I called my trip to see my brother Bill
before he died The Beat Poet Tour, because it was
part of a book called The Last Beatnik. I had called other tours
beet poet, after Woodie Long’s beet tops, out of his garden.
I rode up the country with my sister and her son. This was appropriate.
She had a Chrysler mini-van. We stayed at chain motels. And ate at
chain restaurants on the Interstate. I read USA Today. I found out what
was on television. A
special on Alzhemier’s. I think
the playoffs. I don’t
know what sport. We went to
I saw my brother before he died. We chatted.
He didn’t mention the money he admitted
he owed me at my mother’s funeral,
which he told me then was under his mattress,
in a sock. Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn’t.
He was dying. I was alive. It seemed picayunish to be
resentful about $1,000. $1,000 was nothing to me. A month’s income,
from social security. A month’s income, from unemployment.
He needed it more than I did when he borrowed it.
I loaned it to him, knowing he would stiff me.
He was Bill, the carefree one.
It wasn’t too carefree
at the end. I was alive
and he wasn’t. I don’t know
who got whom. We weren’t out to get
each other. It just ended up that way.
Someone wins, someone loses.
It’s a zero-sum game. I won.
And I didn’t cheat. But what have I gained?
I lost a brother, and a friend, even if we didn’t see
each other much, after he fucked me out of $1,000.
The goddamn son of a bitch.