Bad Date

 

                The jukebox in the corner of the aging bar played a few crackling tunes as we entered. The light from outside the bar sliced through the dark interior like a laser. A great blast of sunshine disturbed the general dankness of the place, before being swallowed back up by the dark. 

                “I love dive bars,” said Mary as we stepped in and up towards the bar.

                “I think this is a hole in the wall, not a dive,” I said.

 

                She nudged me in the arm. I didn’t want to seem disinterested or nervous. 

                I looked around for a bartender but there didn’t seem to be one around. An older man at the end of the bar was thoughtfully chewing on a small black drink straw. He was staring at Mary.  I gave him a nod, to let him know that I saw that he was looking. He nodded in the slightest way and then returned to his small rocks glass. 

                “Look at all the old beer advertisements,” said Mary, “So many!” 

                I nodded and looked up at the walls, plastered with Schlitz and Lone Star and Hamm’s ads. An old Schlitz Tiffany style lamp burned a yellowed bulb in the corner. 

                “Yeah, lots of old ads for sure,” I said.

                “I wonder if they have any of those actual beers,” said Mary. 

                I looked at Mary. It was our first real date, other than a few email exchanges. She was cute but not overly and embarrassingly so. She seemed to like me, so I was happy to go with her to this strange new bar. 

                A large woman came out from the back side of the bar, through a small swinging door that looks to lead somewhere into the netherworld. She saw us and I nodded. The woman barely reacted but did start to move slowly towards us. She grabbed a bar towel as she walked forward and slung it over her exposed, but heavily tattooed shoulder. It was clear that she had gotten the tattoo as a younger woman, as the weight she now carried in her arms had seemingly stretched the image out into some unrecognizable pattern. She looked like the heartbreaks she had suffered in her life had been drawn deeply into her heavy face, pulling her mouth down into a semi-permanent frown.   

                “Can I get you something,” she asked. 

                I ordered something simple, just a bottle of light beer. Mary ordered the same. 

                The bartender placed our drinks in front of us and walked back towards the strange swinging door nether region from which she came.   

“This place has so much character,” said Mary. 

I took a nervous swig from my beer and nodded. 

“I’m going to check out the bathroom. I bet it’s hideous,” said Mary and she scooted out her barstool and went in search of the bathroom. I took another sip from my beer. I looked around the bar and saw that there was a dingy film on all the windows and the tables. There was dust spinning from cobwebs hanging from the ceiling and I was pretty sure I could smell mold. I looked at the old man again. He was staring at me. 

“It’s cursed you know,” he said in a raspy voice.

            “Cursed? The bathroom,” I asked, gesturing my thumb in that direction.

 

                The old man rolled his eyes at me and went back to his drink.

                 “I’m sorry. You mean the bar is cursed,” I asked.

                 The old man nodded and with a thin bony finger pointed up at the wood frame over the bar top. Carved into the wood was a long phrase in Latin.

                 I looked up at the thick dark wood and the words carved in it: Haec anima, sicut intus inclusa, incarcerata, nullam lucem videt, nec recreationem habet, sic anima, mens, corpusque Collectiorum, quod Agnella peperit, aequaliter clauditur, et in interitum labitur.

                 “That Latin? I don’t read Latin,” I said as I started to feel foolish for letting Mary talk me into deviating from some normal drinking spot so we could go to this hole in the wall; which she swore she had passed by a million times but never really noticed.

                 “It means, just as this soul, when confined within, when incarcerated, sees no light, and has no recreation, so the soul, mind, and body of the Collectii, which Agnella gave birth, is equally enclosed, and falls into ruin,” said the bartender as she reappeared behind the bar. For a larger woman she was very light on her feet.

                 “What does it mean though,” I asked, already dreading the answer. While also slightly concerned that Mary hadn’t come back from the bathroom yet.

                 “It means then when you’re in here, you’ll never see the light of day again and you’ll rot right along with this very bar and go mad,” said the bartender, with the first hint of a smile.

                 “How very Hotel California,” said Mary as she reappeared in the barstool next to me, “I love dive bar lore. I should do a sociological paper on it.”

                 “Mary,” I said, leaning in towards her ear, “I think we should get out of here.”

                  Mary looked at me as if she didn’t understand.

 “Leave,” she asked, “But, I love it here. So much charm and personality.”

 She leaned forward, putting her hand on my knee.  The weight seemingly impossible for her small frame.

 “Ow, you’re hurting me,” I said, trying to move her hand away.

 She smiled at me and I saw the damnation flickering in her pupils. I looked to the bartender, whose small smile was now a fang filled curl, the old man was still just an old man and he just shook his head.

 “They got another one,” he said and took a drink, “damn them.”

 I pushed my barstool back and I was able to get out from under the weight of Mary’s arm. She lunged forward and I ducked, stepping back towards the old crackling jukebox. Which suddenly came to life, piercing the quiet with a loud electric thud sound.

 “Where are you going,” asked Mary.

 “I think this date is over,” I said.

 She chuckled as me and put a hand on her hip.

 “This date is never going to end,” she said, as she made another attempt to grab me.

 I turned toward the door and ran as fast and I could. I pulled the door open and another hot beam of sunlight burst into the room. Mary and the bartender screamed and turned away. I threw myself through the doorway and fell onto the hot afternoon baked sidewalk. I squinted at the bright sunlight and looked back towards the direction I had come and the bar was just gone. Vanished. And no one else on the street even seemed to notice.  It was as if it was never there at all.

                                                 __________________________________

 Brad looked at me as I finished telling my story.  He wiped the corner of his eye and leaned forward.  I looked at him,

 “So yeah, that’s a terrible first date, but I think I can top it,” said Brad.

 

 

               

Stop Upsetting the Mothers

 

Well, you went ahead and

did it.

You really did it this time.

Your ineffectiveness and

cowardice finally got to her.

 

You’ve upset my mother.

 

It’s not enough that some

of you want to limit her

choices as a woman, and

remove a right she has had since

1972.

 

It’s this faux compassion for

the “most helpless among us.”

That has really upset her.

Which in turn upsets me.

Which means your mothers

are probably just as upset

as mine.

 

Because you lack any courage

to boldly and bravely scold or

slap or handcuff the hands holding

the guns to our children’s heads.

You’re all worthless.

 

To those people who are

pro-gun; you can’t also be

pro-life. It’s mutually exclusive.

If you’re pro-life; you can’t be

pro-gun. The two concepts are

diametrically opposed.

 

And you’re upsetting my mother.

 

I don’t care if you think it’s,

“Your right” to own an automatic

rifle. You’re a fucking dumbass

who is upsetting a lot of mothers.

Especially mine.

 

Get your shit together legislators.

Ban assault weapons.

Remove the immunity from

prosecution for gun manufacturers,

and stop upsetting the mothers.  

Headlong

 

Headlong towards the

dystopian present.

Full speed ahead toward

our demise.

 

With each new human horror

story I hear, I get a little

less hopeful for some

great human catharsis.

 

The murders,

shootings,

killings,

wars,

shortages,

the pains.

 

The stupidity,

willful ignorance,

racism,

sexism,

political indifference,

societal indifference.

 

The same old story,

for all human history,

death,

famine,

plagues,

war,

punctuated with callousness.

 

Momentary joys dotting

our collective humanity,

walking on the Moon,

defeating fascism,

eliminating most diseases,

but then, we regress.

 

To savagery,

and indecency,

debasement

and a general

malaise.  

 

It’s all too much,

wouldn’t you agree?

 

I think that’s all I really

want to say today. 

Lucky Thirteen

 

I dropped and broke a

mirror after ducking under

a ladder while trying to

avoid a black cat that

was crossing my path,

and simultaneously trying

to avoid a crack to avert

breaking my mother’s back.

 

It was all for the best though,

as I bent down to pick up

the broken mirror shards,

a piano fell from the apartment

windows above me,

the piano crashed to the ground

with a cartoonish musical explosion.

 

I saw a van parked in the street,

reading “Johnson’s Anvil & Piano Movers”,

written on the side.

It was then that I looked up just in

time to see the several Anvils

come dive bombing from the

same window as the piano’s origin.

 

The anvils made a deep metallic

thud and they cracked their way into the

cement sidewalks.

Three anvils dotted the street and

sidewalk like an ellipsis

next to the crumpled piano.

Faintly, above my head I heard,

“Sorrrryyyy…,”.

 

I picked up the rest of the broken

mirror pieces and backed up the

way I came from under the ladder,

I carefully walked around the ladder

and then safely deposited the shards

into a trash can.

 

“Friday the 13^th,” I said as I dusted my

hands off with each other.

I heard sirens in the background as I

started to whistle and walk along

the sunny side of the street.

 

 

An Annual Migration

 

A simmering sea of

idiots, roiling in the

troubled surf,

crashing upon the

rocky beaches;

rising up from the

coarse ground to

begin their yearly

migratory trip

inland.

 

Idiots,

begin to appear

across the landscape as

the seasons warm.

They spread out over

wide swaths of the land,

the seas and even take

to the air.

Swarming and meeting,

bumping into each other.

 

The roads become lousy

with swarms of idiots,

who all somehow have a

driver’s license and access

to motor vehicle’s without

seemingly to possess the necessary

rudimentary skills that it takes

to drive an automobile.

A true miracle of nature,

the idiot.

 

Impervious to criticism,

unwounded by social rebukes,

confident in ignorance yet

suspicious of fact or science;

is proud they “haven’t read a book

in years”.

They move about in proud gaggles,

each surer of their infallibility

than the next idiot, who also

thinks the other idiots are idiots.

 

Not much is known about Idiot spawning

or their reproductive cycle,

only that it happens often,

often leading to overpopulation and

the eventual required culling

of the idiot herd.

It is believed the idiot is a

close relative of the Lemming;

However, it was suggested by an

idiot so no one has taken the suggestion serious.  

 

The idiots,

waddling in their sandals,

across hot beaches, sun-burned,

complaining about the heat,

while trying to decide which

alcoholic seltzer won’t dehydrate them

too much.

Plus, they have to get to the

idiot party later so they can’t get,

“that” drunk.

 

Idiot season seems

to arrive earlier and earlier

every year.

And each year there is a

new, astonishing wave of idiocy

that sweeps across the land like

a plague of locusts, chewing and

gnawing at any rationality and

sensibility until they are bloated

and gassy, and trumpet like elephants.  

 

 

Whims and Wings

 

We’re all riding a train,

we’re all crowded together,

rush hour, Summertime,

the A/C isn’t quite working,

and we’re awash with each other’s

smells and general closeness.

 

We’ve all been riding the same

train for years together.

There’s a familiarity but still a

relative distance with each other.

We don’t know each other’s names,

but we nod at each other and persevere through

our mutual and brief containment.

 

We all just want to get home,

to take our shoes off and just

relax in the cool comfort of

our own solitariness.

We’re buoyed by the thought of

our comfort, which makes the train

ride bearable.

 

An announcement comes on the

overhead PA, that the train is not

going to make any further stops

at certain stations because the

Conductor and Engineer

do not agree with the politics of

the Godless heathens who use those train stations.

 

Some groan and moan,

some people cheer,

some people swear,

some people do nothing at all.

“ ’bout time,” says a man.

 “What’s that supposed to mean,” says another.

Echoed ceaselessly through the cars as the train

rocks side to side with ever more speed.

 

Another announcement comes over

the PA, “This train is no longer stopping

as the Engineer has murdered the Conductor,

as they did not agree on the originally shared

political points of view,” said the overhead voice.  

  

“Well, I have to get off in three stops,” says a woman.

“Well, I’m supposed to get off at the next stop,” said a man.

“Oh, so you think you’re better than me,” said another woman, “just because I have to go to the end of the line.”

“Well, if the shoe fits…,” said another person.

 

The knives come out,

from pockets and purses and bags.

They start swinging at one another,

calling each other all sorts of names,

talking about their momma’s and their

personal persuasions.

Cutting and stabbing each other.

 

Another announcement:

“Due to recent legal issues, we will

end service on this train line. The Engineer

has indicated he will take this train to Hell

before ever allowing women free choices

about their health or let minorities vote.

Complaints can be lodged with the central

office, which is conveniently located in Hell.”

 

“How will I get to work?”

“How will I make ends meet?”

“How will I feed my kids?”

“Does anyone have a tissue; I’m bleeding pretty bad.”

Say the voices on the train.

All looking at each other with renewed

suspicion.

 

“This is your fault for being poor,” said one woman.

“It’s your fault for being rich,” she responds.

“Boobs,” yells a man as he begins to pound

his face into the window until he bleeds.

The train still speeding.

The train with nowhere to go

but over the abyss’ edge on the whims

and wings of nonsense.