DETAILS OF A
NARRATIVE FICTION
The car was red, with a red-tailed fin, a Cadillac
or big Buick, something thin. Not a bloated mobile,
the other kind. I had a hand-wipe and cleaned the
mirrors with your face in the one all the time. The
harder I rubbed, the clearer your image became.
Was that magic? It was for me. Then some blak
guy came over. He had on one of those funny
fedora-type hats like Sammy Davis Jr. used to
wear, with some flowers and stuff in the brim,
in the ribbon, whatever that's called. Didn't look
like much to me, but he kept a ten-dollar bill there
too, he said, 'for carfare.' I don't know, I thought
they all drove their own cars home. If you looked
quickly, you've never see that the bill was there.
But if you studied the details, it was sure to be seen.
Like God. The God who's in the details, remember that?
And Frank Lloyd Wright, or one of those effervescent
architect guys who made buildings for talk and
incessantly talked of buildings as well. I grow tired
of all that stuff - did then and am now. Who cares
how high your garden grows? Glass-walled, tinted,
Lincoln-logged, made of granite, made of stone
or a cheap-facade - none of it matters to me. I
really just don't care. It's what inside that counts.
Some hooker told me that - funny I never forgot it.
That was back in 1974. I was pale and wan,
thin and fading fast. My body was a drug-puke
love-fest for million dollar girls. They came and
went, and I mean that, Dick Tracy, literally. Out
on the highway - Highway 79 before 78 was built.
It was all too much. One day I met my own father
there, selling prezels from a cart. He asked for more
mustard I answered with a fart. He was always good
with that - I wanted to be sure he knew I'd made the
grade. 'Isn't that, Dad, isn't that where 'cut the mustard'
came from?' The whole idea, the entire scene was both
ludicrous and rank, but I stayed with it. Only him to thank,
now I've only him to thank, but he's long-time dead and gone.
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