The Emergency Almanac

Revolution–A Play in One Act

 

 by Bryan Tomasovich

 

 

 

CHARACTERS

 

TAMMY STANG. Mother. 39.

 

TIM BADMAN. Father. 39.

 

ENCORE. Son of Tim and Tammy. 9. Alleged perpetrator of an attack on the nation, but heard only off-stage.

 

 

 

(The morning after an attack on the nation. Sparse living room with a window/curtain. The telephone is off the hook. Tammy is soaking in a birth tub, ready to give birth to their second child. A table with a large jig-saw puzzle sits next to the tub. Tim paces in a panic in her vicinity.)

 

TAMMY

(Kneeling, peeking out a window.)

I’m his mother. You think, Tim, I’m going to takes sides? Yours?

 

TIM

Even after something like this? It’s been a damn long time. That I’ve been waiting. To be on your side again, Tammy.

 

TAMMY

Something like this, Tim?

 

TIM

Yeah. You can honestly tell me that this isn’t enough? Even for you? How could he do this to us?

 

TAMMY

You’re a surprise a fuckin’ minute, you know that? He didn’t do anything to you, Tim. It’s way bigger than you.

(Looks out window again.)

God, every station is the world is here. Look, I saw that new girl last night on 13.

 

TIM

13? That’s my— Didn’t we agree to stop watching the goddamn thing Tammy?

 

TAMMY

I know, but after the police came—

 

TIM

That tiny, shitty bit of evidence?

 

TAMMY

They rummaged around in his room all afternoon, Tim. We answered their questions. THAT is news.

 

TIM

There IS no evidence. The kid lived in his head.

 

TAMMY

LIVES. He’s still alive. They could find him. No matter what he’s done, he’s only 9.

 

TIM

They do, they won’t find that kid’s mind. Evidently we never did.

 

TAMMY

Why don’t you just go make a drink? And leave me alone. You know you want to.

 

TIM

Am I drinking right now? I don’t see a drink. Where’s my drink?

 

TAMMY

It’s on your mind. Or in your eyes, at least.

 

TIM

If I went into the station…they’d kill me. People who work for me. Just for being his dad. I mean, I can understand being pissed off, and wanting to prove your point—

 

TAMMY

It’s the way you’ve always handled anything.

 

TIM

And this from the person who says she’s always getting blamed for everything?

 

TAMMY

Feel good? Every since he was a baby, every time something didn’t go your way—

 

TIM

I’m not going to let you pull this crap on me again, Tammy. People react like this where you grew up, but know what? Time’s come to learn a few things from this country.

 

TAMMY

What? I got to get more violent? What more do I need to learn?

 

TIM

Hope, to start with.

 

(TAMMY shifts to the other side of the birth tub to the table. Rummages through small cardboard pieces.)

 

TIM

What are you doing now?

 

TAMMY

My puzzle. I’m trying…

 

TIM

To do what? Of what?

 

TAMMY

The Plasticorp Building.

 

TIM

Jesus Christ Almighty. Where did THAT come from Tammy?

 

TAMMY

I found it. Wrapped. Under my teapot.

 

TIM

That’s…calculating. That’s…that little shit.

(beat)

People died in that building, Tammy. Thousands of them. I just heard one guy was ripped apart from the sharpnel of an exploding toilet, for christ’s sake.

 

TAMMY

Heard? You’ve been on your ham radio?

 

(Caught out, TIM walks to the phone whistling an approximation of the Star Spangled Banner. He puts it back on the hook.)

 

(TIM and TAMMY look at it, waiting for it to ring).

 

TIM

I’m going to go wash my hands.

 

(TIM exits. TAMMY starts a mild contraction. TIM rushes back in, breathes with her a couple times, but gets distracted by the puzzle, then pushes a couple pieces around.)

 

TIM

(As TAMMY is completing the contraction.)

TAMMY. Your puzzle. Get over here and look at this.

 

TAMMY

Tim, why would you even fuck with my puzzle? Now? When all you’ve ever done is tell me it’s a waste of time.

 

TIM

Tammy, the puzzle. He’s changed all these tiny pieces so it—

 

TAMMY

Who’s HE?

 

TIM

Encore, Tammy. Who else?

 

TAMMY

Tim. Listen to me. Leave the puzzle alone. And stop staring at me. I might be naked—

 

TIM

(Exiting)

I’m going to look in his room again for a clue. Get to work on the puzzle, Tammy.

 

(TIM exits.)

 

TAMMY

(Screaming beyond the walls.)

Get to work?

(beat)

I’m sorry I ever had a child with you.

 

(TAMMY checks the floating thermometer that measures the temperature of the water. )

 

TAMMY

98?! This thing is colder than a human body, Tim.

 

(TAMMY whips the thermometer. After a moment, she reaches for a towel at the side of the tub, wraps it around herself, then sits on the rim of the tub, staring at the puzzle.)

 

(TIM enters whistling an approximation of the Star Spangled Banner.)

 

TIM

Wait. That towel. You can’t wear that.

 

TAMMY

It’s all I’ve got of him. I found it—

 

TIM

Wrapped?

 

TAMMY

Yes. Yeah, I did. Under my hairbrush, Tim.

 

TIM

Teapots. Hairbrushes. Knows you backwards and forwards, that kid. Come on, Tammy, that towel. It’s hideous. A souvenir towel from the Plasticorp Building? The very same building—

 

TAMMY

It’s all I’ve got. Of him. For now.

 

TIM

And this puzzle. Look. Take your magnifying glass and look at the 98^th floor. I’ve only found three pieces, but you can already make out. “Tammy.”

 

TAMMY

(Eye to the magnifying glass.)

Yeah. Yeah. It’s there. How?

 

TIM

“I don’t know.”

 

TAMMY

That’s all you can… Oh, wait. THAT I don’t know.

 

TIM

Exactly. For the last year, we kept asking that kid what he was making.

 

TAMMY

It’s not been a year.

 

TIM

Since?

 

TAMMY

I’ve been pregnant.

 

TIM

Or showing. And the only thing he’d mumble was something about “I don’t know.” Well, now—

 

TAMMY

I know. He’s totally re-done a whole row of these pieces to…to…show us—

 

TIM

No more stuttering, Tammy. First, you let the kid call you by your first name, now this. Build the puzzle. And quick.

 

TAMMY

I KNOW quick.

 

TIM

You don’t know how quick. Channel 13 called when you went through that big contraction. They’ve requested a live broadcast from our living room, Tammy. At midnight. AKA any minute now.

 

TAMMY

Your own station? You let them?

 

TIM

It’s Tammy Stang and Tim Badman against America, the networks, and satellite TV here. What do you want me to do to keep them away? Arm-wrestle them on the steps?

 

TAMMY

Tim, I need protecting. I need to protect YOU. I’m about ready to give birth to our child if you’d fucking notice. The cops and TV cameras? They can’t treat people like gumballs, Tim. We need more time.

 

TIM

I said that. Not the stuff about gumballs, but…time. They said it’s been ALL day.

 

(A two-tone doorbell rings in unison with TAMMY.)

 

TAMMY

All day? All day?

 

TIM

Shit. The puzzle. We’ll be dead too.

 

(TIM goes to crumple it all up.)

 

TAMMY

(Stopping him.)

TIM. If you say anything…

 

TIM

Don’t worry, Tammy. THEN I’d have to apologize to you. And I’m done with that.

 

(Blackout, except for spotlight at puzzle table. TAMMY takes off her towel, quickly spreads it across puzzle. One second, two, then she dips back into the tub.)

 

TIM

(Starts to exit)

I’ll go out and buy some time.

 

TAMMY

Buy?

 

TIM

You’re right. I’m going out to demand a price.

 

(TAMMY returns to the puzzle.)

 

TIM

(Entering.)

What the fuck? My own assistant director just called me a drunk.

 

TAMMY

So then what?

 

TIM

Not just a drunk, Tammy. She said that I was such a drunk I ought to get out of the way and go use my litter box.

 

TAMMY

You’re not that bad, Tim.

 

TIM

There are cops out there, with them. The idiot said that in front of the cops.

 

TAMMY

Oh, well, what an emergency. What do you think, Tim? Think you better call Ninny-One-One?

 

TIM

Ninny. All I’ve been through, now I’m a ninny?

 

(TIM pulls TAMMY up out of the tub so she’s seated on the rim of the tub, nude, to work on the puzzle. TIM starts to massage TAMMY’S shoulders like she’s a star athlete. He whistles an approximation of the Star Spangled Banner over the sound of the incessant doorbell.]

 

TIM

(Reading the puzzle over her shoulder.)

“Tammy. Tammy. Tammy.”

(Deepens the massage.)

How long can this go on?

 

TAMMY

(Poking at the puzzle.)

He was born in ’98. You know how he always makes a lot of that number.

 

TIM

Just keep working on that floor.

 

(TIM begins to fall asleep on TAMMY’S shoulders. TAMMY pokes at the puzzle. The doorbell persists.)

 

TAMMY

Oh my god.

 

(TIM is jolted awake.)

 

TIM

(Digging out a watch from his pocket.)

Another contraction? Now?

 

TAMMY

THE BASEMENT.

 

TIM

What?

 

TAMMY

He’s…down there.

 

TIM

Hiding?

 

TAMMY

That, and living…you can do both…at the same time. Hiding’s a kind of…subset of living, right?

 

(TIM stamps on the floor with his foot in a special way, like a coded message. We hear the small voice of ENCORE whistle an exact and clear Star Spangled Banner.)

 

(The police and TV crews enter. The police appear as shadows on the walls. The TV crews are flashes on the walls. Sometimes, the shadows are erased by flashes. TIM squats next to TAMMY, still soaking in the birth tub. They squish their faces together to fit into millions of TV screens.)

 

TIM

(To the TV people and police.)

Hey, we realize that. Believe me, we KNOW it’s been the whole day. And we’re sorry. Speaking as someone in the business, I know what it would have meant to you to get a live broadcast this morning. But we can make it up to you now. For free.

 

TAMMY

CONTRACTION.

 

(A flash juts up the wall. TAMMY is mid-contraction.)

 

TIM

Well, it’s like this. It’s simply hindsight. You know how the moon looks on the horizon when it first comes up? Big, warm, wobbly? And then later in the night, when it’s high above? And it’s all small and pale? Now that a whole day has gone by. Nearly. He’s like that for us. Always looming over my head. But smaller now, and cold.

 

TAMMY

Tim, these people haven’t even thought of the moon since 1969.

 

TIM

You’re right. She’s right. It’s more like he’s just in the basement playing video games.

 

TAMMY

TIM. Tim.

 

TIM

Or like those kids who drop out of college and move back in with their parents. They half-remodel the basement, and paint it black. Anyway…you keep calling for him to come up. But he doesn’t. You make things up to lure him. Maybe you lie and tell him dinner is ready. Or that the garbage needs taking out. But he never comes.

 

TAMMY

Except just one thing. That there’s no dinner is the truth. Tim tried to make some. Looked like a litter box. I made him throw it in the garbage, instead.

 

(Many flashes on the wall. This is newsworthy. A shadow gets wider and taller at the same time.)

 

TIM

Then, officer, you find yourself LOOKING into the garbage a lot, too. It turned dark tonight while I was looking into the garbage.

 

TAMMY

Fact.

 

TIM

After a while, the sight of it can do weird things to you. The garbage starts looking like things. All the bits gnarled and slopped together. Like a heart. Like my wife’s heart.

 

(Many flashes on the wall.)

 

TAMMY

Don’t listen to him. He’s just tired. Here, me, don’t point your camera at him. Me.

(Looking into as many cameras as she can at once.)

It makes him miss our son, this staring into the garbage. Tim used to go through the garbage can in Encore’s room any chance he got. For years. Way before the bombing.

 

TIM

I thought I’d find something. If not a reason, then a message…about why he had—

 

TAMMY

Something that would point to where he’d gone to, or with who. Even if it was just packaging.

 

TIM

But by the time he was 8, the can would be empty. What we would call garbage he’d remake into all sorts of contraptions.

 

TAMMY

Tim’s incapable of giving our son credit, actually. They were really glorified machines you see on the news. They could move. It was agony.

 

(TAMMY starts giving birth to their second child.)

 

(TIM stands up to the police and reporters.)

 

TIM

All this talk about blowing things up…we’re trying to…for fuck’s sake, bring a child into the world here.

 

TAMMY

No, Tim. Let them stay. I want them to see how a baby starts normal. Just like Encore.

 

TIM

Yeah, that’s right, baby. Come on guys, take the footage, put it in the archive room.

 

TAMMY

Then if SHE makes the news, you can all look back.

 

TIM

And see that we’re not guilty. ‘Cause with Encore, we aren’t the ones who are guilty, either. We might have been his parents—

 

(The small, high voice whistles The Star Spangled Banner again from below the floor.)

 

TAMMY

BE. We ARE his parents, Tim.

(Looking into cameras on purpose.)

We are his parents, everyone. But something else took hold of him.

 

TIM

He was really, really attracted to what happens in this country, I admit.

 

TAMMY

Everyone. Tim. Not this country. This country on TV. It was as good as abduction.

 

(More whistling from below. The shadows and flashes get excited and compete. TIM taps his foot on the floor. The shadows and flashes disappear, then exit. The whistling is interrupted. There is a struggle and a capture made below. No more whistling)

 

(Dim light. TIM kneels by the birth tub. TAMMY screams and pushes.)

 

TIM

Sounds like they got him, love. Sorry.

 

TAMMY

CONTRACTION.

 

TIM

I’m sorry. Especially for you.

 

TAMMY

Oh, Tim. I can feel her head. Get ready. Do you have the blankets? The little hat? Get it all ready. I’m going to push. The camera?

 

TIM

Everything’s ready. Tammy?

 

TAMMY

(Really pushing.)

Get in the water, Tim. I need you right now. You. Now.

 

TIM

Now. Now you do.

 

(TIM splashes and gets low to deliver.)

 

TIM

Abduction? It’s what I do for a living, Tammy. It still will be when—

 

(TAMMY gives one last push.)

 

(Blackout.)

 

END

Object Lessons: ’67 Mercedes-Benz

by Jayson Iwen 

 

I’d like to be in love with someone in that cavernous back seat, staying close for heat, but that’s not my first thought when I see certain cars anymore. Probably not even my second.

Before the love are car bombs now. I cut myself shaving when the first one went off. I ran to the balcony and spotted the smoke column two blocks away. The Mediterranean breeze took it slowly in our direction and soon I could smell it. Not unlike the smell of a hot grill with steak turning to cinder on it. Then I realized what it was. Close the windows, I shouted.

Later, when Hariri’s motorcade blew up, we ran toward the smoke downtown. I watched a shirt burn in a car window, blown back and forth by gusts of heat. Then it crawled out the window and I saw a body was in it, struggling to stand. The police held us back. Someone on the inside ran to the figure and threw his jacket over it.After that they came more frequently. I got used to being awakened by explosions at night. My friends and I would meet in the expat sanctuary of happy hour at the Mayflower Hotel and we’d laugh at a common acquaintance’s latest mishap, and I’d smile vacuously and stare through the plate glass window at the rows of cars in the street and calculate how much of a political target we’d make. The UN was pressuring Syria to pull out of Lebanon, so a well-known peacekeeper R&R hangout like the Mayflower might be a tempting target, but doing so would make it seem obvious that Syria was behind the other bombings, which they were trying to convince us were the work of Lebanese factions. Conclusion: possible but not probable. I’d nod at what Ritta had just said about Khaled’s recent escapade, and I’d glance around at the circle of eyes and see the same glittering conclusions there.

After the first bomb, I felt trapped in a sustained, tightly restrained state of panic. For awhile. But after months of explosions, I started to envision clouds of flame engulfing whatever I looked at. I imagined I was living in the flame, already dead and living still, and in that waking dreamstate of death the panic dissolved.

On a hike in the mountains, my friends and I found ourselves, through inattention to the Arabic signs, in the middle of an active mine field. When we finally took notice of a sign nailed to a tree, we shrugged our shoulders. Mike chuckled. We were emotionally prepared for this now. We found a sheep path to follow out, because that’s what you do. You find paths where thought has gone before. Whether human or not, a decision moved as far as the path in the grass proceeds, and decisions are, above all, alive.

In the past, detonators were commonly attached to a car’s ignition. This is not the common practice anymore. Cars can be started remotely now, and the electrical drain caused by an attached detonation device can set off the car alarm. Both factors significantly reduce kill ratio. Now it is more common to simply attach the bomb to the underside of the target vehicle and either detonate it remotely, or have it set to be triggered by a particular movement of the vehicle–starting, stopping, or turning, for example. In either case the car should be moving. That way one knows the decision maker is on board.

There was a time before both bombs and lovers. My little brother and I stood at the side of highway 54, and I said to him, “Look. That car is going to turn right.” And it did. “And that one is going to turn left.” And it did. “How do you know,” he asked. “Watch the lights,” I said. And he did. “I get it,” he said. The connection we’d made between signals and motion utterly intoxicated me. Until then I’d felt like an animal trapped in the world of man, more comfortable with our dogs than our parents. But now these signals and lights radiated into the human wilderness. They seemed to show me a powerful new way to understand the contours of a world made terrifying and unintelligible by humans. I said, “Come on,” to my brother, and we crossed the street to school. Into each our own expanding circle of human flame. That’s my second thought, at least.

I’m far from the political assassinations now. And I envision carnage less. I still take notice of cars that look like they’ve been unattended for too long, but I’m losing the calculation instinct. When I look at a particular car, say a sixties era Mercedes, by far the most common vehicle in Beirut, I still feel a burning, like a tracer burrowing into the night. But after it burns out I’m still here. Life is still buzzing around me. And I can still be thankful for third and fourth and fifth thoughts, for love in a cavernous back seat. We may signal our entrances and exits from the world, but there is still the motion between.

The last note from the shore  
by Henry Williams   

‘Pardon my sore toast, nominal & blunt & let’s get on toward the sea.’

 

                                                            —John Berryman

 

                                    i.

 

When the timbers creak the ship ancient

and ever still slick as a fox swimming in oil

then Robert Johnson

                                    strummed and slid on the strings

                                    ‘you better come in my kitchen

                                    there’s gonna be rain outdoors’

 

these shanties flame sung as farewell, final

footing beat

                                                and pasted to water

my seal,

                                    loaded a barrel of fresh herring

and onions. this is where I signal there’s reefs,

yes, and all their ornamentations

 

but running the sandy waves

was all the waking sailor could manage.

 

                                                We changed the light bulb

and cursed the moon for her influence.

 

 

                                                ii.

 

 

Delta of a snaking flow

where traders tie crocs to canoes, approach the barges

 

world that started our trek.

 

From brushing jungle feathers against the rail, these

nights blanket steam kicks a drum tap of trees

                                                slapping hands to bulwark,

                                                baby carriage

bursting up stream listed and wobbly,

 

 

 

 

and this was hole-in-the-pocket excess leading

towards an ocean, this, Conrad’s river:

his jungular bulging with percussion

 

or heat or adrennial smiles cautious slant.

We at the mouth traded gasoline and steel

for wind, canvas

 

old fashion mess

our best waist coat.

 

 

 

                                                iii.

 

 

Pulse pattern madness as we

baptized the hull, darkest grain maple dressed

in pitch & tar,

                                                            we prepared each sail

like lingerie suited to seduce the wind;

                                                thrust sent us script thru white caps

                                                                        hot held bow past Truman  Ike

and camelot.  suppose we are Vikings,

this would be truth:

                                                            the sea’s cold promise digs

                                                                                                                        under all roots.

                                    To know finally why a half a century found

a peaceful us out to swagger with baton

any regular cop’s beat

 

                                                                        container myth

of missiles  airborne  &  gray painted fleet.

                                                                                                                       

we are no Bush or Cortez,

working for

 

a listless whore.

 

This is voyage.  Not sinking.

 

 

 

                                                one part

                                                     the boat

 

 

(a)

 

Welcome this party pushing craft

from Chesapeake swampland to the

cliffs emptying earth off north

 

Californian coast.  twelve existing

between pressed pulp and pen, we

move what coasting scud of our hull

 

slide this is.  Fuel, muscles own strain

as it is the only way to dream this

spiraling journey on its course.

 

Ernie Pyle,  our Delphian guide, drifts

from 1930’s articles,

travel-tips never missing.  critics

 

mention drastic changes must’ve

happened, but then how many

left the narrow confines of desk

 

or chair, much less made it their boat, dared

sail anything save thick cows tongues

from their oily rotting teethy holes.

 

Our goal:  to cruise thru 50 years

soaked wood history, warped pine of

the white house & trembling limestone

dome, the argument for this mind’s

expedition.  Not to judge but to see.

 

 

(b)

 

 

So we stompt the grapes yet smasht

the bottle, wine transmogrified,

artery split, spilt veins poured

 

thru silt and the ocean disappeared.

the American states were born in

1945 to Roosevelt

 

dying, and Truman rising.  It was D.C.

where we began pushing the boat be-

hind a horse dawn hearse;  seven

 

different steeds from the islands off

Hatteras, roped there to pull to

Arlington that last brave patriot

 

who nature kept from being Caesar.

the crew south now, sitting drunken;

shrimp boats riding swells, and how

 

do we understand this nation’s

slide sipping wine, getting high, obser-

ving the beach skint by tide.

 

Waiting for the stars to now point

mapish the roads we should skid the

craft down;  list this crew so far:

Coltraine and Idlewilt, the same

it’d seem but pushing opposite sides.

 

 

(c)

 

The picture window was 50’s

golden timed sensible timid

buyers;  American image, one meteor,

 

its century.  Butter and whole milk,

synthetic silk, Ozzy & Harriet blew

kisses cross their twin bed canyon.

 

but entering just right to exclaim

for us, squatted forty years past

the prime is a trinity more true

 

to those middle decades than Ike

or Nixon on his rotten blood rise:

Kees, Bruce and Dean, all ghosts now.

 

What better sparkling last shot

at these years than the abandoned

car on the Golden Gate Bridge west

 

entrance;  subtle as a missile silo

in Nebraska, or a broomstick to mop-

sweep glaciers spastic angles;  we

 

passed Ernie’s Indiana yesterday.

Last seventeen hours spent coating

stomachs with apple pie and vanilla

ice cream.  Heroes all choked on chicken

bone excuses, painful failing truth.

 

 

(d)

 

it is September, a falling mouth, a

dispatched smell that will land over

the pushcart clouds, atop a dead

 

rain damaged or bug eaten leaf.

The force transforms, the frozen

concentrate about to be whipped

 

to these august swirls conclusive

off rumbling astropheric burps.

Actually watching football in Veterans’

 

stadium, saints and eagles on fake

green short grass.  Irregular, yes,

all those cars arranged around the boat’s

 

splintered hull–

                                                            but September

brings us here.  The coliseum drawn

like a well bucket from the metropolis.

 

ache the age, this era of game

that came sometime after manifest destiny

ended:  to help control the emptiness

 

which emerged.  So said the hobo

who found a ten spot and a free ticket;

collecting cans for nickels,

he dropt the aluminum, fixed his coat,

stretcht then strutted to play.

 

 

 

(e)

 

Entertainment’s moral concern,

the fair way to hit and score tuckt

into mediocre spirits with cash.

 

A sour rebellion, escape, no soothing

the throaty sand when struck pitches

curl human milk.  Confused, we slapt

 

the boat wood hull with our hands to

check reality.  Assuring grind of grain

on asphalt, we merged on I-40

 

west.  Yes mates, slipt the whole crew &

craft over Texas.  Kees, hand tight

on his bow hold, laught until he cought,

 

gagged senseless by the thought of San

Francisco.  The hills, he said, and

triumphs, but I’d like to till

 

this soul once more thru bay & mist.

What a bridge!  And silence again save

wooden scrape & splinter, a sorry

 

dusty choice shotglass next to his

voice.  Ruined pueblos, carved cliff,

haunted whistling behind us.  Fire

gradually follows sun, whispers

and snores greet wilderness’s black.

 

 

(f)

 

 

There have been trials:  ragged & hunted,

forced to disappear, twelve men go

these rocky gaps with us.  Black listed

 

by pork bulbous hungry hams in

ties.  & this Ike’s grand ole fiesta,

a wake, or more crazed funeral

 

for already thin individual

rights.  Stalin laughed at suburbs,

Levittown, a land for his heart.

 

Plums gone, and she couldn’t find

a corner grocer.  no choice since Ozzy

had the Plymouth but walking miles

 

for Wal-mart:  then only got apples.

Not a clear day to be bought, these hills

crackt chocolate, frost clawed edges

 

trimming the road.  Entourage rimmed near

the snake river, campt:  we knew Joe McCarthy

would dive into some sourmash pit.

 

This crucible (where spanning orange cliffs

cataract canyon) spun blindness

in a winding-scape, crevices tying us.

Words stopped as Jimmy Dean ran hand

thru hair with the usual tragic flair.

 

 

(g)

 

‘now sleeps he with that old whore death’

                                                                                    -Hemingway

 

 

In Idaho, bluffs & black streams shadowed

by retiring sun, we saw Hemingway

smoking a butt, scowled he;  the condos

 

spread;  civilized porno windows

looked on water dying.  Vital flow

stunk of tapeworm & ham:  not a trout

 

to fin thru slick rocks.  He spit thick

with lung & foul discharge.  Coltraine askt

if he still retained a ship swagger.

 

Torn hunting jacket hung on ghost,

Remington repeater twelve gauge

leaned on a tree stump, he spoke a tuba

 

hump. Short bass hums of tongue on

rotted cheek & teeth.  I’d gladly

sail tomorrow but this land is mine:

 

to leave, to pass these white tips for

a new Havana.  Those bars that ruin gut

and brain, the ease of companions.

 

He grabbed Coltraine’s corduroy coat.

Paris & poverty, that’s salvation m’boy!

Then burnt another lucky, slumpt on

a snow drift, hardened ice:  his smoke

a swimmer fading to sea, far past waves…

 

(h)

 

In a hotel room (Irving, Texas), the

All Star Inn, 14 of us cover up

the floor & two beds.  Boris Karloff is

 

weaving a story.  Face pasty as the tale

unfolds,

                                    —the scientists’ creation

somehow turned & haunted the humanity

 

it meant to lift.  Twisted then, when

the scientists sought to fix their poem

or pass its floating truth elsewhere:

 

they got hung.  The words weren’t exactly

unknown, more just a proper setting involved

for surprise application on earth.

                                                    He

sat & addressed his glass;  Boris drank

some rose to his cheeks.  Tom Idlewilt

pushed Bill from bed to rug, no doubt

 

stoned & stuffed.  By the intersection

and across from the west most acre of

truck farms was a Waffle House.  Tom ate

 

his self sludgy.  The 3.99

special for all of anything sunk right thru

stomach;  loaded with grease and slothy

complex carbohydrates, Tom said

what good would come smashing atoms.