he went out the door early this morning
with the intention of walking and reading a bit better than five klicks to
collect his vehicle from the shop
he couldnt have imagined the shit
hed find himself inthe shit of people who cant follow posted speed limits SLOW THE FUCK DOWNcant
fuckinslowdown to save small animals from mangled deaths
bending down he picked up the
crushed brains spattered remains of a brown squirrel by its tail he imagined the driver that killed it might
argue the dumb thing ran out in front of them and there was nothing to be
done besides it probably never felt a thing no never felt its body and bones and skull
crushednearly severed in half under their wheels dumb thing?
asif arguing that what an animal does in its natural environment constitutes doing
a dumb thing a dumb thing Christwhat
an insult insufferable bigbrained bipeds made him sick
he walked upright on two legs
did they cravenly implysuggest to
insinuate him among their number
they could slow down
but driving in
a super-engineered deathless airbagged vehicle no
bodybags required perhaps their confounding hubris ran with
prime numbers indivisible and hence incorporated in that perfect perfection that
they can go from Point A to Point B heedlessly perhaps
recklessly
because they wouldnt have to pay the piper
he could also suppose they didnt
know he was all-in for the mountain lion who leapt and killed and feasted at not much meat some
cyclist or jogger who by virtue of being human wasnt concerned or worried about
their intrusiontheir transgression into territories where wild animals have
always lived the wild animals no-mans
land
he could suppose
then ofcourse a big cats killed may not have been the cat who actually
made the killingwho exercised their nature and its murdered body is held updisplayed touting
that Justice has prevailedhas been served that Justice has provided the remedy for the terrible unfortunate Spandexed
death
he was seriously considering
carrying a brick in his bookbag that hung from his shoulder as he walked and
read on the offchance he might witness a car traveling too fast to avoid an
animal or the brick hed hurl at their
windshield
no sooner having mused of the
brick he came upon pieces of another destroyed animal that he couldnt identify
walking at the edge of the
neighbourhood streetsidewalks werent afforded more than one hundred years ago
in the city planning a crow cawed from inside the tangle of huge live oak CAW CAW
looking up to see if he could
make it out among the limbs his gaze went into the blue sky above and beyond
the tree where he saw five hawks circling lazing a looseformed funnel gracefully
turning turning and weaving over or below each other like a threedimensoinal
game of follow the leader or not
finally he came up on the widest
intersection the town had
it
was guarded by turning lights turning lanes red amber green lights greenarrows
timed and counting-down pedestrian crossing lights and agitated drivers who were unable to
believe their bad luckmisfortune to have to wait on someone who had the gall to
walk
waiting for the light to change
so he could cross he notednot ridiculously that the townspeople needed their
pickup truckthey needed their SUPERDUTYs their fourwheel drives their
super-suspension
they needed them to
haul their fat asses around
he might imagine otherwise all
the cardiac arrests sprawled and twitching on the pavement beyond those
airconditioned cabsrealistically it
could be their death an awhell while he could pick up dead animals off the
road he didnt think he could tenderly drag their dead carcasses off the
road anworse if finding them later having languishedbeen exposed to the elements pulling them by their legs to the shoulder of the road a leg or both legs might pull
offJesusChrist Whadhe get himself
into Eeuww
Hello. My name is James, the homeless
man said as he finally caught himcame up alongside his left after traipsing behind
him his particular footfall that he had heard for the last five minutes either the
sole of his shoe coming off or that foot was flatfootedhad a defective arch
James Joe
Hey, Joe.
Hendrix wrote that.
He did but I have an aversion to
guns Theyre cowardly
I’d love to have a gun. I’d
probably have more of my teeth in my head if I had a gunhell, I’d have better
provisions, I wouldn’t be drinking this orange sodayawanna sip . .
. . No thanks Dont drink soda . .
.
. Don’t drink soda?
I’d be drinking Crush, a real orange soda not this phoney stuff.
he was tempted to say Beggars
cant be choosers but he left the reply
to roam around inside his skullhe wasnt
rude unless it was warrantedhowever he maintained a low threshold he didnt allow nonsense to taint him or
flourish hed justassoon hand someone
their tongue than listen to horseshit otherwise he was a patient fucking soul
James drifted on ahead of him
throwing unintelligible words back over his shoulder unintelligible because either
he couldnt make any sense of them or because he was already returned to his reading Marlon James The Book of Night Women a disturbing book what fucks human beings can be to other humans who they deem less than
themselves
. . . like small animals
0855, Friday,
20 7. 18
1700, Saturday,
21 7. 18
Clayhill Afterlight
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8huvLX_E9So
