A Career in Letters
We lived out on
Alligator Point.
After the mutiny, my
nemesis was gone.
We had a good
summer. We moved a lot of dirt.
Morale was
high. We had esprit de corps. In the
fall,
we got our
comeuppance. My bête-noire was back in
the driver’s seat
and I was banished. Defrocked. My membership
in the Order of the
Blue Trowel revoked. And Brenda was
punished
with me, for
associating with me, or being associated with me
in their minds. It wasn’t fair to her. It wasn’t fair to me.
Close only counts in
hand grenades and horseshoes.
Chief took us on as
his students. El Jéfé.
We went to Tallulah
and dug
a
We were accepted at
Tulane
with scholarships,
in an accelerated
PhD program. We could get our PhDs
in three years, if
everything went according to plan.
Nixon got in and cut
Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society money off.
Academia in the hour
of the wolf. Junk bonds and corporate
raiders.
Good practice for a
career in letters.
Bukowski had a
career in letter-carrier.
The two jobs
available were narc and prison screw.
I worked as a manual
laborer. A navvy. The man on a construction crew
leaning on the
shovel. A workingman in my prime, take
my time.
Writing two-fisted
novels in my head. Typing them up
at the dining room
table.
