8510. CONVINCED

CONVINCED

Various things engage me now, for this

is in another life : I can stay up as late as I

please, and I do, caring little for daybreak 

or dawn; I can go wherever I please, and I 

mostly do and some I don't please too.

-

When I sit at Swift's Hibernian Lodge, I

can drink and talk to whomever I please,

all that 4th street traffic waltzing by  -  not 

much, really, but enough. My friends, those

tough old Irish brutes, these days are younger

than me and all the old guys I used to know

have disappeared, taken that river to Hell and

Death that has no turns, and gives no veers.

-

'Straight, like my booze,' he says, Straight

on the line to hell.' And then he keels over.

'What's a night if not for something like that,'

I say. She comes over. God I can see right

through her shirt. She gets him up, and we

walk him out. 'Jeezus the fucker does this

now nearly every night.' Bernadette, this is,

her name. Wonderful gal. One day I thought

I was leaving her a five, and it was a twenty.

She's brightened whenever she sees me ever

since. Doesn't take much to be convinced.

But convinced is not convicted (I always say).