I tell this blackguy
who sits down at the table next to me in Kips
hey man you dropped your matches,
he just nods, big felt hatbrim over all but his beard and his nod,
and he sees my half-full pitcher of beer and he says
hey man can I have a shot of your beer?
and I nod yes and start to give him a drink from my glass
when this dude gets up and says,
I’ll get my own glass,
sits down, pours it full and then takes one of my cigarettes
and says to me I’m busted, disgusted, and not to be trusted,
and I say Well, I don’t know about the first two,
and he laughs and claps his hands softly like
pleased at the innuendo of my comeback and then
the waitress comes up and to his two sort-of-buddies and tells them
they can’t just sit there without ordering something, so one of them says
hey man, can we sit with you, meanwhile
I’ve said nothing because look at what telling the dude
he dropped his matches
got me, so these other two dudes slide over to my table
and the one called Larry starts talking, mostly jiveass
lies, one after another stories about pussy and fights
in Chicago and a whole lot of stories about money and I just sit there
staring off real stone-like for awhile then
I pick up the pitcher and get it refilled
and two more glasses, which generosity you dig
these guys don’t even acknowledge,
so they all pour themselves beer and Larry says
Now Steve here he’s been with some ugly women,
if you want a authority on ugliness Steve here
went into the ugly forest and the trees fell on his
HEAD,
and Larry says, Man Steve he know women hurt people’s feelins
just lookin at em,
and he tells about how he got stabbed three times and
six doctors was workin over him and when that dude stabbed me
I didn’t hardly feel it, it was like somebody barely tappin you
just like this, I mean bein stabbed don’t hurt man it don’t hurt and
I thought shit man, how come this dude ain’t resistin don’t he know
we are in a fight,
and Steve says hmmph occasionally,
and this goes on about twenty minutes during which
time they’ve hardly even touched their beers, which seems weird to me,
so I get up and go to the john and when I come back
they notice me, all three at once, and Larry says
Say man what’s your name, and I tell him and he shakes hands
and Steve says his name is “Steve” and I see his eyes for the first time
under his big turned-down mean hatbrim and the other guy says
his name’s Jo-Mo and I shake his hand
Berkeley style
and their eyes fall on me sincerely, which I interpret to mean
that they dig I haven’t laughed artifically at their jive
unless the story really had wit to it, and they know
most white cats fake it 90 percent of the time
when around black guys and they don’t even have
no talent to their lies, and all of a sudden
we were just shimmering there at the table
and nothing mattered & they were using language
& we were two floors up in this neon place waitresses
in black miniskirts and white aprons and the TV on
over the bar and the Budweiser ad horses rotating in the plastic
racetrack & the guy wiping out the big pizza oven
with a broom on a pole & other people at squares
of wood lit from above tables and pitchers of beer
dots of foam hurrying up & He’s So Vain
playing on the jukebox & Dueling Banjos
& the bartender chewing a toothpick & there we were
outside all butchery
of TIME or CONTENT or RELEVANCE or NECESSITY
like four guys talking and shimmering on a stage in a play
written by the wolfman
in us all.
