ONE TIME WAS ONE
TIME TOO MANY
The officer had killed a kid - yeah, again, just
another street slob - (that's the sort of things
they say), and even Hillary came down from
her bombast post to comment. The most trouble
we had was in getting that puppetry stick out
of her ass, but she was smiling pretty well.
A blue-faced judge entered the starlit room
and bent down to make a pronouncement -
all this, they' d said, was going to be on TV too
so we thought it had to be important, but he
just farted. The room was shambles, before
he even got started - restless natives and
poor people on the lam, runaway dads and
new moms who play for pennies in the
hot-sheet motels that ring the highways
hereabouts. The lady waiter was running
around with tea cups, just like an Alice in her
Wonderland. Everyone here with cars - and
most had two - had parked wherever they wanted
and could not have cared less. The metal-salvage
guy from up the street had sworm he'd be coming
with his magnet truck to take them all away; and
sure enough there he was. His name was Feifel, and
his face was green. What a nightmare this was turing
out to be - saddled me up on the old prairie? Thirty
junked cars were getting torn from their moorings,
already being taken away. Most people now were
just beginning their drunk - none noticed, few
cared, and I left with Mary Lou Container,
whose lovely face now was mine.
