Philadelphia (cont'd)

I remember flying to Atlanta for a press conference
for the ULA Legends of the Underground reading
I was a headliner at. They all said they'd be there,
but nobody came. George Plimpton and the Paris Review crowd.
A man from Shout magazine. The Village Voice. I remember
flying home, and going in to work, the next day, and writing a story
about Ann Sterzinger's see-through lace dress without underwear.
As the blind wood expert put it, after only two passes, one per side,
"The shithouse door on a tuna boat." She went off with George,
I caught a cab to the airport, the crew cleaned up.
I am the man, I saw it, I was there.
Whitman never did this.

I'm glad I don't live in Atlanta anymore.
I'm glad I don't own a house there.
I'm glad I don't have to drive on I-285,
the Watermelon 500, what you lookin' at?
I'm glad I don't work at the fiber-optic cable factory.
I'm glad I don't own stock in Lucent Technologies.
I cashed in the annuity I rolled my retirement over into
when they laid me off. I was retrenched. I'm glad I didn't get
a sayonara party, I'm sorry I stopped contributing a pregnant goat a month
to a Haitian through the employee giving program, I served on the Diversity Council,
but quit. Lee Child was a shop steward and got blacklisted when they laid him off
for trade-union involvement and anti-management activities. I just sit home and write
underground writer procedural novels. And send them to New York.
Here, Julius--hold this.

I'm glad I don't work in a community behavioral health care center,
or in a coalition with faith-based organizations fighting drug abuse,
alcoholism, illegitimate children, teenaged delinquency, chronic welfare dependency,
degenerate gambling, shitty music, on the whole I'd rather be in Philadelphia
at a zine fest, I'd rather be the ULA Read-Off headliner at a hydra-headed
beer joint, reading in cellars. The ha ha, Medusa Lounge.

Brenda and I are renting a car and driving to Atlanta,
as we drove to Tallahassee, hurricane evac, so it won't be
a whole month of airports and motels, arrivals and departures,
check-in and check-out times, indeed we're staying with Jodi's mother
one night in Dahlonega on the hootenanny/zine-a-polooza trip.
Sue's booking a flight for me to Seattle. Like a rock star, I just show up.
Oh, yea, a bought a pair of cotton boxer shorts to wear as pajamas.

First turn out of traffic
the pilot lights a cigarette.
The smoke drifts back over the bomb bay.
I'm in the waist compartment, facing the tail.
There is a relief tube on the floor for the crew.
I can't get up and walk around-it will disturb the trim-
but I can smoke, and if I have to piss I may get up and pee into
the funnel. Not equipped for aviatrixes, or lady passengers.
Bring your own wide-mouth Mason jar. I think of Martha Gellhorn,
flying into China on such a plane.

I wonder if the woman reading In Touch magazine
would know who Martha Gellhorn was. There was a time
she would have. Sic transit gloria mundi. Time is the least thing
we have of, Ernest Hemingway said. IFR, VFR 1,000' on top.
Visual flight rules. Every trade has its jargon. Even admin pogy.
People are fascinated by the mechanics of a craft. Remember
The Violent World of Sam Huff?

Cruising altitude 33,000'. Above the overcast.
Thousand abbreviated K. 33K. I forget the symbol for
cloud cover. If there even is one. I was a dispatcher in
B-25 Operations at Waco, Texas, in 1958. A five-level.
I've forgotten most of it. Later, I was also a Form 5 clerk.
A pilot's Individual Flying Record. Hours, landings. Weather, night.
Command Pilot rating. Once, a man bailed out of a P-51 in Korea,
and had one less landing than takeoff, with a note. Air egress evacuee.
Did Bukowski ever do that? No, he was a draft dodger. I was a cog in the
war machine, albeit the peacetime, Cold War version. A Tool for Modern Times
meets Big Brother Is Watching. They also serve who are only an admin pogy.
The meaning of the small, desktop computer is life is a bucket of shit with
the handles on the inside. Someone has to write about it.

A pack of Nabs and a soft drink was free, a beer was $5,
but at least I got a Heineken. It made me think of Uncle Potter.
The frosty green bottles coming at you on a conveyor belt.
A tool for modern times. Brenda tells me that after I drink a six-pack
I get stupid. Maybe I want to. Maybe I want to get as close to oblivion
as I can and still make it back. Slim gave Balder a Wal Mart scan of a Polaroid.
Him and Potter in their salad days.

I know my limit. I just keep passing out
before I reach it.