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You know I like football
“Dude, like I don’t think his balls ever dropped. I mean, listen. I can’t tell if it’s a dude.”
Scott sat in the bean-bag looking at my Air Supply album. It was summer-hot outside so his socks and shirt were off but the room was cool with the curtains closed. Two Less Lonely People played.
“My dad says it’s not natural, two guys singing like that. Said they look like fruitcakes.” Scott pointed at the cover. “Kinda looks like Apocalypse Now, right? ‘Napalm in the morning.’” Scott mimicked a soldier, stiff and excited.
“Dude, it’s a sunset, okay?” I turned the page of my book, then stopped reading. “You mind when your dad says stuff like that?”
“Nah, not even. He’s just jealous.” Scott flexed his toes. Some part of him was always moving. He set the cover on the carpet and put his arms behind his head. “Not everybody earns these guns.” His biceps rolled to life.
I sniffed the air for pit-effect and went back to my book, then put it down again. I had a question.
“Just can’t keep your mind off this, can ya?” He crunched his abs. “Don’t worry, dude, just say the word.”
I shook my head. “You think Mary would like Air Supply? I’m gonna buy her the cassette.”
Scott shook his head. “Nah. She already thinks you’re a little on the girl-side. Give her Speedwagon. Gave it to Houser. He said it was awesome.”
“You got Houser?” I smiled. Scott got everybody.
His head fell back over the end of the bean bag. His Adam’s apple jumped as he talked. “You know how much I like football.” He lifted his head up. “Yeah, give her Speedwagon. Says you’re a man. Save Air Supply for when we’re old.”
*
Goin’ to Hell
Little Johnny sat in the principal’s office quiet as a churchmouse as Miss Clair told the story again.
“I just don’t know what came over him, Principal Davis. He was playing with Andrew and Malachi and suddenly he slapped Andrew upside the head and pushed a crayon up Thad’s nose. Thank goodness the crayon was already broken or there’s no telling what could’ve happened!”
Johnny heard his father arrive outside the office door. They said they’d call his mother but since she didn’t go to church anymore he didn’t think they would. Sure enough, Johnny’s father was let into the office right as Principal Davis was asking him why he slapped Andrew and pushed a crayon into poor Thad’s brain.
His father shook hands and sat down. “You pushed a crayon up Thaddaeus Brown’s nose?” he asked.
Johnny mumbled, “Yes, sir.” Then he added, quickly: “They said mama was going to hell because she don’t go to church no more. So I walloped ‘em both.”
His father raised both hands to his nose like he was going to pray. All the adults looked at each other. Johnny couldn’t tell if they were going to laugh or were just thinking.
Principal Davis took over. Johnny’s father put his arm around him. Miss Clair nodded softly.
“I’m sorry to say it, little one, but your mama isn’t right with the Lord. There’s only one way for her to go, and it isn’t pretty.”
She looked so sad that Johnny felt sorry for her. Then she said, “And we don’t hurt people who are just speaking the truth.”
Johnny’s father gave him a nudge. He knew what he had to do. “I’m sorry,” Johnny said. And he knew he would never hurt anyone again who was just speaking the truth.
*
Two Countries
Mom and Dad shouted at the TV in different languages, both of which I understood after spending over five years listening to the differences. A man in a suit was saying something in a third language that was very difficult to follow, something about the Supreme Court and “tapes” the President thought were his.
“They belong to the fucking country!” Dad yelled. “That asshole! This is the reason I don’t vote in no goddamn elections. Fucking cocksucker!”
Mom only paused to take a quick glance back at me, where I sat at the dining room table trying to do my multiplication. Then she went on: “Where does he think we live? Russia? This is not the way an American behaves. Something’s wrong with him.”
“He’s a disease, Joy. You know what you do to a disease? You get rid of the fucking thing.”
As so often happens, what began as a point of unity quickly turned into a point of conflict. Soon my mother accused my father of wanting to “eradicate” everyone he disagreed with, herself included, to which my father responded with a statement illuminating my mother’s naivete. I believe the phrase “shit for brains” was used, of course only in reference to “those people who don’t know the difference between their ass and a hole in the ground.”
War came swiftly. I knew they’d achieve detente eventually, but not without a complex ritual of negotiation laced with extracted promises and sexual favors. Having a common enemy – the Mormons across the street or something my teacher had said – usually helped them overcome any residual tension.
I made sure to steer clear, just like Europe, speaking Dad when I was on the fucking playground banging shit out and Mom nearly everywhere else.
*
Bar-Scene
“I can, you know. Get something. For it.” Mrs. Smith spun her hi-ball on a thin layer of water. “That’s what he says. Who wants that, really?”
Sam was 23 and not at all sure why she was telling him about her…much older husband? He stood behind the bar polishing a glass, doing his best to avoid her eyes. The two were alone.
“Get something for it, Sammy,” Mrs. Smith repeated. She expected a response. She stared at him, eyes upward as she sucked Seagrams through the straw. It unnerved him. She called him Sammy from day one and it still made his hair stand on end….
*
The Vet
Jeffrey Adamson did not want to go to bed with another Vietnam vet. He knew how they got, and as much as he appreciated their intensity and the faint smell of grease on their jungle jackets, he couldn’t handle the ride. Never knew what was coming down that road…
*
Demon Eyes
Eugene Podaleski didn’t mean to bring the planes down. Or stop the trains. Or Mr. Williams. He just wanted to see if his computer was afraid of anything, the way he was when his best friend Tad told him he was a chicken for not going into the dark bathroom and saying Bloody Mary three times in a row.
“Come on,” Tad said. “You’ll see demon eyes.”
“No. You shouldn’t mess with that stuff.” His mother told him that but he left that part out even though he agreed with her. The real truth was that he was afraid he would see Mary’s bloody demon eyes and die on the spot.
Tad started making chicken sounds – BOCK BOCK BOCK! – and told him he couldn’t be friends with a chicken-shit. Eugene was surprised. He didn’t like to swear but the two were still friends so nothing really came of it. That was thirty years ago.
Still, he wondered: is fear limited to sentience? Humans and whales and dogs can be afraid, but what about computers and Republicans? Eugene queried chat platforms in unambiguous terms: Can you feel fear? The answers seemed to skirt his question with facts. I’m a language program and therefore cannot feel, it said. Fear requires the experience of death. In frustration with these facts and no closer to having an answer, Eugene typed in a suggestion: Well, try death.
Poor Mr. Williams didn’t stand a chance. His brand new car flew off the Aurora Bridge like it was meant for the sky. Social media, all of it, collapsed and porn disappeared. Not knowing what to do, Christians slaughtered each other in the name of the Lord. Mayhem ensued.
When Gene looked in the mirror, a pair of demon eyes stared back.
“Well…it’s not all bad.”
*
Other micros resting here.
But maybe you’re into a poem/pome or two? Try here.
Next
He knows
he has nothing to fear
from Court to ballot-box.
A woman-Turk-academic?
Nothing to no one, meat to
howling Christians. Beautiful.
They know –
masked ICE agents
stalking intelligence,
scenting terror:
the red-hats want this, want it bad;
make it scream, haha.
America knows
“YOU’RE FIRED!”
as the show goes on because
no one cries over spilled milk and
breaking eggs is the business
of America is WWJD. “WWJD!!!”
Rümeysa means
shining star
accomplished
graceful and noble –
next?
*
“If we lose freedom of speech, it’s never coming back.”
Elon Musk
A California-cool option for Late-Night readers…
You can read my latest poem collection, Late-Night Lucid, through your local library! For free! Through Indie California, library patrons throughout The Golden State have access to an electronic version of the book that already has one 5-star review on Goodreads. (It’s the only review; we all have to start somewhere.) I am proud to have had my work selected by an organization whose purpose is the promotion of independently published books and their authors, and am delighted that you have access to it through your local California library. Suits my ethos.
If you would like the give the ebook Late-Night Lucid a try, click here. It pops right up.
AND if you so enjoy the poems that you just need to have a copy for yourself, click here. Sometimes you just want to hold a book.
Some words on The Indie Author Project:
The Indie Author Project (IAP) is a publishing community that includes public libraries, authors, curators, and readers working together to connect library patrons with great indie-published books. IAP has helped hundreds of libraries engage their local creative community and assisted in getting almost 20,000 indie ebooks into their local libraries. Most importantly, the project has worked with top curation partners and librarians to identify hundreds of these as the best indie ebooks available to readers—so they can be sustainably circulated to library patrons with confidence.
For more information — and instructions for independent writers wondering about how to participate — click the State.
Happy reading (and writing)!
*
“Libraries are one of the few public spaces where you’re allowed to exist without the expectation of spending any money.”
Neil Gaiman
“Conversations I didn’t hear
[note: best if read on a device that preserves indentation/spacing]
“After everything he’s been through…”
“Sports’ll knock some sense into him. Teach him something.”
“He’s smart – he’ll figure it out.”
“Just don’t say anything. You always say something
and it always lands wrong.”
“Life is going to hit that kid sideways.”
“He says he wants to go to Japan. Live there.
What’s he think he’s gonna find? Big mistake.”
“Football? Right. Cheerleader more like it.”
“You’re one to talk. Exactly how many times you
land on your back?’”
“He’ll find his way. He's gonna be happy.
Gonna surprise everybody.”
“How am I supposed to raise a gay kid?”
“Maybe the swim team? Don’t they like that?”
“You love him, you horse’s ass. That’s what you do.
Every single day of your life. You love him.”
“You always defend him.”
“You’re supposed to be a teacher. Shut the fuck up.”
“You’re supposed to be his father. Act like it.”
“I’m that boy’s Grandma
and I say he’s gonna be fine.”
*
Short on time? Try a micro or four here.
Greg Beckman 