she came back to town from an extended vacation in Lala Land….an arm filled with well designed tattoos…colorful….neuvo….some people set trends….others follow….

the table was set….bread was broken….the young hepster saw them as simpletons….farmers….hoosiers…small town ya-ya’s she’d left behind…rodeo….not Rodeo…

You know you’re in the Midwest when you see a tramp-stamp saying Jesus saves, she said while a pitcher of sweet-tea was passed, I guess Jesus really will cover your ass….

(silence)…….a couple of breaths were taken by the old man….others looked straight ahead, Pass the salt please….

(back to silence)

what’re you lookin’ at?….lookin’ at me?….you keep lookin’….

you’ve changed, she said, not the same…

everything changes….nothin’ ever stays the same…a constant flux….right…did you want me to stay the same?….

I don’t know, a giggle from a woman who had changed herself…years gone by…gray here and there…both with dark circles under brown and blue eyes…

do you miss what I was….don’t like what I’ve become…?

it’s fine dear….it’s fine…

not a word of her was mentioned on that drive…just silence….riding past old highway signs…diners…roadside bars…just quiet….

sometimes the old man would start to say somethin’….he’d rub his wrinkled forehead…red from the sun and age…then place his hand back on the wheel…

hours of drivin’ ’round….getting lost…being found…no cell signals….no radio stations….

I let him do all the drivin’…. wondered what was goin’ on inside his head….didn’t ask…just let him drive….

Miller’s Mona had plans for him….they all do…whether good or bad….they all have plans…

some have the heart to come out and tell ya…..to make a fortune…to drive you into utter despair….or to love you till madness becomes the order of the day….

Mona knew Miller was a genius…she was banking on this…perhaps the Jewess even cultivated his genius…or his insanity….

Miller’s crying over a song…a poem..a painting…true heartbreak is an artist’s best weapon…it can be used again and again and again…like a steel blade…

Miller’s Mona had plans for him…they all do….

I watched her sitting atop….a boozy night with smokey hints and allegations…she was not to be touched….just gazed upon…ebony skin with neon green eyes ablaze…

a statue in New York…in Paris….Prague….The Vatican….she was holy…
giving…..loving….just sitting atop…at peace….

what I wouldn’t do….to hold an angelic art….not of stone….nor clay….but…
human….all too human…

I walk past graveyards during daylight…never at nighttime….
just a fear…a fear of being caught…looking-up old friends…past loves…one that got away…

she was volital…half-crazed…we spent a summer making love and drinking margaritas…and Coronas…and more margaritas…

every night was a drunken fight followed by a drunken fuck…screams…yells…crazed midnight howels…

and….then it ended….like all good things do….like all nightmares…she’s long gone…buried deep in the earth while a lover who came after me sits in a cell…

I always knew this would happen…

these thoughts of doin’ myself in, he said, Pills…a gunshot…jump off ah bridge…just end it…done, leaning over…. the old man whispered, Just done…

he’d lived a long life…married for years…kids…dogs…trips…all that was gone now…

I’ve been broke most my life, he said, Tryin’ ta hold on ta somethin’…even when she was alive…I wanted more, lit a smoke, Now…ah…it don’t matter…

No…what pop…

I wanna catch a fish, he grinned, a big ole Catfish….somethin’ I can mount on a wall…

O.K.

Let’s do that tomorrow…, and he went back to sleep..

the clean have kidnapped Christ…you’re allowed to screw over your fellow man….even encouraged…all in the name of profit…

we all make mistakes…no-one is perfect but the son of God….he alone will forgive you of these sins…as only he can…the good book says….

Christ died on the cross for you…you prick…so…go forth and multiply….

rape…pillage…fuck over your next door neighbor….all will be forgiven…

trust me…

the old man kept talking in past tense, I’ve been to Japan….been to Sweeden….hell…I’ve been all over the world, an arrogance spewed…

I was an Eagle Scout don’t you know, he stoically said, Got that at fifteen, another boast..

Your mom was proud of me, he said, She was sure proud….met her  when I was twenty…..she was eighteen….robbed the cradle, he smiled….ran brittle fingers through thin gray..

Boy I miss her….ugh….I really miss her…….(pause)…Did I tell ya’ I been to Sweeden…..

a different young man walks North Avenue at this time…on his way downtown with a cup of coffee and a dry roll….keep going….gotta get there…past closed bars where cleaning crews mop spilled beer….thrown popcorn….credit card reciepts….phone numbers of midnight oral fixations….and arrogance…..

the arrogance of youth out looking for a piece….a taste..entitled…the work has been done that keeps this nation afloat….greasing the chains of economic progress…this country is their’s….

there are whore’s walking North in this hour…going home to single room occupancies for a rest from working all night on their knees….bent behind garbage dumpsters….reeking of piss and thrown out with sauer kraute from Polish joints along with drunks by tough old Polack broads at the end of the night…
a Nelson Algren dream….

the black bitches still looking for that last dollar before sunrise….chicks with dicks the same…no saints…only sinners…aren’t we all…

and still he keeps walking…gotta get there…gotta be on time…