Sunday, January 15 (cont'd)

I had a hot pastrami sandwich
on a rye-bread roll, with Provolone cheese
and sauerkraut and brown mustard, toasted,
at L. A. Subs. For dessert I had a Chocolate Elvis
next door at Planet Smoothie. Chocolate, peanut butter,
banana, yogurt, and booster blast.(tm) Even the fast food joints
are a cut above, in Fairhope. All Panama City has is hamburgers,
pizza, and fried chicken. Perhaps fried fish at Captain D's.
Perhaps a Mexican restaurant. Perhaps Chinese.
Booster blast(tm) is panax ginseng and guarana.
When I think of BLAST I think of FLUSH, BLAST, STRETCH.
Also known as Against the Grain. The first three books of My Chronicle.
Also Wyndham Lewis, and Vorticism. Begin at the beginning,
and when you reach the end, go back and start again.

I sit at a table behind 19 copies
of Bukowski Never Did This.
I sold one to the cashier,
who made me comfortable,
and brought me a bottled water.
"A legend of the underground," she said.
"Imagine that!" "Underground legend
is something of an oxymoron," I said.
"Like jumbo shrimp." I feel like a freak
in a sideshow. An impostor. A real
underground writer would be dead,
or passed-out drunk, or addicted to coffee,
and in caffeine withdrawal, and hostilely antisocial.
I'm just inside the door, like Cerberus.
I growl sullenly at customers.
Be nice or leave, Dr. Bob says.
From the Lower 9th Ward. That is,
from the grave. "Signing Today, Jack Saunders."
I didn't even have to read.

Once, at new employee orientation,
at IBM, they had a person to translate
what was said into sign language,
for the hearing impaired, and then
they showed a film, which she also translated,
and it included Abbott and Costello's
"Who's On First?" routine.
She was busier than a one-armed paperhanger
with the itch. "Sign away," I said.
"We can't hear you."

I ate supper at Gambino's.
I had baked oysters
and a seafood platter,
with salad and bread.
Next door, at the Elks Club,
in the parking lot, a man said,
"You have to go through a metal detector.
They made me take my weapon back to the car."
"I see," I said. They sat me at a banquette.
My name is Chet, and I will be your bellboy.
My name is Chet. "I'll show you the life of the mind,"
John Goodman said. "Look upon me." Set fire to the hallway.

A lot of allusions to imported films,
and independent, art films. Also food,
and wine. Now, you have to know
the cheeses. What will it be next-
the breads? My waiter stutters.
I once had a statistics professor
who got stuck on random variable.
Gambino's had gemütlichkeit.
I skipped bread pudding for dessert.
I don't want to know the provenience
of the raisins.

When I hear "The Eastern Shore," I think of Maryland,
not the other side of Mobile Bay. When Christina Stead wrote,
"The eastern shore for crabs," she meant Chesapeake Bay crabs,
not blue crabs from the Gulf of Mexico. Although they are
the same animal, Callinectes sapidus. Does the phrase "loss of
submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) habitat" refresh your memory?
"Niggers for dogs." I would have added, "or rednecks."
Rosemary Daniell said she thought one of her early husbands
suffered from an untreated mental illness. All he wanted to do
was fish, hunt, raise dogs, trade knives, make white liquor, grow pot,
and watch NASCAR races on satellite TV. What's wrong with that?
That's all I want to do. That's how I reaised my sons (if you add
"play music"). "Write poetry."

My waitress's name was Stella Artois.
She had me in the stirrups.
I thought she'd had some training in
proctology, or rim jobs, but it was
an anal probe from Homeland Security.
Laura Bush says we all must be prepared
to have our most personal business pried into.
I think of Nixon's enemies list, COINTELPRO,
McCarthyism, the blacklist out in Hollywood,
the HUAC. Why do I have a sense of déjà vu?
Right on back to Cotton Mather.

Holly Golightly said nothing bad
could ever happen to you in Tiffany's.
That's the way I feel about a good bookstore.
I could go in there every day and drink café au lait
and greet my readers, see people who love books,
bookworms, book lovers, bibliophiles. Women who smile
at strangers, men who nod, aw shucks, me, I tug at my
forelock, like a dog, in a pound, wanting to be chosen,
so I won't be euthanized. Zzzzzt-wrong! Sorry, Charlie.
I've been picked up, and squeezed, and left behind, in the grapefruit bin.
I sold two books. Time and chance happen to us all.
I came, I saw, I conquered.
I came, I was seen, I went home empty-handed.
The Not Ready for Prime Time Players.