DOS HAIKU.

have you ever read
the book of revelations?
i haven't either.
***
ev'ry little thing
is not gonna be alright
fuck you bob marley.
***

haiku.

drop by drop by drop
the transformation takes place
elle ess dee two five.

some stuff for you to read.

imaginary
piss colored halos
floating above
blank faces
of peoples
who have ignored,
missed, cursed, shunned,
misunderstood,
possibly even prayed for
(but not yet received), or
are blind to the
things that would put
theoretical burn marks
forever on their souls

i for one believe
that a life lived
without ham,
whiskey, or fuckin'
ain't worth livin'
& is most definitely
not what i
signed up for

besides,
everyone knows that
the burnt pieces
taste better.

foodku

(dada)

i made some french toast
on sunday for the first time
& it was yummy.

(hip)

ain’t got a clue why

they call that there shit ‘french toast’

it’s fried eggs on bread

(see the pattern?)

big sunday breakfast
is sometimes the best meal of
the whole fucking week.

the cracker barrel

has kickass sunday breakfasts

sometimes rebel buys

buncha scrambled eggs
jimmy dean frozen sausage
potatoes & toast.

in a tortilla

with salsa, cheese, & onion

give dada the toast

i don't like mushrooms
& i don't like tartar sauce
but i love roast beef.

roast beef tastes the best

with mushroom/onion gravy

but no tarter sauce

the 33 cent
kroger brand macaroni
tastes real god damn good.

the kroger brand stuff

tastes perty god damn good, but...

kraft is cheesiest

i use to could eat
a large domino's pizza
all by my lonesome.

a schlotsky’s sammich

plate-size large with chips & soup.

now i eat the small

i'd go to tippin's
about once a month or so
breakfast by myself.

tippins is ok

but cracker barrel kicks ass

by yourself or not

scrambled eggs, hash browns,
sausage links, english muffins,
piece of apple pie.

two big ol’ poached eggs

english muffin with smoked ham

hollandaise on top

within the hour
of my feet hitting the floor
gotsta eat somethin'.

hypoglycemic?

yup, lose my mind by lunchtime

gotsa eat sumpin

the best captain crunch?
peanut butter captain crunch
fuck a crunch berry.

cap’n crunch’s dog..

what was that goofy mutt’s name?

he got on my nerves

a subway sandwich
is some kinda fucked up shit
compared to schlotzky's.

a quizno’s sammich

is a little better, but...

schlotsky’s kicks all ass

at waffle house you
can get things covered or you
can get things smothered.

you can get ‘em stomped,

spit on, train wrecked and fucked with

but they’re still hash browns

domino's pizza
was 30 minutes or less
but they changed that shit. **or** too many car wrecks. **or** then they killed that kid.

I like ‘then they killed that kid’..

jell-o pudding pops
was a food item my wife
never got to try.

but if i know reb

she done tried plenty by now

what’s a pudding pop?

spaghetti dinner
at my mom & dad's old church
was always real gross.

it’s a well-known fact

that baptists cain’t cook sketty

worth a fiddly-fuck

every other week
my friend's youth group had pizza
to lure the kids.

fuck abuncha kids

you order up some pizza

and my ass is there

after church service
we'd go to cici's or furr's
cafeteria.

we always went home

for a big-ass sunday spread

back then peoples cooked

as punishment once
had to go to church with dad
make food for homeless.

that’ll learn you shits

git yer ass over to church

did you steal some food?

tylenol pm
don't go well with lots of food
& boring church folk.

tylenol pm

makes my ass fall out asleep

kinda like at church

i ain't had fondue
& i ain't had rattlesnake
but i want these things.

rattlesnake fondue
with fries and chocolate shake
supersize it, sir?

everything is food
everything is food for thought
everything is food.

food food food food food

food food food food food food food

food food food food food

you seen that true crime show by the name of snapped?

i ain't
gonna lie
i got a
little rough,
but not
that rough

but apparently
i was
rough enough
to bring out it's
inferior qualities

i snapped

me &
that chair
had a
true "gummo"
moment

if yr curious
as to who won
the fight,
just go
rummagin' through
the burn pile
outback.

untitled

puddin told me once
about his cousin
they had all shacked up
in ochelata at the grandparents
because there was
a well stocked deep freezer
she was born with no limbs
at her elbows or knees
just nubs
this didn't stop her mobility
or social life
she would army crawl
to puddins door way
crane her neck
and say things like
"damn brandon if you wasn't my cousin"
with an overly arched back
in a ghetto gangster vernacular
she had a sex life as well but
it was in pawhuska
some black men enjoyed her
company and she was partial to them
"take me to pah-huth-sku
i wanna see my men"
she would scream
puddin would load her
up and driver her there
drop her off then
come home and throw
beer busts in the garage
and dread the phone
call when he would have to go and
load her up and driver her
back home only to be hit on
and bossed around by her

yup

First Experiment

sore head on a friday night

‘cause when i die
i ain’t gonna
sweat
who’s gonna pick up
and run with
The Amex Bill
or digs through my shitty house
for pieces of my dumb ass.
i’m gonna stare at
circumstance
and
destiny
directly
and witness where
i kicked ‘em
both
in the fuckin’ teeth.

*untitled calculations*

me?

don't worry
about me

i done it all
figgered up & everything

so you best
grab a beer from the fridge
& sit the fuck down

because you ain't
gonna believe
this shit.

video haiku hallucination.

on crashing in front of house

tryin’ to outsmart
a fellar who shines with pain…
gawd, you’re dumbasses.

tards

there’s a tendency
to treat geniuses like dwarves
that’s what we’re about.

goot

shrimps is bad fer gout
so is red meat, beans, and beers
fuck abuncha gout.

direct to dvd

what will
be revealed
to me
if i watch
the uncut version?

afeert

ya gotta not
be skeert of death
‘cause when you’re skeert
you cain’t live.

pound sand

pound sand

everybody
foresees
a renaissance
when things
ain’t right

for every gram
of judgement
i lose
i gain ten
pounds of
grouch

D. WAYNE GRUBB PERFORMIN' AT FAKE DADA & REBEL S. NERD'S HOUSE IN THE PINEY WOODS OF NOWHERE.

the bank heist of death haiku.

i decided that
today things are gonna change
for better or worse.
***
i've lied to myself
for way to fuckin' long now
i to can be rich.
***
with guns a blazin'
waltzed into the bank & yelled
"THIS IS NOT A TEST".
***
i liked it when the
girl pressed the panic button
& i shot her face.
***
everyone realized
they best shut the fuck up &
do what they were told.
***
they didn't argue
they filled my bags full of cash
no hesitation.
***
original plan
was to go to mexico
& live like a king. *or* fuck shit up proper.
***
then i realized that
all of this was so pointless
suicide by cop.
***

kayhawkays first fried potato

She was living west of the Ochelata cemetry at the turn
of the century with her folks
in a two room log cabin with
a yard full of daffodils
when she met my great grandpa
his parents had her over for supper
her mother didn't have a stove
and cooked by the fireplace
mostly boiled food from a
black kettle
she was worried about the fried
root and only took a little
for fear she wouldn't like it
a couple of weeks later before the
marriage she confided in my great
grandpa that she didn't know how to
fry anything
he told her not to worry
after the wedding he sold two good wagon horses
to an osage for 35 dollars apiece
went to bartlesville and came back with a cook stove and
fried potatos became as familiar
as her old family's boiled spuds
but as she put it
translated
"much more tastier"


I was just told this tale by grandmother over two eggs sausage texas toast and german style blackberry jam.

Who we is....part whatever

I ain't talkin' "Haul the loaded bass boat down to the lake and smack the water with plastic baits until your arm's sore fishin". I'm talkin' kick back on the river bank and dip a worm or cricket or crawfish or minnow off the end of a cane pole fishin'.

Fishin', by Gawd.

Remmel Dam is the spillway between Lake Catherine and the continuing Quachita River. When they'd open that puppy up after spring rains the river side would be frothing with catfish and bluegill, alligator gar, smallmouth bass, everything. And that's about when grandma would look up and say:

"Yoo kids load up yer granpa's truck. We's goin' fishin'. Git now."

Six or eight cousins would thrash and bungle the poles and cricket traps and minnow buckets, grinning like shit-eatin' sheep. We're goin' to the river! Grandma would tear down the old highways in that old '63 Chevy, fishing gear and kids dangling out the back like something out of a Steinbeck novel. You just can't have good retarded fun like that these days.

It was always the same drill when we got there:

"Johnny, fetch them lawn chairs!"

"Jimbo, don't you dare spill that minner bucket!"

"Cathy, git my snuff out the glove box!"

"You kids watch out fer moccasins, hear!? Steve-bo, you watch out fer these kids!"

We were already doing all that, but she still had to bark out anyway.

"Wayne, go over thar in that mud bank and dig us some worms!"

Wayne was the sixth of grandma's ten children… my uncle. When he was an infant his brother Herman was rocking him in grandma's old rocker in front of the pot-bellied wood stove - I guess a little too vigorously – and dropped him headfirst onto it. Wayne's brain quit developing after about the age of 3. Herman always blamed himself, even though the doctors claimed they were 90% certain Wayne had been born that way. It was kinda fun having a twenty-five-year-old uncle behaving like he was three. We thought he was cool, other than the drooling every now and then.



So Wayne rambled off with an old coffee can to dig for worms, and the rest of us set to unraveling fishing line and bumping into each other. Grandma plopped down in her lawn chair about 20 yards downstream…we new better than to try to fish near her. The last one to get up in her fishing space found out that a cane pole can double as a damn good switch. And boy could that woman administer a switchin'.

Just a couple minutes later I heard thrashing around in the tall weeds behind us, by the mud bank Wayne had gone to. We all turned to see Wayne loping out of the weeds to grandma, blubbering, holding one hand to his chest and the coffee can in the other.

"Wayne, what in the world is wrong with you, boy?"

We all scampered over to see what was up. Grandma had Wayne's free hand in hers, looking it over. It was purple and swollen and covered with tiny holes. Wayne sniffed, "Mama, them worms bites."

I grabbed the coffee can. It was half full of baby moccasins.

FUCK A FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHT. *aka* a high school football game in 4 parts.

i hate football. the only reason we go to the games is because our daughter is in the marching band this yr. well, we attened last friday's game, the band played "goldfinger" & "live & let die", & it was great. i couldn't really tell you much about the football game though, except that we lost.

i can tell you that there were a shit-ton of folks in attendance. there were handfuls of children flutterin' around like mad. many of them seemed to be grossly unsupervised. there was one little boy in particular, who at times sat in front of us with a little girl. they both seemed to be 7 or 8 yrs old. that little boy was an active motherfucker. shit, they both vibrated around like a couple of comepletely freaked out geeks. the boy's grandpa was seated just on the other side of the walkway. he somewhat paid attention to his loud talkin', mountain dew swillin' grandson. at one point grandpa & grandson were sharin' one of them turkey legs that i so desparately wanted, & grandpa ripped off a small turkey bone then used it as a toothpick. fuckin' wow.

i've never understood folks who feel the need to scream & yell all kindsa obnoxious ugliness throughout an entire ballgame. we all have moments of moanin' & groanin', & maybe the occasion scream at a referee. but, who in the fuck yells "ILLEGAL MOVEMENT, ILLEGAL MOVEMENT, ILLEGAL MOVEMENT, ILLEGAL MOVEMENT, ILLEGAL MOVEMENT, ILLEGAL MOVEMENT, ILLEGAL MOVEMENT!!!"? the fuckin' guy next to us, that's who. he seemed to be in possession of some sort of football dictionary. every minute or so, this man would yell about some sort of infraction of the rules or some call by the referee that he considered to be possibly the worst thing to happen to mankind since hitle killed all them fuckin' jews. the other team, according to this violently loud man, was constantly offsides & facemasking. at one point he was yellin' at such & such for "UNSPORTSMANSHIP". somehow the refs seemed to always be ignorant to all the shit that this man was so helpfully pointing out. poor stupid refs.

there was a pretty big turnout for the game. i bet next weeks crowd will be way worse, for it is time for homecoming. good lord. the mere thought of a mum, makes me wanna beat the shit outta someone. maybe shovin' of them turkey legs,from the concession stand, into my face will help keep me at bay. also, i'm bringin' a book this time.

HIS NAME WAS JACK NICHOLS.

jack was a mentally retarded alcoholic. jack was my step great-greatgrandfather.

when i was a little kid, some of the older folk in my family were way too impressed with my ability to reset clocks for their electronics. i set alot of vcr clocks & helped program various bullshit electronics.

apparently jack remembered this.

i'm at home by myself & the phone rings. it's jack. it had been a few years since i had fidgeted with folks remote controls, but he wants to know if he can swing by while he's out doin' shit, & have me reset his watch. i unwillingly agreed to this. he shows up at my house about 15 minutes with his blinking watch & no instructions. he stands in my yard, i sit on my porch & mash buttons. five minutes later the watch is set. jack thanks me 4 or 5 times, puts his watch on, & says for me to hold for a second. he hobbles to his truck & returns shovin' 2 handfuls of change at me. i tell'em that ain't necessary. he insists, sayin' i could use it for coke & candy $$$. i took the 10 or so dollars in loose change, & jack left.

UNTITLED

the heroin problem is
so bad in dublin
some public restrooms
in high use areas
are illuminated with
blue lights
when I was younger
my grandma used
the green husks
of walnuts to make
a pulpy paste
that stained my hairless
underarms a tannish green
the reason being for the blue
lighting is that it makes it
harder for the intraveinous
user to locate a vein
she explained that the walnuts would
help me to have a more pleasant
smell when I became a man
i'm sure people still shoot up
in the blue light
because grandmas
87 and still lives under that
walnut tree
and that goddamn remedy
didn't do a thing for my odor

three fishy things

mr ronnie agnew
***
red scottish bushy
beard wet with
busch beer foam
rolling blood
bait on brass
fish hooks
with black thread
on the white
rocks of
winganon bridge
singing about
the speckled channel
cat and content
with a blue ice
chest of tolerance
for being with me

*************************

There was this man
who had the tips of his
fingers disfigured on the
ends of them
they were strange balls
of scar tissue with the most
mishapen brown specs of
finger nail growth
They worked good for him
when handling his fishing pole
and he was more than
proficient at catching
catfish
below winganon bridge
one evening my dad
told me on our swivering
back road drive home
from the lake
to ramona that the man
had been tortued by means
of having bamboo splinters
shoved up under his fingernails
I figured that the war
was still going on for him
but now
battling those
spiny barbed fish
had taken the place of
the VC and their punji sticks

*************************

bait shop traffic
***
he has got one lung
but enough nightcrawlers
and minnows to keep the towns
poles baited three times over
on a hill across from the cemetery
seperated by only a deep valley
nevermind that the swarms of mosquitos have reportedly carried
small children as far away as
ochelata before discarding their
bloodless bodies
the talk is that the speckled
channel cat have never bitten better

*************************

untitled poem

cotton doesn't have a
last name
just a slick shiny black
scalp and always
a friendly greeting
he takes the orders from
the shop workers everynight
at 7:30 pm sharp
the people get in a line
and he jots down there
requests with a bic ball point pen
onto a tattered oily spiral notebook
He's developed a form of short hand for taking down the menu items
A Lebanese family has a bbq joint near pine and mingo where he picks up everyones meals
The meals come in small brown paper sacks with grease stains
complete with plastic silver wear
napkins and two packs of hunts ketchup
I once asked someone standing in line
why does cotton do this for everyone
they replied oh he gets his meal free for giving them the business
oh I said then began dog hunching the air with my tongue out moaning
fried bologna sandwich while trying to put my hands on their peckers to no avail

the panther of skull hollow

The men meet
at the post office downtown
with coleman lanterns
dirty fingernails
bad breath
and rusty rifles
Their wives are always
sleeping with everyone
in town but them.
these women are shoving them
out the door telling them
to bring back that cat.
The party moves out east
of town in the back of an old
rickety pick up just as the
dark orange october sun is
swallowed up by the vastness of
osage county
The men dream of that cat as being
the trophy that would let them back into their wives intimacy
but
most men who live out east of town
would tell you that cat
doesn't even exist

Who We Is, Part 2.13...

Now, down in rural Arkansas there's some strange things happened back in the day that don't seem so strange now. These days a choir boy gets fondled by a priest; that's world-wide news. Those days something like that would be community gossip, the family would hush it up best they could out of misplaced shame. The priest would go on, the boy would go on, whispers the only thing heard. The priest retired eventually - next priest. The boy took his lumps and sucked it up – became the next bank president or mysterious hunting accident. The community remained obliviously, gossipy, solid.

'Course, in rural Arkansas we didn't know what a priest or alter boy was. We were Baptists and Methodists and Church of Gods. But you get my point.

Ol' Bill was red-faced and old. Can't tell you how old…when you're 14 everybody looks old…but he had solid, short grey hair and a big ol' potbelly. He wore a straw cowboy hat and scuffy boots, drove an immaculate white '67 Fairlane that still had the new rubber smell to it. Bill liked to hang out at the Moore's with all us teen-age boys of a summer day, especially when Mizz Moore was in the mental hospital and Mr. Moore was at work at the pallet mill. Bill'd bring Old Milwaukee beer.

The Moores were dirt poor folk who were unfortunate enough for my dad's church to notice. That's right, "We'll bring you boxes of canned and dry goods by once a week, BUT… dress those children for church every Wednesday evening and twice on Sunday."
People got fed and fed up equally, but the price was getting on and off that beat up old bus with the 'Saving Souls One at a Time' banner on it.

Anyway, I got to know the Moore kids through Sunday school, and during summer vacation I started hanging out at their house during the day. It was cool…smokin', cussin', gettin' into mischief….everything I couldn't get away with at home. Paul, the eldest, was my hero. He was about 17. He looked like Elvis and could whup anybody around. Michael, my age, looked like Paul but was much quieter. Leeroy Jr. was crazy but had a good heart. Donna Faye was twelve but developing quick; she liked to drag me into a bedroom and play spin the bottle. And Earnest and PeeWee liked to kick me in the shins to see if I'd go off so Paul or Michael or Leeroy would kick my ass. Hanging out at the Moore's was fun…you never knew what you'd get into.

One summer day I walked up to the Moore's place and Ol' Bill was sitting on the couch. All the male kids were gathered around him, smoking and drinking Old Milwaukee; the girls weren't around for some reason. I opened the squeaky screen door and Paul said,

"Hey. Here's Steve. Git you a beer, son. Bill here brought a bunch. Thisheer's Bill."

Bill looked me up and down and held out his hand. I shook it, didn't say anything. Bill grinned. Something felt bad wrong about this dude.




I ran into Paul and Michael somewhere, some weeks later.
"You remember that old motherfucker, Bill?" Michael said.

"Yup."

"Well, I thank we kilt 'im."

"Kilt 'im?"

"Yup. He took Paul down to the river bottoms and tried to unzip his britches….and…"

"Huh?" I said. Paul broke in:

"That fuckin' Bill. He kept on takin' me down to the river to drink beer. When he thought I was drunk enough he'd start rubbin' my leg an' shit…"

"Huh?"

"…an' I tol' him next time we need to take a buncha boys down there."

Michael jumped in: "So we.."

Paul continued: "…loaded up with me and Michael and JD Davis an' Leeroy and went on down there with 'im. We all acted like we was drunk and he tried to git Leeroy's britches off."

"Huh?"

Michael's turn: "So we stomped that ol' motherfucker all over the river bank. He was cryin', so we stomped 'im some more. Took his billfold and his beer and his car and left his ol' …"

"…dead ass down there," Paul said. "I guess he's dead. Ain't nobody seen 'im since."

I don't remember anybody ever mentioning Ol' Bill again. No news reports. No nothing.

Southern White Trash Justice, I suppose. When there ain't no gossip about it, it never happened.

ft. worth

first day of summer
my time was spent in ft. worth
smile on my face.
***
they're fuckin' it up
construction is everywhere
catering to cash.
***
almost all things good
are in the panther city
'cept for me & mine.
***
i miss my peoples
every motherfuckin' day
i ain't got none here.
***
the town of my birth
lived their almost 30 yrs
then one day we left.
***
i want to move back
but i know we're not gonna
we're east texans now.
***

thanks for tearin' down the wreck room. thanks for tearin' down north hills mall. thanks for buildin' all them fuckin' strip centers. thanks for wantin' to be a shittier version of dallas.

if you refer to ft. worth as funky town, fuck you.

la michoacana - mexican grocery store, meat market, & taqueria.

one of my least favorite aspects of eating out is havin' to listen to the zombie-chatter that surrounds me. here, this is not a problem. usually the only english i hear is done by one of the cashiers, who are kinda bi-lingual. (which is way better than where i'm standin'. i can barely speak english, let alone spanish.) so, except for that of my own creation, there ain't no mindless nonsense bein' comprehended over here, mister. none whatsoever. and for me, this is great. but, on the downside, this here language barrier makes it difficult to place my order. in my head, this battle is well worth it. even if i wanted to pay attention to what my fellow patrons were sayin', i probably couldn't. my hearin' ain't so good, and this place constantly blasts tejano mucic, as broadcasted from a local hispanic radio station. and that's just freakin' awesome. i love me some accordion when paired with a horn section. also, there's a t.v. facing the dining section's eight tables, tuned to a local hispanic channel. this means gettin' to see women with half their body showin' and tons of absurd surrealist images.

now let's move onto the food.

they got lots to choose from, but i ain't sure what alot of it is. i know what some of it is. they got fajita style beef, chicken, pork, tongue, beans, and tamales. the basics. they've also got many other things to choose from. i don't ever see anything yuck, but i do see a handful of things that i ain't so sure of. for example, they got what seems to be french-cut green beans with some red colored somethin' or other mixed in. now, is that somethin' or other good, or is it nasty and gonna cause me to not eat it and have to buy somethin' else, so i ain't hungry for the rest of the day? who knows? not me, that's who. and i ain't findin' out neither.

i've had the cow tongue, and that was ok. i still ain't had the beef strips or the chicken. and i could eat their pork tamales until i puked and died. but, what i usually get is 2 to 3 pork soft tacos with grilled onions, cheese (blanco, of course), and green sauce. through coming here, i've come to realize the greatness of green sauce. LONG LIVE SALSA VERDE. they'll ask if you want some fresh cut onions and cilantro. they always seem confused when i tell'em i don't want these things. one time the cook told me it makes the taco taste so much better. (this i do not believe). also to choose from at the self-serve condiment bar, they have pico, a few different kinds of sauces, and these nasty lookin' green pepper things. with my meal, i usually drink one of them itty bitty 8oz. cokes in a glass bottle. this is the only pace in town to get a single glass bottle of coke. yeah, they cost more than a can of coke, and have less coke, but bein' a creature of habit, i get one almost every time i eat here. soon, i might build up enough courage to order one of them big ol' iced milk concoctions isee so many folks order. we'll see.

now's wheni hopefully get to sit in my usual spot. the last seat on the right, next to the drink coolers. i feel this is the best spot because i can see the t.v., and sittin' next to them coolers feels mighty nice. once seated, i inhale my food as fast as i possibly can, then i read. usually i have around 20 to 30 minutes of readin' before my time in heaven has expiered, and i return to the hell that is my work.

Crack. That shit will get you really high.

Eight months after Puger, my second step-dad, died, Mom's loneliness got the best of her and she told her friend, Timmy, she needed a man. Timmy was a meth-head that served time with Puger in Dallas County, and they continued their friendship in the real world. Timmy felt bad because Mom was so lonely without Puger, and vowed to help her find the right man. The next week, Timmy was picked up for outstanding warrants. He told his cell-mate, David, about Mom, decided that they were perfect for each other, and set them up.



David, a crackhead thief with a history of violence, began his seduction of my mom via telephone from the Ellis County jail. He told her that he was going to be released soon, and he'd like to take her to see Bonnie Raitt. When I talked to Mom about the impending blind date, she was very excited. She always loved to get drunk and sing along with Bonnie Raitt. I told her that I wasn't sure that dating a crackhead fresh out of jail was a good decision.



"Rebel, Timmy says he's a real nice guy, and David is a sweetheart on the phone."



"Mom, Timmy is a retarded meth-head, and nice guys do not rob little old ladies. Is he calling you collect?"



"I am a big girl, Rebel. I know what I'm doing."



Turns out, "sweetheart" lied. He didn't really have Bonnie Raitt tickets. He just had crack, and a trailer to smoke it in. Big girl decided that she would leave the relative sobriety of the methadone program (10 years clean), and jump headlong into the world of crackheadery.



Mom didn't call anymore, and I only heard from my sister Holly. She said that Mom stopped going to work, ignored her dog, and spent all of her time hiding from imaginary spooks. She had spectacular fistfights with her boyfriend in the apartment parking lot. It didn't take long for her to get fired, and the eviction notice arrived soon after. They stayed in the apartment for another three months, until they received a court order from the apartment manager, stating that the police would forcibly remove her from the apartment, and all her property would be seized if she did not vacate the premises by the following afternoon.



Holly was called to help her move. She said Mom spent the day asking her for money, cigarettes, or money for cigarettes. Holly told her that she didn't have money to give her. When my sister asked Mom if she could have the cast iron bull that was supposed to be my inheritance, my mom sold it to her.



"Hey Reb, Mom sold me your inheritance bull for ten bucks. I'll bring it to you the next time I come visit. I figgered if I didn't buy it from her, we'd never see it again."

***

Taking Red-Neck Crackhead to New Heights

Mom and David didn't have anywhere to go but my grandma's house. Mama Hall would not let them sleep inside the house, because they weren't married. They slept on the covered front porch instead.



They borrowed Mama Hall's car to get back and forth to the methadone clinic, and to buy crack. Holly kept me informed of the developments.



"Uncle Lowell saw Mom drivin' Mama Hall's car, and she had a black guy in the car. He said he knew she was headed over to the Flatts to buy crack, so he came over to Mama Hall's house and threatened to beat her ass if he caught her with a nigger in the car again."



"Mom called me last week, said she wanted to leave that fucking crackhead. Told me he was mean to her all the time, and she was tired of it. I told her she could come stay with me, but she wasn't gonna smoke that shit if she lived here. She didn't say anything else, and I ain't heard from her in three days."



"Your Mama got arrested. They picked her up over in Wilmer, and they were supposed to transfer her over to Seagoville, 'cause she's got warrants there. David told Mama Hall that she had to bail Mom out because she was gonna die in jail if she didn't get her methadone. Told Mama Hall she'd have a heart attack and die. Mama Hall called me, and I told her that was bullshit, she just needed to keep her money, and let Mom sit that shit out. Mama Hall didn't bail her out, but Seagoville never came to get her, so Wilmer just let her go. She called me, and I went to pick her up at the Conoco in Wilmer. I got there, and her face was all purple and swollen, and she didn't have no shoelaces. I said 'Mama, what the hell happened to you?' She said 'The fucking cops wouldn't give me my shoelaces back, and this bitch hit me in the face in there. She walked up when I was eating and told me to give her MY sandwich. I told her "fuck you bitch" then she punched me in the face.' She looks sick, Reb. She probably weighs eighty pounds. You can see all of her bones."



"I saw that motherfucker Timmy at the grocery store, and I told him I oughta kick his ass for hooking my mama up with that fucking crackhead. I asked him how it felt to know that he ruined my mama's life. I told him if I ever saw him again, I'd stab him."



"Mom called me. She wanted to know why I never let her see the baby, and I told her it's 'cause she's a crackhead, and I don't like that motherfucker she's shacked up with, and until she's straight, I don't want her around. She wanted me to tell you that she's still your mother, and she loves you, and you can call her anytime. Do you want the number?"



I did not. That is not to say that I didn't feel guilty about not calling my Mama, or worried that I might miss my chance to talk to her one last time before her inevitable death from excess. I didn't call because I knew that the conversation would end with a plea for money, and I do not like to hear my mom beg.



My sister relieved the large part of my guilt when she called last week.



"Well, we're probably never gonna hear from Mom again. Her and David took Mama Hall's car to the methadone clinic, but it broke down on the way there. They called Mama Hall and told her it was on the side of the road, and they were stuck in Pleasant Grove. She didn't hear from them for a week. When they finally called back, they told her the car had blown a head-gasket, and there wudn't nothin' they could do about it. The next day, Mama Hall got a letter from the bank saying that she was seven hundred dollars overdrawn, and all of her checks bounced. Your Mama stole one of her check books, and wrote checks all over town. Uncle Lowell says he's gonna shoot David. Carla and Wayne-Gene are pissed too. They packed up all her shit, and Mama Hall is supposed to call the cops if she steps on the property."

Who we is, Part 1.

I got to Arkansas in 1966. I was nine years old. Dad had found carpenter work through Mama's folks in Malvern, a little brick and sawmill town across the river from the foothills of the Ozark Mountains, so we left the long winters and construction slump of Ohio without a look back.

I don't recall how long the seven of us stayed with Grandma and Grandpa Erwin, but it made for a houseful. The Erwins lived way out the 'Military Road'- a bumpy, dusty rut of a thing that had been used by Confederate troops retreating and reforming battle lines between Little Rock and Arkadelphia – in a tin-roofed box of a house with a fireplace for winter and screened porches on either end for summer. Betwixt Grandma, Grandpa, five uncles in growing stages and ages lounging around on couches, six or seven inbred Chihuahua-mix yappers, two retarded cats, then me and my brothers and sister and parents it seemed like there were approximately 35 critters crammed into the place.

It wasn't a huge culture shock for a Yankee-born boy of nine. I had lived the first few years of my life in a raggedy trailer, suffering malnutrition to the point of rickets from ignorance of young parents and small to no paychecks, Mama popping out a new sibling every year. I was used to crowding. It was the Ohio accent that seemed to make a difference.

"Piyee?" Cousin Denny was my age but outweighed me by 20 pounds or so. We were standing around being bored kids after an extended family dinner spread in the backyard, flies pestering cut watermelons and tomatoes in the muggy August air, grownups clearing plates and pots from the makeshift sawhorse- and- warped- plywood tables.

"Yep. Grandma called dessert. I love piyee."

"Welp, boy," Denny pushed up in my face. Now that I think on it I had to look up at him. The boy was Erwin tall. "Say that agin."

"What? Grandma called dess…uck..." Denny flat-handed me in the chest. I backed up a step and gulped.

"It ain't 'piyee', boy. It's 'paah'. Say it." I looked in Denny's eyes. He seemed right serious about this pronunciation business. I remembered a kid from first grade who had a problem with me drawing on the back of a drawing. Same tactics. Guess they grow assholes everywhere.

"Pa."

The other cousins and a couple of my brothers snickered; more kids were gathering around. Backyard fun. Somebody's gonna scuffle.

Denny lunged into my chest with both hands and knocked me flat on my skinny ass. The crowd of kids made a sound like 'Ohhhoooo.'

Denny put his hands on his hips and grinned down at me. He looked like a tree with eyes up there. "It ain't 'Pa'. It's 'Paah'. Now say it."

"Pa."

The kids were pulling tighter into a circle around us. Somebody giggled. Somebody else laughed out loud. Denny's face turned red. "You better git up and say it right, boy."

"OK."

I got up, dusted my britches off, stooped over like I was going to tie my shoe, and charged. My shoulder hit Denny hard in the belly - "Ummph"- and I drove my legs forward while I grabbed him around the upper legs, lifting his feet off the ground, then pulled down hard while I jammed my head into his chin. He hit the ground on his back with all my weight on his chest – "UUUUMMMMPH!" – I pinned his arms with my knees and looked around….nope, nobody else wanted to play. The circle of kids was quiet.

Denny took a couple of short breaths and looked up at me as if he really didn't understand how he had come to be here. I leaned over, close to his face.

"Paah."

"DEE-ssert!" Grandma always had two tones of voice…quiet threatening and loud threatening. I figure it was from constantly having a yard and house full of kids and critters in varying degrees of rebellion and mischief.

" I done tole ya'll kids to wash up fer paah. STEVE-BO!! Git off yer cousin, ya'll rasslin' 'round gittin' yer Sundy duds dirty! Don't make me cut a china-berry switch, now! Git!"

Daddy Takes HIs Visitation

My momma is from the sort of redneck family that eat what they hit with the truck (that's how I ate armadillo), but my daddy came from the sort of middle-class life depicted in Leave It To Beaver. He was raised with three square meals a day, regular visits to the doctor, and a stay-at-home mom that baked cookies and ironed creases into his slacks. From a long line of intelligent, artistic stock, Daddy had a genius level IQ and a love of chemistry.

When Daddy was 16, he met my uncle Wolfman, and fell in love with the trashier side of life. He started smoking pot and riding Harley's, and generally doing what he could to disappoint his family. When he was 19, he swept my 14 year old Momma off her feet, deposited his seed inside her, and nine months later, I was born. Aside from picking my name, Rebel Star, Daddy wasn't very interested in me or Momma, so he spent his money on guitars and motorcycles.

When Momma left, she told Daddy that he would have to support me if he wanted visitation. Daddy explained that he had just put a down payment on a new Harley, so he would just "catch up with me later". Momma shacked up with a new man. Since I was only two, she just let me exist under the impression that the new man was my Daddy. In her defense, I didn't even notice until I was 6. That was the year I was re-introduced to my "real" Daddy.

I was at my grandparent's house for Thanksgiving dinner. I was in the game room, playing Clue with my cousin Stephen, when my Nana entered, dragging a hippy behind her.

"Rebel, this is your real daddy, Paul."

"Hi, Rebel, I brought you a present."

He handed me a Cover Girl eyeshadow kit.

"I thought you might like to put makeup on."

I just stared at him. I didn't even know that I had a "real daddy", and I certainly had no idea that he looked like John Lennon.

Shortly after our awkward reunion, Daddy was sent to prison for using his chemistry knowledge to manufacture methamphetamines. I started receiving letters from him, promising that he would shower me with gifts upon his parole, and pay for me to attend Southern Methodist University if I was interested in going. The letters came weekly until he was released, then he disappeared for two years.

When I was 8, Momma got a call from Daddy's new wife, Glenda. She explained that Daddy had a new family, was settled down, and he would like to take his visitation. Momma agreed.

Daddy and Glenda came to pick me up on a Friday night. I met my new brother and sister in the car. Nelson was 1 and Staley was 3 months old. Daddy was blasting Hank Williams Jr.'s "Attitude Adjustment."

"I really like this song, Rebel. I identify with it, because I want to hit people in the head with a hammer too."

We were going to Daddy's double-wide trailer, in a seedy part of the outskirts of Dallas. The first thing I saw when we got to the house was waterbeds. Instead of a couch, there was a king-size waterbed in the living room.

"Why don't you have a couch Daddy?"

"Because a waterbed is better. This is a waveless waterbed, top of the line."

I wandered from room to room and found a waterbed in every one.

"Why do you have so many waterbeds?"

"People like to trade with me, so I traded for all these waterbeds."

When I reached the dining room, I found a shelf that was packed with Commodore 64 computers.

"Daddy, where did all these computers come from? Can I have one?"(I had been dying for a Commodore since I'd learned to write programs for them in gifted & talented.)

"I traded for those too. Pick out which one you want, and Glenda will pack it up for you."

Every where I looked, there were multiples of expensive electronics, crammed on shelves and collecting dust. I counted 12 VCRs. We couldn't even afford one VCR at my house.

We ate dinner, and Daddy explained that Glenda would take me to Wal-Mart the next day, where I would be allowed to buy anything that I wanted. The idea of shopping without limitations was very exciting, because my parents never let me buy anything.

True to their word, the next morning, Glenda and I went to Wal-Mart. She gave me a shopping cart.

"Fill it up with whatever you want."

"Do you have enough money for that?"

"Don't worry about it, Rebel. Pick out whatever you want."

I filled my basket with lip gloss, Lee Press-On Nails, mathematics workbooks, and 45's. No matter what I crammed into the cart, she never raised an eyebrow. If she saw me lingering by an item that I was too shy to get, she would put them in the cart and say, "Get anything you want."

We walked the aisles of Wal-Mart for hours before I got my fill. When we checked out, our total was $385. I was sure I was in trouble, but Glenda just pulled a thick roll of hundred dollar bills from her purse and handed four to the cashier.

After Wal-Mart, Glenda took me to the video store, where I was allowed to rent 8 movies of my choice. She explained that Daddy could use the VCRs to make copies of the videos.

"I don't have a VCR," I said.

"We have plenty, you can just take one of ours."

I never actually spent any time with my Daddy that weekend, because he spent the whole time on the phone, but I came home in a car full of gadgets and treasures. I couldn't wait to tell my Momma about my shopping trip.

"Momma, they let me buy whatever I want, and I got a VCR, and Daddy has a waterbed in every room, and Glenda has more money in her purse than they have at the bank!"

Momma looked at my step-dad and said, "He's still cooking speed."

I kept expecting Daddy to come back, but that was his one and only visitation. I still see him every five years or so, and he always has a reason why things turned out the way they did. His reasons range from my Momma's inability to make a good pot roast, to the "man's" continued harassment of chemists.

emory bacon

emory bacon
lived two houses down
and drank moonshine from
plastic gallon milk jugs
he only wore overalls
and kept a very messy house
when I was younger playing in the yard
I heard an explosion and saw the rise
of a huge column of orange and black flame
upon rushing to his aid
I found him on his back
with a lawn mower engine
just in front of him
still ablaze
drunken thrashing
trying to get up
mumbling goddamn
over and over
his eyebrows were gone
and one of his old saggy
wrinkled titties looked
a bit charred
dangling out the side of
his bib
I rarely have ever laughed
this hard

Who we is, Part 2..

My accent slowly and surely acclimated, especially after I started school. The new kid always catches shit in any small town, and in rural Arkansas that’s especially so if you act and sound like you just got off the bus from Yankeeville. I was a quiet, observant kid anyway, so I just stayed out of the way, watched and listened.

I learned that poor southern white people are very clannish and distrust outsiders; it takes a long time to ’get inside’. It comes from their Scots-Irish, Irish, Welsh and English ancestors - they had escaped from a place where being too open with people you didn’t know could get a whole village of your folk wiped out. The same distrust holds true for government, especially powerful government.

I learned that poor southern white people are polite to a fault; coldly so with strangers, very cheery and warm with friends and family, but always polite…up until about three minutes before they kill you.

And there was something else. I sensed it. I couldn’t quite get my finger on it. I could see it in people’s actions, a certain beaten demeanor just under the surface. I got it from everybody, old and young - teachers, preachers, parents – an almost downtrodden, yet angry feeling - and it didn’t seem to my young eyes or heart that anybody noticed, or maybe didn’t admit.

A dim light came on when we learned about the Civil War in history class. Here is what we were taught, in a nutshell:

Southern white people were bad - they owned slaves and hated black people. Northerners were good - they hated slavery and loved black people. The bad Southern people rebelled against the good Northern people. The good Northern people defeated the bad Southern people, then taught them how to be good Northern people.

Something didn’t click. I went to the library and did some reading. Nope. Didn’t happen anything like that. Hmmm. State’s rights as guaranteed under the constitution. Slavery was already dying of natural causes. Anti-free negro sentiment very high in many Northern states. A very, very small percentage of Southerners and Southern combatants were slave owners; most fought because their homeland was being invaded. And what really caught my eye: Southern forces had soundly whipped Northern at almost every juncture with fewer men, arms, and supplies, for the first two years of a four year war…and attrition and lack of resources were the true reason the South ultimately lost. Hmmm.

Next history class I paid real close attention. I had been lied to. I was onto something…



[Note: Don’t go hollerin’ "RACIST!" yet. In the next installment I actually type the words "nigger", "cracker", and "fuckin’ Yankee-ass carpetbagger". Also, this fuckin’ Microsoft Word can STILL kiss my ass with its little squiggly red or green lines under words it don’t like.]

we had a grocery store

it was our grocery store
our only grocery store
not much of one
but it was ours.

in the same
parking lot, was
a donut shop,
a small steak house,
by the name of "sir loin's",
a sewing shop
& a used book store.

when i was
9 or 10,
the grocery store closed.

now we had a furniture store.

about 5 yrs ago, or so,
the city was gonna bring
in a big fancy grocery store.

furniture store closed
donut shop closed
steak house closed
sewing shop closed
book store closed.

all buildings were demolished.

the fancy grocery store never came.

but the empty parking lot stayed.

Ricky Lynn Never Went Anywhere

Just sat on a dirty, bare mattress

in his mom's detached garage

beneath windows spray painted black
the only light, a television.


His all consuming passions

huffing paint, and sometimes glue

cultivating his heavy-metal hair

his mediocre mustache,

and Metallica.


We came to visit

watched him drool,

the silvery thread

tying him to our world.


Sometimes his momma

would beat on the door,

"Gawdammit Ricky Lynn!

Did you steal my oven cleaner again?

And when are you gettin' a job? "


I would laugh,

trace paint drips

with my fingertip

and steal his cigarettes.


Ricky Lynn yelled back

"No one's home!

And I ain't cut out for workin'!"

It sounded like the truth,

to me.

Ricky Lynn Never Went Anywhere

Just sat on a dirty, bare mattress

in his mom's detached garage

beneath windows spray painted black
the only light, a television.


His all consuming passions

huffing paint, and sometimes glue

cultivating his heavy-metal hair

his mediocre mustache,

and Metallica.


We came to visit

watched him drool,

the silvery thread

tying him to our world.


Sometimes his momma

would beat on the door,

"Gawdammit Ricky Lynn!

Did you steal my oven cleaner again?

And when are you gettin' a job? "


I would laugh,

trace paint drips

with my fingertip

and steal his cigarettes.


Ricky Lynn yelled back

"No one's home!

And I ain't cut out for workin'!"

It sounded like the truth,

to me.

Yep

I grew up in a trailer, scrappy, hungry and poor. I talked with a Texas twang, and went barefoot in the summer. I drank Kool-Aid bought with foodstamps, until my mom started selling the foodstamps for heroin. I lived without benefit of electricity, running water, or parental supervision. I was mocked, brutalized and tortured, mostly by the middle-class kids that attended the hell we called a middle-school. They let me know that I was white-trash, and that's all I would ever be.

I decided to prove them wrong. I read every book I could get my hands on, and plotted my escape and re-invention in a new town. I practiced talking without an accent.

I was 17 when I escaped. I moved to the suburbs of Ft. Worth and tried to forget about my white-trash holocaust. I pretended that I had grown up in a house with a manicured lawn, with regular visits to the orthodontist, and more than two outfits to wear.

I started a family (too early, because teen pregnancy is the bane of the white-trash existence), and worked hard to make sure my daughter never went to bed hungry. She had every toy she wanted, and her closet over-flowed. Most importantly, she had parents that paid attention to what she was doing.

Three years ago, I realized that I was on track to raise one of the assholes that tormented me in school. I was teaching her to love things, not people. While my childhood as working-class trash was terrible, I learned to earn every thing that I had, and to fight to keep it. I wanted to know that my daughter would have the strength to kick back when she gets kicked.

We moved back to the country. I stopped being ashamed of who I am.

So, I work too hard and my hands are callused. I drink cheap beer, and I sing along with Hank Williams. I like sushi, but I love Frito pie. I can watch a Fellini film, but it's not as much fun as watching Friday the 13th. I like fishing and shooting my guns. I've been known to watch wrestling (or buy ringside seats to a wrestling match). I don't wear designer clothes, and I don't have any desire to. I don't care what my car looks like, and I don't have a credit card. My savings account doesn't exist. I read and write, and I do it with vigor. I'm self-educated, and smarter than most of the college graduates I know. I'm working on getting my accent back.

They were right. I'm white-trash and I always will be. I just finally learned that there ain't a fucking thing wrong with it.

highbrow hick haiku.

them sonsofbitches
would not get off of my land
that's why i shot them.
***
some of us folks own
big ol' confederate flags
we ain't all racists.
***
hank williams sr.
hank jr. & bocephus
also hank the third.
***
lots of us own guns
& lots of us carry guns
so you best watch out.
***
there was this one time
where a certain someone said
we might eat fried snake.
***
we are not all like
the beverly hillbillies
but some of us are.

random haiku #7

a poem, for me
is a story that's too short
to be a story

Visions of Janine

Janine was my neighbor

for a long, long time

Janine has been a dope fiend of all shapes & sizes

for a long, long time

Her first son was given to his grandparents

by the power of the state

She gave birth to her second son while in prison

& her lesbian lover took care of him

With chaos bein’ the only constant,

It makes sense she’s dyin’ a horrible

Painful death.

***

There was a constant flow of strippers, bikers, & just generally scary lookin’ folk in & out of her house. Sometimes they stayed long enough to get some sorta drug fix or $$$. Sometimes they stayed for weeks, sometimes months. The only constant was chaos, the atmosphere would get too heavy for Janine to handle, & everyone would be gone, including Janine. Usually this meant she was holed up at the lake house. For weeks & weeks the house would appear to be totally vacant. What we didn’t know was that sometimes local dope fiends would sometimes break in, stay for awhile, trash the place, & steal shit. Occasionally Janine would pop by the house & come by to ask if we’d seen any activity next door. I’d always tell’er no, even if I had seen folks coming in & out of her house. I didn’t wanna fuck with the barrage of questions that would follow if I answered “yes”. Who woulda thought you would have to deal with such problems when dealin’ with these types of crazy characters? I figgered yr biggest problem would be tryin’ to decide which type of cookies to have with tea at noon everyday. Not “who sprayed blood all over the fuckin’ bathroom?”. One time Janine came over to ask if we’d let’er know if this asshole couple that had gotten kicked outta the house, was sleepin’ in the treehouse in the backyard. Fuckin’ wow.

To call Janine a crack monster would be a mislabeling of her character. She ingested a fuckin’ Technicolor rainbow of chemicals. She’d been arrested with crack a few times, methamphetamines, she had trackmarks, and one time asked me & my wife “ya’ll like to do GHB? That shit is badass. It will totally fuck you up.” Then there was the time she was comin’ home from the liquor store, with a big ol’ bottle of everclear, & smashed into another car two houses down from her house. The bottle of everclear busted & went everywhere. The big ol’ dodge ram pick-up truck with the big ol’metal bars on the front that Janine hit, hardly move an inch. Also, the owner of the truck (which was parked the wrong direction) was a cop. Not sure what the outcome of this situation was, but I do know that the everclear was a key ingredient for the “jailhouse” lsd they was gonna make.

***
even though janine

was addicted to drugs, she

was still overweight.

***

even though janine

was overweight, she would still

wear really short shorts.

***

lots of teeth were gone

some teeth were only half gone

& some had turned black.

***

one time i saw cops

crawl on their bellies, through her

yard, with their guns drawn.

***

she’s bisexual

explains all the young, nasty

strippers that stayed their.

***

During one stint in prison, my mom helped janine’s family clean out the house. Trash everywhere. Syringes everywhere. Handcuffs on the headboard. Sex toys. I remember it taking a few days for this small handful of people to clean out the house.

***

at one point In her life

janine followed

the heavy metal band

known as metallica

across texas

maybe further.

***

My wife was sittin’ on the front porch one day, & watched a buncha cops bust down janine’s front door with a battering ram. I was pissed that I missed out on this. If there was any sort of commotion goin’ on outside, I would immediately peek through the blinds. Occasionally you’d get to see somethin’ other than just a few curse words bein’ loudly thrown back & forth. Maybe you’d get to see some girl screamin’ her fuckin’ head off, run through the yard, jump in her car, & speed off in her shitty sports car. It’s like havin’ episodes of “cops” bein’ made just for you right in front of yr house. Yr able to see what happened before the camera crew showed up, & their ain’t all them annoying fuckin’ bleeps over all the cursin’.

Janine is now dying of cirrhosis, hepatitis of some sort (I like to think it’s called the XXX throwdown strain of hepatitis), & possibly a handful of other kindsa of bullshit. some of which may or may not be known to man.last I heard she had blood just oozin’ out her eyes. Just hearin’ about it, gave me the fuckin’ wiggins. And well, if she ain’t dead yet, she needs to be. ‘cuz that shit just ain’t right.

no title

i must have been around twenty when I got my first and only boil
I was ashamed and embarrassed
much like the time I first
contracted pubic lice
I believe I was fourteen then
however
the second time I contracted pubic
lice I was ok with it
because I had been asking my mom
for an ant farm
and she wouldn't buy me one
from the pet shop in the mall
I looked at the lice as
being my own little "portable ant farm" that I could share with friends
back to the boil
I was in a humanities course at
the NorthEast TCC campus
early in the morning and those
desks played hell on the boil
that was right in the beginning of
my arse crack
I would get to class early so that people wouldn't have to see me
maneuver my way in my desk
wincing and talking to jesus the
entire time mind you
well I thought it would go away
but it didn't
I had to go to the family physician
in collinsville
he had me take off my pants and
climb up onto his cold tan vinyl examiming bench with the rough white paper on it
my butt was hunched up in the air
and he gave me a shot for the pain in my boil
his nurse was gorgeous and young and new at being a nurse
he cut the boil in an x shape and began working out the infection
the nurse became ill and had to leave the room
I didn't mind because the release of pressure was like
Zeus's first orgasm
he told me after I had my pants back on and was bandaged up he got
nearly a cup of pus out of that boil
he said they were common but he hadn't ever seen anyone let one get that bad before


yours,

huling

revenge of the blooger

"why do you pick your nose
and fart so much
you have no couth"
"eat shit melvin you're from nowata"
I felt the sharp blockage in my upper nasal passage and was tempted to use needle nose pliers
to dislodge it but that would be cheating I thought
I worked on that booger for about 4 minutes in front of melvin before I was finally able to grab the crusty head of it and pull it out
i likened it to giving birth and when seeing it displayed on my finger it was complete with a crusted green tip that turned into a slimy crimson tail
"awwww its a blooger see melvin"
"get the fuck back"
I taunted him with it a few times before wiping it on one of the dayshift guys toolbox

schoolbus out

tonight i lit a cigarette with a match.
i hadn’t done that for some long time.
it made me remember that you
have to let the
match quit exploding
so you don’t get
a big ol sulfur hit.
it’s ok ‘cause
it smoked me right back to junior high
when we hot boxed a cig between the all of us
on real cold mornings quickly huddled
against the gym wall
and took a buzz with us just in time for first period.
like they couldn’t smell
our happiness in a stuffed room.

i just lit another one.

bermuda jr

walked down the
on-ramp and gasped
sugar/salt white sand
spilt almost to the edge of the water,
tourist toes
where the brown started.
the gulls
could tell the difference.
so could the crabs.
‘say, baby, how do you reckon
they got half of
bermuda
past all these condos?’
i asked.
‘how do you know
the real sand isn’t white?’
she said.

Town & Country Food Store pt. 2

I didn't like Joe the first time I met him, and it wasn't just his mullet. There was also his junior-high mustache, his penchant for sleeveless t-shirts that highlighted his matted armpits, his boundless energy and obnoxious personality.

I disliked him more the longer I knew him.

He suffered wild mood swings, one minute laughing hysterically about something only he found funny, and the next, sprawled across the front counter, weeping and howling for his sorry life. He carried a faded, dog-eared Olan Mills 8x10 photo of his daughter, and when he was in what he called a “shame spiral,” he would pull it from his back pocket and hold it to my face, a visual aid to his failure.

"This is my 4 year old daughter, Melissa. She's got problems because my wife drank when she was pregnant. The doctors say she’ll be in a walker for the rest of her life. She’ll never get to be a normal little girl. We were all fucked up on dope and alcohol, and we ruined her life! Melissa doesn't live with me anymore. The court gave my mom custody of my baby girl and she won't even let me talk to her on the phone. After we lost Melissa, my wife left me. I don’t have anyone but Jesus. "

The first time I saw Melissa's bald head and vacant stare, I felt guilty. Seeing Joe's naked grief and the snot leaking into his wispy mustache just made me nauseous. Joe sobbed for several minutes, pounding his fists on the counter, finally excusing himself to the bathroom. He came out a new man, full of dirty jokes and high-pitched giggles. His energy was so great that he bunny hopped down the aisles of potato chips and candy bars, shouting, laughing, and slinging drool onto the dingy linoleum floor.

I was raised by lying dope fiends and petty thieves, but I naively believed Joe when he told me he replaced his love of drugs with a love for Jesus. He certainly talked about Jesus enough to make it seem plausible. Until my boyfriend Eric pointed it out, I was under the impression that Joe was just a hyperactive, recovering addict with emotional problems.

“Joe was acting all crazy again tonight. He started laughing about a fat lady in an orange shirt. He thought she looked like a pumpkin. He just kept saying ‘FUCKING PUMPKIN’, and laughing until he fell in the floor. He just laid there, cackling and kicking his feet. I think he might be mildly retarded.”

“Rebel, you do realize that he’s smoking crack in the bathroom, right?

“You think so? At work? He told me he stopped using when he lost custody of Melissa, and his wife finally left him.”

“Doesn’t it seem strange to you that the motherfucker always disappears in the bathroom before he comes out all hyper and stupid?”

"Holy shit, Eric! That explains so much! The motherfucker is a CRACKHEAD!"



On slow nights, Joe would force me to play Lotto.

"Hey, Rebel. Let's get a ticket. Which one do you want?"

"I shouldn't buy a ticket. I'm pregnant and I’m broke because I work at Town & Country Food Store."

"What's a dollar? Especially if you can win fifteen thousand dollars? If you win big money, you can buy your baby a car. C'mon just pick a ticket. I can feel it. Today is definitely our lucky day. Which ticket do you want to play?"

He would pester me into buying a ticket, and he’d buy one too. If I lost, I quit playing. Joe would only stop after a winning ticket or he ran out of money. The desperation in his face as he scratched and cussed at a mounting stack of losing tickets bothered me. After a losing session, he would emerge on the other side covered in latex shavings, sweaty and dazed. It only took a visit to the bathroom to bring him back, artificially invigorated, ready to tell me lies about previous jackpots, and his plan to open a garage when he finally hit big.

As Joe's addiction progressed, he no longer had cash to pay for his Lotto. Instead, he would "borrow" a few dollars worth of tickets, scratch them, and pay for the tickets with his winnings. If there were no winnings, he spent the rest of the night short-changing customers to make up the loss. I stopped playing.


It was autumn, and when I got to work, Myra was in the alley dumpster. I was walking into the building when she popped her head out and frowned at me.

"Myra, what are you doing in the dumpster? You have some trash in your hair."

Myra ignored me and continued frowning. I stood, waiting for an answer. It was clear that no response was forthcoming when she disappeared into the dumpster again. I turned and entered the store, where I was greeted by a store full of uncomfortable looking customers and the familiar sound of Joe sobbing behind the thin half-wall of the manager's office.

The sobbing turned to pleading.

"Please don't call the cops, DeeDee. PLEASE! I'll do anything you want, just don't call the cops. If you do, I'll go back to prison, and I need to take care of Melissa! I didn't mean to do it, it was the crack. I need to go to rehab. You can help me. Please help ME!"

DeeDee was not sympathetic.

I listened to him beg while I rang up customers. I fetched their cigarettes and made small talk with them as if there weren’t a broken man within our earshot. Myra came inside, still frowning, holding a trash bag bulging with strips of lottery tickets.

"Myra, please tell me what the fuck is going on," I whispered as she passed.

Stone-faced, she walked to DeeDee's office, holding her bag of evidence. Soon, two policemen arrived. The officers flanked him, grabbed his arms and led him toward the door. Joe struggled with them briefly, whipping his head wildly from side to side, desperate for escape. When they cuffed him, there was nowhere to go, and the fight left him. His body went limp. The police struggled to support his dead-weight, and settled on pulling him by his cuffed arms, the toes of his shoes dragging the dirty floor behind them.

As he passed, I saw that his face was slack, and he was drooling on the floor.

They were putting him in the back of the cruiser when Myra turned to me.

"Last night, Joe smoked crack in the bathroom, and stole five hundred dollars worth of lottery tickets. When we did the ticket inventory this morning, we were four hundred tickets short. DeeDee and I watched the surveillance video and saw Joe scratching big strings of tickets, twenty at a time. Towards the end, he just sat on the floor and pulled his hair and screamed. Fuckin' weirdo. Did he ever make you look at that picture of his poor kid? Anyway, we called him up here, and he confessed to the whole thing. He said he just knew that he was gonna win big. Now he’s going to jail, and I hafta work the fucking second shift with you. And you’re gonna straighten the cooler tonight, because I’m not doing it.”

an untitled mess.

it's not
good vs. evil
it's not
apples & oranges
there's not
checks or minuses
no rights
no wrongs
no equals
no rivals

no sir

i don't know
what the fuck
it is, but
i don't know a
single motherfucker
that ain't
a part of it.

modernization of the black arts.

manipulation
of how my brain functions through
the television.

first day of vacation, september 11 2001.

through pixelated vision
i saw plains hit buidings

i went to the mall
as previously planned

bought some bullshit
i didn't fuckin' need

got shitty with a security guard
about the mall closing early

from sea to
shining fucking sea.

gut bucket

it was mid august
when the fire
department pulled up
to the shack next to
moms trailor
we heard a knock
at the door and it
was little michael dale
he asked when the last
time we had seen
our daddy was
shit man I don't know
I looked at my sister and
she shrugged
months maybe like
two or so
we are bad with time
well the neighbor north
of his house is saying
she smells death
he may have died in there
we're going to take a look
oh really I said
we ran to the windows
watched as they entered the house
with blue gloves
and respirators
they came out gagging
we laughed watching them
catch their breath
it turns out my dad
and his buddy had left a
bucket of catfish guts
in a drunken stupor in the
house and they had
ripened up real nice
he was living on the east
side of town and was amused
at the news of his
apparent death