New Poems Book Three (2 page)

this lady was always after me about this or

that:

“what are those scratches on your back?”

“baby, I dunno, you must have put them

there.”

“you’ve been with some whore!”

“what’s that bite mark on your neck?

she must have been a
hot
number!”

“huh? baby, I don’t see anything.”

“there! there! on the left side of your

neck!

you musta really turned her on!”

“what’s this phone number written inside this matchbook?”

“what phone number?”

“this phone number! it’s a woman’s hand-writing!”

“damned if I know where that came from.”

“I’m going to call that number, that’s what I’ll do!”

“go ahead.”

“no, I’m going to tear it up, I’m going to tear

up that whore’s number!”

“you made love to that neighbor woman in our bed

while I was at work!”

“what?”

“another neighbor told me! I was told she came

right into this house!”

“oh, that. she came by to borrow a cup of

sugar.”

“a cup of sugar, my ass! you screwed her

right in this house, right in our bed with the

dog watching!”

“she just wanted a cup of sugar, she wasn’t

here but two minutes!”

“a quicky! you gave her a quicky!”

later I found out she had screwed a guy in

the back of his delivery truck

and she had screwed an appliance salesman

in the crapper in the mens’ room,

in a stall for the handicapped.

and there was something or other with a

meter reader, a blow job, I think.

she had completely outfoxed me with her

smoke screen of accusations

while she had been unfaithful on almost a

full-time basis.

and when confronted, her answer

was a
“
SO WHAT
?”

I moved her out.

we flipped for the dog and she won.

and the next time the neighbor lady

came by to borrow a cup of sugar

she stayed longer than a minute or

two.

my grandmother had a serious gas

problem.

we only saw her on Sunday.

she’d sit down to dinner

and she’d have gas.

she was very heavy,

80 years old.

wore this large glass brooch,

that’s what you noticed most

in addition to the gas.

she’d let it go just as food was being served.

she’d let it go loud in bursts

spaced about a minute apart.

she’d let it go

4 or 5 times

as we reached for the potatoes

poured the gravy

cut into the meat.

nobody ever said anything,

especially me.

I was 6 years old.

Only my grandmother spoke.

after 4 or 5 blasts

she would say in an offhand way,

“I will bury you all!”

I didn’t much like that:

first farting

then saying that.

it happened every Sunday.

she was my father’s mother.

every Sunday it was death and gas

and mashed potatoes and gravy

and that big glass brooch.

those Sunday dinners would

always end with apple pie and

ice cream

and a big argument

about something or other,

my grandmother finally running out the door

and taking the red train back to

Pasadena

the place stinking for an hour

and my father walking about

fanning a newspaper in the air and

saying, “it’s all that damned sauerkraut

she eats!”

first of all, I had a hard time, a very hard time

locating the parking lot for the building.

it wasn’t off the main boulevard where

the cars all driven by merciless killers

were doing 55 mph in a 25 mph zone.

the man riding my bumper so

close I could see his snarling face

in my rearview mirror caused me

to miss the narrow alley that would have

allowed me to circle the west

end of the building in search of parking.

I went to the next street, took a right, then

took another right, spotted the building, a blue

heartless-looking structure, then took

another right and finally saw it, a tiny

sign:
parking
.

I drove in.

the guard had the wooden red and white

barrier down.

he stuck his head out a little window.

“yeah?” he asked.

he looked like a retired hit man.

“to see Dr. Manx,” I said.

he looked at me disdainfully, then said,

“go ahead!”

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.

you have to accept this

reality.

whether you

sit at a punch press all day or

whether you

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

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.