WHAT A DRAG...

I've cornered myself.
Shorted myself.
Stuck myself up.
Outfoxed myself.
Listened
to myself
go on
for too long
saying too little.

And I'm doing it again.

A dunce-capped fetishist
thinking
I'm in a new place
just an old body;
a fool
on a fool's errand;
a squandered hedonist
loving moments
imagined, but soon,
soon enough,
this place will retch
from fears familiar
to the touch,
a mink claw
of specious need.
I will know
this place
soon enough;
it is the place
I've known
soon enough
all my life:
home--for tourists
& other strangers.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2018

HOT DAY IN AUGUST--JOB INTERVIEW--THE DEPARTURE LOUNGE--CHAPTER 4

4

That woman bites, I said to myself, leaving the building. I was to report Friday for “Orientation.” “Just bring your self and a pen,” Sludgeberg told me, and smiled, her teeth, white and capped, were blinding, “we’ll take care of the rest.”
The ankle height clouds of carbon monoxide from exhausts of garbage trucks and asshole farts, & ashen air was as bucolic as a mountain lake compared to Sludgeberg’s presence. I took a first deep breath in an hour. It felt as if I’d worked there for thirty years instead of being up there for thirty minutes and was finally enjoying my retirement as I revolved through the revolving door.
I was always real good at the interview; it was “work” that presented problems. If I ever found the sonofabitch who invented that four-lettered word, I’d kill him.

I walked, or I should say dodged, the billions of people who littered Fifth Avenue in this heat. I knew that around The Empire State were some cheap grits and interviews always made me hungry. I found a corner joint selling two dogs and a soda for a buck ninety-nine. A bargain. The sun bounced off the sidewalk and struck the corners of my eyes. Just being in mid-town was enough to set my teeth on edge, but being in mid-town around all those people who seemed to have a purpose, who seemed to know where they were going, sent shivers down my spine.
I bit down on this dog that had been on the grill so long it just snapped in half. The soda had no bubbles, had no bounce. And it was fucking warm.
Well, Heller, shit or get off the pot. Whatareyagonnado? It’s either sell a fuckin button or construct your little patch of safety: teach your fellow shelter dwellers about Black Art in the Sixties or help them write legal briefs. Sleep in your own bed, or on a mattress as thin as a dime? Wipe your ass with something soft or cardboard? What’s it gonna be?
Tour buses were double parked on Fifth and on 33rd, next to the Big Penis. I could see little Asian people with the mandated camera slung around their necks, marching in step; the men taking the lead, not knowing where the fuck they were going and the women, culturally behind, following quietly, self-effacing, but fearless. The tourists from Minnesota were the reverse: big, box like frames, fat meaty arms, swinging McDonald’s’s bags, the women taking charge of the men and sixteen fat kids bringing up the rear and their rear, not knowing where they’re going but determined to get there.

The bus stop at 33rd and Fifth looked like the MTA’s version of The Special Olympics: three wheelchairs with bodies crippled in various positions served as the runway for a suicide dash. The sun beat mercilessly down upon them. All looked non-plussed. When you have to get around town and “rapid transit” above ground was the least cruel, you better have patience. I thought about going over to them and pitch the button that could save their lives, but they’d have to be so kind not to die before Monday when I became officially part of Life Force’s family.
Upon further inspection, I didn’t know if they’d be interested: the big black guy, his fat hanging over the arm rests and bulging over the seat, wore a t-shirt and cut-off gloves with metal studs in them; the bleached straw-haired woman sported a tattoo on her right bicep: “Walking is for fags;” and the young girl with spiked red, chartreuse and blue hair was plugged into some music thrusting her arms at no one in particular. It didn’t seem like the right time to approach.
Three buses--the 2, 3, and 5--pulled up at the same time, and behind them were two more 3’s; so much for staggered scheduling. The first bus’ positioning made it all but impossible to get to the other buses who stopped in the middle of the street. The driver stopped, put the bus in park when he saw the wheelchair contingent, begrudgingly lifted the bar that separated him from them and told the other seniors in the handicapped seats they’d have to move. He lifted the plastic seats, went back to his controls, opened the doors, pushed a button and the ramp lowered. The wheelchairs rolled aboard. We stood and watched as the four other buses, nearly empty, made off down Fifth.
Another ten minutes and the driver tucked them in. A few of the older ones outside nearly dropped from heat stroke. Finally, the driver opened the doors for us. I followed the herd on board.
More embarrassed than I usually was, I put my “Handicapped” metro card into the slot. The ones crippled by birth or circumstances were a hard act to follow. Having four toes amputated could hardly be called “cripple” in my book--especially when it was essentially my manias that allowed that to happen--but it saved me a buck and a quarter and that was enough to muster through. I always thought the driver would call me on it, and I was ready to whip off my sneaker and show him the deformed foot, open the front of my shirt so he could see where the cabbage was done, even open up my cranium so he could check-out the three hamsters on a wheel chasing a dream, but in nearly thirty years not one driver gave a fuck let alone asked for proof.
I wiggled my way around the wheelchairs and those older fucks who refused to go to the back of the bus and tried to stake out an inch of space where another’s sweat wouldn’t make me want to retch and at the same time avoid the blasts of Arctic air freezing the damp hairs on my skin and shrinking my testicles. An impossible task. I stood as vertically as my body would allow and stared straight ahead.

pgs 12-14 of 539
© 2015 Norman Savage

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

ONE FOR THE DEAD...AND SOON TO BE DEAD

The 9/11 World Trade Center
theme park
opened
for business
last week.
Thrills, chills
and death-defying skills
wrapped in our collective hearts
are there
for all
to frolic in
for 24 bucks a pop:
Disney does death.

You too can experience
a busted-up fire truck,
bicycles driven by ash,
a million shades of blue,
a wall full of faces
lonely for a date,
a Y beam, and X beam,
a sun beam,
you can meditate,
concentrate,
integrate,
facilitate,
vacillate,
prognosticate,
and, yes,
masturbate
to visions
of your own
choosing
providing,
of course,
the choice
was chosen
by holocaust
survivors.

On separate screens
you can experience
the adrenaline rush
of school kids
being hunted down
and shot,
veterans
lined up for years
waiting
for an aspirin,
or sleeping under
a freeway
near you--google maps
will do this for free.

Finally,
before you take the kids home,
to that fattened blob of a town
in one of America's sturdy out lands
clutching a 32 ounce soda,
you can simulate a fall
from the 104 floor
through make believe smoke
and make believe fire
& flames,
grasping for arms,
or fingers,
or hair,
through the air,
lungs collapsing,
eyes going blind,
& splatter
into a stain
on the sidewalk below
as a camera snaps
and a picture
of nothing
is produced
that you carry back
to the other fat-calved
football fans
somewhere else.

The gift shop
is to your right.
Step lively.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2014

THE DEVIL AT THE CROSSROADS

Now that the world
has made it more difficult
to kill yourself,
I stand outside
offices, bars, restaurants,
puffing away
every chance I get
with my best friend--
a cigarette.
Doesn't matter
the weather--
I've taken
the mailman's oath:
icicles hanging
off my balls,
or sweat dripping
from my nose
will not deter me
from my appointed rounds
and my rendezvous
with death.
I send up plumes
from a rapidly decaying body
as I watch tourists
idle by
clutching maps, smart phones,
city guides, written notes,
compasses, and confusion
as they try to get,
without missing
a pile of dog shit
left by the dogs of the famous,
or a blood spot spatter
of the famous themselves,
to their next
destination.

I've lived here
for most of my sixty-six years,
worked the bars
from The Bowery to Park Avenue,
drove cabs and hustled
all over this concrete womb,
but rarely do I get asked
how to get around this town.
I don't think
I look mean,
but I might;
I don't think
I'm dangerous,
except to myself,
but they jabber in German,
or French, Greek or Japanese,
Portugese, Chinese or English;
they point up,
they point down,
they surmise, they measure;
they argue distance
and which way is north,
or south, east
or west,
as I look at them
and take another drag.
I'm waiting
to be used, to be
useful.
Perhaps,
they are afraid
of being directed
to a worse Hell
than they're already in--someplace
off the map.

If only they'd realize
that the Hell I'm living in
is really only big enough
for one--
and I want to keep it
that way.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2014