It ain't all pizzas and cream

I HAVE MORE POEMS IN LANDFILLS THAN IN LIBRARIES

I locked myself inside my studio apartment with The Poet's Market. It was a steel cage match. Even the door made that heavy final steel sound when it closed. I spent the day marking up pages, a dog-ear here, an annotation there, as it rained outside. The place had only one window, tall and thin as an archer's perch, and it faced a brick courtyard that had once been a garden but was now only weeds. The rain hammered down. I went thru the book, cover to cover, marking off prospective publishers. Then I started typing up clean copies of my poems to submit. The Selectric buzzed and pinged. By the time I got to the cover letters and envelopes, it was dark. I went down to the corner for some tacos. The rain had slowed. People were beginning to venture outside. Lights were coming on in apartments. I went to my favorite bars, all of them, each of them, and ordered brands of whiskey I could not afford. I felt like a Duke or Count. Nobody noticed. I drank alone, as usual, then walked home. The next day I walked to the post office with the letters, twenty-five envelopes, each fat as a dove, and watched them fly down the chute.

A Couple of Dogs

He was a big shaggy old thing, walking along the street with these sad, inquisitive eyes. I looked around for his owner but nobody would claim him. "C'mere buddy," I said, and he loped over. He was wearing a collar with a name tag: Marco, and an address. I recognized the street, just a few blocks away. "Well, Marco," I said, "I guess you're lost." He offered up a shaggy paw. If at that moment he'd asked me for a smoke, I wouldn't have been surprised. I took him by the Asian tailor shop. "You have a string I can use for a leash?" I asked the owner. "You want string? said the woman, looking at Marco, "string no good." She reached over and handed me a long red ribbon. I tied the ribbon thru Marco's collar and we started walking. "My van is in the shop," I said, "or we'd have a ride." Marco didn't answer. When we got to an alleyway he tugged at the ribbon. I followed him straight to a yard where a home-made wooden gate stood open. The number painted on the gate matched the address on the collar. I A car pulled up the breezeway and a guy got out. He had the same sad inquisitive expression as Marco. "Ah," he said, "you found him!" "Yep," I said, "he's fine." "Well thanks," said the man, "you need a ride somewhere?" "No," I said, "I'm good." The owner loosened the red ribbon, and Marco flopped down on the grass. Just a big old dog. Like me.

A Little Action

The bar looked like the Devil's house on Christmas Eve. The lighting was garish and red. Two large illuminated tin soldiers flanked the mirrored stage, where a topless girl spun around the stripper pole beneath eaves of tinsel. Clarence Carter sang from the jukebox. Sheri was behind the bar. She was in her early fifties and gave the impression she had seen just about every vile or disappointing human act devised. I had just finished my first round when a young guy plunged through the doors and froze. He was thin, black, and nervous. He wore a red windbreaker over a t-shirt and sweat pants. Everyone turned and looked. He wasn't a regular. He looked around, then took up a spot behind me. "What'll ya have, hon?" asked Sheri. "Do you have a back door?" he asked. "No," said Sheri, "and if you wanna stay you gotta drink." Its was then I looked in the mirror across the bar. The man's windbreaker had fallen open slightly. A gun butt rose up from his waistband. I looked at Sheri. She'd seen the gun too. "Gimme a Miller's," said the man. Sheri looked at me. My favorite saying at the time was "get on with it." Whatever in hell was coming next, I figured there was no use delaying. "I'll have another shot," I said, holding two fingers against the side of my glass. Sheri waddled off and came back with the drinks. I slid a $5 across the bar and sucked mine down. "That'll be two fifty," Sheri said to the gunman. But he wasn't listening. He was watching the door. "Two fifty, hon," she said, a little louder this time. But he had already turned and taken a few quick steps toward the door. As he began to push his way out, two cops crashed thru from outside and wrestled him down. The cops didn't fuck around. They quickly disarmed and cuffed the man. It was like watching a calf roping. Then one of the cops jerked him to his feet and pushed him face first through the swinging doors and out into the street. Another Clarence Carter song came on the jukebox, and a new girl took the stage. I eyed the gunman's bottle, which stood open and untouched on the bar. "Go ahead," said Sheri, "on me." I raised the bottle to my lips and got the hell on with it.

Charades

 

My wife and I had been separated for several months but hadn't told our parents. Once a week I'd come over to her place and we'd call the folks. It was a strange charade. I was drinking very hard at the time and she had quit. We were in counseling but had agreed not to talk about alcohol in front of the counselor. Another charade. I came to the sessions sober but went out drinking at the bars afterward. Then I'd try to face the job in the morning and pretend to be a workaday desk jockey. I had so many masks I needed three heads to hold them all. 

Everything was going to hell. The Clarence Thomas hearings were on the radio at the time. Anita Hill told the "pubic hair on the soda can" story. Thomas was confirmed anyway, and I thought, well, that's it, we're screwed. I sat in my one-room apartment, reading Hamsun and cummings and Bukowski. I remember my dad saying, "If you think the apocalypse is coming, stock up on tomato soup, it keeps forever." Problem was, I hated tomato soup. And I wasn't sure I wanted to survive the week, let alone the apocalypse. 

After a year's separation, I moved back in with my wife. I was bloated and sick from drinking and kept trying to lose weight. We had this Exercycle, and each evening I'd pedal away at the thing while watching the evening news. I puffed and sweated. Weeks passed. I couldn't lose an ounce. I had a doctor who put me on Lasix, the horse diuretic. Still no results. 

Part of the reconciliation agreement included the stipulation I have my own room, a cave, to which I could retreat. I spent most of my free time in there, drinking or writing or listening to cassette tapes of famous poets. 

Around this time my wife went on a business trip to St. Louis. I had resolved that while she was away I would kill myself. We had an apartment on the 18th floor. It was a long way down to the street. I began practicing in my mind. I figured the best way was to go out backwards. That way my last sight would be the stars and retreating building tops. It was the first honest thought I'd had in a year.

Leo

 

My father had landed a good job, so we moved to a new apartment tower made of concrete and glass and permanence. My dad had grown up the son of an alcoholic father during the Depression, and now he was living large. The building even had a doorman. Leo. Leo had thick white hair and eyes so blue they resembled a doll's eyes in the sun. Leo smelled of rotting apples and cologne, and distant good times. He was the most cheerful person I'd ever met, especially for a doorman. No matter the weather, the heat, the cold, Leo was smiling. "Hello, young sir!" he'd say to me. I liked that: young sir. It made me feel important. One night, my parents took me to a party hosted by an office colleague of my father's. My dad spent about 50 hours a week at the office but was worried why he hadn't earned a promotion. Someone at the party walked up and asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. Without a pause I said, "a doorman!" The questioner laughed, but my mother was horrified. She pulled me into a side room and slapped me. "You keep your mouth shut the rest of the night!" she said. Later at home she asked why I had answered "doorman." I told her I had been thinking of Leo and how happy he was. Also it seemed like a great job, standing around doing very little. Years later, I learned the reason Leo had been so happy. He was a drunk. He'd kept a flask of whiskey in his jacket pocket and nipped at it all day. Who could have known I'd turn out just like him after all.

GUMBY

I was working a straight job during the day and drinking at night. Every morning began with an Alka-Seltzer, Compazine, Zantac, vitamin, and a Coke. My body's gears were trying to seize up, but I refused to let them. Mornings at work, I was too foggy to think, so I closed my office door and devised little games to get me thru the hangovers. My favorite was the pen game. I'd found this pen that was perfectly balanced, so it spun like a compass needle. I created a little dial out of paper and began making bets on where the pen point would land at the end of each spin. I charted the results on a little notepad I kept in my desk. This worked well enough, but after a few weeks I found myself dreaming at night about the pen-and-wheel game. Numbers and odds floated past the window of my mind. I was starting to lose my senses. 

Around this time, my coworkers were also going mad. One became a hypochondriac and another embarked on a program of extreme diet and exercise as an emotional response to his divorce. With the hypochondriac calling out sick once a week, my workload grew. I tried working thru my hangovers but I made errors. I was slipping. 

Then the bosses hired a new supervising editor. He had yellow-green skin and hairless arms protruding from his white short-sleeved shirt. I named him Gumby. Gumby liked to chat. He would walk from office to office in the mornings, making small talk. He wanted desperately to fit in, but his attempts at camaraderie were awkward and strange. One day he came into my office. I was putting some files on a high shelf. "Putting on a little weight I see," he said, and poked me in the belly. I was too addled from the previous night's drinking to respond. I mean, he was correct, I was bloated and sick. I had probably gained thirty pounds since I hired on. But he had touched my belly as though I were his 6-year-old nephew. It was strange and wrong. I felt vaguely molested and vowed to stay away from him. 

In the ensuing weeks, things got worse. The work piled up, I drank more, and Gumby continued to make his rounds. It had been a long, hot summer and my thirtieth birthday was approaching. The idea of sitting at that desk another year filled me with dread. One morning, I took a moment from the pen game and typed up a resignation letter. I carried it in my pocket for a week. It felt good, the way suicides feel good when they've resolved to do it. I could pull the trigger any time. And one day I did. I can't remember the impetus, but I walked into the Managing Editor's office and said, "Well, that's it." I had no job lined up, no prospects. But I knew I'd never have to see Gumby again.

On my last day I went in, placed my few personal belongings in a cardboard box, and walked home. I slept for three days and three nights. The next day I woke up. It was my birthday. The shades were down, the fridge was empty, the phone was silent, and I was smiling.

Six and Change

It was furnace hot, and I was driving home from work. A woman beside the road had her thumb out. She and her dog, and brown and white pit, were standing beside a stone wall where a hundred years earlier had been a bridge. I pulled over and rolled down the window. 

"Hey mister," she said, "can you give us a ride up the hill?" She looked 65 but was probably 40, the way my grandmother would have looked had she been a crack addict rather than a seamstress. "Is the dog friendly?" I asked. "Oh yeh," she said, "Pepper's a doll." She already had her hand on the door handle. "OK," I said. She put the dog in back and got in beside me. I started driving up the hill. 

"Hot out," she said. She looked even older up close. Her red hair dye had grown out, revealing inch-long gray roots.

"Yep, I said." We talked a little more about the weather and local sports teams.

"My husband lost his job," she said, "and he hasn't worked in almost 6 months." 

"Sorry to hear," I said, "hard times everywhere."

"What I mean is, can you spare twenty bucks?" 

"Not really," I said, "I got a kid at home." 

"What about if I suck your dick?" 

I hadn't expected that one. I glanced over my shoulder at the dog. "Is she serious?" I asked. The dog didn't answer. We were nearly at the top of the hill. "My place is right up there," she said, "you can come in. My husband's out." She gestured to a small stand of brick, two-story row houses. They all looked the same, shabby but clean. I didn't know which was hers. 

"Look," I said, "I'm sorry things are tough, but that other thing, that's not gonna happen." I reached into my pocket. I had six dollars and change. I handed it to her. "Better times ahead," I said. 

She took the money and thanked me. "C'mon Pepper!" she said, and the dog happily leapt over my shoulder and out the passenger side door. It was as if the last five minutes hadn't happened. I felt like a taxi driver, except I had paid her the fare. 

She and Pepper walked up to one of the shabby houses and went inside. There were a few wilted begonias on the lawn, and a small statue of St. Francis. "They're gonna need him," I thought, and drove on home.

Killer

 

Tommy looks like a frog: 
long boney legs, squat body, 
no neck. If not for his cane, 
gripped tightly in root-like hands, 
one might expect him to leap 
from one street corner to the next. 

On his left arm 
is a faded tattoo: 
USMC. 

"I killed 57 gooks in Vietnam," 
he says, and tries to manage a grin. 

"We don't use that word anymore," 
I tell him, but he waves me off. 

"Fifty-seven kills, and look at me." 
His front teeth are missing 
and he spits when he talks. 
He has scabs on his nose and cheeks
and is drunk, nearly to helplessness. 

"We carried him here from Fishtown," 
says his friend, Dave, a bloated red-faced drunk 
whose pupils look like lost swimmers. 
"And we'll carry him back." 

A third man, sullen and dark, 
nods from the shadows. 
"Yes, we carry him," he says. 

I give Dave two bucks. 
"Take care of him," I say. 

"I can get you some oxy, cheap," 
says Dave. He wears a shirt that advertises 
a bar. His lips are slack, his hair creased back 
under a cap. Were he to go missing, 
I wonder who would search for him. 

"Just get Tommy home ok," I say. 

"Fifty-seven kills!" yells Tommy 
over my shoulder. And that's how 
we leave it.

3 Kings

 

They were like old cars
left to the desert:
doors gone, headlamps
smashed, tires 
kneeling in the sand.

Too drunk even to beg
change, they sat on the stone
steps of an abandoned bank
and passed a bottle
between them.

People in the street
looked away. Nobody knew
where they came from
or where they were 
going.

Just three lost kings
following their star.
Three kings
who never found 
their Bethlehem.

A is for Apple, J is for Jacks

The nights at the deli were hot and everyone was crazy. I worked late shift, moving cases of beer from the back room to the cooler and sweeping the cigarette butts from the sidewalk cracks. Down the street Art and Tony were drunk and throwing bricks from the abandoned lot at each other. People walked by as if nothing were happening. I finished my smoke and went back inside. 

"What's all the screaming?" asked Cheeseburger Jack. 

"The drunks at the corner are throwing bricks at each other."

"Oh," said Jack. Jack was a regular customer. He called every night at eleven and ordered three cheeseburgers to go. He was short but tough, with a full head of wavy white hair and wore barbershop shirts with four pockets. Nobody knew where he lived or what he did for money. But he sure loved his burgers.

When I went back outside to hose off the sidewalk, Tony had taken a brick to the forehead and was staggering around, moaning like Frankenstein. He had his palm to the wound, but the blood oozed out like chocolate syrup between his fingers and dripped onto the pavement.

"Jeezus," I said, "I just hosed that down." He staggered off toward the hospital. It was only three blocks away. I was pretty sure he'd make it.

§    §    §

Junky Mike worked the deli on night shift. He looked like a guy who'd failed a porn audition: curly dark hair and a mustache. He had a wife and three kids who all lived in a shelter somewhere. The boss had taken Mike in as he had the rest of us, because we needed the work. But we got paid in cash, and Mike put all his earnings in his arm.  

For a junky, Mike seemed fairly level, and we liked him because he gave us free food. I figured he probably stole a fair amount from the deli to feed his family, but who coulud blame him. But when his addiction showed through, it was as a sort of numbness. When Mike was high you could tell because he didn't seem to understand things like jokes or directions. Once, on my day off, I got a call at my girlfriend's place where I was staying at the time. They needed me to come down to the deli. Mike had been taken to the hospital. "O.D.?" I asked. "No," said Harold, the shift manager, "he burned himself." So I sobered up as best I could and got down there. Harold was a cool guy, tall, half Hawaiian and half black. He was a fair boss and everyone liked him. When I arrived I was told what happened. It seems Mike was high and was trying to swap out the fryer grease. The procedure involved draining the old hot grease into a square plastic tub and sealing it. We'd all been told to press only on the rim of the containter when sealing it, but Mike had pushed on the center and the top had flipped sideways, plunging his fist into the hot oil. Being high, Mike didn't feel it immediately, and by the time he pulled his hand out, it was deep-fried. "Jeezus fuck," I said, "will he be ok?" Harold didn't know, just that they needed an extra man on the shift.

A few days later, I came in to buy some cold cuts and Mike was behind the counter. His left hand was wrapped in a huge gauze mitten., giving his arm the look of a Q-tip. "Looks like it hurts," I said, "you gonna be alright?" Mike smied, "Yeh sure, it's nothing." Then he wrapped my order and I left. When I got home I saw he'd let me have an extra quarter-pound of turkey, free.  

§    §    §

Uncle Jim was the night shift concierge at the Chancellor, a one-time ritzy hotel that had slouched to the rank of mediocre apartment building. Jim was in his late fifties and had a large head that seemed to be made entirely of papier maché. He spoke slowly, and when he walked he seemed always to be stepping over something. Jim came in before his shift every night and ordered a platter. Sometimes he took a flask from his coat and poured a modest shot into his coffee. Jim was one of those people who's uniquely suited to night work. I never saw him in daylight. Then again, few ever saw me in daylight either. When my shift ended at 1:00 a.m., I took my pay and went over to Dirty Frank's to catch last call. Jim always had a good story to tell. Years on the night shift had given him lots of material. The saddest ones always concerned the jumpers. The neighborhood seemed to have more than its share. For Jim, calling ambulances was just a part of a night's work. Though, in fairness, he didn't have to hose off the sidewalk. After I quit the deli job, I heard that Jim had been replaced by an electronic security system. Didn't seem right. Back then, not much did.

§    §    §

It was late and I'd been drinking. Artie was panhandling in front of the 7-11. He was broke and I was close. "Hey," he said, "got your harmonica on you?" I told him I did. "Stand here and play, maybe we'll make some tips." I was almost never too drunk to play, unless I was unconscious. So I laid down some basic blues riffs. Three-chord stuff. One four five. It was hot and a Friday. People strolled up and down the street. Artie stuck his cap out at them. Most veered away but a few dropped some coins into the hat. After a few minutes, I took a break. "How much we got?" I asked. Art twirled a finger through the coins. "Not enough for a forty." So I played some more. A couple approached. I recognized the woman from an old job I'd had. We'd both been phone sales reps at a publishing company. The difference was that she could sell. I left the company owing them money. Her name was Michelle. She was tall, very blonde, Southern, and proper. She and her date were still wearing office clothes. "Hey, Michelle," I said, "how's it going?" She gave me a look that made it clear she had no idea who I was. Then, in a flash of a second, her bewilderment turned to disgust. Her date looked at her. "You KNOW that guy?" he said. She mumbled something I couldn't hear, and the two quickened their pace. I knew I was supposed to feel shame, to feel poor and dirty and unworthy. But I didn't. "You know her?" asked Artie. "Yeh," I said, "before my untimely death." I went back to playing, Artie to holding out his hat. We finally got enough for a forty of Mickey's. To us, it tasted like champagne.