I had gone into an old folks home to see if I couldn’t steal something
I had gone into an old folks home to see if I couldn’t steal something from some of the old folks. I figured if I put on a nice shirt and looked like I loved somebody I might get away with it. It was summer. I wanted to be with a girl. It was summer and guys were taking girls to the beach. I had nuthin’. Just two skinny legs, like two stacks of dimes.
The Central Valley is hot. Old people die in this heat. I’d take something from a dead one I decided. Lot of people say “Heat don’t bother me. I like it.” I hate the heat. I don’t like to wear shorts. If I wear pants no one sees my skinny legs. I’m like an old person. Old people don’t like the heat. They don’t drink enough water. They have to live indoors or stand under a tree. No one wants to eat when its this hot. I’ll find a dead one and take whatever fits in my pocket. Then I’ll give it to a girl and ask her to go to the movies. It’s cold at the movies.
* * *
“Oneness is sought because we believe it holds a state where there is nothing to conflict with.”
This is a story about trying to drive across the country but becoming afraid and turning around. It isn’t that great a country. Just big. The cities are dirty and sad and the people don’t smile. Out in the country they are poor and lonely. I drove through suburbs but never really saw anyone. Only lights on in houses, garage doors closing. Its a big country without an answer.
* * *
My Great Grandmother told me this story before she died. Not a death bed story, just a story of her youth:
“I’ve got a hammer toe. At Sterns* they had big hampers they’d bring me, and this one hamper was full of stainless steel plates and trays that I had to unload. They came in plastic bags and I dropped one on my toe. This woman in another department, Pam, called – and she was a queer woman. She had such a deep voice. She sounded like a man. She said, “This is Pam”, and I would have know without her telling me that.
There was a lot of competition between departments back then and when I told Pam I dropped a bag of 12 steel plates on my toe she said, “What? I’ve never gotten 12 steel plates at once in my department.”
That’s all the sympathy she had to show. Hope it’s enough!
Then she moved to the North Shore store and I never saw her. I don’t know what become of her.”
* a department store in Massachusetts. One of the original northern colonies.
Haiku
I check the weather
New Hampshire is under snow
right where it belongs
***
She was spending time on her exercise bike. The fog out there made it seem like we should sleep all day, but we didn’t. She’d found the bike on the corner outside. Just out in the street. It made lots of noise. Something needed grease. The fog made you crazy if you didn’t sleep, but we didn’t sleep.
* * *
Ken Hawkins has a heart of gold that he’s downtown trying to pawn right now. He was always dreaming. Then he started drinking. The two go hand in hand.
***
No Fault
something was wrong
and people stared
like my front end
was banged up and
my hood was tied down
with old black and orange
rope.
***
On most mornings Alice can wake up a few minutes before the 6:48 alarm and be ready for it. Yesterday at 6:25 am she died in her sleep while dreaming. If it was a good dream go to the last paragraph. If it was a bad dream, follow along.
Wolves, or wild dogs were chasing her. They wanted to rape her. She couldn’t run fast enough and the wolves had hands. Now you too will have this dream.
She was a child again, in a field with her mother. Her mother was taller than the hay grass, but Alice was not. She felt protected without being watched and she loved that feeling.
* * *
I did some traveling last summer. Even if you’ve taken a shower people can smell it on you. You’re from out of town. We’re still animals – hairy knuckles and genitals. It traps the smells. The hair comes from inside us, so we are leaking our past. I showed up in Asheville Oregon with the smell of a California barnyard still trapped in the follicles. Fell right in with some hippies in the park. That’s one way to see the world: live in a car, piss in a bottle, eat tuna straight out of the can.