American Telekinetic
A Short Story by H.T. Boyd
Anjle Baby,
This hear is a sewiside note. No April Foolin.
Don’t go in the bedroom now, ain’t noffing there U need Cing.
A cuple things:
U can find my wallet & pertynant documints on the kitchin counter.
As for funral requests, I have but 2:
1stly: send me to heven looking pretty. I wuld like to be barried in my raddlesnake skin hat & raddlesnake skin belt &, as U might pressume, my raddlesnake skin boots. All this & the wite sears sucker suit w/ the topazz undershirt & the ruby rock bolo tie.
2ndly: I haven’t a care for how U deside to go about my funral service. U can spread my burny ashes at the locel alleeway behind a kirspy kreem for all I culd care. Alls I do ask is for a song. Wen U lower me, or, toss me to sea or watever it is U do w/ this old erthly coyle, I want U to play: The Hiwayman song— by the Hiwaymen.
That there old rime always got me better than most people ever culd & Im partial to Jonnyies part about sailing around the Univers in a star ship. I think thems real nice words fors a man to b layd to rest to.
—
Babe U always said it felt like there was a part of me I never let U C.
Likes as if my shadow showed the shape of a different man than the man what stood before U.
i always told U U was crazy but, Anjle Baby, U wasn’t crazy at all,
C hear; Im gonna tell U about something. Im gonna tell U about that shadow & I need U to no Im not tellin no tall tale neether. U’re gonna think I drank myself loonier than a Sundy skunk, but, read wat I rite U hear & really chew on it. Dijest it, like a wiseman mite say. Dijest these words hear & I think U’ll no in your hart that it’s all tru. Evry damnt word.
C, Anjle Baby, I had me Sikik powers.
Yes M’am & it’s not like them mindreading sikik powers. I mean—I don’t think I had those. Sumtimes, at the Circle K, or, the WallyWorld, somebody wuld give me a dirty look & I culd faintly hear them callin me all manners or cuss words inside my own mind, but, I believe that there to be noffing more than most ordunary intoowition.
No, I had the other kind of sikik powers; I culd move stuff w/ my mind.
Laff all U want, but, shit, babe, U sat w/ me at those wheels. U saw those pealrs trip like no pearl ever shuld. U saw the way I culd put 500 dollar$ on black like I was just collectin a paycheck.
—
C babe, I had me this power all’s my life. Even since I was a little ankle biter running round Bethlahem, Alabama.
I didn’t like to talk to U much about it, but, C, I’s was born into rite fierce poverty. My first home was a tin garden-shack with hardly a dirt floor. Those was the days before Ma’ took to working in the pancake house, so’s our folk weren’t even pancake-house-poor yet.
But me’s & my brother Donnie didn’t no we was poor. Not wen we was real littlelike. If U’d have asked us we’d’a told U we was the luckiest kids on earth. We was hungry sumtimes, sure, but, we ran wild & wen Ur wild U don’t care about those comforts monie brings.
All me’s & Donnie ever needed was eachother & someplace to make mischif. We’d go car climbin at the county salvage yard or go swimming in the creeks. Sumtimes we’d make frends w/ stray dogs or shoot slingshots at stray cats. Hell, I ‘member a week we didn’t do noffing but throw rocks at passing cars on the innerstate.
1 thing we loved to do was movies. I guess I always been something of a movie dude. Donnie & me’d go C them down at this place called the dollar world; But we didn’t pay no dollar to get in, we snuck in through a hole in the fondeation. We liked to do it wen we was to sunburnt for noffing else on acount they hads them anartic air conditioners (plus there was all that free popcorn if U didn’t mind fishing it out the trash).
I want to say it was 1978: I was 9 years old, so Donnie must have been 13. 12 maybe. I don’t member like I shood, but the two of us snuck into this movie here called The Mind Men & Baby, that wasn’t no good movie, it was a fierce stinker in fact, but that there movie changed my life. Its all about these 2 kids w/ sikik supperpowers. U now they culd make stuff move or explode all just by thinking about it and the whole back halv of the movie all about the goverrment trying to capture them. Now, little 9 year old me had never Cn noffing like that before; it was a whole new consept, this Telekenezus & Mind over madder kinda bullhonkey.
Nows I took that there idea home w/ me to our 1 room tin shack house, & I tell U, my bed there was hardly more than a pile of old rags. Now, wile Ma & Donnie took to sleeping, I layd awake thinking about whatif I had them supperpowers myself & I desided why not just try? So’s, there in near darkness that little nine year old me picked a rusty nail on the dirt floor & I tried it to lift it using noffing but waves from my brane.
Now, I bet U evry little boy the hole world over has tried that there manuver— Probablys even little girls have tried it to. I put out my hand & made a bunch of blood shoot into my face, I skwint my eyes real tight, & I commanded that nail there to float off the ground & wuldn’t U now it, I gots the damned thing to flinch a little bit.
I had me supperpowers.
—
I guess there was no rime or reason why I was embued w/ this hear power. We didn’t grow up downriver from no nukleur power plant or noffing like that. It was just something I culd do. Randum, like getting struck by litening or running into a movie star at a convenyence store. U mite say god rolled his kosmik dice on me.
Alls I now is that I didn’t think much of it that 1st time. In truth, I was mostly disappointed. The kids in that Mindmen movie I Cn were making amusement park rides run backwards & making peoples skulls explode; wen about all’s I culd do was get a nail to do a little shimmy.
I thote—maybe this power was like a muscle—& I culd better myself at it thru practise. So, sumtimes, wen me & Donnie’d got home from the Auto salvage or a day of swimming, he & ma’d go to sleep & I’d lie awake & I’d try to move things about our homeshack. Easy stuff: Buttons: wadded up paper. Later on I graduwaited to forks & spoons.
The way it worked was like—almost like I had this big invisible tentacle sticking out of my forehead & if I thote real real hard I culd make the tentacle stretch out & wrap round shit. If U’ll pardon the boyish langwage, I took to calling this meanial apendej my mindsnake
‘Course, a name like that makes it sound a hell of a lot more dangerous than it really was. Even at my peak performance, I only had about four feet of reech & I hardly had the strength to break a glass bottle. Even at my most skilt I culdn’t handle nuffing complecated & I never in all my life did figure out how to make shit float on thin air. Doin so would hurt to damn much.
C, evry time I used my mindsnake it’d give me this big, mean, right ugly headache. No nosebleed, like U wat C in the movies, it was all in my eyesballs. Felt like putting to much air in a tire. Like my damn eyes were gonna pop.
I took to calling those kinda headaches: the biteback. Sumtimes the biteback’d nock me rite into a deep sleep like I’d done got hit by a stray speedball. Probably weren’t good for me neether. Them bitebacks are probably why I growed up so small. Probably why my brane was always so dang fuzzy. Prolly why Im so old already when Im not supposed to be so old.
I don’t hardly halv to xplain this to you, anjel baby. U been with me all these years. U Cnt me get sick after a night of gambling. No, it wernt just the liquor slowing this old boy down.
—
U no, time passes like time does & time changes shit. Like who U spend that time with.
Used to Donnie wuld look out for me, but came a day, wen he found himself far more interested in fe-male anatomee than playing big brother & alls a sudden I was left to run wild on my lonesum.
& I mite have had me suppepowers, but, a lonesum boy I was. Schooling, of course, made things no better neether.
It might shock U to learn I was not always the handsome devil U came to luv. In tru fact, I grew up strange in my appearence. Small & ratty. Yes M’a’am. Kids at school used to call me Eggboy ‘cause of my giant head & the way I smelled like a rotten coup. That, & I used to wear this white shirt w/ red stripes, & our local chicken farm sold egg cartons w/ red & white stripes. I don’t now if that had anything to do w/ it. Point is: I was no elementry school presedent.
To small for sports & to ugly for girls & to poor for fancy toys; I had me a lot of time alone in my preteen years & wat did little eggboy do w/ his alone time? Well, he tried to refine his sikic powers on the debree of the county’s auto salavage yard.
I member how meen kids could be. I’d get out of school feeling sour & sorry & I’d go to the salvage and I’d ping lug nuts round with my mindsnake & wen I’d get reel reel angry, I’d break rearview mirrors & windshielts. Sumtimes I’d use my power to hard & the biteback wuld nock me clean unconshuss. I’d wake up in the middle of the nite restin in sum burnt out old Chevy. Have to walk home in the dead of the dark.
Weren’t good days. Weren’t happy.
—
I never did tell nobody about my mindsnake. Not even Ma’ or Donnie. I always thote if the secret got out then maybe the govt wuld try to make me join the military & if I had to join the military they’d probably cut my hair. That or cut my branes open. Thats what movies have led me to beleeve. So, didn’t nobody now about my mindsnake & by the time hisschool rolled round, this hear power went from secret to dubble secret on acount I begun using it for petty crimes.
Now, picking pockets proved to complicated a task for my uncordynated mindsnake, but, making a girls skirt fly up, why, that I culd manaje just fine. I tell u baby, when that spring air first came around, I probly did some serious brane damage doing the old Marylynn Munroe trick on near every skirt I saw.
Then, there was vending macheens, now, baby, thems were my first real conjob. We had this cola macheen in the cafeteria of our hischool &s if I stood next to it & really focused I culd wind my snake up the drink-hole, & up into all them gears &—click. Drop me five, hell, ten free sodypops.
Sumtimes I’d sell those suckers for cheaper than the vending macheen did; it was a quick way to make me sum dimes & nickels; enuff for a burger on the walk home.
Course, the biteback always made it hard to focus on my afternoon studies & after using the snake too much I’d have to sleep thru a number of classes to reconsort my mentle enerjies. This hear might offer sum explination for my pisspoor report cards.
—
After he got out of prison for assolt, Donnie got hisself a job towing trucks in Birmingham & he’d send a share of his monies back to ma’. Ma’ got herself a job to in this time (down at the pancake house) & pretty soon she was able to rent us a place w/ floors & a roof & a shower –& I had me my own bedroom like a normal kid. 15 years late but better than never.
That old house was held together by nuffing but chipped lead paint & spiderwebs, but it was a home goddammit & a damned fine home for that.
Afterr I got me my first real house, I got me my first real lover. That was in my Jr. Year. Sarah Mirth was her name. Or Maybe Sarah Myrtle. I met her selling stolen sodas & though I was a petete boy, I wood her with my rugged outlaw charm. Ours was a brief affair consisting of no more than a few backseat heavy pettings in her Father’s Ford Pinto. We was no Romeo & Juliet & she was sure no looker— but we got sticky all the same as youngin's do.
Then. Wen she went & broke up w/ me on the first day of summer vacation, I was awful hartbroken. Lovesick, they call it.
I spent a lot time alone that summer of ‘84. C, I’d been alone near evry summer before that, but this was a new alone. It was an alone after having known the pleazure of a woman. That make sents? That first hartbrake makes a new alone that’s angrier & fuller of piss & vinegur.
So, I got to working a job. A job seemed to have helped Donnie with his angers and it sure helped ma with here deemons of alkehall. So I scored me this gig mowing lawns. They gave me a mower & a blower & told me to cut these big commersal propertys like the church & the dollar house & this big office park for dentysts & lawyers. It was a lot of grass & lot of hard work, specially in the middle of the Alabama summer & the pay was shit to; but, I was fond of the guy I worked for. His name was Mr. Hearst. Mr. Hearst used to call me ‘sir’ & he always paid me on time. A man don’t ever forget a man like that.
Mr. Hearst trimmed trees at all them places that I mowed & sumtimes he’d talk to me about football or movies & once, he gave me his son’s guitar on acount his son wasn’t behaving rite & he rekond his son didn’t diserve a guitar no more.
I tell U, baby, I took to that guitar like it was my new lover. Played that sucker all nite long wile I drunk me bottles of wiskey that Donnie brung in from the city on his weekly visits.
C, that summer of ‘84; I thote I was really hurting. I thote I new pain. But that wasn’t real hurt. In truth, thems was probably sum of the best days I had in this hear life. The sun-burny fool I was; mowing lawns by day & by nite, picking my fingers bloody trying to learn me sum Rebel rock off an AM radio. All the wiles, yearning for an ugly girl I never quite loved to begin with.
I made me two important discoveries during this lost summer:
Firstly, I culd not sing. Not one damm note.
Secondly: If I was skunk drunk. All cross-eyed & stumble-hammered—& I tried using my mindsnake; the biteback wasn’t so bad. It’s kinda like how they used to give wiskey to civil war soldiers wen they had to cut off their gangrinus legs. I guess alkhillhol is a natral pain-killer cause it killed the rite shit out of the biteback.
Drunk off my ass, I culd fling darts into my dart board. Perfect bullseyes even. 1 after a nother and it sure hurt the next day, but when I was doin it I didnt feel nuffing.
—
Eventually came a day wen they kicked me out of hischool & not w/ no diploma neether.
I was 18 years a wild animal & Baby I didn’t care not 1 shoe string for Bethlahem, Alabama.
So I pooled sum of Mr. Hearst lawn mowing monie w/ sum of my vending macheen heist monie, & I bot me a ticket to Calyforna. Nows, I culd lie & say I was inchrested in surfing, or chasing sum music dream, but Anjle Baby U no dam well wat brought me to Calerforna. There were pretty girls out there & unlike the pretty girls in New York or Dallas, the pretty girls in Calerforna wuld give all their sweet loving to the uglyest little fella on the planet so long as that little fella culd string together two chords on a guitar.
At least that was how the movies & the tv made it seem.
I don’t rightly no how I ended up in Sacaramento, but Sacaramento was where the bus let me off & Sacaremento was where I staiyed.
I got off that bus expecting bare titties & a beech party; but about all’s I found was a month-to-month leace on a dingy apartment above a motorsykle bar. My new home smelt like motorsykle man piss & it sounded like their angry street macheens. I all to quickly discovered that bikers make for real shit naybors; Always fighting in the streets & blasting their jet engines. I used to lay awake on my floor matriss & I wuld fantasize about killing the biker men downstairs. It’d be almost like a seen U’d wat C in a movie. I’d go down to the bar & ask those fellas real nice to quiet down, & they’d say something tuff, & I’d say something tuff, & then they’d take out a gun, & BOOM I’d start making their heads pop with my sychic powers, or, make them stab theyselves w/ their own knives.
Course, my mindsnake wasn’t poweful enough for something like that. Those was just the angry dreams of a yung fool in a strange new place.
—
C, now, lookit hear; I had thote Calerforna wuld be 1 non-stop origie of free sex, drugs & rock & roll; that the parties would be as easy to find as a mac donalds. But I never did find a party. Or an easy lady. Or drugs. Or even a frend for that madder; I never even found the beech. To my surprise it turned out Sacaremento was a damnt landlock city.
W/ rent over my head & not a damn thing to do, I had to take a dayjob. I ended up w/ a broke bastard kind of gig, the kind where they hire anybody w/ two eyes & ten fingers. It was at this disstrrebewshon center that emported premade sinks, shitters & bathtubs from Southy America—& shit, them boxes was heavy. Work started at 5 in the goddam morning & didn’t end until 1 PM.
That potty factory worked me like the ugly dog I was. But it put cash in my pocket. So’s wen I got off work, I set out on my conquest for good Calyfornnya times. I started by making myself hansome. I showered (with soap), put on them bell bottom jeans & back then I had me a silk shirt with blue flowers on it & I bot me some colon to match the way I thote it shuld smell.
Once I was rite pretty & flowery smellin, I went out hounding for trim. I must have visited evry bar in Sacreametno from the yuppee discos, to irish bars, black clubs, jazz clubs. Axe-extree. Axe-extree. Axe-extree. I used to go to these places & sit alone at the bar & nurse shots of wiskey. I’d make myself look real sad. C, that’s wat guys did at the start of movies & TV shows. A guy sits there looking sad & the woman in the show comes & tells them how lonely & sad they look & then the loving gets started.
But the real world didn’t work that way. No m’am. Not 1 lady never told me how lonely or sad I looked & I always walked home alone. On a good night I’d maybe peek up a few skirts, but, never once did a skirt fly off up at my apartment. Maybe the pretty girls of the world are all the real thote-reading sikiks & they saw me there at the bar & they knew I was just little eggboy from Bethlahem; playing dress up as somebody he wasn’t.
I Never did get me a Califyornia girl.
—
Humping boxes at that potty factory took years off my spine, I tell U wat. I took to walking round a lot. It made the pain easier & it felt better than lying at home at wishing death on motor bikers.
I’d walk round & wunder who I was supposed to be egzakly. I got to deciding that Jesus or whoever had given me a special gift & I was skwandering it by humping shitters 8 hours a day. C, I needed to turn my mindsnake into a monie making operation & not no vending macheene monie neether. Real money.
C now, my first thote was I culd be a majician, theys proally make lots of money, rite? But this hear idea fell apart on acount Im terryfied of crowds &, well, I’d probably need an hour of tricks to keep people sadisfied & just using the snake for ten seconds gave me a feeling like I was getting a lobotomy by saskwatch. So—a carear as a majician was not to be.
My next thote was stealing. I thote a lot about this 1 idea I had; where I’d go to a gas station & wen the cash register opent, I’d make all the monie fly out into my pocket. That, or maybe I culd fool an ATM the way I fooled a sodypop macheen. These ideas was fine, but, theys was just 1 extra step above robbry. Now, Im no law a biting citizen, but Im no smooth criminal neether—I had to be real drunk to do anything w/ the snake & if I gots caught, who was to say they wuldn’t put me in sum kind of CIA zoo for weirdos w/ supper powers. So—a criminal I was not neether.
So’s just wen I was plump out of ideas I was struck w/, a wadya call it, an epiffany. As if up from on high.
—
Baby, there’s these little moments that go on to define your life & U look back on ‘em & it makes U feel stupid that something so itty-bitty-tiny up & changed who U was supposed to be in this world. Who U spent it with. How U died. My stupid itty-bitty-tiny moment happent in a game of snooker.
There was this 1 day; I was bored & my back was hurt to shit from shitter humping & I was tired of being a broke bastard & I had this nasty diaper rash between my legs from walking around so damn much. So, I desided to go to the closest bar to my home bed & I finally tried out that biker bar 1 story down the fire escape. It was a rainy Wensday afternoon, so there weren’t so many folks round; only the old fart bikers. With nuffing better to do, I drank to much wiskey w/ these old dogs wile theys told me their stories about how tuff they used to be.
1 of the old timers, he looked like Santa’s letherdaddy cousin, he asked me to play a game of pool w/ him on this ratty old table & I indulged this hear feller in a round of Snooker for a bet of 5 dollar$ of pocket cash.
Now. To my shock, this fat old biker may have, in fact, been the greatest pool player ever known by mankind. Straight from braking, he was kickin’ my ass; he called every shot & sank damn near all his balls on 1 turn. Now, on my first turn, I called thirteen for the corner pocket. I shot the cue ball for the ornje stripey & the fool I was, I shot to hard. The 13 sank & the cue ball hit that edge & what was about to fall in w/ it (meaning I’d lose the game). Now, rite there at that last second before sure & total defeat— I had me this knee-jerk reeaction, I shot out my mindsnake & steadied the cue ball from falling in.
Saved me the cueball & saved me from losing (rite then at least).
The old biker said I’d got lucky, but, Anjle Baby, that fella didn’t now the haff of it. That white ball gave me 1 bright idea.
I went on to lose that game of snooker, & lose them 5 dollar$, but I knew I had me a fortune comin.
—
I had to leave behind my guitar. My matriss to. & It was long, hot journey to do by bus, but I got to Las Vegas round sunset the very next nite & Anjle Baby I don’t got to tell U; it looked like it did in all the movies. All thems blinking lites & pretty shiny people. All thems giant sexy words written in elecktrisity and big litebulbs. All that so-muchedness; Feathers & gold & limozines & feathered titties rite on the street. I swear I culd smell monie on all that dry air.
I member hearing that casino song for the first time, poring out from those big old doors onto the street; ten thousand jingling slot machines; maybe it wasn’t innosent, but a choir of anjles culdn’t make a sound so beautiful.
Fresh off the bus, I didn’t have enough monie for a hotel, hell, I didn’t even have me a change of clothes. Alls I had me was a flower shirt, some shoes, haff a sikik power & seven bucks cash in my bell bottoms.
I spent two of them dollars on a pint of vodka from a mini-mart. Chugged it the alley to get my mindsnake nice & luce. Then I took my fiver to the closest casino I culd get it to on foot; it was this little joint called the Red Dragon. Trashy place. I member they had a big Chinese food buffet & ain’t nobody was eatin it cause the food lookt rite nasty. There was this big gold dragon on the ceiling, that fella there had paper fire coming out of his mouth & all those little china donut gold coins falling off his belly. I member lookin at that dragon & thinking that fella there was about to be me!
So’s I bot me a 5 dollar chip, a little plastic disk, green w/ black checkers on the rim. That chip there was my ticket to the world. I wandered up to the rulette tables; found me 1 full of a bunch of old ladies & I put my 5 dollars on black. Yes mam. A man in a bow tie said no more bets & he spun the wheel. Then, I really focused, I took the mindsnake out & flopped it there onto the rulette table & I followed & followed that little white pearl & wen it slowed, & it was just about to jump onto red, I reached out & I knicked it from a 1 to 13; Froms red to black.
Alls it took was a little nudge. Maybe if U new wat I was doing U culda Cn it, but, for all the other gamblers, & more importantly, the guy running the wheel, it looked like nuffing more than a bounce, tinier than a bell bobbling ‘round a baby lambs neck.
The little bowtie man told me congrajulasions & he tossed me 2- 5 dollar chips. That’s what U call a 100 persent return invesment.
Anjle Baby, as of that moment, I was never a poor man again.
—
I think wat made me special from most folks, trulee yunike, was wenever I lost time I made monie. Not a lot of folks can say that.
The memry round that first nite on the wheel is kinda like that. All those little keepsake moments were drowned in the licker, Long Island Iced T’s to be specific, complimentree from a pretty watress in black seakwin bodysuit.
I lost 2 days & 2 nites to the licker. All’s I do member is waking up in another casino’s hotel, my head in the toilet & my brane drier than the mohave dessert. But, wen I stumbled up & opened the door to my rented bedroom, there upon my sheets was nuffing but cash$. Cash in bags. Cash in popcorn buckets. More cash than I culd have ever dreamt of in my lifetime twice over. All won by a chasing pearls with a snake from a drunk fellers brain.
1st thing I did was go lie down & sleep in it.
—
I tell U wat; I heard this story not so long ago. These guys a few tables over from me at the Palm Grande were talking about this sichological study. C, these colledge eggheads took a rat, an ordinary street rat & they gave it a button & U C, this rat hear got cheeze evry time he pushed this button, & so wat do U think that rat did? He just sat there pushing that cheeze button all damn day long until he was the size of a dang racooon. They said that rat got depreshion. I didn’t even now a rat culd get depreshion.
That story there made me think of me, specially my younger me in those early Vegas days. C, that collage rat got hisself a cheeze button but yours trulee had a monie button—& wen U grow up on dirt floors & Sundy dinner from the church’s tin-can donation box, it’s not easy to stop pushing the monie button.
If I had to guess, I’d say I made, oh, about 300000 dollars over my first week in Vegas. Therebouts. It was easy. I’d drink & I’d win & I’d drink & I’d win & I’d drink & I’d win until the bitebacks got so bad I’d pass out rite there at the table. That or get thrown out on the street on acount I was drunker than peepee le pew.
I got robbed 1 nite wen I passed out w/ all my cash in a hotel elevator. They must have made off with a few thousand bucks from my pockets. Didn’t matter tho. I just kept putting monie on black & nocking the marbles where they needed to go. It was just that easy.
& for a good long, long time that was my life. Pressing down on a button until the sleep found me.
—
I ventully bot myself a weekly stay in the shittiest motel off the strip & I got me myself a rootine. I’d wake up, usually round 3 or 4 in the afternoon. Maybe go for a walk. Maybe have a donut or a coffee from the incontinental brekfast. Then I’d choose me a casino.
I’d jack around first; eat the boofet, play cards for fun or shoot the shit w/ the pretty watresses, sumtimes I tried figuring out how to cheat the slot masheens, but, slots are a whole lot more complicated than vending masheens on acount they got microchips & I never did quite get it figured how to cheat no computer microchip.
—but without fail, by nitefall, I was sure to have returned to my red & black checker prison wheel, where it was my job to drink licker & bounce the pearls to the black. On & on & on t’il there was no more membering to be done.
Jesus Christ, minus the days I was lying dead, snakebit & hungover—that was evry day. I’d go home w/ monie busting out the seams of a plastic take out bag. Some days were 72 hours long and some days never even got started. Time past me by in booze and bags of cash. Not hours. Or minutes. Or days.
I tell U Anjle Baby, I got bored & fat & a special kind of lonely. Started spending money just to feel something. Kinda had to spend it on a count I didnt have no more room in my motel to store it all. The drawer. The closet. The underside of the bed, they was all over run with cash bags. So Id piss monie away on clothes & watches—boots— special hundred year old Scotch from scotsland. Snakeskin hats & jackets. Custom fit suits. Japnese Boomboxes & cigars w/ gold labels. Haff of these hear purcheyses went undrank, unworn or unsmoked. They just hung round my motel room like treasure in a farrows toom.
—
I bot my first hore at the end of my second week in Vegas. Her name was Monica. Picked her rite up off the sidewalk. U’d think a hores name wuld be like roxie or something, but, no, she was Monica. She came cheap & she looked funny in brite lite. She didn’t kiss me neether. Which I didn’t like. Cause Im awful fond of kissing. Kissing makes a man feel beloved.
I learned early on that it takes a lot of monie to buy good fake luv (the kind that comes w/ the kissin). So’s I slowly spent more & more on nitegirls until I ended up w/ a high dollar hore habit near as expensive as any coke addickshun.
I paid these womens for the bedroom, sure, but, I was fond of the girls who’d pretend to be my girly-frend. They’d go walking w/ me or sit w/ me wile I played slots or go swimming in the motel swimming pool. Sumtimes I’d dress ‘em up like dollies & take them to dinner someplace nice w/ bubbly & violins & a waiter who called me ‘sir’ like Mr. Hearst used to.
But—I always had to pay them extra for all that pretending—& wen the ugly lie of the morning come, they’d look at me the way I looked at my rulette table.
All those rotten months, I was a cheeze button for wores, & Anjle Baby, wen U added up all them hours, the pearls they was chasing wasn’t paying out near as good.
—
Life can sour into a rite ugly effair, &, then, out the blue, it’s bewtyful again. I guess life is kinda like gambling in that way. It’s all just bullshit how them cards get stacked.
I was in a fowl mood & just about fed up w/ life & all the money & hores, & then, out from the storm clouds came U; Anjle Baby from Las Vegas. Hear in a city of tits-hanging-out street hores & sun-dried lizard women; I found U, this long body lollipop girl, w/ big old feet, & strawbry blonde hair, & legs as long as route 66. U was hardly a day over fifteen, asking for lucies outside the sevens’leven wen I was heading in to get me sum hangover cola pop.
U asked me to sell U a sigret & I said I was a gentleman so’s I’d buy U a whole pack; watever brand U fancied.
I bot U Virgina slims & a sixer of wino coolers to boot.
Wen U struck up that first sigret, U told me U liked my snake skin hat. I told U it was so new so U’d better be careful; if U got to close it mite bite U. U smiled & that’s when I first new u was gonna be my furever.
—
I guess we had that crazy kind of luv. Didn’t we? We just culdn’t be seprated. Didn’t matter how mad your daddy was; U loved me crazy & I loved U back crazy dubble. It feels like U & me lived in Vegas for something like 10000 years, wen in truth it was only but a few mear months.
It didn’t take long for U to leave your folks & come stay w/ me in my treasure nest.
We lived inside a dream; U, me & all our pet cockroaches in our crusty motel room off the strip. I close my eyes & I can still C the booger green mold in the hot tub, the hart shaped bed w/ magic finger box & all those stacks of styrofome clamshells scattered about the shag carpet.
U used to bleed me dry eating all them candy bars out of the mini-fridge. U were a kid then, I guess & I was still halfway a kid. But U still introduced me to all those crazy pills & smokables. I’d get home from working the wheel & then U’d take me outerspace w/ sum magic desert root.
U didn’t care how the monie worked back then. U’d ask how I win so much & I’d tell U: baby, Im just lucky & U were my proof of such a fact.
Tell U wat, if I had the supper power of time travel instead of telekeenezis, I’d go back to those doggie days on our hart shaped bed; eating pizza & burnt stake from clamshells. Renting porno movies. Doin’ it on piles of money.
U mite hate me now, but U’ll always be my Anjle Baby. Always my crazy luv. Given the choice; I’d go back to our wildest days ‘fore I’d go to heaven.
—
Course’ there came that day in Vegas. That bad day. U never did get the whole picture.
—
C, now. I was dum, but I wasn’t no dum-dum. I new U culdn’t just win over & over again at the same table at the same place. So I did my best to deversify; never win to much in 1 seat, 1 table, 1 place. But U C, even w/ all that work to keep movin; I was still the 1 in a million dedicated gamblers who was running on a profit instead of a loss & somebody was bound to notice evenchally.
It was a Sundy in the dead heat of August. I went to The King Arthur on the strip; the platinum armor room. Proababbly Round 3 AM it was. I drank my magic juice. I put 800 on black & then bam; a pair of these tuxedo’d Frankenstein’s picked me up by either arm & politely, but firmly, rekwested I join them in the back of the house.
They carried me to a little locker room w/ drains on the floor & Baby, those boys did their damndest to crack evry bone in my body.
I just member sitting there, getting kicked round like a socker ball & wishing I culd use my powers to defend myself. But, using powers took to much focus. My mindsnake just flopped round w/ the rest of me like a big old hotdog weiner.
Rite sudden, wen they was done beating me, this little man came in the locker. Fella was white haired & ancient. He kinda looked like Mr. Monoply wat from the board game. He dragged this metal chair w/ him & it made this real loud screeching sound, on & on he went, guy must have walked thirty feet scratching the floor. Wen he got rite up next to me he set the chair up & sat down.
This little fella sat down across from me and he leaned in & he told me 2 words; “Skip town” & Baby, I told him 2 words back, “yes sir.”
—
The scare I must have gave U, sweet child; wen I got back to the motel all covered in bruises & blood & sum of my own piss. I tolds U bad men were after me & we needed to go N-O-W!
I gave U a duffel bag of cash & told U to go buy us a car. Any car U’d like, & sure as shit U came back from the x-otic lot with a vintage Desodo Convertyble; pink with hot pink lepard spots.
We left our city of Vegas in a toy car packed to the brim w/ paper monie & sparkly tressure. I member writhing around on our brand new back seats using wads of cash & hi end panties to stop the bleeding on my varyous wounds.
U just had your learning permit then. U weren’t even supposed to be driving. Hell, U cried the whole way to Texas.
—
I suppose it was that southbound drawl of the highway that took us to our little beech house in Gulf Hills, Missippi.
I never thote we’d stick round this old place so long. All these years, I always thote I’d get found out by the casinos &, well, I’d get beet to a pulp again & we’d have to flee once more into the nite for Atlantic City or sum such place.
But I never did get run off. Maybe the casino security round Missippi ain’t so sophisticated as Vegas or maybe I got to smart at my cheatin’.
C, I had me a system all these years down hear, I got real good at making myself look like a loser. That was always my kamyouflajj. Make ‘em think Im the loudest, unluckiest loser these people had ever Cn & making it look like that was an easy on acount I’d already been a lifelong loser.
I came into these hear Missippi casinos in the early afternoon wen it was slow & I came wearing all my shiny screaming raddlesnake scales & I swore loud, & I ordered lots & lots of drinks & I smacked the watresses rear ends & I played buddy buddy w/ the floor manejers. I made damn sure all eyes were on me, & honey, wile them eyes were on me: I lost. I burned monie like I was using it to keep warm in a blizzard. I’d feed slot machines ten thousand dollars. I’d leave 100 dollar chips behind at the table. I’d have a 19 in a high stakes game of blackjack & I’d deemand the dealer to hit me. Yes M’am, & then, by nite, I made my winnings in the shadows. I’d come in all quiet-like in aviator shades & a big baggie hoodie. I’d take my biznes to the most crowded rulette table I culd find, &, in all that hoolaballoo, I’d get to chasing pearls w/ a snake. Pushing my cheeze button if U will. Sure shooting, little by little, I stuffed my pockets w/ all the monie I’d lost that day & then sum, & then sum, & then sum.
This was my process. My day job. Was for damn near a decade & change.
Sumtimes, wen the drives were long & hauling all that paper cash got tedius, I’d think about getting a real job—like the way I used to mow lawns or hump potties.
I thote maybe I culd open a chiken finger restaurant or a tiddy bar or, maybe a DJ business. Maybe I culd breed jerman sheperds or go do some learning at a collage. Something neat like that— a cool dude job, but shit, Anjle Baby, a job wuld have killed my very soul.
C, there’s work & then there’s cheating & even the most miserable grift is always gonna make for a better paycheck than any honest J-O-B.
—
It’s 4AM as I doodle this hear sewiside note on pen & yellow paper. Ain’t time to go yet. Im nervos.
The revolvers loaded & I gived a goodbye kiss to the last photo I got with me, Donnie & Ma’ all in it. Im hear on our balcony w/ a cup of irish coffee, watching the ocean slobber at the nite. I watch the black sea & I wunder wat will happen to the world wen it gets away from me.
U no I always thote I’d become a surfer. Maybe buy a boat. We never did that did we? Livin’ rite by the sea, got more monie than god & I ain’t ever buy no damn boat. Makes me feel a fool. Where did the time go? Who took it all from me?
—
I get angry thinking about all those years behind me that dont even feel much like years at all. All those months stolen by the wheel & the snake. It’s a pityfull creature I’ve become sliding cash around these Missipi casinos.
I cant give you no son. I cant hardly reed or rite. Cant hardly stand on my own 2 feet. All I do is hurt & cheat & drink & hurt & cheat & hurt & drive 7 hours & sleep for 3 days strate & wake up & hurt & drink & cheet.
Feels like yesterday we were meeting at a sevensleven. Now U got your Ur city frends & Ur weekends in Miami & I got my 12 car grage & I got my big hallway of guitars I don’t even play no more & all this big old house does is echo empty sound.
I look at myself in the mirror; all carved up by these years like sum kind of Jack O Lantern left over at XMAS. My skin’s yellow & all the hair run off the top of my head. Spine’s broke. Liver’s fucked &, baby, I got a 4 foot invisible tentacle coming out of my forehead & I can feel it dyin. This power wasn’t good for my constitootion. It scrambled up my brane meat like a cancer. The power is leevin and its takin me with it.
& aint No doctor’s gonna fix this old cheeze rat. I hurt. I hurt bad. It’s all those years of bitebacks & hard licker. I got angry bees in my skull & train whistles in my ears & my thotes don’t make sense. I feel damn near 80s years old & can only member about 3 things.
—
U no pain has it’s way of eating joy up like a fat kid in a pillow case full of snikkers. Pain just can’t help itself & I never culd help myself from driving down to a casino & putting more pain inside me. Pain gobbled up these missippi years & pain gobbled up all the luv I was supposed to be bringing home to U. My bestoved.
I wish I’d been kinder to U, Anjle Baby. I wish I hadn’t put my pain into U.
I hope that wen U look back on the life I gaved U, U find that our luv was, at a bear minemom, always servicyble. U needed for nuffing. Can’t say I didn’t take U places. Can’t say I didn’t listen to U &, hey, I never laid a finger on U. How about that? I was a man who never hit his woman. Not me. U sure dared me. U sure said sum dumb shit that warrented a kwick smack on the chin, but, I hit the walls in your stead.
I hope U keep this old house on the beech & I hope U keep those holes I made in the wall. I hope U look at them & U member each time I hit our house instead of hitting U.
It’s what I leave U w/, them empty holes in the drywall.
I don’t care wat Ur fancy pants therapist says; U can never stop loving me & even wen the sun itself blows up, the past will still be the past & we’ll always be there; lovers on a hart shaped bed in Las Vegas.
—
I watched sum TV & then the morning sun come round. I wasn’t ready to die. Not in the dark & not on no empty stomach neether.
So’s I desided to go for 1 last ride round 8 AM. Make my peace w/ this gnarly old planet. U was sleeping. So I put a kiss on U. Consider that my true & true final goodbye.
—
…On the ride out of town I saw sum teenaged kid mowing lawns & I wundered to myself if maybe that boy there had got hisself any secret magic powers like I do…
—
I traveled out west to the Palm Grande where I done had myself a 10AM stake & I ordered it well done the way I like it w/ curly fries, sodypop & a goddamnt bannanna split w/ two scoops of chocolett & no strawbry.
After my last meal, I went up to the Palm Grande’s game floor manejer & I said “Mister; I need to show U wat I got in the parking lot.” C, Anjle Baby, I took the Humvee out w/ me today on acount it was the only car that culd wat fit all our cash monie.
I brought the payload w/ me. Evry damn dollar we have. I showed that floor manejer a cash loaded Humvee & I said to him, I says, “Mister, I don’t got long to live; I want to put it all on black. The keys to.”
Man said ‘Yes sir.’
He had to have sum of his boys count it all, but wen they was done, manejer com up & put a special gold chip in my hand. “Pony up,” he said to me.
Now, I took that chip direct to my rulette wheel where I was gonna chase my last pearl.
Wasn’t a soul there. Just me & the little Navajo boy who wat spun the wheel. Fella gave me a big smile as I set that chip on black; Evry dollar I evr stole, all my illgottme ganes down for 1 last ride. Dubble or noffing.
& baby, that boy spun & that wheel clicker clackered & before I set the snake out for a chase, I made me a last minit decision.
I let that pearl run all its own. No majic. No mindsnake, no cheat.
— I sat back simple & done watched— In truth, it reminded me of the way me & Donnie used to throw rocks at cars on the interstate. Set something lose. Let it free. & I was free. I didnt hurt neether. I was just a good ol boy watching an honest rock fly.
& Round & round the white pearl went like the sun making its wayround the earth to make the years. Like jonny in his star ship cruzin round the uneevurse devine.
& Wen the wheel came to a slow, that there marble hobbled on the gold line between 1 & 13; & for the first time in a good, long, long time, I finely membered wat it ment to be lucky.