on? I mean, buddy, you’re

driving everybody crazy! do I

have to kick your ass just to

get a modicum of

silence?”

he just went on

talking.

I went back and sat down.

he followed and sat down

next to me.

he was a computer engineer.

he and the girl in the

fur outfit were going to

be married.

I knew I’d never go

to that wedding.

there was a fellow sitting on the floor

across from the coffee table

who told really

interesting and funny stories

but all any of us could hear was

the computer engineer.

after a while

we gave up and just

listened

although nobody could understand

much of what he was saying….

the computer engineer and his

girl

were friends of the lady

I lived with

and since my lady

liked to say that

I treated her friends

badly

I just sat there and drank

as the tall one

leaped up and sat down again

talking

and getting tangled in his

bell-cord.

I glanced over at the lady

I lived with.

she was smiling pleasantly

as he screamed his

nonsense.

and I thought, if I am being

tested I am failing again.

I can’t find anything

interesting in any of

this

and I reached out and

yanked his

bell-cord….

still talking

his head

jerked

down

and he spilled his drink

on me

sat upright

and began again with

more vigor than

ever

only the head-jerk

seemed to clear his speech

patterns

and I finally began to understand what

he was saying.

he was telling the world

that

I was an

antisocial hunk of

despicable shit. that

brotherhood and sisterhood

would engulf my work and my

petty ways. that

every man was a poet and

every woman was too.

I poured him a new

drink.

he picked it up and

snouted it

down.

love is what mattered,

he went on,

and

furthermore…

AFDC for you and me

these dogs, she said, are always sticking their

noses in my crotch, it’s exasperating

I don’t know what they

want.

she had on dark pink pantyhose

and had hands 50 years old and a face 40

but she was in her late

20s, early 30s,

one psychiatrist after another,

she was on

AFDC, just like the rest of us wanted to be.

we discussed how we had bad feelings when we

killed certain types of bugs,

but we decided it was all right to kill

spiders and cockroaches

and it was all right to eat fish and crabs

and lobsters,

also chickens didn’t have any damned brains

but pigs were smarter than horses,

you couldn’t eat pigs.

I’m a cocktail waitress, she said,

and I wear this mini-skirt but I sure get tired

of those men staring at my

crotch. I get so drunk

that I spill drinks on people,

and later on I sing,

not rock, that’s dead,

I sing jazz…

will you marry me? I asked.

yes, she said.