In The Mullet and the Couscous Grain,
the hero is a
grandfather, working at the docks.
They cut back his
hours. The foreman works
for management. He gets some fish from a friend,
who works with one
of his sons, and takes them home.
He goes by to see
his ex-wife. She has a freezer full of
them.
He goes to the place
where he keeps a room, and sleeps with
another woman, when
he can get it up. It’s crowded. Her daughter.
Children, in-laws,
he is inhibited. Every Sunday his
ex-wife cooks,
and everybody comes,
to eat her couscous, and hot peppers, and fish.
He goes back to his
room. His son urges him to move back to
but he didn’t spend
35 years in
I can’t keep the
people straight. I don’t know where
they’re from or
what they do. But life seems to be much the same everywhere.
The big fish eat the
little fish. The bureaucrats
enforce the rules
and live off leavings.
Orts. Good crossword-puzzle word.
They have to be
vicious because
the stakes are so low.
What else can they do?
They even have esprit de corps.
They are gung-ho
rule-enforcers.
They hate the people
they regulate
like a brakeman
hates a railroad bum.
Like management
hates labor.
Like my co-workers
at Lucent hated unions.
Their ranch-style
homes in the suburbs.
Their riding
lawnmowers, their SUVs,
to take the kids to
soccer practice.
Their Stepford
Wives.
I walked back from
the A&P with
two tall six-backs
of beer, my nightly ration.
READFEST ’76. Balder was a baby.
I got laid off. I was on unemployment and food stamps.
Owen was three. He had a polystyrene horse on springs named
Gaylord.
He had twin
pearl-handled cap pistols and plastic cowboy boots.
He had a John B.
Stetson hat. He was an Owen-stone
cowboy.
I drank and cussed
the TV set. I was scaring Balder.
Brenda had had a
sufficit.