FICTION |
"You’ve got a lot of nerve,
dumping your array of who knows what on me
without a please or thank you . . . "
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dumping your array of who knows what on me
without a please or thank you . . . "
Photo by Weebly.com
I Am "So . . . "
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So - conjunction - and for this reason; therefore
Or, with the result that. |
You’ve got a lot of nerve, dumping your array of who knows what on me without a please or thank you and then acting as if you were doing me a favor!
Get serious! You spent decades chasing skirts and money down one dead end after another, losing track of time for years, building a medical file only slightly thicker than your criminal file, a kid or two, a crushing problem with drugs, no money, no car, no home, and then you casually throw all of that to me with little more than a comma, or on a good day, maybe a capital S.
Then you climb into your luxury box and watch me try to hold an audience that came to watch So, a story full of promise, hope and loss to see what comes after So . . .
Look, some of it is easy. Yes, you will need to put the pipe down. Maybe I’ll have you meet a love interest in rehab. Someone to break your heart later. You know, karma.
I can’t decide, car chase or kidnapping? OK both. Let’s say you’re just finishing a mandatory meeting with your parole officer, Pete Petrocelli, whose sister Crystal, is waiting to pick him up when you’re spotted by your ex. You jump into sis’s car and the chase is on. Of course, your ex doesn’t know who the driver is to you, and you don’t know if she wants to end you or the sis. I’m thinking a mashup of The French Connection and The Italian Job. Think Honda Civics, not Mustangs. You lose the ex and hole up in a cheap hotel on Lombard, where Crystal patches up the bullet hole in your arm. She sees a tattoo that she remembers from college. You have a moment. . .
Crystal’s got some history herself, so it doesn’t feel like the first time when she backs her brother down from violating your parole for about a hundred reasons. But the deal was no more Crystal for you. Oh well, you never were too stuck on anyone for long, so it’ll be, “thanks for the good times and, you know, we’ll always have Lombard Street.”
Get serious! You spent decades chasing skirts and money down one dead end after another, losing track of time for years, building a medical file only slightly thicker than your criminal file, a kid or two, a crushing problem with drugs, no money, no car, no home, and then you casually throw all of that to me with little more than a comma, or on a good day, maybe a capital S.
Then you climb into your luxury box and watch me try to hold an audience that came to watch So, a story full of promise, hope and loss to see what comes after So . . .
Look, some of it is easy. Yes, you will need to put the pipe down. Maybe I’ll have you meet a love interest in rehab. Someone to break your heart later. You know, karma.
I can’t decide, car chase or kidnapping? OK both. Let’s say you’re just finishing a mandatory meeting with your parole officer, Pete Petrocelli, whose sister Crystal, is waiting to pick him up when you’re spotted by your ex. You jump into sis’s car and the chase is on. Of course, your ex doesn’t know who the driver is to you, and you don’t know if she wants to end you or the sis. I’m thinking a mashup of The French Connection and The Italian Job. Think Honda Civics, not Mustangs. You lose the ex and hole up in a cheap hotel on Lombard, where Crystal patches up the bullet hole in your arm. She sees a tattoo that she remembers from college. You have a moment. . .
Crystal’s got some history herself, so it doesn’t feel like the first time when she backs her brother down from violating your parole for about a hundred reasons. But the deal was no more Crystal for you. Oh well, you never were too stuck on anyone for long, so it’ll be, “thanks for the good times and, you know, we’ll always have Lombard Street.”
1
About that tattoo, you can’t quite pin down what cocktail of booze and drugs was sloshing around in the dim regions of your brain when you said, “Sure, I’d love a twelve-by-twelve tattoo of a bear eating a turkey that was eating a duck that was eating a chicken, with feathers drifting down my chest to my stomach and finally to my navel positioned as a drain.”
Your next meeting with Pete is tense, but you come prepared. You’ve got a brochure for a law school in the Lesser Antilles that will take people with life experiences like yours. Something about looking at things from both sides. Tuition for the entire 8 week course fully paid by a grant from Losers to Lawyers.
No doubt being rid of you was all Petrocelli needed to sign off, but the bonus that you’d be 3000 miles away and someone else’s problem once he transferred your file to the Caribbean Field Office, made it a no brainer, a recurring theme in your life.
But your past is catching up to you in more than one way. You need a kidney, and your son is the only match. Rebuffed at first, “Where were you when I n-n-needed you?” You acknowledge your failures as a parent, and hope he can forgive you, or at least give you the kidney. How could you have known that his stutter would be a problem at the boarding school? Besides, you didn’t have his address.
You make a deal with your son that he’ll get free legal services in exchange for a kidney. You remind him that since he’s your kid, he’ll probably get the better side of the deal.
I’ve been thinking about what’s next for you and your shiny new law license. Maybe you’ll go into politics. A few felony convictions certainly won’t stop you. I’ll get you down to law school, and while you’re finishing up in a few weeks, I’ll be thinking about a good office for you to steal.
Your next meeting with Pete is tense, but you come prepared. You’ve got a brochure for a law school in the Lesser Antilles that will take people with life experiences like yours. Something about looking at things from both sides. Tuition for the entire 8 week course fully paid by a grant from Losers to Lawyers.
No doubt being rid of you was all Petrocelli needed to sign off, but the bonus that you’d be 3000 miles away and someone else’s problem once he transferred your file to the Caribbean Field Office, made it a no brainer, a recurring theme in your life.
But your past is catching up to you in more than one way. You need a kidney, and your son is the only match. Rebuffed at first, “Where were you when I n-n-needed you?” You acknowledge your failures as a parent, and hope he can forgive you, or at least give you the kidney. How could you have known that his stutter would be a problem at the boarding school? Besides, you didn’t have his address.
You make a deal with your son that he’ll get free legal services in exchange for a kidney. You remind him that since he’s your kid, he’ll probably get the better side of the deal.
I’ve been thinking about what’s next for you and your shiny new law license. Maybe you’ll go into politics. A few felony convictions certainly won’t stop you. I’ll get you down to law school, and while you’re finishing up in a few weeks, I’ll be thinking about a good office for you to steal.
2
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