A beer-bellied, white-T-shirted chomper-of-fat-cigars opens his aluminum storm door and carries a bundle under his arm to the flagpole in his front yard which he anchored into the earth last summer -- the long, hot summer of ‘68 -- with a, “...helluva lot o’ blood, sweat, and tears...” (or so he tells himself) each morning, as he recalls the image of the World War II Iwo Jima flag raising which is etched deeply in his mind. (“Yeah, see, there was that barren, bloody hill where the Stars and Bars were raised in the middle of bursting bombs and the clatter of small arms fire from every direction. But, they damned sure got ‘er up, by God...”) He unties the lanyard and unfolds the bundle from under his armpit. It is an American flag and he is careful not to let it touch the ground as he secures it to the rope hanging from pulleys attached to the flagpole. As he pulls the rope to raise the flag, the image which he has recalled so often at American Legion meetings and VFW potluck dinners comes alive and he becomes, in his own mind, one of the courageous boys on that bloody hill in the last great war. Yes, each morning he steps into his fenced-in effluence of grass, clover and weeds and runs Old Glory up to the top -- except, of course, for November 22nd when he “...ran ‘er up only half-way, to the half-mast, ‘cause some Oswald sonofabitch shot Jack Kennedy in the head on this day in ‘63.” Yes, he “...runs ‘er up...” where she can wave and flap and flutter, as free as the smoggy breeze, over the grass and the weeds, the red brick ranch-style houses with their aluminum storm doors and their two-car carports where shiny Detroit-bred demons sit silently waiting; over the land of the free and the home of the brave ... over America.
**
Jesus!
I’ve watched him raise that thing for almost a year now. Every day, the same thing: The simple bastard marches out with it stuck under his armpit, he carefully unfolds it and raises it and then he ties the lanyard in about fifteen knots. Christ!
I remember last year when he watched some ROTC guys march down the football field before a game. These guys were all black, see, and this simple bastard gets really impressed when they raise the flag. Then he opens his big mouth to my dad and says, “Would you lookit them boys raise the Stars and Bars. Goddamn, while their cousins are burnin’ and lootin’ in Detroit -- throwin’ them Molotov cocktails and things -- here these boys are raisin’ the flag. Now that’s really somethin’ ... goddamn, it’s really somethin’.”
I’ll never forget that ... what the simple bastard said when he saw them ROTC guys.
So he talks for a couple months about how those boys raised the flag and all, and then one day last summer he goes out and rents a cement mixer -- you know, a portable one -- and he digs this mammoth hole in his front yard and he sticks his flagpole in it. One hundred and fifty pounds of concrete he put in that thing.
“Sure,” he says, “it takes a hundred and fifty pounds of cement. Whadaya gonna do when a big wind comes up and blows the damn thing over. No sir, anchor it right in the first place.”
Well... That’s the way the simple bastard is.
Last summer when he put up his flagpole was the first year I worked at the pool. My mother yells over the fence to him one morning and tells him she was sorry but I wouldn’t be able to cut his grass any more because I was working at the swimming pool.
His eyes got real big and he says, “A swimmin’ pool?”
“Yes, he’s going to teach and lifeguard, too,” my mother tells him.
“Yeah,” he says, “but, gosh Edith, do you trust him out there with all them skimpy-dressed young girls and all?”
So, my mom starts to think about what the simple bastard tells her and she starts worryin’ and askin’ me questions about are there really a lot of girls who wear bikinis and all and, “Do you ... associate with those girls, Frank?” she says.
Christ. What can a guy say to his mother about not really liking the girls at all? See, here she is worryin’ about me screwin’ some girl and getting her pregnant and all, when it’s the guys that turn me on, mom. Like, some of the guys wear these real thin, nylon suits and when they get wet, you can see right through them ... cock, asscrack, everything, mom. No, a guy can’t tell his mother about that.
So, anyway, one day I’m headin’ for work and the simple bastard is raisin’ his flag and he yells over to me, “Hey, Frank-boy, I hear you ain’t gonna cut my grass no more. How come?”
“I got a job, Mr. Brown.”
“Oh, yeah?” he says, like he doesn’t already know. “Where at?”
“A swimming pool, Mr. Brown.”
“A swimming pool?” he says, with this big frown on his face. “Hell, that ain’t no work for a strong, husky boy like you, Frank-boy. Why dontcha go down to the tire factory, you know, the Gates Tire place and apply there?”
So here it is, seven o’clock in the morning; the simple bastard is raisin’ his flag with half an unlit cigar between his teeth and brown spit kinda tricklin’ out the corner of his mouth; his fat gut hangin’ over his belt and I look at him standin’ there at his fence (the only guy in the neighborhood to have a fenced-in front yard) and I get kinda sick just lookin’ at him and I say, “Right, Mr. Brown, that’s exactly what I ought to do.”
Then he motions me over to the fence and he looks at me real serious-like and he says, “Frank-boy, I been meanin’ to tell you that you really oughta get a haircut. See, Frank-boy, you’re beginnin’ to look like some ah them hippie slobs, you know; one of them fairy creatures. You know what I’m drivin’ at, Frank-boy?”
I look him right in the eyes, see, and I kinda smile, “Maybe I am ‘one of them fairy creatures,’” I say, still smiling at him.
Then he looks at me for a minute with this real horrified look on his face and then he begins to smile a little and then he laughs real hard and says, “Hah, you got a sense o’ humor, Frank-boy. Yessir, you got a real sense o’ humor.”
Shit... If he only knew. I’ve been one of his fairy creatures for as long as I can remember -- probably since I was born -- and I’m gonna tell the idiot about it someday. Yeah, someday I’m gonna say, “Hey, Mr. Brown, guess what me and Paul, the guy from across the alley, do when we go up to the park at night. Yeah, Mr. Brown, we get all naked in the bushes and we kiss and feel each other and...” Yeah, someday I’m gonna tell the simple bastard. Jesus, he makes me sick. Christ!
I hadn’t worked at the pool but about two or three weeks when I came home from work one night and there’s the simple bastard with his fat ass on a huge, really huge lawn mower with a big black steering wheel and gas and brake pedals and gear shifts and controls all over the damn thing. So, I go over and rest my arms on the top of his fence and I watch him for a while. Pretty soon he sees me standin’ there and he drives the thing over to where I’m at and he stops it right in front of me.
“Hey, Frank-boy,” he yells over the sound of the motor, “howdaya like it? Pretty nice, huh?”
“Sure,” I yell back at him. “Say, Mr. Brown, how come you never got one of them when I was cuttin’ your grass?”
So, the guy just kinda smiles and yells, “Sorry, Frank-boy, can’t hear you. Gotta get this jog done.” Then he slips the thing into gear and takes off ... his fat ass floppin’ around like jelly on the big cushioned seat.
Later that same night, the goddamn house was so hot that I went out in the back yard to cool off. All I had on was some cutoffs and I laid down right in the middle of the yard on the grass. God it felt good. There was a cool breeze and the stars and the moon were so cool. Then I hear the simple bastard and his dippy wife come out onto their patio. I turned my head a little to look at them and, goddamn, there they were with their fuckin’ little portable TV set, trying to tune it in, adjusting the antennae and all. Then the simple bastard turns up the volume and, for me, the breeze is gone, the stars and the moon are blotted out, the grass next to my back starts to feel kinda crawly and all I can hear is this fake, emotional, big-mouthed sports commentator telling the simple bastard and his dippy wife what Dick the Bruiser is doin’ to Bo Bo Brazil’s head on Big Time Wrestling. Jeeeeeeeeeeeesus....
So, I go in the house and get a Pepsi and then go downstairs and lift some weights and kinda shadow box around the rec room. In a minute and a half of the first round, I knocked the fat, simple bastard on his fat can and then, when the referee raised my arm in victory, I rested my foot on the simple bastard’s face ... smashing his unlit cigar all to hell, all over his goddamned fat face.
Last night, Mr. Brown and my dad were talkin’ about the war in Viet Nam and my dad said we ought to use a lot more force on the North; you know, that we ought to bomb the Viet Cong more than we are.
Then the simple bastard takes his cigar out of his mouth and says, “You’re goddamned right! Why, we ought to bomb those slope-headed sonsofbitches with all the atomic power we got. Why, we oughta show ‘em we ain’t no bunch o’ goddamned limp-wristed faggots that they can mess around with. Use the atomic power, that’s what I say; drop the fuckin’ bomb on ‘em all.” And, then he stuck his cigar back in his mouth, chewed on it a little and then he cut this enormous, crackling fart.
Jesus H. Christ!
The only time I can really get the simple bastard out of my head is when I’m with Paul. About two or three times a week, Paul and I go up to the Ruby Hill Park which is on top of a hill where you can see the entire city spread out below. And, in the night, you can go up to the Hill and lie in the grass and see all the lights of the Denver and you can see the stars real good and there’s always a cool breeze blowing across the top. Usually, Paul and I will go up there and just lie in the grass and talk and watch the stars and the lights. And then we usually end up in the bushes which are half-way down the east side of the Hill. See, there aren’t any lights on that side of the Hill and it gets real dark and nobody hardly ever goes down there ... except Paul and me. And we take our clothes off and lay them on the grass and then we lie down on them and we feel each other’s bodies and we hold each other and we kiss and ...
Paul doesn’t think he’s queer and I know I am and I let Paul think what he wants. Paul feels guilty about what we do in the park and I told him he shouldn’t feel guilty about loving someone ... about loving me. I went through what Paul is going through last summer -- the guilt thing. But, it’s stupid. I know what I am. He’s gotta figure it out for himself.
One night after Paul and I had been to the park, I came home and my dad and Mr. Brown were in the living room drinking beer. My hair was all messed up and my clothes were all dirty and wrinkled. And, Mr. Brown looks me over real good, see, and then he says, “Hey, Frank-boy, you look like you been wrestlin’ in the dirt or maybe you been catchin’ up on some o’ the facts of life. Huh, Frank-boy?” And then he and my dad start laughin’ at me while I’m standin’ there gettin’ all red.
I looked at the simple bastard for a minute and started feelin’ kinda queasy ‘cause he is such a slob, and then I said, “Mr. Brown...”
“Yeah, Frank-boy?”
And then I didn’t say anything and I just kept lookin’ at him.
“C’mon, Frank-boy, whadaya got on your mind?”
Well, I looked at him for a couple more minutes and then I just turned away and went downstairs to the rec room. I started goin’ through these Kung-Fu moves, see, kickin’ my legs and jabbin’ my fists around. And in four fast moves I had the fat, simple bastard on the floor, cryin’ for mercy ... bawlin’ like a baby. Then I put my arms to my side and bowed real low to the fuckin’ idiot lyin’ there on the floor. “So sawly, Chawly,” I said in this Oriental voice, “maybe next time honolable srob think twice about taking on fairy cleature.”
**
Early one morning in the summer of ‘69, a white-T-shirted chomper-of-fat-cigars opens his aluminum storm door and approaches his flagpole with the Stars and Bars tucked securely under his armpit. He looks up and sees a white sheet flapping in the morning breeze at the top of his flagpole. He unties the lanyard and quickly brings the sheet down. On the sheet is painted a makeshift design of two interlocking circles with arrows coming out the top of each circle. He studies the design for a moment and immediately concludes that Melissa, the seven-year-old menace who lives two doors down, has been playing in his yard again. “The little bitch better stay away from my flagpole,” he says, ripping the sheet from the lanyard, wadding it up and throwing it to the ground. Then he snaps the red, white and blue onto the lanyard and runs ‘er up to the top, where she can wave and flap and flutter. He looks up at his flag for a moment. “...with freedom and justice for all,” he says, and, having liked the way it sounded, he says it again, “...with freedom and justice for all.”
No comments:
Post a Comment