A Tough Time
“I was a student of philosophy,”
said the guy at the end of the bar.
“good,” said a guy at the middle
of the bar.
“how’d you like to come down
here and lick my balls?”
it was a hot night and the
air conditioner had broken
down.
I wasn’t feeling good myself.
some university mag had
returned 15 of my poems with
a scrawled note:
“we don’t read in the
summer…”
it was something about the
note, the handwriting, the
lazy effrontery of it.
and at the track, on my big
bet of the day
the horse had thrown the
jock coming out of the
gate.
also, my left front tire had
a slow leak
and my wife had
PMS
again.
“I don’t think you have any
balls,” said the guy at the
end of the bar to the guy
at the middle of the
bar.
“oh yeah?” said the guy
accused of not having
any.
“yeah,” said the accuser.
life was in a very stupid phase
for me.
I mean, I wasn’t in a hospital,
I wasn’t having a tooth
pulled,
my taxes were paid and
my shoelaces were
tied
but I felt rubbed
against by nasty
forces.
nothing beautiful,
unusual or even decent
had happened to me
for weeks.
my fault?
maybe.
“you can suck my ass,”
said the guy accused of
not having any balls.
“I can see you have an
ass,” said the student of
philosophy, “because
I can see it sitting up
where your head
should be.”
“listen, fellow,” came the
response, “if you’re looking
for a knuckle sandwich
you came to the right
guy.”
they are not reading in
the summer, I thought,
what are they doing,
lolling in a hammock
lofting farts into a
gentle breeze?
free drinks for Dylan
Thomas and a
scurrilous note for
me.
“you and whose army
is going to handle
me?”
said the guy at the
end of the bar.
“I’m the army!
me!”
“that right?
you better get the
navy too, man!”
you ever read the
poems in those
university mags?
tiny dribblings of
unreality,
boring probes
into the
nonsensical.
I finished my drink,
got up to walk
out.
“I studied under
Prof. Harris
at City College,”
the guy at the end
of the bar
repeated.
“sure you did,”
said the guy at the
middle of the
bar,
“you were under
him,
face down,
on the springs!”
I stepped out into
the night just in time
to see a car hit a woman
crossing the street.
she flipped up
on the hood
on her back.
stayed there.
the guy jumped out of
the car and screamed,
“JESUS CHRIST!”
suddenly there were
125 people in the
street.
I turned and walked
away from it.
there was nothing I
could do.
when I got to my car
the left front tire was
flat.
I got in and sat
there.
the fog was rolling
in.
I turned on the
ignition
and clicked the
radio on.
it had been a
crappy
summer.
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