Wednesday, October 7, 2015

7262. THAT MURDEROUS LOVER BOY

THAT MURDEROUS 
LOVER BOY
That murderous lover boy was never me. I'd sit
instead at a small corner table drinking black coffee
and, watching the world saunter by, I'd stay. In place.
Pencil and pen and paper. Never even a morning
roll. How much did it take to eat? More than I
cared to expend. The guy who served me, he had
tattoo'ed numbers still on his forearm, and his
very pink eyes were constantly tearing. He was
once from old Poland  -  and he'd try to tell me
stories of what had happened. But he never
could finish. The Con Ed guys would come in,
all noisy and wise, and wrankle everything up.
Each morning they'd sit and brag, want their
breakfasts, and just look around. This was 1967,
started about August, at the corner of 11th st, and
Ave. A. I lived right around there, 509 e11th, a
60 dollar a month walk-up; a real and true mess,
but I liked it there. Half a bathroom, maybe. The
kitchen sink had a large piece of plywood on it - 
when you moved that away the sink was also your
bath-tub. Ended up I never did use that idea. At
the corner, outside, I became a morning regular
at that tiny restaurant or diner or whatever New
York City used to call those places  -  they were
neither. For 25 cents, he'd keep me in coffee and
sometimes throw me a knish. That was big time.
To be nice, sometimes I'd grab his trash and take
it out back and dump it for him. Those Con Ed
guys, funny, they worked in the generating station
just a few blocks away.  It was later, by November,
believe it or not, that I got mixed up with some 
radical, anti-war people who actually had plans
to blow that plant up. We looked at things, sat
and talked procedure. Really, yeah. Nothing
ever came of it. Lots more intervened. I'll
tell you someday.

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