stale fortune cookies!

how the hell does that happen

the Chinese guy on El Camino Real always turned a crisp business and  aw comon 

he always dropped a handful or better of cookies into the brown paper take-out bag and

the take-out bag always threw itself at the grease sneaking out of one of the white

waxed-paper cartons

                                   keeping the cellophane-wrapped cookies        unsullied

stale fortune cookies

what was this world coming to

he could feel his inner Wicked Witch of the East melting melting

                                                                                                           Im melting melting Oh what a World what a World I feel my wickedness melting melting                                   

Arrrgh

maybe it wasnt that bad

maybe it was just an imprudent reaction juxtaposed by his Shockd Despondent brain

maybe

         a tad over-the-top

stale fortune cookies

their fortunes couldnt be fortuitous

#1   “You are the center of every gropes attention”

she snapped the fortune out of his hands “You need glasses  . . . the center of every groups attention”

“I like mine better”

#2   it was hers  “You will win success in whatever calling you adopt”

winning success and adopting

their shared exasperated expressions were enough

she wouldnt concede to the cookie

she gave it to him to eat

and as everyone knows  -  from a soul-eater  -  if you dont eat your cookie you dont get

its fortune

#3  “You lead a useful life no matter what riches are coming to you”  hers too

he was stoked she was going to be wealthy

but  ever the esquire  she remarked that no matter what riches are coming isnt a promise of wealth

look who was conceding now

he conceded she was correct

all that beauty and sensuality and sensitivity  yet some thing threw intellect into the mix to ruin the batch

#4 

hed become so despondent over the stale fortune cookies that this one he tossed into his

mouth  -  to eat it to get it over with  -  forgetting to extract its fortune

it wound its way around his tongue and was mashed by his molars

he dug at it with his tongue   and recognizing its texture he realised what hed done

it came out in three mangled pieces 

he unballed them  unfurled them  scraped cookie off them 

#4  Part 1  You

                  comfor

      Part 2  are goin

                  table old

      Part 3  g to have a very

                   age 

it would be hard to become belligerent with this fortune

and he had to concede it was better to have read from here   than later                                        not that later would really have existed

“Masticate masticate You should chew your food one hundred times before swallowing” his mother chewing on his ear during his youth

though she had other reasons for him to chew and savor his food

they didnt have much

they didnt have second portions

there were lotsa siblings

he was the eldest

but he was struck

a bit of a low blow he felt

when he was out of the house and then returned and his younger siblings were eating well and fattened

as hed opted to become an involved and accomplished dinner speaker so his conversation would mask that he wasnt chewing one hundred times before swallowing

he unabashedly asked  “Are you chewing one hundred times before you swallow”

they laughed

he wondered if they could count to one hundred

“No Why would we do that”

he looked to the foot of the table at his mother

then to his right to the head of the table at his father

they took in his queried look but returned their eyes to their meals

his father doled out a third helping to his porcine youngest brother

“I seem to remember a time”  he said  “when that was canon”

“Cannon” his youngest brother said over his heaping fork

“Canon”

“Thats what I said  cannon”  and he was done talking  he shoveled his fork into his mouth

its proper enclave

he recognized

in that memory

why he ate the stale fortune cookies

stale was a state of mind

waste not want not

"My Gawd the shit that comes down from ones childhood My old age better be fucking comfortable"

1326,  Moanday,  23  9. 13

he was reading of Christian relics

in particular the Mandylion the first ikon of the Eastern Orthodox Church  

an image of Christs face an Acheiropoieta: made without hand

said to be received by King Abgar of Edessa

it is believed Christ sent a reply to Abgarus declining the Kings invitation to visit 

rather when he finished his earthly labor he would send an apostle to him

Thaddeus the first a disciple of John the Forerunner John the Baptist one of Christs seventy apostles was who came to the King 

          the words of Jesus cured Abgarus of leprosy

recently it was written that scientific tests run on the Mandylion revealed ancient pollen found among its weave was of Palestinian descent

from this deep subterfuge he was altered by an old woman who entered the radiologists antechamber he was seated in

a fragile woman who wore a startled expression upset by a black womans Fats Waller ringtone

her skin was translucent paperthin liverspotted 

her neck was furrowed by a coquettish manner reminiscent of a peevish hen denied

grain and sustenance by other mawkish hens who were denigrated in their turn by older ones

perched on her beak she wore large blood-hued rimmed glasses

below it her mouth ruminated emitting more halting sounds than words 

unless she held forth on medicine

jabbering under her breath at her caretaker

“This goddamn prying and prying

Havent I filled out enough forms in my life ad nausem

What more could they possibly want or need to know than what Ive already posited

What were they doing running cross-references  indexing  trying to expose me in some kind of lie

The only lies revealed about me were the lies told of me  Im no liar

Im feeling like Im signing away everything I have

And I havent much

And what I have left   

Id rather die than part with”

her caretaker was ingenious

she backed her off and backed her off the perilous ledge the old woman stood on leering over

the old woman then began blinking  rapidly blinking her eyes 

tears filling them

tears of anger and rage of memories forlorn nearing forgotten or Violated 

"I was just a little girl 

just a little country girl  innocent  given over to a man who took me to the city promising me beautiful things a better life

I didnt know any better

my parents knew him

knew him to be an okay-Joe 

he always had cash money in his pant pockets

dressed real well  always the Style in magazines

a quick pleasant smile  

a broad hand across my fathers back as he slapped him and called him pal 

telling him he was awright too 

he just didnt catch the breaks that he had 

he told my Paw ‘You had to be in the right place at the right time buddy And the city was where you had to be 

The city gave you the breaks HAR  hell  the farm just breaks you'"

“Hes alright darling” my father said “Hell take good care of you or hell have to answer me”

“He took me to Chicago not Saint Louis  And he had his way with me when he was drunk and filthy Filthy 

Then he left me

He said there were lots of heifers and fillies to fuck that would flock to his fists full of green money cash money  

Lots of Daddys backs to pound and appease

Fucking hicks  That was exactly what they were and where he was going 

Fucking  He told me to my face FUCKING  How do you say that to a woman

How do you punch her and turn her inside out with lies when . . . when . . shes filled with nothing but trust . . with . with nothing but caring . . . nothing but what she learned growing up"

her glasses magnified the violation in her eyes  a ferocious antagonism magnified her helpless fury

the technician called his name

he acknowledged her closed his book rose from his chair and walked across the room to her

at the doorway leaving the old woman and her confidante at his back

“Good morning” he said

“Good morning” she said

entering the staging chamber he thought whatever procedure they were going to perform on the old woman was doomed to fail

those things inside her were leadshielded

she was still alive because she had been dead for so long

0933,  Tuesday,  3  9. 13