the red and white barrier lifted.
I drove in,
drove around and around.
I finally found a parking spot a good distance away,
a football field away.
I walked in.
I finally found the entrance and the elevator
and the floor
and then the office number.
I walked in.
the waiting room was full.
there was an old lady talking to the
receptionist.
“but can’t I see him now?”
“Mrs. Miller, you are here at the right time
but on the wrong day.
this is Wednesday, you’ll have to come
back Friday.”
“but I took a cab. I’m an old lady, I have almost
no money, can’t I see him now?”
“Mrs. Miller, I’m sorry but your appointment
is on Friday, you’ll have to come back
then.”
Mrs. Miller turned away: unwanted,
old and poor, she walked to the
door.
I stepped up smartly, informed them who I was.
I was told to sit down and wait.
I sat with the others.
then I noticed the magazine rack.
I walked over and looked at the magazines.
it was odd: they weren’t of recent
vintage: in fact, all of them were over a
year old.
I sat back down.
30 minutes passed.
45 minutes passed.
an hour passed.
the man next to me spoke:
“I’ve been waiting an hour-and-a-half,” he
said.
“that’s hell,” I said, “they shouldn’t do that!”
he didn’t reply.
just then the receptionist called my
name.
I got up and told her that the other man had
been waiting an hour-and-a-half.
she acted as if she hadn’t heard.
“please follow me,” she said.
I followed her down a dark hall, then she
opened a door, pointed. “in there,” she said.
I walked in and she closed the door behind me.
I sat down and looked at a map of
the human body hanging from the wall.
I could see the veins, the heart, the
intestines, all that.
it was cold in there and dark, darker
than in the hall.
I waited maybe 15 minutes before the door
opened.
it was Dr. Manx.
he was followed by a tired-looking young lady
in a white gown; she held a clipboard;
she looked depressed.
“well, now,” said Dr. Manx, “what is it?”
“it’s my leg,” I said.
I saw the lady writing on the clipboard.
she wrote LEG.
“what is it about the leg?” asked the Dr.
“it hurts,” I said.
PAIN wrote the lady.
then she saw me looking at the clipboard and
turned away.
“did you fill out the form they gave you at
the desk?” the Dr. asked.
“they didn’t give me a form,” I said.
“Florence,” he said, “give him a form.”
Florence pulled a form out from her
clipboard, handed it to me.
“fill that out,” said Dr. Manx, “we’ll be right
back.”
then they were gone and I worked at the
form.
it was the usual: name, address, phone,
employer, relatives, etc.
there was also a long list of questions.
I marked them all “no.”
then I sat there.
20 minutes passed.
then they were back.
the doctor began twisting my leg.
“it’s the right leg,” I said.
“oh,” he said.
Florence wrote something on her
clipboard.
probably RIGHT LEG.
he switched to the right leg.
“does that hurt?”
“a little.”
“not real bad?”
“no.”
“does this hurt?”
“a little.”
“not real bad?”
“well, the whole leg hurts but when
you do that, it hurts more.”
“but not real bad?”
“what’s real bad?”
“like you can’t stand on it.”
“I can stand on it.”
“hmmm … stand up!”
“all right.”
“now, rock on your toes, back and
forth, back and forth.”
I did.
“hurt real bad?” he asked.
“just medium.”
“you know what?” Dr. Manx asked.
“no.”
“we’ve got a Mystery Leg here!”
Florence wrote something on the
clipboard.
“I have?”
“yes, I don’t know yet what’s wrong with
it.
I want you to come back in 30 days.”
“30 days?”
“yes, and stop at the desk on your
way out, see the girl.”
then they walked out.
at the checkout desk there was a long
row of bottles waiting, white bottles with
bright orange labels.
the girl at the desk looked at me.
“take 4 of those bottles.”
I did.
she didn’t offer me a bag so I stuck
them in my pockets.
“that’ll be $143,” she said.
“$143?” I asked.
“it’s for the pills,” she said.
I pulled out my credit card.
“oh, we don’t take credit cards,” she told
me.
“but I don’t have that much money on
me.”
“how much do you have?”
I looked in my wallet.
“23 dollars.”
“we’ll take that and bill you for the
rest.”
I handed her the money.
“see you in 30 days,” she smiled.
I walked out and into the waiting room.
the man who had been waiting an hour-and-
a-half was still there.
I walked out into the hall, found the
elevator.
then I was on the first floor and out
into the parking lot.
my car was still a football field
away
and my right leg began to hurt like hell,
after all that twisting Dr.
Manx had done to it.
I moved slowly to my car, got in.
it started and soon I was out on the
boulevard again.
the 4 bottles of pills bulged painfully in my
pockets as I drove along.
now I only had one problem left, I had
to tell my wife
I had a Mystery Leg.
I could hear her already:
“what? you mean he couldn’t tell
you what was wrong with your
leg?
what do you mean, he didn’t
know?
and what are those PILLS?
here, let me see those!”
as I drove along, I switched on the
radio in search of some soothing
music.
there wasn’t any.
BE COOL, FOOL
you have to accept this
reality.
whether you
sit at a punch press all day or
whether you
&
nbsp; work in a coal mine or
whether you come home
exhausted from a cardboard box factory
to find
3 kids bouncing dirty tennis balls
against the walls of a
2 room flat as
your fat wife sleeps while
the dinner burns
away.
you have to accept this
reality
which includes enough nations with
enough nuclear stockpiles to
blow away the very center of the
earth
and to finally liberate
the Devil
Himself
with his
spewing red fire of liquid
doom.
you have to accept this
reality
as the madhouse walls
bulge
break
and the terrified insane
flood our
ugly streets.
you have to accept terrible
reality
AN UNLITERARY AFTERNOON
Roger came by with his well-trimmed beard and puffing his
little pipe.
he taught in the English Dept. at a prestigious university.
Roger was literary in the old-fashioned sense: almost every time he opened his mouth you would hear
“Balzac” or “Hem” or “F. Scott.”
I was drinking with Gerda who was also on speed.
Lorraine was passed out in the bedroom but I don’t know
what she was on.
Roger sat down with his little smile.
I gave him a can of beer and he drank that and I gave
him another and he began talking away:
“did you know that Céline and Hemingway died on the
same day?”
“no, I didn’t know that.”
“did you know Whitman might have been a fag?”
“don’t believe everything you read.”
“hey, who’s that babe in your bed?”
“her? that’s Lorraine.”
after a while Roger got up and
walked into the bedroom and climbed into bed with
Lorraine, shoes and all.
Lorraine didn’t seem to notice.
“hey … baby!”
Roger reached into her dress and grabbed one of her
breasts.
Lorraine leaped out of bed. “hey, you son-of-a-bitch! what
do you think you’re doing?”
“oh, I’m sorry …”
Lorraine ran into the front room.
“WHO IS THAT SON-OF-A-BITCH? THAT SON-OF-A-BITCH
MOLESTED ME!”
Roger came out of the bedroom, “listen, I’m sorry,
I didn’t mean to offend you!”
“YOU KEEP YOUR MOTHERFUCKING HANDS TO YOURSELF, YOU
FUCKING HUNK OF SHIT!”
“yeah,” said Gerda, throwing an empty can of beer on the
rug. “go play with yourself!”
Roger walked to the door, opened it, stood there for a moment,
closed it behind him and was
gone.
“WHO WAS THAT PERVERT?” Lorraine asked.
“yeah? who?” asked Gerda.
“that was my friend Roger,” I said.
“YEAH? WELL, YOU BETTER TELL HIM TO KEEP HIS HANDS TO
HIMSELF!”
“I will,” I told Lorraine.
“I don’t know where you get your fucking friends,”
Gerda said.
“neither do I,” I replied.
POOP
I remember, he told me, that when I was 6 or
7 years old my mother was always taking me
to the doctor and saying, “he hasn’t pooped.”
she was always asking me, “have you
pooped?”
it seemed to be her favorite question.
and, of course, I couldn’t lie, I had real problems
pooping.
I was all knotted up inside.
my parents did that to me.
I looked at those huge beings, my father,
my mother, and they seemed really stupid.
sometimes I thought they were just pretending
to be stupid because nobody could really be that
stupid.
but they weren’t pretending.
they had me all knotted up inside like a pretzel.
I mean, I had to live with them, they told
me what to do and how to do it and when.
they fed, housed and clothed me.
and worst of all, there was no other place for
me to go, no other choice:
I had to stay with them.
I mean, I didn’t know much at that age
but I could sense that they were lumps
of flesh and little else.
dinnertime was the worst, a nightmare
of slurps, spittle and idiotic conversation.
I looked straight down at my plate and tried
to swallow my food but
it all turned to glue inside.
I couldn’t digest my parents or the food.
that must have been it, for it was hell for me
to poop.
“have you pooped?”
and there I’d be in the doctor’s office once again.
he had a little more sense than my parents but
not much.
“well, well, my little man, so you haven’t pooped?”
he was fat with bad breath and body odor and
had a pocket watch with a large gold chain
that dangled across his gut.
I thought, I bet he poops a load.
and I looked at my mother.
she had large buttocks,
I could picture her on the toilet,
sitting there a little cross-eyed, pooping.
she was so placid, so
like a pigeon.
poopers both, I knew it in my heart.
disgusting people.
“well, little man, you just can’t poop,
huh?”
he made a little joke of it: he could,
she could, the world could.
I couldn’t.
“well, now, we’re going to give you
these pills.
and if they don’t work, then guess
what?”
I didn’t answer.
“come on, little man, tell me.”
all right, I decided to say it.
I wanted to get out of there:
“an enema.”
“an enema,” he smiled.
then he turned to my mother.
“and are you all right, dear?”
“oh, I’m fine, doctor!”
sure she was.
she pooped whenever she wanted.
then we would leave the office.
“isn’t the doctor a nice man?”
no answer from me.
“isn’t he?”
“yes.”
but in my mind I changed it to, yes,
he can poop.
he looked like a poop.
the whole world pooped while I
was knotted up inside like a pretzel.
then we would walk out on the street
and I would look at the people passing
and all the people had behinds.
“that’s all I ever noticed,” he told me,
“it was horrible.”
“we must have had similar
childhoods,” I said.
“somehow, that doesn’t help at all,”
he said.
“we’ve both got to get over this
thing,” I said.
“I’m trying,” he
answered.
THE END OF AN ERA
parties at my place were
always marred by
violence:
mine.
attracted
them: the
would-be
writers
and the
would-be
women.
the writers?
the
women? I could always hear
them
buzzing in the far
corners:
“when’s he going to
get mean?
he always
does!”
at all those parties
I enjoyed
the beginnings the
middles
but as each night
unfolded toward
morning
something
somebody
would truly enrage
me
and I’d find myself
picking up some
guy
and
hurling him off the
front porch:
that was
the quickest way to
get rid of
them.
well,
one particular
night
I made up my
mind
to see it
through
to the end
without
untoward
incident
and I was
walking into the
kitchen
for another
drink
when
I was
pounced upon
from
behind
by
Peter the
bookstore
owner.
this bookstore
owner had more
mental problems than
most of
them
and
as he held me
in this excellent
choke-hold from the
rear
his madness gave
him superb
strength
and as the milk-brains
in the other room
babbled on about how to
save the
world
I was being
murdered.
I thought I was
finished.
I saw
bright flashes of
light.
I could no longer
breathe
I felt my heart
beating and my
temples
throb.
like a trapped
animal
I gave it one last
effort
grabbed him
behind the
neck
bent my back
and carried him
like that.
rushed into the
kitchen
ducked my head
low
at the last
moment
and
smashed his skull
against the kitchen
wall.
I steadied myself
a moment
then picked him
up and carried him
into the other
room
and dumped him into
the lap
of his
girlfriend
where from the
safety of her