he was a doctor
*******, they were looking at
a doctor
He came into the casino in a suit,
the same suit every day and night
dark gray
shiny with grease around the
elbows and lower back
smelly
patched up in places
he kinda forgot what it was like to be
sober
and lately he kinda forgot what
it was like to win at the slot machines
he forgot how to perform surgery
how to diagnose a patient
forgot what the company of a woman felt like
forgot what love was
he was a machine that consumed cheap
but strong alcohol
Rubbing alcohol filtered through bread
That stuff was 70% alcohol
his liver knew it
"Ah, pleaseeee, for the love of God, don't
make me work with this
stuff again," he would scream while
playing at the slot machine
and the bouncer would walk up to him
and say, "Hey, hey, doc. Everything all right, man?"
"Oh, sorry. That was my liver shouting
through my mouth. He's a *****."
They say companies that deliver food
get very suspicious when their
regular customers,
the people who order every day,
stop ordering all of a sudden
They even check on them
Well, we don't deliver food
but we got really concerned when
our favorite doctor stopped
showing up
all of a sudden
Maybe our managers would've checked
up on him but
there was no phone to call
and no door to knock on
Still, one of our boys went to the nearby
park and asked the homeless men around
for our favorite doctor
and the man handed him a
newspaper
****,
it wasn't even on the front page
there was some political **** on the
front page
Nobody gave a **** about that article
The real thing was a few pages
after, not even colored
HOMELESS MAN DIES AFTER TRYING TO
PERFORM SURGERY ON HIMSELF
IN PUBLIC RESTROOM
That was a doctor with guts
Guts pouring out of him
straight into the sink
and another cluster found in the toilet
We framed the article and pasted
it on a board in the back room
of the casino
our very own patron saint