week of February 12 - 18, 2007

A Man With No Teeth Serves Us Breakfast | I'd Like to Bake Your Goods | Stolen Mummies | Brendan Constantine is My Kind of Town
Up Liberty's Skirt | Feeding Holy Cats | Mowing Fargo | I'm a Jew, Are You? | Lizard King of the Laundromat | I Am My Own Orange County
Paris: It's The Cheese | Poetry Super Highway | Judaic Links | Rick's Bookmarks | Cobalt Poets
E-mail Rick | Other Cool Rick Stuff / Upcoming Readings | Who The Hell Is Rick

Kiss & Fly On the way to the airport we speak of miscellany and etcetera in fits and starts. I tell him Brandy killed a man. We both shrug. She's not a real girl anyway. There is such a silence before sunup even on the freeway. Cars creep along carefully flashing caution-colored yellows before crossing the line. Caffeine has not yet been consumed in appropriate quantities. So this might just all be a dream anyway, thick and non-linear. When I pull away from the curb, his kiss has barely left a mark. I practice all the usual hoodoo, visualizing the crash, the flames and lost limbs. (It is the only way to keep him safe.) Imagining the worst prevents it from coming true. Keeps me from waking up. When I finally get home I have no recollection of how I got there. Crash Protocol When she finally goes down she goes down hard. The fall is long and complicated. I put my head between my knees and wait for the mask to drop. (In case of water landings your heart can be used as a flotation device.) She sends up distress signals as she goes just in case someone, anyone is looking for a crash site. Out the left side of the aircraft you can see the mess she made (Tell the children to close their eyes.) and on the right all that remains of me. Samba At the airport, I barely recognize her. She's always smaller than you'd think. And I used to say she was stronger than she looks. I used to say you could break her in half unless she got to you first. I used to say a lot of stupid things. I am speechless now. She drops her cigarette to the concrete curb suffocates the red ash with her black Sambas. She attempts a smile that has no legs it falls flat on her face. Everything she owns fits in two blue suitcases. One large. One small. Stuffed with CDs and borrowed Levi jeans. This is all that's really left of her. She shed the last of her sanity somewhere over Idaho. The flight path is littered with little pinkish bits of her. She hid the remains of her heart in the trash by the food court at Midway. She flushed a capsule of lukewarm illusions down the mile-high toilet, the one closest to the cockpit. She sprinkled her last handful of hope like mythic breadcrumbs up the ramp through Terminal 2 all the way to Arrivals where I finally meet her. I'd like to think she's hidden a dimebag of dreams somewhere on her size three frame. Sewn into the lining of her jacket or shoved down inside her knee socks. Somewhere safe and warm so they'll still be alive when she's ready, later. But I wouldn't put money on it. Believing the best can get you hurt. Any asshole can tell she's on the edge. She's on the verge. She's got all the makings of a jumper. But I fold her into the front seat, strap her in, turn on the radio, and merrily chauffer her away to her doom, pointing out scenic sites along the way. I am a suicide enabler. In hindsight, I see it all go down again. I see each mistake perfectly. It's like watching someone drowning. And you throw her a lifeline and you throw her a rope. And you throw and you throw until your arms get tired. And then you just stand there and watch her sink out of sight.

Houston 1963 Odd for me to be there, being white. The owner of the riding academy said You oughtta be ashamed of yourself. He would not speak directly to my black friends. Had he possessed any subtlety at all he could have shamed us all with welcome, offered riding lessons then and there, or our big chance to board the horses we would never own. We didn’t even carry enough change to rent a mechanical pony ride in a grocery store. We predicated the whole action on our certainty of rejection. We were right about that. Free Clothing Store Most days as I sort donated clothes a routine hangs round my shoulders. Then two capes appear, black velvet lined with eggshell silk, costumes from some stage play. Made for seven footers, these robes are destined for royalty. That is how I come to wander up Second Avenue to Eighth Street, lush regalia draped on my arm. At Eighth I see them, half a block away. They must be Dinka or Tutsi. I hurry but they’re not moving. She growls I want you outta my life you mothahfuckah. and he roars – Good riddance bitch. I tap him on his lower back He hardly glances down but still I ask – You want a robe? Engaged and war-like in this street of pimps and thieves, he ignores me. With self-endangering insistence I talk on – I don’t want money! These are free! That wins a puzzled look. He takes the largest robe and throws it round his shoulders. The man becomes a king. Respectfully I nod toward the queen "Here’s one for you too." She tries it on – a perfect matching fit. They reflect each other. They admire each other. Extending an invitation to a diplomatic ball he raises his elbow toward her. Anger forgotten, she accepts. Solemnly, with benign nobility, smiling down on the ordinary people, they stroll with grace up the Avenue. Hunting Near Brenham Note: In my family, the name Lange rhymes with the middle word in the phrase, "bingie bangie bong." Lange’s house had ceilings twice as high as what I knew in Houston. The tongue-in-groove walls were dark, originally by intention and finally by generations of smoky air. We always chopped wood for the old man, and his stove would bake us to well done. In October Lange spread canvas sheets under pecan trees to bring in the only crop he could still produce. I was to stay close beside my father, rifle slung under my arm. In the frosted early morning we would ease toward the woods, and it felt like a long time till squirrels would break the stillness scrabbling for cover. Aim the .22, breathe in, hold steady, and slowly squeeze the trigger. I hit the middle of his back. Instead of a furious nerve-generated death dance through the leaves, he lay where he fell, crippled, ruined, looking steadfastly up into my eyes, waiting with all the equanimity of reality.