jars stuffed with money and secretly buried. So secret that the hills never gave them up and he died before he could go back and dig them up, and since he never told me about it - I'd heard it from my Uncle Jerry, his younger brother - my inheritance shared the secret with the nematodes unless some lucky farmer dug up a jar or two during spring planting.

Anyway, my old man was real far out like that, completely irrational and dangerous to everyone around him. Once, when he worked at a wire rope plant, he willfully crossed the line and parked himself inside the garage of the foreman's wife.

It didn't take long for him to be discovered, since the foreman lived right across the street and his wife usually left the windows open for everybody to hear. All I know is that I had to go to the hospital and see him and he couldn't even see me since both eyes were swollen shut nor could he wave since all ten fingers were broken.

Again, years later, my Uncle Jerry later told me that my old man had stepped into an elevator and two beefy yard dogs followed him in. When the doors opened, the two guys walked out. My old man didn't.He was nutzo like that, living fast and hard like a roller coaster car sailing off the tracks and into the blue black of night and a helluva scream all the way down to the pavement below. We lived in a state of permanent disaster.

One minute he'd pull up in a gleaming white Chevrolet Impala convertable that was so new it hurt your eyes to look at the windows they reflected the sun so much. In the next minute, the repo men would be hauling our sofa and dining room table right out the front door.

He was famous in town as an all-night craps shooter, and infamous in our family for pawning his mother's TV whenever he was flat broke and needed a stake. Poor Grandma Cholee, she'd cry on Sundays because she knew she'd be missing Ed Sullivan, even though she couldn't understand a lick of English. I remember sitting in the backseat, the car door would abruptly open and a TV flung towards me and I'd have to move just in time to avoid being flattened.

And she would be chasing him around the side of the car, wagging her finger, a short, pear of a woman half his size yet he would be fleeing as fast as he could. Then my old man would come through and always bring her back a better TV, sometimes they'd be color sets.Delirious in victory, he'd take us out for orgies of chilidogs and chocolate malts, his two favorites.

In times of despair, he was worse than George Washington in his public weeping. He blamed everything on the fact that he was Mexican-American and couldn't get a fair shake ever.He'd been a cop (actually a bailiff), a fireman (shooting craps upstairs while the crew jammed into the firetruck to put out a fire), a soda jerk, a yard dog, an insurance salesman, a sergeant first class in the army, a part-time teacher, a restaurant manager, a grain elevator inspector, and a kidnapper (his fourth wife who tried to leave him).By the time I'd grown up, his looks had faded, his weight ballooned and his hair was salt and pepper and thinning.

When I was just a kid, he was as lean as Gary Cooper and strong enough to pick me up with just one hand. He used to order me to punch him in his stomach as hard as I could. It always hurt my hand. He could be a mean prick with a belt, whipping my ass in a frenzy and not knowing when to stop even when I was bleeding. He constantly smoked and liked to drink his friends under the table.

One time he took me and my brother to see the 101 Dalmations, the cartoon, and left us there all day. We watched the entire movie seven times in a row, a record for us. He'd gone to the tavern next door and promptly forgot about us. My mom had to pick us up. When he finally came home later that night, she yelled at him so much that he immediately turned around and ran out the door, dodging the plates.

He didn't come home for two days after that. When he did, he had a dozen roses in his hands and he gave me and my brother a dollar each to beat it and go down to the Dairy Queen for a while. Being seven and six years old, we didn't know what change was and that he expected some back. It was one of those blood on your ass beatings when we came home, our tummies sick with dilly bars and Mr. Misties. Ever since then, it's been hard to feel good eating ice cream.

One time he promised he'd take us fishing. We got up at four in the morning and drove all over town. First he went to his ex-wife Dianne's house, and told us to stay in the car. Two hours later we went over to his friend's house, Steve Annigan, the guy who owned a garage and whose wife always made us drink milk when she babysat us, which we hated since we were soda pop drinkers. Finally, we drove around the city twice, stopping so he could get cigarettes and make phone calls. We never made it to Rochester Falls.

Instead, he drove us to Der Wienerschnitzal. We had chili dogs and chocolate malts. I never did learn to fish and to this day, when asked to go, I always decline.He died in 1993 in a freak accident. His car battery kept dying and it turned out there was a short in the overhead interior light that was draining all the juice. He didn't know that.

After changing the battery three times, he bought a juicer and was charging up the final battery inside his garage. It was August and one of the worst summers in the history of Missouri, with old people keeling over in their homes if they didn't have air conditioning.

He just closed the garage while the battery was charging so as not to let the cool air out. He'd had about three beers by then, even though he was diabetic and wasn't supposed to drink as the doctor had warned him. But tell that to a guy who owns a liquor store. So he goes upstairs to take a leak. Or maybe he's sitting on the John reading a sports magazine. Anyway, the exhaust from the car filled the house fairly quickly, and fat-headed, he fell and hit his head on the toilet bowl stem. That's how his wife found him.

All that because of a broken car light.

They buried him on August 16, the anniversary of Elvis' death, his hero.Anyway, his death, bizarre as it was, is not what I want to tell you about. What's remarkable is the way he lived and all the crap he got away with. My old man could be a real shit, but in his prime he was tall and good-looking and fast-talking and always drove a shiny car and he was the biggest polluter of women in three counties. Yeah, him and Elvis, fat-headed to the end.

Shout out to dearest Judih!


A soul friend who gave me hope in dark times.

Check out her posting on the life she experiences half-way around the world from her kibbutz. A very cool lady.

Deep Cleveland


Check out this site by the venerable Mark Kuhar, my kindred in dreambombs.

I sold my summer


Short as the wind in the end
the sheets of businessmen caked and taped
above my grave
time, a fortune given away
hours into minutes
three months to a day
where went June?
it ticked off waving away
so did July
summer burning earth and rain that never came
but was halfway gone already and me,
grim in the duties of my office
the tick of the clock, the walls, cloaked and grey
the hall lights off
no light comes in there now
I was the last to leave

I sold my summer short as it were
traded away all the kid things, bikes and baseball gloves
easy day long games of monopoly and risk
and kick the can where
every summer day is Saturday
I sold my summer short, blowing out July
a candle burning bliss and blessed like August
just as brief and gone again
like cartoon cats
chased by cartoon dogs

I sold my summer days running the other way
I remember yesterday
me, a dutiful daddy coming home
it's Friday night
the neighborhood kids run by shouting
one bumps into me
standing in my suitcoat heavy trenched
the briefcase in my hand
underarms
wrist limped
wet with sweat
my old man July face drenched and drooping
like the bottle brush treess
hugging the heat-filled wind
some kid bumps into me
he screaming and laughing
lets out a "zipppppeeee"
and tears away in freckled shrieks
doo dah disappearing like the bending light
turning summer into night
i watched him run away
that kid was me, no, he was not me,
i am someone else now
summer, you shorted me

Post Toasty West Coast Rants! Mind Poets Unite!


Hello PosterToasters. Call me Jota. I used to live at litkicks but I've run away. Stay tuned for loony postertoaster rants from a West Coast soul brother.
Google
 
Web postertoaster.blogspot.com