CARRY ME BACK TO
THE LONE PRAIRIE
Ham-fisted and with a cauliflower ear, the old pardner
at the Mello-Roll Bar sat back in his chair : 'It ain't right,
no siree, this ain't nothin' but trouble, and I been here over
forty years and you can't now tell me this fellow's coming
in here to build skyscrapers? Red Hook oughta' just up and
kill his type - there used to be little factories dotting all around
here, now there's nothing but filth and stores selling fancy flowers
and wines where nobody can park and everybody fights over it
and all these block-eyed kids sit around the outside bars just eating
or waiting to eat behind fences. See that, right over that, that was the
Waymen's Club - with the boxing rings and the pool tables. Used
to make money there every night there was a fight card, and then lose
it just as much playing pool to sailors. Damn! What a life I was!'
-
He didn't look like much, and the beer in his hand wouldn't last. I
knew that, but I hoped he would - a hundred years and more, I
wanted to be his life too, not just hear it, be it, and I knew everything
he was going to say before he said it. Why settle in? Let it go? The
whole place now is run by the same creeps who gave us cartoons and
Ricochet Rabbit. I realized I was getting drunk - I don't know where
that previous thought came from, and I'm not even sure about the rabbit.
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