Untitled
"Honey, live like you got to live Chuck Berry,...
11:36 PM, Tuesday, May 4, 2010
.. Link
"Honey, live like you got to live
Chuck Berry, nineteen sixty-nine
I positioned myself beside the empty chair, said a
little prayer, and droppedI leaned left as
always, to spare my bad hipI didn't land quite
square, but I grabbed the wooden arms, pushed with
my strong foot, and the chair only teeteredA
month before I would have spilled, but I was
stronger nowI could imagine Kathi Green
applauding
"Good job, Edgar," he said"Or are you an Eddie?"
"Pick your poison, I answer to eitherWhat might
you have in that pitcher?"
214
"Iced green tea," he saidTry
some?"
"I'd love to
He poured me a glass, then topped up his own and
raised itThe tea was only faintly greenHis
eyes, caught in fine nets of wrinkles, were
greenerHis hair was black, streaking in white at
the temples, and quite long indeedWhen the wind
lifted it, I could see a scar at the top of louis vuitton diaper bags his
hairline on the right side, coin-shaped but
smallerHe was wearing a bathing suit today, and
his legs were as brown as his armsHe looked fit,
but I thought he also looked tired
"Let's drink to you, muchacho
"All right," I said
We clinked glasses and drankI'd had green tea
before and thought it was okay, but this was
heavenly - like drinking cold silk, with just a
faint tang of sweetness
"Do you taste the honey?" he asked, and smiled
when I noddedI just put in a
tablespoonful per pitcherIt releases the natural
sweetness of the teaI learned that cooking on a
tramp steamer in the China Sea He held up his
215
glass and squinted through it"We fought off many
pirates and mated with strange and dusky women
'neath tropic skies
"That sounds a trifle bull****ty to me, Mr"I actually read about the honey thing
in one of Miss Eastlake's cookery books
"Is fake louis vuitton bag she the lady you come out with in the mornings?
The one in the wheelchair?"
"Indeed she is
And without thinking much about what I was saying
- it was her enormous blue sneakers propped up on
the chrome footrests of her wheelchair I was
thinking about - I said: "The Bride of the
Godfather
Wireman gaped, those green eyes of his so wide I
was about to apologize for my faux pasThen he
really began to laughIt was the kind of ballsto-
the-wall bellowing you give out on those rare
occasions when something sneaks past all your
defenses and gets to the sweet spot of your
funnyboneI mean the man was busting a gut, and
when he saw I didn't have the slightest idea what
had gotten him, he laughed even harder, his not
216
inconsiderable belly heavingHe tried to put his
glass back on the little table and missedThe
glass plummeted straight down to the sand gucci uk and
stuck there, perfectly upright, like a cigarettebutt
in one of those urns of sand you used to see
beside the elevators in hotel lobbiesThat struck
him even funnier, and he pointed at it
"I couldn't have done that if I was trying!" he
managed, and then was off again, gale upon gale,
heaving in his chair, one hand clutching his
stomach, the other planted on his chestA snatch
of poetry read in high school, over thirty years
before, suddenly came back to me with haunting
clarity: Men do not sham convulsion, Nor simulate
a throe
I was smiling myself, smiling and chuckling,
because that kind of high hilarity is catching,
even when you don't know what the joke isAnd the
glass falling that way, with every drop of
Wireman's tea staying inside
Like a gag in a Road Runner cartoonBut the
plummeting glass hadn't been the source of
Wireman's hilarityI mean I'm chanel red black handbag sorry if I-"
217
"She sort of is!" Wireman cried, cackling so
crazily he was almost incoherent"She sort of is,
that's the thing! Only it's daughter, of course,
she's The Daughter of the Godfa-"
But he had been rocking from side to side as well
as up and down - no sham, authentic throe - and
that was when his beach chair finally gave up the
ghost with a loud crrrack, first snapping him
forward with an extremely comical look of surprise
on his face and then spilling him onto the sand
One of his flailing arms caught the post of the
umbrella and upended the tableA gust of wind
caught the umbrella, puffed it like a sail, and
began to drag the table down the beachWhat got
me laughing wasn't the bug-eyed look of amazement
on Wireman's face when his disintegrating beach
chair tried to clamp on him like a striped jaw,
nor his sudden barrel-roll onto the louis vuitton mahina s
{ Last Page } { Page 3 of 82 } { Next Page }
About Me
My Profile
Archives
Friends
My Photo Album
Links
Categories
Recent Entries
Martinez made no answer "Listen, Japbait, we...A one-armed man can provide a urine sample, but...
"Honey, live like you got to live Chuck Berry,...
"Nuh-uh, not dat hand - you need dat hand to...
"Naw, they're just right the way they are An...