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Original Sin
Now, I’ve heard this story before, bandied around, about “original sin.” The Adam and Eve deal. The snake in the garden and all that shit. She bites the apple. He goes along with it. They take the plunge and fuck their brains out. The spare rib syndrome. The pains of childbirth. They have to start hiding their genitals with fig leaves. The guilt and remorse. I’ve heard that one. My grandmother read me that story while I balanced on her knee. I’ve heard about the Pilgrim Fathers and how we descend directly down from the
Mayflower
folks and the Plymouth Colony and those same Puritans tramping around on Cape Cod in their funny hats, digging up Narragansett burial mounds and stealing their ceremonial corn when they’re supposed to be doing God’s work. I’ve also heard how Jesus died on the cross for our sins and rose again from the dead. The Holy Ghost. The roll away the stone. How we need to constantly beat ourselves up for being such miserable thankless Godless creatures, crawling around on our bellies like a bunch of reptiles. But how in the world are you supposed to make a living? That’s my question. How are you supposed to scrape two nickels together? I’ve tried everything: busboy, waiter, fence painter, wrangler; raking up chicken bones from fancy picnics. Nothing pays asgood as shooting some fool in the head and moving on down the line. Believe me, nothing. With a check like that I can lose myself down in the Yucatán for months on end. Live like a damn potentate. Brown beauties all around me. Tequila up the ass. Float on my back in the green Caribbean. Are you kidding? One less tyrant in the world is the way I look at it. Jesus might have died for somebody’s sins but they sure as hell weren’t mine.
The Comanche were known to plunder English Bibles in their raids on westering wagon trains; ripping out the onionskin pages and stuffing them into buffalo hide war shields emblazoned with blue horses, red hawks, and running dogs.
Choirboy Once
I can hardly believe I was a choirboy once. There it is. Evidence. Picture of me in the fifties. Back there in the fifties. Innocent. Or so it seemed. Snapshot: Ike and Spot. Frigidaire gleaming. Picture of me in black robes. Puritan floppy white collar. Butch haircut. Waxed and perky. Look at that. Crooked squinting smile, unsure what it’s projecting exactly. The smile. Pinched lips. What’s it trying to say? What’s it hiding? I can’t remember being there, to tell the truth. But something must have been. Some other one. Not me now. This me now. Not this one here. Some other. Watching. Staring out. Watching very closely. The proceedings. Rituals. Nothing escaped me, if that’s what you think. Wafers and wine. Flesh and blood of our Lord. Cannibal congregation. Swarming sex. Submerged. Fever. Bulging behinds. Crotches rock hard. Christ on a stick. Blood of the feet. Dripping nails. Mothers of friends. Sisters.Girls’ rear ends. Sex. Chicas. Lipstick so thick it crumbled right off into their steaming black laps. Fingernails of the Virgin Mary. Raw smell of pussy. Right through the cotton. Singing. Chants. Incantations to the one and only. The Holy of Holies. The Triple Threat. Voices praying. Knees buckled. Going down on the velvet. Rustling thighs. Silken calves. Going down on Jesus. Crucified. Bleeding through and through. Then gathering back up. Struggling to the surface. Gasping for air. Back up to the Lord. For mercy or what? Echoes off the stone walls. The droning voice. Sermon. Protestant. Certain. The whole effort of it. The jaw. The teeth. The distance from life. The great distance. Outside. From here to there. Out there. Where the hot cars sit parked. Waiting. Steaming black top. Outside in the heat. Hot air. Just waiting to roar off to anywhere but here. Tonopah. Wichita. Anywhere but right here.
Cat in a Barn at Night
If you go to shoot a cat in a barn late at night and you want it quick and sudden so as not to wake the
Original Sin
Now, I’ve heard this story before, bandied around, about “original sin.” The Adam and Eve deal. The snake in the garden and all that shit. She bites the apple. He goes along with it. They take the plunge and fuck their brains out. The spare rib syndrome. The pains of childbirth. They have to start hiding their genitals with fig leaves. The guilt and remorse. I’ve heard that one. My grandmother read me that story while I balanced on her knee. I’ve heard about the Pilgrim Fathers and how we descend directly down from the
Mayflower
folks and the Plymouth Colony and those same Puritans tramping around on Cape Cod in their funny hats, digging up Narragansett burial mounds and stealing their ceremonial corn when they’re supposed to be doing God’s work. I’ve also heard how Jesus died on the cross for our sins and rose again from the dead. The Holy Ghost. The roll away the stone. How we need to constantly beat ourselves up for being such miserable thankless Godless creatures, crawling around on our bellies like a bunch of reptiles. But how in the world are you supposed to make a living? That’s my question. How are you supposed to scrape two nickels together? I’ve tried everything: busboy, waiter, fence painter, wrangler; raking up chicken bones from fancy picnics. Nothing pays asgood as shooting some fool in the head and moving on down the line. Believe me, nothing. With a check like that I can lose myself down in the Yucatán for months on end. Live like a damn potentate. Brown beauties all around me. Tequila up the ass. Float on my back in the green Caribbean. Are you kidding? One less tyrant in the world is the way I look at it. Jesus might have died for somebody’s sins but they sure as hell weren’t mine.
The Comanche were known to plunder English Bibles in their raids on westering wagon trains; ripping out the onionskin pages and stuffing them into buffalo hide war shields emblazoned with blue horses, red hawks, and running dogs.
Choirboy Once
I can hardly believe I was a choirboy once. There it is. Evidence. Picture of me in the fifties. Back there in the fifties. Innocent. Or so it seemed. Snapshot: Ike and Spot. Frigidaire gleaming. Picture of me in black robes. Puritan floppy white collar. Butch haircut. Waxed and perky. Look at that. Crooked squinting smile, unsure what it’s projecting exactly. The smile. Pinched lips. What’s it trying to say? What’s it hiding? I can’t remember being there, to tell the truth. But something must have been. Some other one. Not me now. This me now. Not this one here. Some other. Watching. Staring out. Watching very closely. The proceedings. Rituals. Nothing escaped me, if that’s what you think. Wafers and wine. Flesh and blood of our Lord. Cannibal congregation. Swarming sex. Submerged. Fever. Bulging behinds. Crotches rock hard. Christ on a stick. Blood of the feet. Dripping nails. Mothers of friends. Sisters.Girls’ rear ends. Sex. Chicas. Lipstick so thick it crumbled right off into their steaming black laps. Fingernails of the Virgin Mary. Raw smell of pussy. Right through the cotton. Singing. Chants. Incantations to the one and only. The Holy of Holies. The Triple Threat. Voices praying. Knees buckled. Going down on the velvet. Rustling thighs. Silken calves. Going down on Jesus. Crucified. Bleeding through and through. Then gathering back up. Struggling to the surface. Gasping for air. Back up to the Lord. For mercy or what? Echoes off the stone walls. The droning voice. Sermon. Protestant. Certain. The whole effort of it. The jaw. The teeth. The distance from life. The great distance. Outside. From here to there. Out there. Where the hot cars sit parked. Waiting. Steaming black top. Outside in the heat. Hot air. Just waiting to roar off to anywhere but here. Tonopah. Wichita. Anywhere but right here.
Cat in a Barn at Night
If you go to shoot a cat in a barn late at night and you want it quick and sudden so as not to wake the
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