I’ve always
been more possessed by Jeezus than by the World.
The World is
an Evil Place, Jeezus told me early on in life.
So is a lot
of them so-called houses of worship.
Jeezus
speaks to me quietly in my mind.
He’s always
been my daddy.
I’ve alweez luved Jeezus better n I’ve evur
luved any uther man or any uther womin, ‘ceptin fer my grandma, my mama’s mama,
who told me early on in life – when I was just a boy – that Jeezus is my daddy
and that Jeezus is inside of me. Yah see, urther people – mean-spiritud ones
– tried to make me think I didn’t have
no daddy..
Next to Jeezus, I luved my Teddy Bear. We
slept together most ever night. I’d hold Teddy titely in my arms, while I
slept. We sorta looked out aftur each uther, whie Jeezus looked out aftur both
of us. I always missed Teddy when I went off to skool, but I always had Jeezus
inside me to talk to me and remynd me that he wuz my daddy.
I luved my mama too, but she sometimes did
and sed things to me that left me feelin sort of mixed up ‘bout mysef.
Southwest Missouri – what’s left of it since
the wicked winds of the Almighty swept thru it – ain’t what most people think
it is. It ain’t like you normally read about or see in the movies.
The way I see it, there ain’t no rilly strait
dudes and there ain’t no rilly gay dudes, as them homosapienz iz all a peculiar
bunch of fence straddlurs ‘n fence jumpers ‘n yarn spinnurs.
Based on what I’ve experiunced and from what
I dun seen and red in the nuzpapers, a young dude’s as likely to be fonduled by
hiz coach, as he is to be fonduled by hiz holy fathur or by hiz skool teechur
or by the pom-pom wavin cheerleadur from ‘crost the street.
As fur me, I’ve been so possessed of Jeezus
ever since I was baptized while I was still in waddlin clothes that none uv my
Bible-totin, gun-totin Christian neighbors nevur wanted nothin to do with me,
so they’d make up lies about me – to try to smeer me – behind my back – and
even to my face.
While I wuz growin up I watched one of my
self-righteous God-feerin nabors give my grandma thuh finger and I experienced another nabor’s God-feerin daddy
try to git hiz evil son to hit me with a baseball bat.
I also experienced my Piscopal Sunday skool
teechur telling me and my classmates that no boy razed by a bunch of wimin
could ever hope to grow up to be a man. Course, me and my brothur wuz raazed by
a bunch of wimin and we already wuz men.
As I done sed, I wuz alweez possessed of
Jeezus, who wuz the only daddy I’d ever dun knowd. My Sunday skool teechur was blind-sided as all git out.
Funny thing, that Sunday skool teechur worked
six dayz a week in the famlee dress shop that his own mama done foundud. He
usually spent Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon sippin hiz cocktails n
gossupin with hiz arrogunt mama – as I’d done experiunced hur to be – and hiz wife and the arrogunt Piscopalian
clergymun and hiz wife at the local
country club bar ‘n gril.
The clergymun’s wife, who’d dun been a member
of the wimens army core durin some world war, wuz pointud society editur of the
local papur. She also, fer a spell,
writ a gossip collum ‘bout the local gentry.
The clergymunz and society editur’s boy wuz
livin in a home – an institushun somewherz else – cuz he wuz sed to have been
borned with autism or something or uther and the boy wuz too much of a bothur
fer the bizy clergymun and his bizy wife to haf to tend to. There weren’t no room fur the boy in hiz
muthur’s and fathur’s inn, as it were – so to speek. They latur on arranged to
have theyr autistic boy placed with a fostur muthur and fathur somewherz els.
While I wuz latur servin’ my country in the
Hooligan Navy, I wuz repeatedly made fun uf by my so-called comrades in arms
‘caus I’d done found Jeezus. So them homosapiunz tries to make me feel reel bad
bout myself and they also calls me
queer, when it’s a fact that they wuz they wuz the only ones who wuz queer.
They then shipped me off to the shrink farm, where they determund that I wuz
also autistic cuz I didn’t taak to the idea of bein fonduled by my shipmates –
cuz I wuzn’t interested in playin drop the soap with ‘em.
One fat cowurdly homosapiun evun ataked me
while I wuz sleepin. He dun throwd me outta my hammock onto the deck, then sat
on top uf me ‘n tryd to strangle me.
Anuthur homosapiun shipmate tried to rub hiz
sef up agin me while I was performin my duties in the radio shak.’ Hed then open
and reed my luv letturs from my ladee friend ‘an make nasty commentz. Course
most of what my ladee friend writ wuz writ in Spanush – so he couldn’t rilly
git the jest of what she wuz sayin. So he jest let his twistud maginashun run
amuk – cordin’ to hiz own twistud wayz a lookin at life.
So you can se why it is that I don’t have no
use for the military stablishmunt ‘an the psychiatric stablishment. They dun
tried to screw me whil I wuz serving my country. They dun covurd up fer
themsevs by makin’ me out to be someone else -- someone who I nevur rilly wuz.
Itz all done on papur – papur thatz called a psikiatrik evaluashun.
Them shrinks – I lernt the hard way – iz jest as purvurtud as wuz my shipmates. As
fur me, what they dun dun to me some fifty yers ago ain’t no lafin mattur.
Them coaches and them quarterbacks and them
hot shot pitchers and them hot shot dribblers and slam dunkers always claimz
thez the only strait dudes in the world and that the rest ov us dudes is queer
cuz we’d rather do something else than push and shove and pile on top uf each
uther and dribble n drop soap in the lockur room while thez a showurin up
afturwords.
Them jocks likes to twist everthing round and
round while theyz a dropping the soap back n forth in the lockur room shower
facility.
Them stuk up cheerleedurz actually beleevz
that them jocks iz strait ‘cuz them cheerleedurz don’t rilly know bout the soap
dropping and bending ovur routine that goes on in the stadium shower facility
where the policy’s alweez been that no wemin iz allowed inside to see whatz a
rilly goin on.
Them coaches ‘an teem captunz is alweez jokin
around about dropping the soap on the showur room floor and then getting some
uther dude to pick it up for ‘em. If
you ain’t experienced it ursef, you can alweez read about it or hear about it
in the newspapers or on tv.
Even them
gun-totin, billy-club totin, handcuff-totin coppurs is bout as tu-faced and
deveeus-minded as them coachez, accordin’ to what I’ve experienced and what
I’ve read about in the nuzpapers and on the TV.
Them rabbeyes and preests and preestesses and
uther ministers of what they call God is no diffurunt, nor is them there
Allah-feerin and Allah quotin gurus that also goes walzin around town sportin a
lota fancy wraparound head gear an mutturin a lot of hocus pocus mumbo jumbo
thatz supposed to scare the livin daylites outta everone else.
Some’s got more money than uthurs and some
thinks their farts don’t stink. It’s just that
-- as you well know – some’s more clever at stealin than uthurs, which
is why theyz got more money. And some’s not able to smell as well as others,
which is why they cain’t smell their own farts.
My mama sez I’ve got
delusions of grandeur. She sez I shouldn’t talk about my rich relations. Like
my rich granddaddy, the thirty-second degree mason that owned two banks and had
a reel good nose for smellin oil. He’s now dead. Left his widow, hiz second
wife, who ain’t my reel grandmother, a small fortune. Left my brother and me
each a $1,500 educational trust fund.
Naturly, I wuz kind of
disuppointed that my grandaddy didn’t leave me more. But I wuz even more
disuppointed that he never paid no ‘tention to me. Never come to visit me . . .
and hiz wife—like I sed, she ain’t my reel grandmother—wouldn’t let me visit
him at their home. I violated the no visit policy by goin’ to see him
just before I shipped overseas with the hooligan navy. I knocked on his door
and got talked to reel mean-like . . . like I’d never before and I’ve never
since had any woman talk to me.
What my step grandmother
actually said, while standin over me and starin down at me over my shoulder
while holdin’ a paring knife in her hand, amongt uthur intenshunally brain assassinatin
things, wuz – “You’re awfully queer,
aren’t you?!” I just glanced over at my granddaddy and said, “Well, I guess wez
all a little queer, ain’t we?!” I then kind of winked at him. I think, from the
look in his eye, that he wuz kind of winking back at me. I wuz reel cool about
it, too. I think I got that evil woman’s goat. I wuz later told that she wuz
reel active in wimins Christian fellowship causes.
‘Course what I later
figured out wuz that the evil woman wuz takin her angur fer my mama out on me.
Yah see, the evil woman wuz upset ‘cause my mama had produced two grandsons fer
my granddaddy. The evil woman didn’t want my grandaddy to have no grandsons. I
become the scapegoat – the sacrificial lamb, as it were, fer ever havin been
borned! Them shrinks call it displacement.
Some sez people like my granddaddy get sexually excited when they smell oil. It’s like an aphrodisiac. I think I take after him. I always liked to hang out around gas stations, but they’d never hire me cuz they always thought I wuz too dumb an too uncoordinated to be able to pump gas or change a tire, so I spent a lot of my time watchin carpenters build other peoples’ houses. Our own house wuz built by the man that lives across the street from us apiece. I sometimes used to swim in the swimmin’ pool at the park that’s named after him. That man struck oil and lead, which is how he made hiz fortune.
My granddaddy, the one
with the banks and the noze for oil, he also had a noze for zinc. Some of hiz
pile wuz made from zinc minin’. He later figured out a way to take the lead
outta the gasoline he peddled down there in Tulsa and his gasoline made quite a
hit with them environmentalists. His own uncle wuz a Supreme Court judge in
Oklahoma Territory, but I ain’t supposed to tell you that. I ain’t supposed to
talk about my own family’s high and mightiness. I’m supposed to instead tell
you about what a rat my granddaddy wuz for turnin’ his backside to us. And I’m
supposed to tell you about what a rat my daddy wuz for running out on us after
taking my mama’s money.
Well, yah see, I ain’t
supposed to tell anyone that my mama ever even had any money. That’s not
considered polite. It’s considered arrogant. To talk about money, especially if
you’ve got it or even if you had it and it wuz stolin from you. Course,
sometimes my mama does remind me and others that my daddy stole what money she
had from her. She kind of wobbles back and forth on the subject. It depends on
her own mood.
‘Course it took me a long
while to figur out fer mysef that it wuz my mama that left my daddy an’ took my brother and me with her when she
left him – although it wuz only supposed to be a temporary arrangement – while
there wuz a gun shootin’ revolution
goin’ on down there in Guanajuato where my daddy wuz minin’ silver and shootin’
rattlesnakes.
My mama told me my daddy
wuz a chasin’ senoritas that wuz wearin’ her own skirts while she wuz away and
that he done run off with one of ‘um levin’ my mama my brother and me to fend
fer ourselves. I wuz still in the oven at the time, so to speak, so I had no
say in the matter.
An I also figurd years
later out that the reel reason my granddaddy nevur come ta visit me and my
brother wuz ‘cause when he did come ta visit us when we wuz just little tikes
that my mama told him to nevur agin come back. She wuz angry ‘cause he wouldn’t
hep us out by providin’ a little somethin’ fer us so that she could be at home
nursing us instead of havin’ to be away from us in order to earn the living and
‘cause he suggested to her that she groom my brother as a little boy insted of
as a little girl. Fact is she took his suggestion.
After he left she give my brother a GI haircut n’ bought him an
assortment of guns and holsters, which is when he become a gun totin warrior
and frequently used me for targut practice. When I’d try to write a letter to
my granddaddy to tell him what wuz goin’ on, my mama and my brother would stand
over my shoulder and try to tell me what to say as if I didn’t have no mind of
my own. When I’d try to write letters to my daddy to tell him what wuz goin’
on, my mama would remynd me that if I ever had anything to do with that
good-fer-nothin crook an’ skirt chaser that no decent purson would ever want
anything to do with me and that I’d nevur amount to a dime.
I furst met my daddy when
I wuz barely seventeen yeers old when I went to hiz house in Tenochtitlan –
jest south of Guanajuato – when I also locked eyes with the evil wumin he’d
done run off with at t he time I wuz borned – and their own boy – jes two yers
younger than me and who looked and acted a lot like me.
Made me reel sad to see my
daddy livin’ with anuther wumin and bein’ a daddy to anuther boy when he nevur
wuz around to be a daddy to me while I wuz growin up.
My daddy give me an abrazo
– a reely warm abrazo – on that furst day – the furst day we met, then I saw
teers a trickling down his cheeks from time to time whenever he sawed me
afturwurds. He nevur said sed much though. I guess he wuz too choked up on the
inside. Some things tho – I knew – can’t nevur be sed in words.
I don’t think tho that either one uv us ever got over that inner
sadness – a sadness neither of us could ever share with anyone else in the
world. My daddy couldn’t share it with the wumun that wuz livin with ‘em – that
wumun wouldn’t hear of it – and I couldn’t share it with my own mama – yet I
think she knew that I wuz feelin’ all mixed up and sad on the inside. However,
that mixed up sad feelin jest nevur left me – it nevur left me.
While my older brother and
me wuz growin up in Missouruh, I once heard a Piscopalian priest, an old
childhood friend of my mama’s, tell her that she shouldn’t talk about my daddy
the way she talked about him in front of my brother and me, that it wuz not
healthy fer us to hear such things.
My Mama also used to talk reel funny-like about that priest behind
his back, make light of him ‘cause he never married, ‘cause he set up
housekeepin’ as she called it, with another man, who then married my mama’s
best friend. That dude wuz reel imaginative and good with drawin’ stuff and
paint’n stuff and decoratin and redecoratin houses. However, he also
redecorated hiz wife by makin her black and blue in the face on occasion –
while they wuz both a nippin’ at the juice. She used to run over to our house
to hide from him durin’ hiz crazy spells.
My mama’s wuz also kind of
artistic, good with a pencil, with a piece of charcoal and a paint brush. She used to draw and sketch my brother and
me. She told my brother and me that her
art teacher—he wuz also the high school art teacher—told her she should draw
pictures of us when we wuz neckud. I nevur wud do it neckud though. She’s also kind of musical. She plays the
piano and the fiddle, Liebrastraum and stuff like that.
My mama’s also a good
dancer. I once or twice saw her do the Charleston. She grew up in the twenties,
when the Charleston wuz reel popular. Flappers they called ‘em. Then, after my
daddy left us, she started puttin’ on minstrel shows, black face stuff, for
civic organizations. She’d put the shows on all over the country. Go from one
town to another, sort of alike Bojangles, ceptin she wuz what was called a
Whyte woman.
Fact is my mama wuz – I
later lernt – a Creole woman – as some of herz and my ancesturz done wore
Canook and Injun jeans. Then I even latur lernt that although she wuz part
Canook, the injun part wuz jest a then fashionuble tale she done spun, for
whatever reezun I don’t rilly know. I think she’d been readin’ an thinkin’
romantic – tales bout Pocahauntus an other similur type ventursome Princessus.
She was somewhat of an aktriz, as well as a dreamur an a comik of sorts. Then
agin at some later point in time, some distant relative told me we rilly wuz
part injun – that we wuz part Mohawk – so I dun got mysef a Mohawk haircut fur
a while. I even died my hair black.
Then I started lettin’ my
hair grow rilly long, like my bruthur, who wuz rilly good with a bow and arrow.
In fact he wuz as good with a bow and arrow as he wuz with a gun. Took second
place in a bow n arrow shootin contest – competin with ful grown men when he
wuz jest a teenager. We used to casionally dress up in war paint and beat drums
and carry on like we wuz purformin a Pow Wow out in the back yard.
My mama had her own maid
from the time she wuz fourteen, the yeer wemin furst got the right to vote. Her
maid, Veeroy, wuz also fourteen.
Veeroy, who wuz more like
my mama’s sister and like my own second mama, baked the best butterscotch pie I
ever tasted. Mama also had her own
Model-A Ford from the time she wuz 14, until she ran it into a street light
pole an’ bumped her head against the windshield an’ broke her collarbone, she
told me.
Aftur my mama put in’ in
some time with book lurnin, fiddle playin, and keyboardin at some boarding
skool fur wemin back East, instead of goin on to Broadway with Dottie, one
uf hur classmates, hur own daddy made
her insted git married cuz he didn’t want hur loozin her virginity and hur
sanity by getting’ hitched up with the wrong man, so she told me. ‘Course my
mama dun somewhat lost hur sanity anyhow be getttin’ hitched to that good
fur nothin’ spoiled rotten rich man’s kid an crook and skirt chaser.
It did something to my
nurves, listenin to my mama rattle on and on ovur the yers about the daddy I’d
never rilly knowd – it was like she wuz attackin me fer ever havin been borned.
Yers later, after we
buried my mama, I asked Veeroy how she thought about bein’ a maid fer whyte
people – course, I always claimed I wuzn’t rilly white, evun tho I damned sure wuz
remynded time n agin by oturz that I damned certin looked to be whyte.
However, in responz to my
questyun, Veeroy jest sed in a reel kind way, “It wuz jest the custom of the
time. She then remynded me, in a reel kind way, that my mama and grandma and
grandpappy wuz rilly the only family she’d ever knowd and that she wuz the only
family I had left. Made me feel reel good – an reel sad at the same time – sad
cuz it took so many years to recognize that simple fact. It wuz like we wuz all
in the same boat with Noah
I’ve got trouble
pronouncin’ some words, so I’m told. I never wuz particularly good at English
grammar or English literature. Got mostly Ds at the school. I wuz always reel
bord with the idea of tryin’ ta read Alice n’ Wonderland ‘n stuff like that.
I’d have gotten Fs, except that my teachers, I think, kind of took a lykin’ for
me, mainly ‘cuz I wuzn’t too smart and cuz other kinds sorta tormented me from
time to time.
Some folks even today
thinks I’m even lying to ‘em when I tell ‘em I graduated from college. However,
when I got to college, Fred Rizzo—he and I wuz the same age—told me that he
lyked my style. He give me an A n’ told me I should majur in English instead of
actin. I got out of actin ‘cause I had a lot of problems with them other
acturs, but I didun’ major in English cuz Rizzo wuz ‘bout the only English
teacher that I ever liked talking at or that I thought made any reel sense.
Rizzo even invited me to
tip a few beers with him at a campus pub and to go fishin’ with him. I later
thought to myself that I wished I could find a wumin that looked, thought and
acted like him. Rizzo wuz a handsome dude, I thought. And a kind, deep thinking
dude. From then on – like Leonardo and Mikelangelo -- I always did have an eye
– and a mind – for them Italian-Greek dudes.
I later on met a Mexican
dude – a handsome Mexican dude – that I also enjoyed talking at and fishin
with. José held a mastur’s in English from University of Texus. We used to tip
a few beers together down in the valley near Matamorous and go fishin’ together
at Padre Island. We wuz, both of us, what uthers called Tex-Mex. An he used to
sing songs – luv songs about the feelins he felt for dudes like me – told me I
reminded him of pictures he’d seen of one of hiz own grandaddies – who wuz also
a Celtic dude – like me.
The English language ain’t
easy. Ask George Bush—or any of the other Yale boyz for that matter. He’s
almost as bad as I am with getting my words and my thoughts mixed up. He’s
kinda Tex-Mex hizsef.
I lived with a wumin quite
a bit older than me for a while who had two sons and a daughter already
growd—the daughter, a flight attendant, wuz about my age. The daughter used to
visit us from time to time, in between flights, when two of ‘em would smoke pot
n’ act even more silly then the two of them normally acted right in front of
me.
The pot wuz growd by the
wumin’s son – who wuz a daddy himself -- on his farm in Virginy – he jest sent
the stuf to his mama via the U S mail. I told ‘em I didn’t smoke ‘cause I had
to drive a truck full of gravel, sod and fertilizer for a livin’ and I wuz
feared of havin’ a wreck ‘an bumpin my head ‘ginst the windshield and that I
wuz also feared of windin’ up in jail. However, the wumin told me that she wuz
in reel tite with the local coppers and that she thus had nothin’ to feer.
That same wumin worked as
a secretary to the head of the chamber of commerce, then as secretary to the
head of the planning commission, and she took some classes in art appreciation
and music appreciation at a big university. She told me she wuz – some yeers
before we met – president of the PTA at the skool her three kids attended. She
wuz kinda ‘tractive—not reel broad or big-chestud like a lotta mature wimin,
which is ok with me. I particularly liked the sound of her voice. I got a thing
about voices.
One of her favorite words
wuz irregardless, yet I found out she wuz tellin’ all her friends that I
rilly didn’t graduate from college, ‘cause she couldn’t understand how someone
that misused words as much as I misused words, so she said, could have even
gotten out of high school, much less out of college. Sometimes she got
downright ugly about things! Like to call me boy instead of callin’ me a man,
when I already wuz a man! That used to rilly tic me off and I told her so.
She’s one of them folks that always wants to think theyz not only smarter than
everone else, but more right than everyone else ‘n more sane than everyone
else. Fact is, her own head weren’t screwed on too tightly itself.
She’d call me crazy, only
‘because I wuz seein’ a shrink. It’s not that I wanted to see a shrink, it’s
that other people, the ones that wuz assaultin and batterin me an’ makin’ fun
of me, wanted me to see a shrink ‘cause if I wuz seein’ a shrink it made them
feel or look like it wuzn’t them that wuz crazy, but me that wuz crazy. If they
ganged up on me ‘n battered me ‘bout the face or ‘bout the nutz it wuz it wuz
cuz they wuz regular guys. If I paid ‘em back, it wuz cuz I wuz crazy, like
they never done nuthin’ to me in the furst place. Yah know what I mean?
A lot of dudes liked to
grab hold of my private parts ‘tween my legs, includin’ cops – copperheads I
call ‘em. It wuz like they didn’t have one of their own! ‘Ceptin they did.
They’d usually make it a point to show me so, too. However, I always wondered
why it wuz that they wuz always tryin’ to grab mine! I like to grab myself from
time to time. If feels good.
That wumin I wuz tellin’
you about. I’d hear her braggin’ to her friends about how I wuz built and how I
performed betterin’ any other dude she’d ever known, behind my back. She’d talk
about the earthquakes the two of us created together while we wuz makin’
love. Yet she’d call me dirty names to
my face when we wuz alone, sometimes, implyin’ I wuz some variety of a fruit,
and then wonder why I wuzn’t no longer inneristed in makin’ love to her. I
think she wuz jealous of the way I wuz built, the way all dudes is built. She
accused me of sleepin’ with every other dude and every other wumin in town. Got
reel paranoid-like.
I recall another lady who
wuz also quite a bit older than me tellin’ me that she wished she had one of
them ying-yangs of her own. That’s what she called it—a ying-yang.
I think most wimin wished they had one of their own, which is why a lot of ‘em
seem to hate us men, or boyz as my lady friend would say. They don’t
likes to think wez growd up. They also likes to think they has more
intuishun—that they can read ar mynds.
That wumin that didn’t think I’d graduated
from college. Well, she couldn’t understand why I couldn’t get a better job
than driving a delivery truk for a garden shop. Well, yah see. It’s that
everyone seemed to think I wuz too crazy or too dum to do anything else,
especially them sophisticated personnel managers. ‘Sides, just about every
other job I ever had, working at a newspaper or in an office of some kind, I
wound up getting’ getting’ fired for complain’ about a lot of nasty things that
wuz said and done to me by the men and wimin I had to work with. Thez always
tryin’ to figure out everyone else’s sex life.
They wants to know if I likes girls or boys,
wimin or men. Men or wimin. It’s got to
be one or the other. Funny thing is that I don’t have no particular preference
as to whether I likes men or wimin. I like some dudes alright and I like some
wimin alright. However, there’re times when I think I don’t like no one.
The dudes I like most bein’ around though
when I like bein’ around folks are the dudes who are sort of like me, the ones
that can’t get a job doin anything else ‘ceptin drivin’ someone else’s truck or
repaintin’ old tires.
Yah see, dudes like me, dudes at the bottom
of the peckin’ order don’t have no reason ta hide nothin’ cause we can’t afford
to have a wife and we ain’t about to sell ourselves to some fat ole fart that
just wants to lead us around on a leash and fondle us from time to time, since
they ain’t got nothin’ of their own to fondle. It’s as simple as that. We ain’t tryin’ to get nowhere, so we don’t
have to put on no front for no one.
I’ve always liked to wear
low-hung Leviz, low-heeled roper boots and a straw, wire-brimmed Stetson, one
that I can shape myself. That’s all I rilly like to wear. Makes no difference
whether I’m in New York City, in Miami Beach, in Guanajuato, in Hollywood or in
the Missouri Ozarks. I think a lot of dudes secretly admire me for bein’ like I
wanna be, for actin’ like I wanna act.
I most always wear my ole’ broken in jeans, my broken in ropers and my
broken in straw, and I let a little stubble grow around my chin. I also like
the smell of oil. I drive an old pick-up truck and I change my own oil and
spark plugs.
I never did own a new car
or a new truck. I don’t even like the looks of new trucks. They ain’t got no
mud on ‘em. Always bought second-hand clunkers myself, if and when I could
afford to buy one, then serviced ‘em myself, better than most people. Snotty
chicks don’t like to ride in ole’ pickup trucks so I don’t have to worry about
attractin’ snots.
Don’t ever get
married,Tom, cauz wimin are only after yur money, if you’ve got any. That’s
what an actris friend of my mama’s told me. Iris wuz her name. She once played
Burt Reynold’s mama in some movie that I think wuz filmed in Arkansas, not far
from where I grew up. I accidentally run into her in a West Hollywood coffee
shop. I wuz talkin’ to another actur who cleaned uthur actur’s swimmin’ pools
when he wuzn’t workin’ at Six Flags as a puppeteer, and I heerd this familiar
voice, talking about her son’s farm in Tennessee, and I looked up and Iris wuz sittin
in the booth next to me.
Turned out me and Iris wuz
working on the same stupid borin’ play, written by a former neighbor boy from
Missouri who lived down the alleyway from us. I wuz buildin’ scenery in the
carpentry shop and Iris wuz sellin’ tickets
at the actin theatur ‘cross the street from where we wuz havin’ coffee and
neither of us ‘fore that moment didn’t even know we wuz both workin’ on the
same stupid, borin’ play, which folded two daze after it opened.
Fact is it wuz shut down by a Miz Oberon who owned the property the theater was sittin on. She sed, accordin to the local paper, that she didn’t see no point in havin nekud wimin showin their privates on hur stage since the wimin acturs didn’t have nuthin worth sayin in the furst place, nor did the dudes that wuz hired to play the so-called men parts. As fer the dude that writ the scrip, he’d uv been better off doin something else, so she sed.
I hadn’t seen Iris in
years. Her son, the farmer, once played her son in a Little Theater play called
somethun like Life With Mother. He had talent for acting, as did his
mama, but he wuz somewhat like me. He didn’t like show biz people, ‘ceptin for
his own mama. His daddy wuz a photographer and my older brother used to work
for him part time after school. He also worked after school for Iris as a leadin’
man in her actin’ classes fer children since she couldn’t get no younger
boys to enroll in the class and she didun have no one else to play the man
parts.
Some said I wuz better at buildin’
stuff an’ actin up in reel life (tellin’ lies they called it) than I wuz at
actin on a stage. Others told me in so many words to clean up my act. That’s
what they also told Lenny Bruce and Jimmy Dean and that Kerouac feller, so I
read or heard, and a lotta other dudes.
By the way, I met Lenny’s
reel mama. Sadie thought I wuz someone else and I thought she wuz someone else
when we bumped into each other and began talkin’ at each other at some meetin’
in West LA, where anuther actor’s papa wuz tryin to impress us all, yet borin’
us all by tellin’ us how he’d manuged to stay sober for a lotta years. Sadie
told me she used to remember me comin’ up to their house in the hills to see
Lenny and I told her how I remembered surfin’ at Will Rogers Beach with her boy
earlier in the day. Course Sadie’s boy wuz already buried. We wuz both
confused.
Me and Sadie then bumped into each other later on at anuther place, where we’d been asked to audition for a role in the story of her boyz life. We wuz sittin next to the dude that writ the scrip. Funny thing, the snooty castin’ director didn’t hire either one uv us. The wumin he hired to play Lenny’s mama didn’t look or even act anything like his reel mama, which shows ya how unreel Hollywood rilly is.
My brother, the one who
liked to play ‘around with cameras, who wuz only a year better’n me didn’t want
nuthin to do with no one. He hated the world the way it is. He went off by
hizsef ‘until he died. He told me early on one day while we wuz still teenagers
an’ sittin’ in a church pew together that them church people is downright
stupid spendin’ so much time listenin’ to and repeatin’ a lot of mumbo jumbo,
hocus pocus and that most of ‘em is two-faced as all get out.
One of our neighbors, not
the one that built our house, who also used to live ‘cross the street from us,
wuz kinda arrogunt and kinda churchy. Mistur Rite (az he wuz called) always
seemed to be reel concerned ‘about speakin’ to and acknowledgin to the rite
people—thuh rite-wing people as some would say. Rarely did he ever even
acknowledge our own existence, even when he wuz standin’ at the back of the
church, passin’ out prayer books and hymnals and escortin’ the God-fearin’
wimin to the pews on Sunday mornins..
Hiz wife’s papa had all
the smarts n’ all the money and he worked for hur papa, but neither hiz wife
nor their two boyz ever set foot in the church ceptin’ to bury hur papa, who
owned a reel productive war-contract iron factory, and who also never set foot
in the church to my knowledge, ‘ceptin after he died, when he wuz carried into
the church by the mortician’s boys, then out again by pallbearers. Me and my
brother wuz altar boyz for the accasion.
Mistur Rite’s youngest boy
Jeff wuz my best friend for a while. . .we used to hang out together a lot
during the summertime when there wuz no school, sometimes we jest sat and
talked about life upstairs in his attic, and I’d tell him about my girlfriend
and about how crazy I wuz ‘bout her. However, another neighbor boy – that used
to call hiz sef Jimmie – tried to make me feel reel bad ‘bout myself by sayin’
he thought it wuz reel odd that I wuz playin’ with younger boyz. The
reason I wuz playin’ with the younger boyz wuz ‘cause I wuz told – by the
coaches – that I wuz too young to play little league baseball with the boyz my
own age.
I latur noted that that
rite-like Jimmie dude was playin’ around with younger boyz hizsef – coachin’
‘em as to how to pitch ‘an catch the ballz an how to showur up reel well
afturwords – not in hiz attic – but in the dudes-only room – the room that sez
on the door – FER PLAYIN’ DUDES ONLY – NO WEMIN ALLOWED.
I watched Mr. Rite’s
eldest boy, who used to call Jeff a hothead, give my grandma the finger
once. Then I watched that same boy walkin’ reel cool ‘n proudlike down
mainstreet one early spring Saturday mornin’, hiz Leviz sunk reel low on hiz
hips, showin’ off hizself and hiz new bride, my former girlfriend (so I
thought), a reel pretty wumin who wuz modelin’ a reely long velvet-like green
dress, the wumin who I thought liked me best when I noted that she wrote my
initials on her shoes when we wuz just eleven years old. I later racked my
brain to try to figure out if there wuz some other boy in the same town that
had those same initials. Maybe I’d been mistaken ‘bout her ever likin me. Maybe
I’d just been kiddin’ myself all along.
Me and Sam and Carl done hung out together now and then durin our youngur yers – accasunally drivin’ cross the state line to tip a few at the roadside taverns when we wuzn’t doin’ other things – like bailin hay or fallin’ alseep in a classroom or swimmin’ at some creek. I always liked hangin’ out with Sam n Carl ‘cause they usually cover’d my backside when uthers wuz tryin’ to shoot me down or to put me in a bad light. Yah see, Sam and Carl wuz somewhat like me. They didun like bein’ around snots any more than I liked bein around snots – so we kinda steered away from the snot crowd – and had a better time fur the most part.
Ever since them dayz, though – and ever now ‘n then – throughout the years aftur – I kep runnin into a rilly friendly ‘n laid-back ‘n dark-haired Canuk-type dude that called hizself Peter – ten yeers better’n me – and who told me when we furst met – at a gentleman’s type beach tavurn – fer dudes only – the furst ever I’d ever been at – in some southern-like beach town – right after I’d done been booted out of the hooligan navy fer bein’ what them shrinks called ‘mentully unsound’ – that he’d done growd up in Montreal – where he wuz called Norman as a boy – and that he’d nevur had no dad hizself ‘ceptin whenever anuther older, deep-thinkin dude occashunilly also took a likin to him.
Fer awhile Peter’s sorta
handsome, craggy-like face – which had soon after we met caught the eye of
camera dudes ‘n publishin’ dudes – started croppin up in GQ maguzine ads
promotin a lot of yuppie junk fer yuppie dudes to buy ‘n drink ‘n smoke ‘n
wear, most of which he hizself had no particular need fer. His primary need wuz
fer uther kind-hearted dudes. He done passed on at the youthful age of 80 – so
I sawed ‘n red – and apparently wuz loved and appreciated by a lotta uther
dudes and even a lotta uther wemin that – like me – took a likin’ to his sorta
handsome, craggy-like grin ‘n hiz laid-back, kind hearted wayz.
Peter ‘n me also shared an
interest in surfin’ – many years ago – when in between catchin’ some uv the big
ones and ridin’ em all the way to the shore
we’d just lay back on the beach sand ‘n talk about life – ‘n some of the
uthur dudes ‘n some of the ladies we’d done played ball with or surfed with or
talked at – at other beaches or ports of call.
I mysef nuvur could
understand how stealin bases and pitchin and catchin is somehow more manly than
jest growin’ and pickin’ a handful uv dandelions to give to my lady friend,
then pickin’ another handful or two fer ar suppur an then jest takin a stoll
togethur in the meadow ‘neeth the moonlite.
If I’d ever had a likin
for sech stupid nonsense as droppin’ soap and stealin bases and pitchin and
catchin, my name would also be up their in bright lights right along side all
the uther dudes that made it big, and I’d have a star on some Hollywood
sidewalk and a bankroll somewhat the size of a major leegue pitcher or of a hot
shot dunker or of a star receiver or of a talk-show host or of a TV court judge
or of a Budwizer beer distributur or of an explosives manufacturer or of stock
broker or of a bank CEO or of an oil baron or of a United States Senator or of
a United Nations dignitary or of an Arab Sheik. Theyz all sleepin in the same
boudoir, I wud presume!
Some ordinary folks, it
seems, cain’t see the forest fur the treez, including them know-it-all pill
pushin hokus pokus shrinks that likes to make you think they can read ur mind,
while theyz pickin ur pocket at the same time.
The
Eton Chronicle of Fiction by Tom Blaise
The Shepherd-Montessori Institute
