my unfinished novel
1. is about a best friend from high school who dies the night after a crack party. there’s an abortion and a snow plow crushes a guard rail and both flip. somebody’s brother graduates from business school. there’s a flashback where the protagonist hangs naked on the back bars of a drunken jeep.
2. just interrupted by son who wouldn’t get down off downstairs computer. he’s playing backyard soccer on a screen. daughter wants to do chess homework. some disk training game we bought to make her smartsmartsmart. she’s cross-wired genes from twisted grandparents. like us all.
3. i lived in c-town (cleveland, oh-io) for my first 18 years. i didn’t grow up until i left.
4. i’m listening to a rudy van gelder. blue note ‘59 visions. from wayne shorter’s “juju.” he’s in blue and white in a photo taken before giant stadium or vince lombardi arrived in the meadowlands. which is ironic cause vince only rested when he was dead. background of cattails, rushes waving in wind. sax in right headphone. piano in left. jazz.
5. when i crank pink floyd side one the wall you could visit. the helicopter lands on my roof.
6. son says you don’t have the right to force me off computer. take away radio. i don’t care. take away computer. don’t care. t.v. means no giants this weekend. care.
7. dinner ready.
8. then they fight over dirty, yucky napkins and and which place to sit at table. mr. smartypants. miss knowitall. still.
9. if that’s as much help as you can give me, i’m on my own.
10. at night some my best lines drift through my skull right after i close my eyes and disappear.
11. fresh scallops. nice.
12. suddenly a new version of the penny game at the table: each of us starts with 5 abes. every negative comment, lose one.
13. you might turn somewhat negative in middle age. this can be fixed but takes time. and patience. the enlightened know all forms do the dance of disappearance. got it.
14. then i talk to parents who bought 3 boxes peanutbutterthinmint girl scout cookies which completes daughter’s quota of 67. then dad tries to pressure me into coming down for thanksgiving cause last year they came up here. doesn’t want to do that again.
15. work. how’s work. well, it’s small inside my bubble. students feed me papers so i keep the wheel spinning. not like a ferris wheel cause i get paid more from the that sun-toasted, three-toothed man in the black megadeath t-shirt i saw this summer at the state fair in cornish. there was a band from south america playing flute music. they had rusting tractors and clipped horses pulling blocks of cement. i milked a goat.
16. there is always a place in the poem where you might leave me.
17. son calls me idiot idiot cause i give him lip for stealing penny the cat from public space in upstairs hallway (rule #34b).
18. so i crash in daughter’s floor after cutting her hair in the tub as she pretends to drink soapy tea. she’s reading me some story about an anteater in a fez in some blue french police suit who tries to arrest a popcorn thief who hides loot in a suitcase. he gets busted because he’s not too smart. like my dead friend in unfinished novel. oh. the suitcase starts popping. the police cruiser is waiting at the corner. they’ve been watching his house for a week. drugs in his missing tail-light gremlin. the end.
19. one day at work he was taking secret hits of nitrous from a can stored in his locker at the yogurt factory on euclid avenue. he traded with a dentist. he while he was passing out he grabbed the tank instead of his work shirt. he yanked a handful of cylinder steel and broke his toe just as his foreman slimslammed around the corner. busted.
20. there’s a traffic jam of three stacks of lps maybe 25 each in my stereo room and i’m not finding time. this twists me inside just like that upcoming invitation for high school 25th which i will have to respond to buried in my desk may 22. and will you be there. and if so, don’t judge me if i mix up wjo you are now with who you used to be turntable spins out another guitar solo into double drumbeat then chorus.
21. driving lander circle. around and around. one time i saw bob hope leave the back of a limo to piss at the gulf station. he’s all gone now.
22. and next time i’ll show you some of the book i’ve been working on before i started teaching after grad school in providence apartment without heat. then married had kids commuted bought house bought tuition bought life insurance bought relatives and aging parents received bills like braces and therapy and sump pumps and cedar sheds.
23. we had this football play involving a double lateral and a bomb. last year i found out it was illegal when i tried it with my son. but no one knew enough back then to catch on.
24. and back in my childhood right now it’s 7:34 in tvland and batman is saving robin from mr. freeze, the joker, the riddler, catwoman, and several interchangeable henchmen who fall over and go boom without being hit. like they saw in the script this is where they die. and they just obey.
25. and every week at 7:58 commissioner gordon arrests them, and three weeks later they’re out again. cause they had good lawyers. or big bad agents.
26. my mom and dad won’t let me watch the news cause there’s no plausible plan for the future—and little boys and girls are on fire and feeling vietnam helicopters.
27. they say every forty years society shakes. but it‘s single digits now.
28. you could read it if you ask. i’ve been stuck on page 314 since my 2004 sabbatical.