the poetrysheet
whimsy, subversion, bowling
Number 452, Jan. 12, 2004
Nikoloz Baratashvili (1817-1845)
“Canoes are all about balance. Whether they’re being
paddled or carried, they move in harmony with water or terrain. Curving back
toward center.”
—James Raffan, Tumblehome: Meditations
and Lore from a Canoeist’s Life
Taking on the curve
By LaMartina and Dobson
“Oh, shit,” the old man said. He munched through
another cookie, the crumbs tumbling down the front of his sweater. He looked out
the truck window and shifted gears. “This is one hell of a fuckin’ day.”
The truck slid around the curve, rain beating harder
against the windshield. It was a hell of a day. No rain in three or four
months, and here he was, bald tires, in the middle of it.
“It’s better’n peein’ blood, though,” he thought.
That’s what he’d done on Thursday, standing in the kitchen at Vern’s, talking
foreign policy and mud flaps, when all of a sudden it felt like he was passing
a cocklebur through his little man. He did a three-quarter-time jig, half a
step to the left, one step back, half a step the right, back to center: He
looked at the linoleum squares on the floor and realized he’d danced a little
box.
Later in the bathroom, he saw that he’d bloodied his
new boxers, but it was far enough down the front of them that he wasn’t sure
whether he’d peed it or shat it—his hemmies had been acting up again lately. He
wondered if he should tell his doctor because he knew his doctor would order
one of those pecker augerings.
He winced at the thought. His hemmies pulsed, and he
made a sharp right onto Knickerbocker Blvd. The truck didn’t quite respond and
the trailer, a fifty-three-foot refer, began to skid to the left. He groaned as
he pulled the wheel back around and watched the trailer slide farther into his
driver-door mirror.
“Dammit,” he said, and shifted up again and steered
the truck back to the highway. When the trailer came right again, he continued
on the curve.
“Old fucker at Knickerbocker warehouse’ll hafta
wait.”
Once around the curve, his hemmies settled into a
dull throb. He thought of the doctor. Finger in the butt for a prostate check.
Bloodwork for cholesterol, triglycerides, goddamn liver function. Calcium levels,
iron poisoning, carbon monoxide—“I gotta quit these fuckin’ smokes,” he said,
putting flame to the end of a Lucky.
He hated this part of town. The highway was a dismal
strip of tiny storefronts, car dealerships, gas stations. Too many rusty LTDs and
junkyards. Triple X shops, title loan places. Lots of tiny groceries with one
or two boxes he detested off-loading. It was pure tedium. And, now, with the
hemmies on the rise, his mood dropped another notch.
He drove to the next exit and eased off to the right.
He turned the rig in the lot of
the abandoned rendering plant and headed back to the warehouse. He figured an
hour to unload, then he’d get some chow and a shower at Daley’s Plaza and hit
road to Jacksonville. There, he might spend the night before heading back to
make the piddly stops along the highway.
Ginger was waiting for him at the warehouse with a
loaner boat already hooked up to her Ram. Ah, Ginger and her boat. That meant
nothing but fishing, floating, and raw sex. He sat at the wheel a moment and
smiled. That Ginger knew how to work her ass, and she could clean a carp
quicker than any man he’d ever known.
Only thing unsure was how she’d said lately that she
wanted them to be more adventurous, experimental. She’s told him last week how she
bought this strap-on and said she just wanted him to consider the possibility
of it, just think it over, that’s all. He could use it on her, too, she said.
That woman was crazy, but he loved her.
He checked the clock in the truck: 3:46 p.m. It was
almost the end of the day. Ginger was waving to him. All those straight, white
teeth shone at him through the drizzle and the fog. He plucked his cell phone
from the dash and punched the number for his dispatcher. While he waited for
him to answer, he pulled over his computer keyboard and began to type in the
stops he’d made already, the times in and out, the mileage.
“Yeah, Bud,” he said when the dispatcher answered,
“I’m taken pretty sick here on the road in Jonesboro. I’m gonna break it today
and be back on at four-thirty sharp tomorra…I’ll be to Jacksonville and back in
as scheduled, like we said. I just need some rest.”
He gave the thumbs up to Ginger, who waited by the
side of her pickup in her yellow rain slicker while he backed the truck up to
the Knickerbocker dock and threw the keys to Willie, the foreman.
“Everything’s pretty clearly marked,” he yelled up to
Willie. “I’m not feelin’ so great, so Ginger here’s takin’ me over to the motel
for some rest. You got any problems, just jingle.”
“Yeah, sure,” Willie said, easing a floor jack over
to the back of the truck.
“I’ll pick the truck up early in the morning, so tell
Jack at the gate before you leave, will ya?”
“Anything for you, man. Get well.”
He walked over the rain-slicked lot toward Ginger and
her truck. Yes, he thought, a little run up the river, maybe a stop at a nice,
quiet cove to listen to the rain on the leaves. That would be nice. But she’s
gonna hafta keep that strap-on thing to herself.
Today’s poem:
By Philip Miller
Mother always said that Father's Sister
Clare's Christmas presents must have been
old ones she had herself received
though she meant well someone always
said.
At twelve I got a brass souvenir plate,
depicting The Blue Boy, and at sixteen,
colorful bath oil beads, and one grim
Yule
she presented Father who was praying for
something to drink like a bottle of Old
Taylor,
The Pictorial Life of Jesus
and Eat Right and Stay Fit,
and for the whole family, a Health Food
Starter kit:
Wheat Germ, Brewer's Yeast, and
Blackstrap Molasses,
along with gift subscriptions to
Guideposts
and Plain Truth as if--as someone said--
she was trying to tell us something.
She herself used sea salt, raw sugar,
gave Oral Roberts fifty dollars a month
until the day she died at ninety-five
which did tell us something,
and now, every Christmas as we sit down
to unwrap presents we know we're missing
something: the set of plaster-of-Paris
poodles
with two cute pups, the Ovaltine, the
grapefruit juice,
the three candlesticks no candle we could
find
would fit or we'd light them up tonight—
the Reader‚s Digest condensed
versions
of War and Peace, Anthony Adverse, By
Love Possessed,
the dried seaweed painted blue, the
chipped, china lamb,
the hour glass egg timer with grains of
sand
from the Gobi Desert, clunky old presents
you don't forget.
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