Lockup

Another day inside gray walls
Might as well be a cell
Still draggin' around the cannonballs
Do-it-yourself private jail

I lost the key but there's one other
Around the neck of a would-be lover

There ain't no gang or county line
But I still swing and wail
The midday sun bakes my mind
Deep in thirst beyond the pale

I start to drink and then falter
Poison has overcome the water

Take the lash at the whipping post
Then involuntary solitary
Pay for the crimes self imposed
Each misdemeanor and felony

Nothing harder than doing hard time
Just pray for pardon or reprieve sublime

Free to go I can leave anytime
Can't savor good behavior
Turned myself in for no reason or rhyme
An empty bottle for a savior

Lights out and there's a fire in my bed
Another day gone with no verdict read

*Music to follow

Galvanized and Bulletproof

He's galvanized and bulletproof

Except maybe at the seams

Cut himself on a devil's tooth

And bled out all his dreams

He stole a wishbone from the warden

then used it for a shank

Went out and fired up his Norton,

Rode off with a lit rag in the tank

He's invincible, near invisible

Maybe under a voodoo hex

Unpredictable, fights bare knuckle

Walks one shadow to the next

He saves women in distress

And maidens locked in towers

He can beat Death at chess

With his divine powers

He's clairvoyant, a prophet

Contacts beings on other planes

Plays blues on Gabriel's trumpet

And broke loose Samson's chains

He flies all night on his rounds

wading through nightmares in the dark

Two steps ahead of the hellhounds

with bites much worse than the bark

He's a cloud splitter, shape shifter

All the elements at his comply

Thunderstorms under his bowler

You can tell his mood by the sky

*Music to follow

Just After 3:15

Musta been about 11 o'clock with a

little yellah moon lightin up the block

that I asked that girl up for a beer or three.

Next thing you know it's a quarter of one and we're

in the back yard shootin' some guns and she says

"hey cowboy, roll one of your smokes for me."

Suddenly it's a quarter of two and we

finished off the last of the brew and junebugs

stared at the porch light on the screen.

I could say I got lost in her eyes

my mind was found near her waist and thighs

that was...just after 3:15.

Round about quarter of five when the

sun just started splittin' the sky, she said

"I think I just stayed the night."

We can continue this grand little opry, I said

"Let me just get started on the coffee. The bacon.

Home fries. Eggs over-easy alright?"

*Music to follow

The Driver, Pt. II

“Like I said.” Lou turned and made like he had busy work to do leaving Boone to cover the conversation. “But the driver isn't in the story.”

I tried another swig and answered in the affirmative mid-wince. Jose was still fending off his hiccups. “You don't know about the driver...unless he doesn't...do his job...” Jose threw up in his mouth a little.

“I don't know whether to be flattered or not, Jose.”

Boone for some reason loves to watch people vomit. He started rubbing Jose's shoulders, telling him to just let it out, like your mom used to. Lou said something sarcastic thinly veiled as a joke and that he'd be right back with some more god-damned rags.

“He just drank too fast, that's all.” Boone finally stopped the rubdown and let the poor bastard make his way to the bathroom. After the door closed Boone turned and started tapping his Newport on the bar. “Ain't no way in hell I'm goin' in there with him.”

Lou arrived with more rags and a can of sawdust. Can you believe that? A coffee can of sawdust. Haven't seen that since I threw up in the cafeteria in third grade. Turkey gravy over mashed potatoes, so it was a Thursday. He got to the other side of the bar and saw nothing. No Jose. No vomit. “He didn't yak?” Boone pointed to the bathroom. “Ah shit. I'd rather he done it out here. Now I gotta do the whole toilet.” Lou sat and leaned against the bar and slowly crossed his arms, staring at the bathroom door. For the first time, we were all on the same side of the bar. “He only had two beers. Grainbelt, but still.”

Boone asked about the driver again just as the juke went on random.

“See the thing is...” I had no idea where to start.

Over the over the years, those rutted out paths that olive oil cart has to take have become common, and alpenglow has lost its luster. The olive oil eaters have no idea about everything that goes in those precious vessels. If they did, plenty would balk, a handful would be even more grateful, the lion's share would buy Bertoli if it was on sale. All this is pondered perched at the point of this parade, on wood wear-worn wide as the wagon, pining for pardon and carrying a torch for someone he hasn't met. Thinking about how maybe after this next delivery, he might take the cart in another direction. Just to see...ignoring that he knows those horses are going to head straight back to the barn.

“The thing is the driver is just pleased as shit to have a job in this economy. Am I right, or am I right?”

They both agreed and mumbled something motivated by their own individual politics.

“People tell stories everyday over dinner. I tell stories to sit at the table. I can convince you that bullshit is fact, and fact, bullshit. The fact of the matter is...you'll never really be sure. You don't know me outside this bar, and I doubt you'd ever swing by my place for beer and a burger some night to find out whether I'm full of shit or not.”

Boone stopped tapping his Newport. Lou stared at the bathroom door over folded arms. Jose was quiet. We were all quiet.

“I'd come drink your beer. I'm free next Tuesday.” Boone said finally.

Lou said “I like hamburgers. Big fan.”

“You have a bar to run. Boone, you've got kids.”

Lou said that if Boone was going to my place on a Tuesday night, he might as well go too. He would rather sit on a deck with a burger than sit by himself in a dimly lit bar. “I haven't closed early in ages. It'll be good, blow the stink off me.”

I didn't know what to say. It happens from time to time. Usually when the time is inopportune, as it is now. There was no way to take back my left-handed invitation. So. Next Tuesday night Lou and Boone are coming to my place for beer and burgers. Jose has yet to RSVP.

The Driver

I stepped into Governor's from the pouring rain, near closing. Lou and Boone were both there keeping some noob entertained. This was our first rain storm of spring, only one week earlier it was thundersnow. Even still there was something comforting about the shower, pissing down as it was, probably the fact that you don't have to shovel water. When spring springs, it springs hard here. This year it seemed spring's springs were sprung, and that it might not spring at all. That all changed literally overnight, suddenly there were tulips pushing 3 or 4 inches above the soil, trees budding spontaneously, and folks acting like convicts whose cell doors had been mistakenly left open. Case in point, earlier in the day I was flashed by a woman on the back of a Harley, and my beloved lake trail was overrun by...people.

"There he is." Boone said as I shook my coat and saddled up. "Been wonderin' about you, where the hell you been at?"

Lou started to pour my pint but I stopped him just in time to ask for a bourbon Sidecar.

"I ain't got any of them martini glasses." he said with a cautionary air.

"You guys...your grammar is awful. On the rocks is fine, Lou."

Boone introduced me to the new guy, Jose. "He's from Mexico. But he speaks English pretty good." Jose said nothing, just gave me a salute and smiled wide. "He works for the Mexican Consulate."

"Diplomat?"

"Security." Boone said.

"I thought you said he speaks English?"

Jose hiccuped mid sentence, "Where do...you work?" Lou and Boone both stopped and waited.

It dawned on me that neither of them had ever asked what I do for a living...nor had I ever asked them (Lou's was obvious), so I paused for effect. "Did you know it takes three pounds of olives to make one cup of olive oil?"

All three just stared, so I took this as a sign that I should continue.

"Imagine you're standing on a hilltop overlooking a large olive grove. All around you is nothing but row after row of the most meticulously groomed olive trees in the Mediterranean. This grove has been maintained by the same family for generations. They watch after these trees for signs of disease and insects. Every bug is squashed between thumbnails, no chemicals. If a tree needs water, they bring it by hand. One bucket at a time. Some of these trees are over a hundred years old, the trunks have grown wide and thick, the roots reach out for yards under the ground and intermingle with those of the trees next to it. This has been their livelihood for so long, none of them know how to do anything else. They consequently...make some of the most succulent olive oil in the region."

Lou set my drink down in front of me. In a margarita glass. I took a sip and flapped my tongue quickly in the air. "Is it alright?" he asked.

It was awful.

"Oh yeah, just right. It'll smooth out after a few sips. Where was I? Oh yeah...the olives have to be watched closely, because the harvest window is very short. Picked too early it makes the oil taste bitter; too late and it turns out overly sweet. The moment has to be just right, and it has to happen in one day. They walk through and strike the base of the trunk with ax handles, the ready olives fall to the ground. This way all the fruit gets back to the press unbruised.”

Once the nerves in my throat burned off, the drink was palatable.

"The olives are pressed in an old cast iron contraption, the wheels are turned by hand. The juice goes into a series of centrifuges, those wheels also turned by hand. All the fragments cling to the walls, lured by physics. Over and over it is sent through until clear, pure olive oil comes out the spigot on the other side.  Then it gets interesting."

Lou said “Oh good.”

“The trip to town is treacherous. They've got this team of massive horses pulling a rickety old wooden cart through rutted valley trails, over windswept passes, through fields of wild flowers, down into town where people are waiting for that oil. One false move on the ridge line and that entire season's work will be lost. Without a steady hand, every bottle would break going too fast down the other side. Poor timing with the whip going uphill might cause the team to not make it up at all. Any of these things might mean financial ruin, and leave the people in town very, very upset. No oil to toss with their pasta. No oil to mop with their bread. No oil at all.”

Lou looked at his watch.

“So...yeah.” I said flatly.

After several seconds Lou broke the silence. “You're a bullshit artist.”

I leveled my finger at him and said “No...I drive the cart.”

Summer Swan Song

Full bellied barreling down 31, the ring's the thing

keep repeating over and over, wound tighter'n a spring.

Tires hum on asphalt, windows down, late night air

jostling by dashboard light, errant strands of hair.

Knees pointed this way, a little skin shown

eyes front on the highway, look down turn to stone.

And those fingers lithe and long, lord they're right there

close enough along the neck to feel each transparent hair.

Engine slows down, signal clicks, once into the next zip code

hoping to find the lift bridge down, get this thing off the road.

Diamonds scattered on black sackcloth, orange half moon

summer bacchanalia down below, autumn's coming soon.

Walking out to the edge, and the leash pulling farther

wagering between bonfire smoke and perfume on the collar.

The Aural Tradition

My first memory of the old man's face was the same as my last; an out take from an old Polaroid, taken from a distance. Over exposed in the August Kentucky sun, late afternoon. He was caught a few steps away from the outhouse, mid-stride with a raised hand and a wide toothless grin. Same yellow button up shirt, same patchy scruff with chaw spiddle.

He moved slow, but looked pretty good considering the years of swinging a scythe in someone else's wheat fields, of days in the rail yards, of holding up his fists to back up his big mouth.

“How do you like that pretty good beer?”

“It's pretty good.” I said. “But the glass has...there's chunks of something stuck on the bottom.”

He said “That's the best cold water could do.”

The chair let out a rusty squeak as he leaned back and arranged his legs into his bullshitting posture. We didn't say anything for a few minutes, the drone of dog-day cicadas interrupted only by his occasional sips. Not just the slurping, but the gasped “ahh” that followed each.

Soon the slurping beer and swallows were the only sound I could focus on. Slyly staring from the corner of my eye, the exhale of satisfaction became more comical. Finally I had to laugh out loud. “Sounds like you think it's pretty good too.”

“Well, that's whatcha get when you go without teeth.” He checked the pot warming by the fire, whistled a quick high note from the heat, and dropped the cast iron lid back in place. “About another twenny, I figure.”

He said getting his teeth knocked out goes back to when he hopped a freight train to a carnival a couple counties over. They paid out twenty-five dollars to anyone who could stay upright in the ring, for five minutes, with their strong man. On the ride out, his mind played back every fight he'd ever been in. Like the land owner in a dispute over a day's wage, the two heavies he'd poked with a pocket knife when they tried to dangle him out a second story window, all the way back to the school yard bully that deserved everything he got. “Despite the way the sunlight looked, washing over the fields Id be working in the next morning, I had a knot in my stomach and no one to talk to about it.”

He got up and lifted the lid again, this time using his shirt cuff. He dug out a couple big scoops of thick soup into a cracked bowl, made by his father in some small town pottery, and handed it to me. It no sooner hit my hands than I was jumping to find a cool spot on the side. Turns out the cool spot was also sticky.

“It's gonna be hot.” he said as he scooped out some for himself into a matching bowl.

“There's...there's still some stuff on the bowl, did you wash these first?”

“Yeah.” He said, sitting down again, “that's just the best cold water could do.”


Anyway, he said the strong man beat him up pretty bad. He ended up spitting out a few teeth in the ring, probably swallowed the others. He took a big bite of soup and started gumming a hot potato, cooling it through his words. “Big son-of-a-bitch. I just had to stay outta the way of his haymakers, wait till he give out, but he still hit me plenty. I'm sure he was looking out through one eye for a few days after, but damn...I thought he was gonna kill me. Don't know if anyone woulda stopped him or not.”

With two broken ribs he managed to get on a train back home, thanks to a hand from a few guys already on. The lurching freight car's rocking motion as it snaked through the hills would normally put him to sleep, but with busted ribs it was now keeping him awake. Only after the engine picked up speed in the flats did he finally fall asleep. When he woke up, come to find out he'd missed his jump and there was no sign of the two that helped him on. Twenty-five dollars missing from his pocket.

I had a hard time finding words. “What did you do?”

The answer came almost like a punchline. “I went home and took another ass beating from the old lady, that's what!”

That was the only part that really scared him; going home to explain to his wife. The train, the fight, losing the money he'd gotten beat up for. “It sounded like a good idea, and we could sure have used the money. But I never told her how I felt like such a fool, after the way it ended up. Tried to be a hero, ended up looking reckless.”

He'd tear the Reaper's nipples off if he ever dared show up for him, but he always pointed to his wife as the tough one between the two.

“I'm tired, that's it for tonight. Just leave your bowl and your glass there on the ground.”

“You sure? I can bring them up, I'd like to do something to help.”

He shook his head no, then turned and yelled “Cold Water! Get here!”

Out from under the side of the porch tripped the dirtiest, floppiest, sag skinniest, Redbone you ever laid eyes on. He panted as he trotted over, but you'd swear it was a smile. He got right to work, just lapping almost every last bit of soup from the bowls. Cold Water was able to get almost all the pickle jars clean of beer, all but the bottom.

“Nothin' cleaner than a hound's tooth.” he said.