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| facing south, come what clouds do once they might |
The drovers and the porters, a couple dukes and a few round cousins are in shift blues. They're usually at the bar but not today because the long counter is a deck for greasy glasses and pork smelling beer in briny jugs. I got Agatha's for a song and some beads this morning. Betta still made out like invincible. I watch as the blue men in the their short suits reach over one another. The beers free and still they rub each others tufted heads to ward off the bad pints.
I’ve had about 8 full days to rub my eyes, yawn, and watch my mother bleed out. This morning I was at Standard Manor and I’ve had The Old Potter’s Tree stuck in my head for hours. I blink back some floppy tears and think, It's only the beer. It could be the beer, I tell myself. Really, it's the really awful beer, I turn and say to Betta. Then Monstre Frango walks by. He steps up and taps the microphone resolutely. He tells the blues, Frango is too sad…
On that mat that sat... That cat name mmmamamam… that kooks and kakakleans... bob to me bob is Jean… Signed to Me this thing....Frango looks out into the disheveled bar. He shades his eyes from the bright bulb overhead and steps down from the low riser. MomJean’s draft has been shoehorned between it’s boards. She’s only just a few words short of being complete. Then there’s only the final edit and she’s gone to dead, read all about it.
So Priscilla walks into the bar. The transom rattles when the door opens and a rush dust from the sidewalk blows up under the tables. Pree’s in a simple cotton dress with her hair tied up in a black ribbon. She looks around the disheveled bar at the table with blue shifty’s. Then she see’s MomJean on the riser in the back and sags. MomJean’s in a box laid across 2 sawhorses. I rode down with her from the Groves this morning. When we’re finished I’m taking her over to be ashed. The furnace isn’t far and the wagon’s out front still. The driver’s in her dress blues. She’s smoking a cigarette listening to Betta.
Thusly, when it get's hotly, Betta's Mom hates the cats. They pissing off. They don't know from McCow's and that shit like the stink of old pox... They don't know where the old row is, but Betta know's the old row just like she know's hot. Hot all the way down, she adds for emphasis. I remember when living in these Widow's was just work and not always poor work. The filmers were better. I liked them then, she shares with the Driver. Fuck's warts and all...
Betta’s worries on about the trash. It's getting too much and too hot, she says. It piles and up for the rat's, she tells this to the Driver too. The back door’s out and the gate’s up high above the swinging security bar. John can hear the kids playing enthusiastic rounds of snoopy in the alley. Vilma rolled the barrels out earlier and now she's pulling splinters out of her knees. He can see her from the riser.
Betta's not afraid to go up there to McCow's. She's done it before. She's turned over their cans and found the dismal turds underneath, just pink and tiny as fuck. They insist that they're really from behind the F'oo Please. But she's had them seen. Velma beat them with a wood boot until they’re quiet and not so pinkish again.
Using his hammer key Benny cranks up the tension in the player's kinky springs, he's barricaded himself behind a vole pile of greasy metal spools and bar towels. He's from some deep Vouslyvansille stock, red faced and wheezy. He's got a thick curly top but his round face is baby stark. He's chewing on the wet butt of an imparello, humming and making up nonsense...
the rose of the fish is a bright round pearl from a right round crown that fell on the floor by the door... the rose as it goes swift in it's way is as poor as a wish in a dish on the floor by the day... on the floor by the way is the wish of a fish to be crowned and then to be done... when wishes the fish to drink like a queen to be drunk in the lac a day's sun... nobody pays, not one humble stray for a hole in the widow's old bum...Priscilla grabs hold of John like it’s the end of the day, You know it’ll be ok…
It’ll be as it must is what you mean. But the way it is, it is what it is, He whispers in her ear.
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