ass?”
“just another guy with no
taste,” I answered.
I was cool and mean
in those days and I went on to
high school, the same one
Mary Lou attended
where she secretly got
married
during her senior year
to a guy
I knew, a guy I
outdrank and beat the shit out of
a couple of
times.
the guy thought he had
something.
he wanted me to be
best man.
I told him, no thanks and lots of
luck.
I never could see what
they saw in
Mary Lou.
and poor Humm: what a
lonely sick old
fart.
anyhow, then I went on to
city college
where the only molesting I
could see going on
was what they did to your
mind.
rift
“I can’t live with you anymore,”
she said,
“look at you!”
“uuh?” I
asked.
“look at you!
sitting in that god
damned
chair!
your belly is sticking out
of your
underwear,
you’ve burnt cigarette
holes in all your
shirts!
all you do is suck
on that god damned
beer,
bottle after bottle,
what do you get out of
that?”
“the damage has been
done,” I told
her.
“what’re you talking
about?”
“nothing matters and
we know nothing matters
and that
matters…”
“you’re drunk!”
“come on, baby, let’s get
along, it’s
easy…”
“not for me!” she screamed,
“not for
me!”
she ran into the bathroom to
put on her
makeup.
I got up for another
beer.
I sat back down
just had the new bottle
to my mouth
when she came out of the
bathroom.
“holy shit!” she screamed,
“you’re
disgusting!”
I laughed right into the
bottle, gagged, spit a mouthful of
beer across my
undershirt.
“my god!” she
said.
she slammed the door and
was gone.
I looked at the closed door
and at the doorknob
and strangely
I didn’t feel
alone.
my friend, the parking lot attendant
—he’s a dandy
—small black mustache
—usually sucking on a cigar
he tends to lean into the cars as he
transacts business
first time I met him, he said,
“hey! ya gonna make a
killin’?”
“maybe,” I answered.
next meeting it was:
“hey, Ramrod! what’s
happening?”
“very little,” I told
him.
next time I had my girlfriend with me
and he just
grinned.
next time I was
alone.
“hey,” he asked, “where’s the young
chick?”
“I left her at home…”
“Bullshit! I’ll bet she dumped
you!”
and the next time
he really leaned into the car:
“what’s a guy like you doing driving a
BMW? I’ll bet you inherited your
money, you didn’t get this car with your
brains!”
“how’d you guess?” I
answered.
that was some weeks ago.
I haven’t seen him lately.
fellow like that, chances are he just moved on
to better
things.
miracle
I have just listened to this
symphony which Mozart dashed off
in one day
and it had enough wild and crazy
joy to last
forever,
whatever forever
is
Mozart came as close as
possible to
that.
a non-urgent poem
I had this fellow write me that
he felt there wasn’t the
“urgency” in my poems
of the present
as compared to my poems
of the past.
now, if this is true
why did he write me
about it?
have I made his days
more
incomplete?
it’s
possible.
well, I too have felt
let down
by writers
I once thought were
powerful
or
at least
very damned
good
but
I never considered
writing them to
inform them that I
sensed their
demise.
I found the best thing
I could do
was just to type away
at my own work
and let the dying
die
as they always
have.
my first affair with that older woman
when I look back now
at the abuse I took from
her
I feel shame that I was so
innocent,
but I must say
she did match me drink for
drink,
and I realized that her life
her feelings for things
had been ruined
along the way
and that I was no more than a
temporary
companion;
she was ten years older
and mortally hurt by the past
and the present;
she treated me badly:
desertion, other
men;
she brought me immense
pain,
continually;
she lied, stole;
there was desertion,
other men,
yet we had our moments; and
our little soap opera ended
with her in a coma
in the hospital,
and I sat at her bed
for hours
talking to her,
and then she opened her eyes
and saw me:
“I knew it would be you,”
she said.
then she closed her
eyes.
the next day she was
dead.
I drank alone
for two years
after that.
the freeway life
some fool kept blocking me and I finally got around him, and in the
elation of freedom I ran it up to 85 (naturally, first checking the rear
view for our blue suited protectors); then I felt and heard the SMASH of a hard
object upon the bottom of my car, but wanting to make the track I willed
myself to ignore it (as if that would make it vanish) e
ven though I began
to smell gasoline.
I checked the gas gauge and it seemed to be holding…
it had been a terrible week already
but, you know, defeat can strengthen just as victory can weaken, and if
you have the proper luck and the holy endurance the gods just might deliver
the proper admixture…
then
traffic backed up and stopped, and then I really smelled gas and I saw my
gas gauge dipping rapidly, then my radio told me that a man
3 miles up
on the Vernon overpass had one leg over the side and was threatening
suicide,
and there I was threatened with being blown to hell
as people yelled at me that my tank was broken and pouring gasoline;
yes, I nodded back, I know, I know…
meanwhile, waving cars off and working my way over to the outer lane
thinking, they are more terrorized than I am:
if I go, those nearby might go also.
there was no motion in the traffic—the suicide was still trying to make
up his mind and my gas gauge dipped into the red
and then the necessity of being a proper citizen and waiting for opportunity
vanished and I made my move
up and over a cement abutment
bending my right front wheel
I made it to the freeway exit which was totally
clear
then worked on down to a gas station on Imperial Highway
parked it
still dripping gas, got out, made it to the phone, got in a call
for the tow truck, not a long wait at all, nice drive back in with a black
fellow who told me strange stories about stranded motorists…
(like one woman, her hands were frozen to the wheel, took 15 minutes of
talking and prying to make her let go.)
had the car back in a couple of days, was driving back from the track,
hit the brake and it wouldn’t go down, luckily I wasn’t on the freeway
yet, cut the ignition, glided to the curb, noted that the steering
column cover had ripped loose and blocked the brake, ripped that away, then
ripped some more to make sure, then a whole mass of wires spilled out,
s h i t…
I turned the key, hit the gas but the car STARTED
and I drove off with the dangling wires against my leg
thinking
do these things happen to other
people or am
I just the chosen one?
I decided it was the latter and got onto the freeway where
some guy in a volks swung over and blocked my
lane
whereupon I swung around the son-of-a-bitch and hit
75, 80, 85…
thinking, the courage it took to get out of bed each
morning
to face the same things
over and over
was
enormous.
the player
I had 40 win on the 6 horse
he had 2 lengths in the stretch
was running along the rail
when the jock whipped him
right-handed
and the horse hit the wood
spilled
threw the jock
and there went the race
for me.
that was the 7th race
and I considered that the horse
might have lost
anyhow
and then I considered leaving
but I decided to play the
8th,
hit 20 win on a 5 to one
shot.
in the 9th I went 40 win
on the second favorite
and when the bell rang to start them
the horse reared and
left my jock
in the stall.
I took the escalator down
and walked out the
gate
where a young man asked me
for a dollar so he could
take the bus
home.
I gave him the buck and
told him,
“you ought to stay away from this
place.”
“yeah,” he said, “I
know.”
then I walked toward parking
searching my coat for
cigarettes.
nothing.
p.o. box 11946, Fresno, Calif. 93776
drove in from the track after losing $50.
a hot day out there
they pack them in on a Saturday;
my feet hurt and I had pains in the neck
and about the shoulders—
nerves: large crowds of people more than
unsettle me.
pulled into the driveway and got the
mail
moved up and parked it
went in and opened the IRS letter
form 525 (SC) (Rev. 9-83)
read it
and was informed that I owed
TWELVE THOUSAND SIXHUNDREDFOUR DOLLARS AND
SEVENTY EIGHT CENTS
on my 1981 income tax plus
TWO THOUSAND EIGHTHUNDREDEIGHTYTHREE DOLLARS
AND TWELVE CENTS interest
and that further interest was being
compounded
DAILY.
I went into the kitchen and poured a
drink.
life in America was a curious
thing.
well, I could let the interest
build
that’s what the government
did
but after a while they would
come for me
or whatever I had
left.
at least that $50 loss at the
track didn’t look so
bad anymore.
I’d have to go tomorrow and
win $15,487.90 plus
daily compounded
interest.
I drank to that,
wishing I had purchased a
Racing Form
on the way
out.
poor Al
I don’t know how he does it
but every woman he meets is
crazy.
he will get rid of one
crazy woman
but he never gets any
relief—
another crazy moves right in
with him.
it’s only after they move in
and begin acting
more than strange
that they admit to him
that they’ve done madhouse
time
or that their families have
a long history of mental
illness.
his last one
he sent to a shrink
once a week:
$75 for 45 minutes.
after 7 months
she walked out on the
shrink
and said to Al,
“that god damned fag doesn’t know
anything.”
I don’t know how they all find
Al.
he says you can’t tell at the first
meeting
they have their guard up
but after 2 or 3 months the
guard comes down
and there’s Al with
another one.
It got so bad that Al thought
maybe it was
him
so he went to a shrink
and asked
and the shrink said,
“you’re one of the sanest men
I’ve ever met.”
poor Al.
that made him feel
worse
than ever.
for my ivy league friends:
<
br /> many of those I met on the reading circuit or heard about on the reading
circuit in the old days are now either teaching or poets-in-residence
and have garnered Guggenheims and N.E.A.’s and sundry other grants.
well, I tried for a Gugg once myself, even got an N.E.A. so I can’t
knock the act
but
you should have seen them back then: raggedy-ass, wild-eyed, raving
against the order
now
they have been ingested, digested, rested
they write reviews for the journals
they write well-worked, quiet, inoffensive poesy
they edit so many of the magazines that I have no idea where I should send this
poem
since they attack my work with alarming regularity
and
I can’t read theirs
yet their attacks upon me have been effective in this country
and
if it weren’t for Europe I’d probably still be a starving writer
or down at the row
or diggin weeds out of your garden
or…?
well
you know the old saying: it’s all a matter of
taste
and
either they’re right and I’m wrong or I’m right and they’re all
wrong
or
maybe it’s some place in between.
most of the people in the world could care less
and
I often feel the same
way.
helping the old
I was standing in line at the bank today
when the old fellow in front of me
dropped his glasses (luckily, within the
case)
and as he bent over
I saw how difficult it was for
him
and I said, “wait, let me get
them…”
but as I picked them up
he dropped his cane
a beautiful, black polished
cane
and I got the glasses back to him
then went for the cane
You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense Page 4