Futile Efforts (51 page)

to Perch at the Foot of My Disheveled Bed

by Tom Piccirilli

We must take into account

that which drove the old man mad,

what it was that clipped
Nunzio's
wings

and sent him spinning down through the black branches

into the white room of decimation.
 
I have only one photo

of him, standing dapper in his suit,

hair slicked, shoulders rigid like he was daring me,

all these years later, to pass judgment.
 
To look at him

and say, There,

there's the first broken link in my chain,

Old Boy
Nunzie
, he's the first one of us

who went completely insane, the fire in his eyes

isn't glory, boys,

it's not stars,

he doesn't see his wife beside him

or his children, my mother and her sister, 5-6 years old,

waiting for Papa to return,

still waiting for their

clack puppets and Christmas toys.

No,

he's watching a rat

that roams around his sick room,

circling his bed all night, each eternal hour

leading into another week, another month, an endless year

until at the dawning of a new world war, with his lungs

full of pneumonia,

the rat of final repentance, bathed in rapture's light,

took its ensuing pity.

Finished him off,

and began its long restless wait

for my birth.

On Reconciling Your Faith, Desperation, and Marriage

with the Missing Tips of Two of Your Fingers

by Tom Piccirilli

Walking out of a pizza joint wiping cheese off my chin

when she came running over

screaming her wig off, going OH GOD,

HELP, YOU MUST HELP ME, grabbing me by the arm

and tugging me along with her,

and I thought, Okay,

here we go again,

what's it gonna be this time?

It was the kind of house my mother told me never to go near,

the kind where hellish people brought their hellish pains

and passed them on

and passed them on.

HE'S GOT MY BABY!
 
HE'S GOING TO KILL MY BABY!

Who, lady?

MY HUSBAND!
 
SAVE MY BABY!

She went 220, mostly muscle, gave me a nice shove

and sent me flying toward the front door.

I stepped in, thinking, what kind of man threatens

his own child?...oh mama, you were right, these are

hellish people indeed.

I was on tiptoe, I'd seen them in the movies always

walking on tiptoe.
  
I felt like Santa Claus trying to sneak up

on a room of sleeping children.

He was there in his recliner, a bottle of whiskey

between his knees, a month of stains on his T-shirt,

and a storm of desperation

crowding his face.
 
He had one hand

on the neck of a schnauzer,

and in the other he was holding a .45

pointed at the dog's head.

Well now, I thought,

she didn't tell me about the gun.

People really should

disseminate important information like that

more freely.

That the baby? I asked.
 
The baby she's yelling about?

She loves this fucking dog more than me, he said.
 
I put in

fourteen hour days, I'm in debt up to my bleeding asshole,

my kidneys are weak, and my vision is for shit.
 
I'm 42

and my pubic hair is going gray.
 
They told me to watch for diabetes,

and I watched for it and now here it is.

I put her brother through medical school and the prick

never so much as sends a Christmas card.
 
I used to play violin,

I once loved to play

the violin, and now I'm missing the tips of two fingers

because I'm a machinist who hates the machines.

I come home today

and she feeds me a bologna sandwich

and the dog is eating London fucking Broil.

Look, man, I told him, it's not the dog's fault.

He stood up and waved the .45 around, but as cowardly as I am,

I wasn't afraid.
 
I was his priest in an hour of need,

and like a priest

I would fail him in the real ways of the world.

He handed me the schnauzer and said, Here,

you keep the damn thing,

then walked outside and shot his wife in the face

four times,

before he turned the gun back on himself, jacked a new one

into the chamber, pressed the barrel into his nostril

and finished his day off.

They let me hold the dog while I answered questions.

The cops were suspicious that I knew so little, figured I had

to be involved somehow,

had to know the couple, had to be screwing

the wife.
 
Were they into drugs?
 
It had to be about drugs.

Did I deal?

Did I step on his coke too much?

Did I drive the bastard out of his mind?

No, I said, with the dog licking my ear.

His violin

did it.

by Tom Piccirilli

Buzzing like wasps, they were joking and trying to get us

to throw down at a party,

both of us with equivalent careers,

suffering up through the same ranks, dealing with the

lying agents, the invasive editors, the money so shitty

that we had to work as janitors and moving men,

in the same factories, just to keep alive.

We'd both cut open our wrists to stain the page,

risen on the foam until at last,

at least,

now, we could hold our heads up without

too much shame,

nearly there,

always feeling like we were within inches,

so nearly there.

And then the girl he was with came in

and gave me the look

that said I wasn't fit to lick his heels,

and the one I'd brought let out a little chuckle

from the center of her tremendous chest,

and he growled

and I saw the red carpets of the pit

and we went for each other's throat.

by Tom Piccirilli

Her writer's group meets in my living room again, 1 pretty boy

know-it-all living on his mother's wages, 2 ex-beauties gone to fat

who only get out of the house by leaving

their oldest kids in charge.
 
1 teenage stripper who has found

the answer to life in Grisham and King, 2 who come by only

for the wine and cheese and to steal my DVDs.

Today, the letter opener opened 3 overdue bill notices,

a royalty check for $12.47, a fan letter from a professor

hoping I'll stop by his class,

and 2 pieces of hate mail saying

heaven is going to put out my eyes soon,

Big G & Little J are gonna take me to the mattresses.

Between chapters I turn an ear to listen–

they're
slagging
on Joyce and Jackson,

ripping up Ellison and Pynchon,

discussing how DUNE was a brick of ash, how

Poe never learned to put it down unfettered.

The letter opener is all point without weight.

Today, the phone brought 1 bill collector to my ear, 1 guy asking

if he could send me my books to sign and return

if he paid postage (I will),

15 calls for the kids, and 1 woman

who wants to sell me a prayer rug

that Big G & Little J personally blessed in the back of her church.

Between chapters I turn an ear to listen–

somebody spilled wine on the carpet and

it won't come out, somebody farted and

made the rest of them giggle, somebody

wants the teen stripper to let it all loose.

The phone is all weight without any substance, the battery

is running low.

Today, the front door was filled with the solid presence of

1 amiable old lady serving papers, 1 salesman who wants me

to go digital, 1 guy who wants me to help put his son

through college by buying cookies, 2 nine-year-old girls

who want me to help put them through college by buying cookies,

1 guy who only glares at me, silently,

while I glower

back, silently.

Between chapters I turn my ear to listen–

they can't figure out how to get my surround sound

system to work, how dirty and disgusting old man
Buk
was,

how thin I used to be in the photos on the mantel, how

the teen should get implants if she wants the real cash.

The door hangs on hinges of whispers,

the knob can't keep anyone

out, but it serves to lock me in.
 
The guy who glares is still standing

in the yard,

looking up at my window

and I'm looking down.
 
We're gonna be at this

for a while longer.

by Tom Piccirilli

I got there and Ernie was trying to light a match with the house