Butter

Once when I was cooking I ran out of butter so I put things on hold and told Skip who was in the coffee shop to hang for a few and I walked the long block up to Mendosas. When I passed the barber shop Mitch came out as asked where I was going in such a hurry and I told him I was going to Mendosas to buy butter and he asked me if I’d buy him a pack of gum and I said sure. Seventeen steps later I met Judge Reynolds coming out of the Ten Mile Justice Court. He was on his way to get his usual breakfast, divorced eggs, at the Gull. I told him we were out of butter and I was heading to Mendosas to buy some. He said he used I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter and I said I’d look into it but I didn’t have time right now because Skip was waiting in the coffee shop for me to get back to finish his breakfast. When I got to Mendosas I went right to the dairy case and grabbed as much butter as I could carry and took it to the register and told Evelyn to put it on our tab. We ran a tab at Mendosas because we were always running out of stuff and going to Mendosas to get it. As I was heading back I realized I’d forgotten Mitch’s gum and I struggled for awhile as I decided what to do. I went back to Mendosas but the lines at the register were long so I didn’t get the gum. As I passed the barber shop the door was open and I yelled to Mitch that the lines were too long and I couldn’t get the gum and he said how’d you get the butter and I said when I got the butter there wasn’t a line yet and he looked confused but he was busy cutting Ed’s hair so he let it go. Ed’s bicycle was outside and I almost tripped over it because I wasn’t paying attention when I walked by because I was trying to explain things to Mitch. When I got back to the Gull Skip was gone. The dishwasher said Skip had to get to work. So I put the butter away and started making the salsas for the judge’s eggs because I knew he’d be in soon.

Billy’s Dog

The bar is pretty much empty. Raining rats and frogs outside. Everyone is probably home in front of the fireplace or making love in the back room of the cabin eating abstract art and ice cream. I space out on the puffer fish light above the back door of the bar. The sharp spines sting like frozen electricity. The bartender cuts up limes and lemons, fills up the bowls of cherries and onions and olives and kills time like Prometheus. Rice crackers and deep fried green peas are laid out in front of me but those peas crack teeth. Miles Davis is on the stereo. Quiet nights in this bar beg for jazz. Judy and John and Kiyoshi, Richard Cooper, Treadwell. There’s no live music tonight. It’s dead in here. I like Sketches of Spain. It puts me in a mood. A couple of locals come in and order their local drinks that the bartender makes in his local way. I hear waitresses upstairs in the dining room rushing from table to table. Suddenly the intercom blares out an order: “Old Taylor and soda!” That’s for Clyde the vegetable man who comes in with his wife every few weeks to order the Chicken Kiev. In a couple of minutes a waitress will come down to pick up the drink. The wind blows open the front door. I feel a blast of cold air. Billy’s dog walks in and looks around for Billy.

Pretty Blond Hair

I don’t member everthing bout them daze but I do member why Frannie kicked me out. It was bout my drinkin’. I was always drunk back then. I thought things were good til Frannie told me I had to leave. You can never tell bout women. Specially Frannie.

She had blond hair that covered up her eyes so you couldn’t tell what she was thinkin’. She didn’t talk much. She was quieter than most women.

I drank cheap wine back then. Frannie didn’t drink or even smoke. She said the body’s a temple. She got this churchy idea from her family. They were way into that Christian stuff.

It was summer when she kicked me out. I lived on the street for awhile. I’d pick up aluminum cans and bottles and turn them in for the money. I’d hang around a church for the hot lunch. Sometimes they’d pay me to sweep the floor or wash windows or haul away the garbage. I bought wine with the money. When they found out they wouldn’t let me do them jobs anymore.  It wasn’t Frannie’s church. I heard she had another guy. Someone from her church. I saw him once. He had a wine jug nose, piss-colored hair and demon eyes. No way they were gonna last.

Anyways, I had to find a inside place for the winter. I knew this guy in Albion that had set up some tents in a meadow for a commune that didn’t work out. They were funny looking psilocybin mushroom sorta looking things, the tents, but they were dry and warmer than outside. So I lived there for awhile until Frannie came by and said I could move back in. I guess wine jug nose didn’t work out. I didn’t ask and Frannie didn’t say. Like I said. Frannie didn’t talk much. Her eyes spoke if you could see them under that pretty blond hair which covered them up most of the time. They spoke to me now. So. I said okay.