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CHAPTER ONE

My geographic movements during the past year could be called “A Tale of Two Couches.” So as June draws to a close, I assume the position here again on Couch California. I am back in Hemet, the place the smug among us call Hemetucky--as if there was nothing a couple of Mint Juleps and a **** of Blue Grass wouldn’t cure. It is the year of our Lord, 2014: so far an interesting year for women. There was a woman who wore socks to bed. There was always my long-time, here today-gone tomorrow, long time companion, currently teaching somewhere remote on the Big Rez, a southwestern Navajo concentration camp near the 4 Corners.  Next, there’s my current object of affection, that fine and frisky lady from The Bronx by way of Bernalillo--currently at home in Laguna Beach, Orange County. Trixie: my main squeeze at the moment.

And now, completely out of the ******* blue this afternoon, my cell phone rings and it’s ******* Juanita--my all-time favorite woman, Juanita Mi Favorita de La Quinta--a Coachella Valley town and desert wadi, extending its lucrative winter tourist season to become a significant, year-round retirement venue and a robust service economy feeding off it.  Juanita arrived there in the late 80s, in middle of her early forties.  She was unemployed, homeless, just a suitcase to her name and a two-year old toddler in tow. Her parents were there, as was her Aunt Peggy.  Juanita was always Peggy’s favorite niece, her favorite child, actually, Peggy herself being childless, never married.  Aunt Peggy put her maternal instincts to work on Juanita Rodriguez, her Sister Rosalia’s second favorite twin daughter.

Maria, Rosalia’s first favorite daughter, Juanita’s twin sister—MARIA: lives in Newport Beach and acts as an extra in many commercial ads shot in southern California and elsewhere, an irony never without sting for Juanita. “Que lastima!” Poor Juanita: as her would-be Hollywood Movie star aspirations disintegrated over the years, along with her unrealized lower expectations to be TV star, and even those semi-glamorous modeling gigs at trade shows and fairs—the elephant’s graveyard of the acting profession—failed to materialize, and now her celebrity habitat shrunken even further, to that sporadic but consistent mockery of stardom, I refer to any would-be thespian’s ignominious one-celled visual protozoan: The Extra Call List.  And—*******-- what happens next? Juanita’s sister Maria starts getting these parts, starts getting hired by filling out a ******* postcard, starts getting paid to look good in the background. *******: no professional education or instruction, no agent, and no need to **** off both the producer, the producer’s cousin Morey, the director and the director’s wife’s huge Golden retriever, Genghis--actually a mighty handsome animal--or needing to spill $4K on that Derma-brasion, Juanita inflicted on herself last year.

Juanita, as you already know, was the second favorite daughter and the second favorite twin of the family. She became the third favorite child in her three-child family upon the arrival of her slick baby brother Nico-- the Golden Child, who grew up to be a glib Merrill-Lynch stockbroker, office and residence, Beverly Hills 90112.  (Enter forcefully into the narrative, His Nibs himself, Sir Nicodemus of Hollywood, Juanita and Maria’s baby brother Nico. He speaks: “Excuse me, stockbroker my ***, as it says in a 11 point Rockwell Boldfont, right here on my gold-leaf embossed business card: Senior Large Capital Investment Counselor.”)

No, Juanita had a hard time just treading water in that Cleveland shark tank. And though she lacked nothing in the cuteness department, she had this one fatal flaw, namely, the gift of ***** and sass and a reflex to speak truth to power. Juanita: rejected by Rosalia as a threat to her hegemony as Boss of the Girl’s Club, was cast adrift on a tempestuous childhood cruel Montserrat sea, out there on the briny deep . . .  
                

                                      



High Seas: where many a tuna has a Sorry Charlie moment: “Star-Kist don’t want no tuna with good taste; Star-Kist wants a tuna that tastes good.”

Finally, Juanita is rescued, taken aboard the Good/Soul Aunt Peggy—that wayward bark Elisabeta Rodriguez, home-ported in Southside, Chicago, Illinois—the rescue at sea performed in classy, rather low-key manner; no Andrea Doria drama, but understated:

{Camera One, Helicopter above, zooms over turbulent ocean surface. Peggy, an oasis of calm, aboard the raft Kon Tiki with Thor Heyerdahl and his crew, floats by, whispering, “Going my way, Honey? Climb aboard. Have a homemade oatmeal cookie and a small glass tumbler of Jack Daniels.” Okay, no, that’s not fair. Sure Aunt Peggy drank, but never got round to offering you a drink until you were well into your 30s. Let’s just say she offered you a warm glass of milk, the mother’s milk deprived you by your mother, her sister Rosalia. Dear Aunt Peggy: a seasoned survivor herself, flawed by early childhood deafness and grotesque speech.  Yet, she had refused to settle for life in an asylum. She made a go at life.  She learned; she prospered; she flourished. And when the time came, she was there for you in the Coachella Desert, there for her feisty niece Juanita Ann.  Aunt Peggy: a loving spirit personified, became Juanita’s special confidant and counselor, her personal cheer squad of one. Juanita, of course, a former cheerleader herself--an early hint of greatness to be sure, a highlight, perhaps the highlight of her life, shown off every Halloween, still celebrated at American high schools each Fall. She is the Principal’s secretary at a huge suburban high school in Indio. Each Halloween, if the date falls on a school day, Juanita arrives for work wearing that scrupulously preserved, vintage 1966 cheerleader uniform, looking real foxy still, snug now in all the right places. Eternal Truth: Juanita has always and will always be good looking. Life with Juanita is perpetual “ooh la-la.”

So, I am on the couch that afternoon, reading more of Gramsci’s prison notebooks, specifically the philosophy he calls “Praxis.”  Completely out of the ******* blue, Juanita calls me on a RESTRICTED phone, as I said, Juanita, a torch I’ve kept burning for years, flaring up like a refinery flame--oil still very much in the present energy mix--hope springing eternal as they say, and instantly my mission in life is rekindling our lost love. Juanita’s conceived her mission prior to her phone call:  using me to keep her son from being whacked by the local Eme--the Mexican Mafia—that ethnic-pride social club that the RICO-squad-- using family tree socio-grams and other expensively-printed graphics, the one RICO keeps trying to convince us is some sort of organized crime conspiracy. The Mexican Mafia: like everything else practical and utilitarian in this world: THAT’S ITALIAN! And, if you are starting to sense a bit of ethnic chauvinism on, between & below the lines, you are barking up the right tree.
                                                           ­     
      
                                                            
(AUTHOR’S POST-SCRIPT EDIT: And, an ad for dog food right here? Not the best choice of sponsors, perhaps, at the moment. Juanita was far off from the ****** ***** that start looking not half-bad at 2:30 in the glazy morning, not anywhere near those beasts you find lingering in the airport bars you usually frequent near closing time on Saturday nights. No, I remind you that Juanita was all “ooh la-la.” In my next printing—and my Lord, there have been so many, haven’t there, Paulie “Eat-a-Bag-of-****” Muldoon? I will change out the Alpo ad, plugging in a spot for Aunt Jemima pancake syrup or Betty Crocker whipped cream, you know, something more apropos.)

Juanita, I really must hand it to you. You showed the greatest staying power, year after year as I moved further and further away from La Quinta, California. Juanita: you embraced what was good in me, ignored my flaws and strengthened me with your love for so many years. As far as you and Peggy, I guess it was a case of the “apple not falling far from the tree” one of many endearing Midwestern metaphors you taught me.  Peggy taught you, taught you to be kind and then you taught me. No matter what bizarre venue I pulled out of my ***, you showed above-average staying power, continued to visit me wherever I went, Casa Grande & Buckeye, Arizona, Appalachia, West Virginia, and even Italy, when I thought I’d try Europe again after so many years.  With each move, each time, Juanita renewed her commitment to the relationship. Meanwhile, I continued to test her, quantifying her dedication, undermining her sense of mission to disprove my worldview on the expendability of women. Surely, you know that one: the unreliability of women, women who disappear without saying goodbye. That old deeply etched conviction to never get attached to a woman, any woman, based on the empirical fact that women have been known to suddenly die, a fact seared into my still tender metal by the surprise death of my mother on 11 January 1962.

1962. It was already an insecure world, to wit:  The Cuban Missile Crisis. Nikita Khrushchev, in his time both Dr. No and Dr. Evil, namely the Premier whom we Baby Boomers saw as Boogey Man of All Time (Although Putin is showing potential, lately)—the Kennedy ****** (what else could you call it?). All these events scary, whether or not I got the chronology right . . . I remained on high alert for any threat to my delicate adolescent psyche.  My mother-Rosa Teresa Sekaquaptewa-died at 2 o’clock in the morning, screaming in agony while apologizing to my father for not having his dinner on the table when he walked in from work that prior afternoon. She’d already been in bed since noon, attended by two of my aunts--both my father’s sisters--who loved their Hopi sister-in-law, Rosa.  Also present was Lafcadio Smirnoff, M.D.--last of the house call medicine men--a dapper, mustachioed, swarthy gentleman, misdiagnosing her abdominal pain as a 24-hour virus, while she bled out internally for at least eight more hours, her whimpers alternated with screams, well into the wee hours of the morning.

I was upstairs in that dormer bedroom listening to her die. An hour later, Father Numb-nuts of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish teleported in, beaming directly into my bedroom from the parish rectory.  Father Seamus Numb-nuts, an illuminated Burning Bush . . . not quite the bush I ‘d conjured at other times, so many times alone with Gwen Wong, ******* Playmate of the Year, 1961, one of Hefner’s hot centerfolds. No, give me a ******* break, you momo! Whacking off is the last thing on a libidinous, adolescent guinea’s brain when his mama is being tortured and killed by God. Even Alexander Portnoy, Philip Roth’s early avatar would have drawn the wanking line at that unforgettable moment.

No, perhaps what I’d had in mind was The Burning Bush Golf Course where so much of Fletcher Kneble’s political mischief and government shenanigans got cooked up. You remember his books, some of the Cold War’s finest: Seven Days in May, Vanished, etc.

Or better yet, perhaps the greatest political slogan of the 20th century: “STAY OUT THE BUSHES!” Thank you, Jesse. “Thank you, Reverend Jackson,” I slip into my Excellence in Broadcasting mode, my very own private Limbaugh. Announcing my on- air arrival is El Rushbo’s unmistakable, totally recognizable bass line bumper, courtesy of Chrissie Hynde’s Pretenders band mate, guitarist Tony Butler: Dum, dum, dum-dum, Da-dum, dum-dum-dum-dum-da-dum-dum. Single, “My City Was Gone” by The Pretenders
Rush Limbaugh Song– YouTube www.youtube.com/watch?v=SScW9r0y3c4

I become Reverend Jackson. I emerge from the vapors, an obscure abyss of deep family pangs and disappointments, ever-diminishing public relevance and fade to black (no pun intended) and media oblivion. The only thing left is that line:  “STAY OUT THE BUSHES!” You will always own that line, Jesse--true political genius (to wit: Rainbow Coalition) Jackson that you are, despite El Rush-Bo’s virulent anti-Black animus, his predilection to mock you, Al Sharpton, Corey Booker, Barack “Hussein” Obama, and any other professional ***** in America. Isn’t it time someone came right out and tagged Mr. Limbaugh as the Father Coughlin of our time.

Meanwhile back in The Bronx, enter another man of the cloth:  It’s Seamus Numb-nuts, making one of his many well-documented spectral visitations, his splendiferous miracles and wonders. How much longer will the Vatican ignore this humble Bronx priest, this epitome of Sainthood; this reverent man, lacking only the stigmata for a unanimous consent vote? Quote the Numb-nuts: “God Works in Mysterious Ways.” An old standard to be sure, but a lovely, all-purpose bromide for explaining why evil exists in our world. Needless to say, I was underwhelmed; I lost God at that moment, consequently shooting myself in the foot--metaphorically-speaking-condemning myself to an unshielded life, life OUT THE BUSHES!  I went forth into the world without God, without that handy divine crutch, that Andy Devine metaphor for when one’s legs grow weary: a puff of smoke, a reverb twang and a nasty frog croaking “Hi-ya, Kids. Hi-ya, Hi-ya. Hi-ya.”

   Andy's Gang - Pasta Fazooli vs. Froggy the Gremlin - YouTube
► 3:55► 3:55
www.youtube.com/watch?v=H35odPm7b3w Aug 8, 2012 - Uploaded by jmgilsinger
Froggy the Gremlin -Tuba ... Andy Devine (Aug 24, 1952)

Life for me became lonely and purposeless. And probably explains my susceptibility to military discipline and a subsequent career in clandestine government service. In 1968--the very day I turned nineteen, September 25th of that year—that fateful day when I should have shot myself in the foot—literally not metaphorically--earning that coveted 4-F physical rejection, a draft deferment to be desired, that 4-F classification of unfitness for duty, a necessary loophole in U.S. conscript service law.  The Draft: last used during that great commonwealth Cold War purge, that culling out of the unwashed, uneducated children of immigrants, that cut-rate, discount, lower socio-economic ***** bank—the only bank where after you make a deposit, you lose interest, to wit: most Black, Hispanic and Poor White Trash parents.  We were cannon fodder, many of us got to be planted at Arlington and other holy American shrines, still wrapped in black or olive drab leak-proof body bags, doing our generational bit to strengthen the gene pool left behind. A debt, some would say, we owed the country and, given the sorry state of the global wicket, increasingly an obligation to the species. And if I had to predict an outcome, Fascism in America will arrive riding the white horse of the environmental, anti-nuclear Bolsheviks. One could argue that Communism has moved so far left on the political spectrum that it’s now the far right.  Concoct a legislative policy goal, accomplish it legally as the bill becomes Law, signed by the President, endorsed and blessed by The U.S. Supreme Court, the highest court in the land.

To wit: “Three generations of imbeciles is enough?” declared Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., an Associate Supreme Court Justice at the time, buttressing a majority argument harnessing the power of U.S. law as a legal means of purifying the race.  When euthanasia failed to win over American hearts and mind, the Federal Government played the war card again and again. Vietnam: undeclared and therefore unconstitutional--except for that Gulf of Tonkin ******* resolution. Vietnam: a cost-plus eugenics project, if ever there was one, although responsive, of course, to the needs of the Military-Industrial Complex.  ******* Ike: he warned us against Fascism in America. As usual, we ignored the man in charge.

Eugenics? Why didn’t the government just put all the retards on the stand, as John Frankenheimer did in Judgment at Nuremberg, a crafty Maximilian Schell humiliating a feeble-minded Montgomery Clift?  Why not, make everyone face a public tribunal, forcing all of us to testify in court, exposing our many substandard and borderline substandard cerebral deficits?  Why not force everyone to demonstrate just how ******* dumb we are, using some clever intelligence test, something l
Marshall Gass Apr 2014
No matter the colour of the skin
the shade of eye and the silver Mercedes
parked in angular arrogance
or the pin-striped suit and embossed briefcase.
This is all external. Internally lies a rot
that seeps through your emotions and spills
out your conversation of stocks and shares
and deals awaiting in the forest
of your investment. Money kills.
The lines jangle and rise with regular
asterisk displays of sharebrokers
meetings with profound number crunchers
all racing to the billionaire list on Forbes
unaware that at home the little
boy is playing with matches
and momma is looking out the window
watching a man across the street
meddling with his mistress'
bra straps. You would never ever know
how she feels in her own narcotic ecstasy.

Each day you are missing
she is rowing a boat to a
nowhere shore
where weasels wait to devour
her destiny !

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.
David Williams Apr 2013
Colbert always thought , he was a very cool cat

He would spend all his days sprawled out on a mat

He couldn’t be bothered to go and catch mice

As his meals were brought he thought, “mmm” this is nice


But at night he would go and frequent some bars, and

Sit in a corner and smoke hand rolled cigars

His friends would gather around and admire

While coughing up fur ***** by a very warm fire


In his crisp white shirts, and saville row suits

He would avoid all the puddles in his hand stitched boots

With a wide brimmed hat, and sleek black fur, what

The others thought of him he really didn’t care


At the head of the table, he’d sit and just think

Which sleek furry feline would buy him a drink!

While out smoking, drinking and looking for wives

To keep such a night life, he’d need his nine lives


Come the dawn, check his shares and ring his stockbroker

Then swagger to the casino for black jack and poker!

There’s nothing he likes more than a pedicure

But he won’t throw the dice, he might break a claw


While enjoying the champagne and caviar lifestyle

For a cat of his age he isn’t so agile

Unaware in the shadows there’s lurking a rival

A Tom that’s prepared to fight for survival


One night in the club, in the middle of poker

The challenger shouts, “Colbert you’re a joker”

With a hush, onlookers tiptoed to the doors

All fearing the worst, a sharpening of claws


But, Colbert kept his cool and turned on the charm

Sir, I don’t want to fight, and I wish you no harm!

Do you dabble in cards?   Said Colbert with a grin

If  you long for my crown there’s a chance you may win


With a Cheshire cat grin all over his face, the

Challenger dealt at a very fast pace

“Aces high” said Colbert while preening his fur

The challenger looked, and then said “two purr “


Colbert feeling shaken, looking pale and shocked

With tears in his eyes, from his throne he was knocked!

The challenger said, “I’m not Jack the lad”

I had a good teacher in you , you’re my dad!


So Tom the new king, sits at the head of the table

Accepting a drink from a feline called Mable

In front of new friends and his little harem

In casinos and clubs Tom wants to be seen


Not a thought for Colbert, gone and forgotten

But the secret he keeps , is that he dealt from the bottom

Poor Colbert’s on the street begging for scraps

No hand rolled cigars, just half eaten baps


Tom’s putting on weight, but deep down he knows

Out there is a rival, so he keeps on his toes

Colbert’s demise was swift and exact

He spends the rest of his days just a plain alley cat!

??copyright 2011 Daw...
hkr Dec 2013
dear michael,

i ******* hate you for wanting to be unhappy. do you and riley realize how ******* miserable it is? it sounds ******* to explain it that way, but you don't seem to get it. being unhappy is not poetic. it is not beautiful. sometimes, it produces beautiful things, but the sadness itself is ugly.

have you ever thought about walking in front of a car? have you ever thought about walking in front of a car and it passing right through you? like you aren't even there? because that's what sad feels like. not being hit by a car, but being so insignificant and utterly gone that it could hit you without shedding blood.

where do the parts go? where do the pieces go when a car hits a person? i'm not talking about their body parts, i'm talking about their soul -- god, i hate that word, but sometimes the words we hate (***, ******, ****) are the only ones that fit. words always have a place. do souls?

i'm starting to think the answer is no. not everyone will be a stockbroker. just like not everyone will rise above their hood. some of us just float. i'm part of an eternal migration south, michael. the mentality, not the place. are you coming with me?

are you sure you want to?
parts of this letter make me feel scummy. and i'm so sorry.

clarification: words in this letter make me feel scummy.
Lawrence Hall Mar 2017
The Secret That THEY Don’t Want You to Know

The secret that your banker, car dealer
Doctor, insurance agent, mechanic
Dentist, electrician, wireless service
Neighborhood Russian spy, travel agent

Hairdresser, ophthalmologist, plumber
Lawyer, barber, grocer, parole officer
Pharmacist, barista, pedicurist
Watchmaker, stockbroker, cable installer

Or county agricultural agent
Doesn’t want you to know:
                                                   wait…what was it…?
Sunday,
a day of poetry or piety or
pie eating Shy Yeti's
My Gettysburg address is
219a Lincoln Street but I meet and
change
so many addresses
it depresses me so,
so I don't often go there.

Out where it's dark and my heart darts behind coat sleeves, everything leaves me alone, no need for a permanent home
I just melt into the stockbroker belt,
ever felt like that?
when everyone is flat but you want to be a round them anyway.

Sunday,
Leviticus for tea,
in the psalms of my hand where my palms used to be, I read out the lines that say,
religion's got
me.
Yenson Apr 2019
Don't talk to me about rules of Engagement
What's knowledge, wisdom and Truth
nothing but a tag on a Robert Grahame shirt
What do you mean decency, fair-play and Justice
was your God fair and just when he landed me in Goebbels
and give me to that drunkard thief and his street gal wife
Oh no, I don't deserve a silver spoon and a dad in Stockbroker belt
yeh, no Private School, no allowance, no frigging ski trips in Gstaad
Bollinger sounds like a gun, pink gins and cucumber wedges foreign

Don't talk living harmoniously with all classes and races
I live my way and make my rules as I go along
the first law is do it to them before they do it to you
education is ****, if God wanted me to have a mind he forgot
what he gave was a gob full of **** and a Doctorate in telling lies
in our world telling the truth means you're blind, slow and stupid
I ain't a mug but a mugger, I ain't a fool,I only live to fool the fools
Am a hater and proud of it, why was I assigned to the Losers section
What made God decide my gob is not good enough for a Silver spoon

Don't you dare give me that glib 'That's Life' ****'
keep your philosophizing to your bleeding self
we ain't buying claptrap anymore, it's war now, revolution
it's them and Us. no quarter given, everything taking from the rich
what gives you the right to live better than me. Mr High an Mighty
who brooker your deal with God for all the privileges you enjoy
swanning around thinking you're better than me in your Ivory gaff
hate burns relentlessly, my frustration unabashed I join satan's lot
Yes, it's not a frigging fair world so don't talk to about Justice an love
Sam Hammond Aug 2018
I’m sitting on the swings one night,
Beside my friend, who’s ****** on coke.
He spilled the usual complaints,
And so of those complaints we spoke.

“How do I get her to speak to me?”
“How long do you last in bed?”
“Why is it so hard to make them ***?”
“Wish I lived like you instead.”

This mighty man; a stockbroker,
A swindler with no pride to steal,
But as his friend, I felt for him
And sung my praise of lifes appeal.

Unbeknowst to him however,
Behind every word was stuck
An unintended ego boost
From hearing I’m the better ****.

And so I learned that fateful night
Inside I’m no more than a creep.
A **** puddle of arrogance,
Though only really half as deep.
Sorry, mate.
sarah fran Jun 2016
what I would say to you if I never had to see you again
I was so tired
of giving you more than I was able to give
only to not just get nothing in return
but to feel my energy leaving my life
I was throwing emotional capital at you
like a desperate stockbroker
trying not to lose it all
but then the lies began
and suddenly I lost all my capital overnight

my market crashed, plummeted
except to you, I was the unintended side effect, an inconvenience
something that could be apologized to and then pushed away

don't think for one second that just because we don't talk about it anymore means I've forgiven you. I'm simply done talking.

what I say to you (since I see you every day)*
My weekend was alright. You?
Walter Alter Jun 2023
the paparazzi swarmed all over Einstein
after he said make sure where the rope is tied
before you kick over the chair
he wrote his own scripts now
Further Adventures in Archaeo-Astronomy
tonight the constellation Vertigo
a place of no equilibrium
a hell of uterine contractions
even though his head was elfin
a little bone crushing ceremony
and bingo you are out on bail
I didn't mean to hurt anyone went the 911 call
they finally brought him down with magnets
the dilemma meters were going purple
only minutes away from a fatal lap dance
that could blacken the portals of infinity
hauled before the cosmic court of opinion
sentenced to prompt and urgent expungement
they failed to contend with the absurdity
of Al's relativistic social barometer
smuggled in by a derelict ex-stockbroker
his obsidian blade plunged like a fang
into the bailiff's waiting eyes
and the jury of inflatable *** dolls
made obnoxious leaking air sounds
until all that was left was a talking skull
divulging Al's General Theory of Anathema
flip the law of averages on its back
and your troops are in the citadel
paradise being a system of payoffs
on the origin side of the lens
yes the light is tricky in there
images fall feebly on the big screen
Al's life was now a gravitational anomaly
no plot no narrative no story
he was ready to sack a city
his Igor hissed let's asteroid the planet
but the mouse pad Ouija opened a channel
to the vortex of utter charm
and he stamped and splashed singing
through the seven sewers of humiliation
wearing his we're going to hell pants
with only a mother's love for protection
and managed to lose all his pencils
somewhere between hand and ledger
being that his hands were missing fingers
almost all of them actually
lost in a departmental budget cut
allegorically left him all thumbs
unleashing a pandemonium of vague redemption
it was a close shave but Earth was saved

— The End —