Fifty-Boy 12 Restore A Worm To A Woody

Fifty-Boy

12

Restore A Worm To A Woody

Two weeks later her Ripper revenge came on me. After years of neglect and her being so disinterested, I mean, how many times can you kick the dog and still expect him to come running back carrying his bone and wagging his tail?

Between the thinning hair, turning fifty, the always be a place in your heat Dale Outlay comment, constantly making me feel like a perve just cause I always wanted her so bad, shit, I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner.

My old friend just hung there in the mirror like a worm wiggling in a puddle after a thunderstorm. Nothing I could think of could make him happy. His big dumb head just hung there like withered celery. We both felt tired. The imagination was sucked out of him like a limp windsock. The poor guy was so confused he no longer had any direction.

I looked around the house. The ceiling was cracking and the plumbing needed attention. We were the youngest people on our block. Can you imagine that? This was like the on-deck circle for geriatric heaven. I never felt old til we moved to used-to-be-land: This used to be some city. This used to be some neighborhood. I hated used-to-be.

I thought about the city where I went to work everyday, spontaneous building collapses, roads full of potholes, beat down schools, kids carrying guns, no safe place to play, no hope for tomorrow, shit, I'd carry a gun too.

Bridges rusted out and falling down, businesses moving out, car-jackings, bars and boards on the windows, dollar stores where classy shops used to be, junkies panhandling on every corner, homeless people peeing in the park, bathing in the fountains and defecating in the bushes, keeping working folks from enjoying a bench at lunch time.

Who wants to smell  urine while you eat? Who wants to take your kids to play in an outhouse?

And we had museums - And concert halls - And sports stadiums, and subways, and elevated trains, and commuter trains, and all kinds of public transit systems and cultural amenities, but you took your life in your hands... Tourists being mugged in our city made international news, daily...

We had cops so overweight and out of shape, who refused unifrom dress, or discipline, or standardized training on the bais of whatever cult they subscribed to... You would've thought they were independent contractors of some rinky-dink security guard service at a mall.

And you can forget about competency or quality service when some quasi-qualified political crony mans every city department... We were a hobo-republic, a frigging mendicant paradise where liberal lawyers city-wage-taxed the disposable income out of the working public to ensure the rights of the deinstitutionalized to foul the footpaths and pester the people who paid the freight...

It's their right to beg, just not aggressively.
And if the producers flee to the suburbs, ticket their asses -
Parking tickets for everyone -
If ya' can't tax 'em, ticket 'em when they come to work, or to shop, or visit a hospital, or eat in a restaurant, or see a show, expecially if they have out of state tags, get 'em often and early -
What're they gonna' do, come to our three-hour-minimum-in-line traffic court and fight it? Hey, if they can afford a Starbucks coffee they can afford a ticket.

 The place emptied out like a whorehouse on fire everyday at dusk. And the traffic. The fucking endless traffic. Rust-belt dreariness was corroding my bones.

The Woman I Wanted

And I was tired of sleeping alone,

the woman I wanted more than anyone

in the world just a chat-room away.

 Rolling geography was what I needed. It would be a refreshment to my soul. I saw an an for Florida's Beach, and sent for free material from Tampa, Clearwater, Saint Pete's.

Palm trees, sandy paths, dune grass, turquoise wter, sugar beaches, baby blue sies, brown shoulders, bare feet... Just the kind of azure magic that might restore a worm to a woody. I checked the travel secton down at the bookstore. I went on Travelocity.com. Spirit Airlines had a flight out of Atlantic City to FLA I figured I just couldn't afford to miss.

www.amazon.com/Fifty-Boy-Desmond-Jones/dp0741420171