Relic Environments Trilogy: Book III, Part 1.viii

from Book III, Part 1, The Lord of Time, His Curiosity and Galliard

The Journeyman’s Tale

For this ye knowen also wel as I,

Whoso shal telle a tale after a man,

He moot reherce as ny as evere he can

Everich a word, if it be in his charge

Al specke he never so rudeliche or large

Or ellis he moot telle his tale untrewe,

Or feyne thynge, or fynde wordes newe.

                                                    − Chaucer, Canterbury Tales

                                                    “The General Prologue”, ll. 732-738

Part the First, in which Our Hero renews an Acquaintance, observes

a Mechanical Device, and considers the Consequences of Pride

I was in Florida with Earl

Who showed up one day from back home

Lookin for a job

We was drivin along in my old Pontiac

When out of the blue he says to me

Did you shag my wife too

So first I thought whaddayameantoo

Then told him yeah, but only

Because she asked

He seemed okay with that, and we stopped

And had a beer and talked about the new Clapton

We both liked a lot

Earl always said he would die

Gettin smashed by a Diamond Rio cement mixer

It’s a funny thing

But we saw one down in West Palm

Or maybe Boca, and I mean man they are huge

I mean the guy drivin

Looked like a fuckin ant 

Anyways

Earl and me was workin on the new condos

And this little fucker drivin the Rio comes up to the foreman

Says he’d only do this and that and nothin else

Or his union’d have ever’body out

Just for askin

About half hour later we was on a break

Lookin over the top storey balcony, when we see

A girl on a bench in some bushes

Goin down on this driver

And we holler scab scab and the girl looked straight up

Eighteen fuckin storeys

Put her hands together over her head and did this

Rocky thing

Big champ and all

Great, but the guy was not fuckin amused

About three some guy said to us

You guys on strike and we said what the fuck, he said

Nah the painters are out because of the electricians

Because of the Diamond Rio guy

So we walked over to the beach

And this truck fuckin monster machine

Zillion tons of cement not rollin round

Was on its side sunk in the sand

It was like a fuckin whale and ever’body runnin

Sayin what the fuck what the fuck and this driver

Who was about five foot nothin

Cry cry cry cry cry

I never saw Earl again after that

That was in ’73

I woulda stayed on, but the foreman’s stepson

Needed work, so they fucked me off

I’ve had worse jobs

Part the Second, in which Our Hero practices the Art of Courtship, and receives a Communication 

of Hazards to the Travelling Public

I was seein this big redhead called Noreen

I had a little place off Ocean Park

And she rented rooms upstairs

She had a big ass and huge tits, man

Nothin like those skinnyass girls in the magazines

She could wear the hell out of a dress but looked

Totally odd in jeans

Go fuckin figure

The first time she come down, I said

D’ya want a drink

And she said sure okay, and we had a beer

Then I go over where she was sittin, reach round

And untie the bow holdin up her top

And out come these huge milkin tits

Well let me say I was on those fuckers like yesterday

And she just laughed a little and sipped her beer

And that was kinda our first date

The next time she come down, a couple of nights later

She said how come you don’t take me out dancin

Or somewhere, and I just fuckin laughed

And said have you seen your tits

Then kept her ass-up till breakfast

This ain’t nothin to do with Noreen

Or her beautiful tits or her awesome red bush

It all just come to mind

While I was thinkin about Henry, my pal from school

I had this phone call from home, and my Ma says

In the middle of talkin about absolutely fuckin nothin

Did you hear Henry got killed

I thought I ain’t heard her right, but then I did

Anyways, the thing is he was with his girl friend 

They was drivin through Georgia

Right on the Interstate, and this truck

Drives right up the back of him blowin his horn

And Henry pulls over and this guy pulls over

Then Henry says to this girl I’m talkin to this guy

So off he goes, and the girl’s tunin music on the FM

And then looks up, and here’s Henry, walkin back

With the most amazed look on his face

Only he’s soaked in blood

Right down to the belt, and then she sees a big grin

Carved right across his throat, I mean he’s gone to have a word

And this cunt’s only gone and cut him ear to ear

The guy in the truck takes off down the road

And Henry is absolutely fuckin dead

So now the state cops are after this knife guy

And the knife guy’s old man hears it on the radio

And the description of the guy and the truck

Because it’s his fuckin truck

So he takes a big ass iron bar and drags the sonfabitch

Outside the house

And proceeds to beat the livin shit out of him

Then he calls the cops, and so the cops

Are draggin this cunt away, and the old man yells after him

I told you never touch my fuckin truck

I’m hangin up the phone and Noreen comes in

Who’s Henry she says, and out nowhere I hear myself say

This dead guy I know

Part the Third, wherein a Confrontation is avoided,

and Our Hero learns of a Commercial Opportunity

Pat and Jonno picked me up as usual that mornin

Drivin along havin a few drinks

On the way to the job

This place Bobby sent us was way the fuck out in the sticks

But it was a good day and we only had a few walls

To paint before the floor guys came out, so we thought

We’d make it last long enough and maybe

Hit the bars in West Palm on the way back

We drive away from the coast

And nothin but a roadhouse and a few palms

But we stopped in this roadhouse for a beer

And some cunt next to Pat fuckin spits on the floor

So Pat starts up and we drag him out because

This cunt’s one big fucker

A while later we finally see this place

Some guy from Miami decides to buy up all this land

Smack in the middle of nowhere

And gets Bobby to give him a price for fixin it up

But we ain’t seen nothin but cattle sheds

Fifty years old, but Bobby had us on

Top wage so what the fuck

A while later and some old fart wanders over

And says to me and Jonno, I guess you fellers

From Orlando, so we say nah West Palm

And he says that figures

Well Jonno looks at me and I look at him

And who knows where the hell Pat got to

But this guy says to us yeah they don’t want no companies

Orlando way to have a sniff just yet, and we think

What the fuck

Well this guy has got us real inter’sted

And knows it, so we say

We ain’t scabbin no union job and he says nah

It’s fuckin Mickey Mouse, dumb ass

Turns out this Miami guy gets the low down

Disney wants to put a place in the ass end of Florida

So he buys up land from any fool rancher

For fuckin zero, paints a few cow sheds

For improvements, and gets a zillion bucks

From Uncle Walt for cowshit and sand

On the way back we’re tellin Pat

And he says (get this) he says yeah

That Minnie has beautiful fuckin eyes

Part the Fourth, wherein Heavenly Music is heard, and

a Wise Woman reveals the Resting Place1 of Heroes

I moved out back of Peggy’s to get away from Noreen

Peggy’s place was one of these old barns

Built about 1900

When all the assholes come down from up East

And the place I had was the summer house

It was real comfy

I didn’t have no work a few months after the Arabs

Put the kibosh on the oil, so I did a few jobs for Peggy

To help out for rent

Peggy must have been over eighty

And had two little poms

And both those little bastards were blind, but still followed

Her ever’where, and her talkin to em all the time

About fuck knows what

In the 20s she and her old man

Used to do the clubs in Palm Beach

Then come back over here with Hoagy Carmichael

And a few of the boys to play some jazz and drink gin

My Ma used to like Hoagy, but I never heard

Much of his stuff

I sure liked Peggy though

She was from Tennessee, and when she found out

Where I was from we got on real good

She had a bed upstairs that never looked much

It had a rope slung mattress, fuckin bed

Must have been out of the Ark, only she sees me

Lookin it over and says, Andrew Jackson slept in that bed

No fuckin way I said

Yep, she says, big as life and ugly with it

She says it come down to her through her great granny

And was worth a little somethin

And gives me this wink

So I says d’ya think great granny would mind me

Havin a sit down

And Peggy says nah go on

The mattress was horsehair and lumpy as hell

And had this totally fucked smell comin off it

But I never mentioned nothin

Because you could tell it was a big thing with her

I met Peggy’s daughter once, thirty five, not bad lookin

But she gives me this who the fuck are you look

So I never said much to her

You could tell she was just itchin to get her hands

On Peggy’s place

That old house cost nothin to run

And was worth a mil, even back then

I reckon she thought I was makin up to Peggy

For a piece of the action

I used to get a card from Peggy now and then

After I left West Palm for a union gang up north

But then nothin

I reckon she just fuckin died

And honest to God, to this day

I’m real careful like, layin on Ol’ Hickory’s bed

__________________________________________

1In her upstairs room, the old bed

under-slung to take the horsehair mattress:

that bed, she said, I brought from Tennessee

nineteen twenty-six. My wedding dress

was Mother’s, my married life contented.

I still miss my family.

Ragged flowers decorate the quilt…

her great grandma, not twenty, masked

a bored look, sewing: Jackson, longcoat and collar star,

his horse pulled lame, at the porch asked

for water, old wounds troubling, sword hilt

bright from duty in the Blackhawk War.

We sat playing cards, the night hot,

on the table a jug of margarita… Jackson was mean

what with the talk about his wife: he killed a man

in eighteen-six, Dickinson

his name was, a lawyer and a crack shot −

but rushed his luck, missed, Jackson so thin…

The General rode on, up country a pace,

to a cabin near Red River. A Negro

brought milk, then saw the blood that filled his shoe.

Dickinson had winged him sure, a rib shot, low.

His friends help him down, his face

was stone, Dickinson dead and never knew.