 |
 |
Volume X – “I knew ya when”
My mentors changed careers
a number of times.
"All jobs are the same,"
J.T. would to tell me.
After a dozen of ‘em
in less than ten years,
I already knew, but still I
dreamed of something better.
So when THEY threatened
to eliminate my position
I said, "Take it.
You can’t threaten me
with something
I don’t want."
I left the exit interview and camped two days later
in Iowa, home of my Story City birthplace.
I decided it was time to take my Dick Out
and live my own existence, cultivating my words.
I spent time in Iowa, Minnesota, Madison &
the (rainy) Upper Peninsula of Michigan;
I drove six thousand miles through 14 states;
lightning followed me for twenty-four days,
slept with me, always in the distance, electricity
connecting brain voltage to keyboard, laptop
to infinity and I became the writer
I’d dreamed of
Zack Edwards:
Legs shoulder-width
in his muddy campground
surrounded by black flies
(the bite-E ones)
curling big metal dumbells,
clanking repetitions,
deep guttural growling,
hair held back
with Hell’s Angels
black sun glasses, the ends
blonde, the appearance
of a sunflower on liquid acid,
a thoughtful, bloody novel
on the laptop in the tent.
By the time my unemployment ran out
the book had been published.
(Zack’s Summer Break by Isaac Edwards)
Unfortunately, sidewalk book sales didn't pay
the bills. I worked a weekend
in a tire store, spent a month and a half
doing data entry as a temp, then
the Vice President of the old company called
and I went back – in my mind
it was a sick twist of fate.
I was an engineer again, Manager of Integration.
One of my mentors, the poet, died
thirteen days after I started. His heart stopped.
I've never gotten over the notion
it was, in some cosmic way, my fault.
I remember the first time I went out
for a smoke break with The Judge:
His knees were worse, the walk down
stairs was slooow. He’d grown a
moustache, and was sporting a fresh
buzz cut, just like mine (was at the time).
His fingernails were longer than ever and
he smelled, as always, of last night's alcohol.
He’d aged more than the ten months
I’d been gone. I guess we both had.
Once outside, cigarettes lit, The Judge
asked how I enjoyed my time off. "Ah."
I looked to where the mountains would be
if we weren't smogged in and smiled.
“The world was my shucked oyster,
tasty as a mutherfucker.”
J.T. grinned, took a drag and exhaled,
“So, other than having bills to pay,
why’d you come back?”
“I'm not sure,” I said, then laughed,
"I ritualistically burned my business cards
in a campfire of charcoal brickettes
one night on the trip.”
A couple days later, back in the thick of it,
I handed him one of three cards I had kept
held in the fire with my own fingers,
the edges singed perfectly
by a red-hot coal.
He put it in his pocket, and gave it a pat
“I’ll say I knew ya when.”
“Aw, shit,” I said. "You can tell them
you made me who I am.”
Click here to read next Volume.