jonberger

The man next to me spoke of the idea for his story.
"It’s The End of the Rainbow," he said,
"Where someone on stage noticed I was sketching
and pulls up the pad and shows everyone what I was doing."

In his brief description, it sounded like an origin story,
where he gets discovered
and the world bows at his feet.
The title suggests something else again.

His manner showed that he was timid,
but he mentioned that he was a firefighter.

I really wanted to know more about the story,
but we were only hearing synopses at this point in the session.

When we break up at the end, I let him know,
"I hope you continue with this.

I really want to know how your story plays out."
He nodded, but I have no idea if he’ll follow through with this.
I hope he does.

If you go to Ben & Jerry’s be sure to bring a spoon within your hand.
If you go to Ben & Jerry’s, be aware the mix-ins are far from bland.

For those who go to Ben & Jerry’s: Wintertime is cold there for ice cream
so if you go to Ben & Jerry’s, be prepared for some Bailey’s in your bloodstream.

All through Waterbury,
visitors in a hurry,
love to eat the samples.
The co leads by example.
But now Unilever
is all prepared to sever
all current relations
with these ice cream temptations…

If you come to Ben & Jerry’s, be sure to bring a spoon for your left hand.
When you come to Ben & Jerry’s, expect to see justice all across their lands.

My mother thinks my life is sad.
“Too often you will seek control.
By doing this, you pay a toll.
The toll you owe’s too much to add.”
My mother thinks my life is sad.

She looks at me, so full of dole.
“In charge, you talk not to a soul.
You live your life as a nomad.”
My mother thinks my life is sad.

“Out of your tidy hidey hole,
you can slowly, solely stroll,
none to join you, make you glad.”
My mother thinks my life is sad.

I wish to say, “I love this role!
It’s great to live life with control!”
But she is right by several tads.
My mother thinks my life is sad.

It was the last Sunday of Rocktober
that we brought our wares out for sale.
The air was crisp,
so we thought people would be out
– and they were!
But not as many people as we hoped.

Herb brought items with magical properties.
Barry brought household items including clothes
and some electronics.
I brought the leavings of a guy who had left town
and asked me to take care of his goods.
I also had comics and records
that I just wanted to have good homes.

We laid our stuff out on a table
and let the selling begin.
We didn’t get as many people walking by
as we could have.

It was a really nice day, with great sun,
but it seems most of the walking was done
for the season
A lot of people seemed to be happy
to take records off my hands.
They should. I was selling them for songs.
The comics were cheap, too.

I knew I could get better prices,
but I wanted people to be happy
and I didn’t want to have to take them back.

We did end up having to carry a bunch of stuff back
to our respective homes.
Just as I’d delivered everyone there in my car,
I brought everyone back.
Because I was the medium of transportation,
Barry and Herb covered the expenses of the day,
so it worked out well for me.

All in all, the last Sunday of Rocktober rocked.

Yes, the darkness in your soul
is certainly terrifying,
and I’m sure no one
will ever love you again
having witnessed the horrors
that are within you.

Will you come in from the rain now
and have some ice cream cake with us,
Hector?

Your sister won’t be seven again.

I liked working at this vanity publishing house over the Summer,
so when Winter break came around,
I asked if they’d have me back.

Vanity publishing is basically what small publishing is
at this point,
when people independently pay for their own book to come out.
Then, the rates were much higher,
print runs were a minimum one thousand,
and editing and layout were components of the package.
I was a general assistant.

The Summer experience was good. I’d found the job on my own,
they accepted me, and I worked throughout until the beginning of school.
I could work for the much shorter Winter period. Hooray!

Soon after I arrived, Eric handed me a piece of paper.
Looking at it, I saw it was one of my typed letters.
They still had typewriters hanging around the place,
so I would use them to practice accurate typing.
I had written a letter to someone, but apparently had left it in the roller.
It was filled with red. Apparently, Eric had edited it.
My face got red.
It got more red as I red the letter I’d written months before,
where I described what hot shit I was around the office.
Oh, the number of mistakes in the letter!
Oh, Eric read this!
Oh, shit, here I am coming in for a couple of weeks,
thinking this about myself – I got further red.

I don’t think I looked Eric in the eye for that Winter break.
I did come back for the Summer, though.
I was able to hold it together then.

I look at my grandfather,
after his question,
thinking about the
underlying question,
and hold my tongue.

If I answer,
if I say this thing
there is no unsaying it.
There is no back-step from this
so I say nothing.
It is in reserve, always,
ready to be sprung.

“I can get it for you now,
Grandpa,” I say, “or
I can take care of it
later tonight.
What do you prefer?”

“I’ve got a thousand dollars
I’d like to invest in you,
and I’ve got a few thoughts
as to what you should do…”

“That’s not a deal I’m ready to make
you’ve got to pay more for my soul to take.
My price is much higher if you want a cut.
If you offer that little, you can kiss my butt.”

And that’s a lousy rhyme, but that’s what you get for the price, baby.
You talk bigger dollars, I’ll totally sell out.
My soul’s on the line, I just need a better payout.

“I’ll give you ten thousand bucks -”
“That’s a better ballpark,
but let me cut the chase, with limited snark.
We need an order of magnitude shift in the room
else the changes you want are gonna die in the womb.”

“But they’re really small things -”
“-and I’d love to hear,
but I really wanna make sure that you hear this clear:
if your team and I aren’t on the same page
about my whoring rate, well, I’m about to rage.
You add another zero there, it’s still not enough.
If you insult like that, it’s about to get rough.
Two zeros, though, we can start to talk.
Three zeros, though, I’m about to be bought!”

“I don’t believe I have that kind of budget for an artist.”
“OK, I see, I think I understand.
You wanna haggle a bit, with your bag in hand?
Well, on another day, you can bring in your firm
and tell me what you want, and we can then talk terms!”

“I’m not entirely sure what is happening now…”
“Yo, you can believe that!
Word…”

When she stopped returning my calls,
I felt sad, definitely,
but it went beyond that.

I felt helpless. There was nothing I could do:
if I stalked her neighborhood,
her family would find out,
and that would cause a heap of problems for her
I did not want.
I was so angry and frustrated
and I needed a vent.

I’d been bicycling already,
and it was December, usually the time of year
that cold and snow would make the bike
disappear for a while.

I found that unless the snow was pounding down,
I had to be on the streets, moving from place to place.
Normally, I would bike for transportation.
At this point, I was biking to let the rage escape.

It was fury that fueled me.
Because of my broken heart, I had stopped eating,
so there were very few calories going into my body
for a series of months.
I had little sleep at that time, either.

Still, I would lightning move, sweating away,
borough to borough,
frown to frown,
poem to poem,
just spreading my monotone
all over the place.

Months went by and pounds came off.
It was only when I began to see myself reshape
that my mood began to change
but I remained on the bike plan
for the rest of the year.

It was a very healthy time for me
– physically.

I discovered that the world was available in New York
and the bike was a perfect medium through which to discover it.
Just wear filthy clothes you could sweat in,
a bag you didn’t mind getting dirty,
and start riding wherever you damn felt like.

The best idea was to have a place to go.
Set a mission.
It didn’t matter if I arrived at the destination,
but if I had a plan,drive to go somewhere,
instead of just aimlessly tooling around.

It gave the ride purpose, momentum.
It made me sweat.

So I came up with a general mission:
go to all the public libraries in Brooklyn.
I liked going to libraries,
seeing their collections,
checking out if there were any particular books they had
that I might want to borrow.
This would be fun.

I took one of the maps with the list of all the libraries,
and I started checking off the branches I’d already visited.
A handful were already taken care of.
Now I would ride to a couple that sounded familiar.
I could look at the edifice and decide
if I’d actually been there before.
If it looked like nothing I’d ever seen,
I’d go in and check it out.
If it was something that I knew,
I could just check it off.

And I started going through the list.
It got pretty wavy after a while,
sweat giving the piece of paper
some character
and discoloration.
The markings all over made it hard to be clear,
after a while,
if I got everywhere.
I think I did.
All the names looked familiar, finally,
but I’d have to go through it again
to be sure.

I’ve certainly accomplished the same in Manhattan.
Perhaps it’s time to oil up the latest bike
and see how I can do in the Bronx
– and maybe Staten Island is calling me…?