I try to avoid Piggly Wiggly as much as possible. The prices aren't any lower, and unless you're looking for pickled pigs' feet or cow pancreas, they don't have anything Food Lion doesn't. It smells like a basement and the floors are polished eight times a day to give it that sterile, capitol hill feel. However, Piggly Wiggly is always good for one thing. Great eavesdropping. For some reason (I'll spare you my personal opinion) the dedicated Piggly Wiggly shoppers seem to have a few less teeth, a few more stains on their tank tops, and mustaches. Lord, I hate mustaches.
Yesterday I was perusing the aisles for some emergency lemon jell-o, when I overheard two men talking politics. It was rather one-sided, with the older, grey haired man rambling on about how it don't matter if that Paladin lady was a mayor or whatever, she stands up for what I believe in and after all that Hussein Obama fella' swore in on a Muslim bible or whatever they call it and I aint votin' for some closet Muslim.
First I laughed (inside of course, he weighed a hundred pounds more than me). Then I got downright angry. I realized it is the ignorant voter that will ruin this election. It's the close-mindedness which will drag this country down even further into the cesspool of debt and recession. It will be people like this guy. I believe the above scenario will weed out a lot of stupid voters and save this country.
Think about it. They only get to choose one option.
"Martha! Don't forget, tonight's the free lottery ticket night. Member, jest like they did it a a few years ago? I think it's down at the middle school gymnasium where all the people vote and stuff. We'll take the Ford!"
"Which one? the F-150 or the Ranger?"
"The one with the Piggly Wiggly stickers on the back. I can feel it! We're gonna win big!!!"

They didn't die in vain after all.

I'm glad to see Burger King has a strong grasp on the meaning of patriotism. Bumper stickers are bad enough, but THIS? I'm glad they appraise the lost lives of service members at $1.29. It's all about little sacrifices, but this is ridiculous. I don't think this is what people mean when they use the term freedom fries.

in hamburg

an irish man showed me how to do it.
he grabbed the empty beer bottle from my hand
and smashed it on the ground.
That's what they do in Hamburg.
not a toss
but a violent, mighty downward sling.
i shatter the next bottle in a gutter
and it explodes into a trillion green shards.
i feel strong and free
and the more i smash the better i feel.
i smash a bottle at the feet of an old man in drag
and again in front of a skin head in leather and studs.
i smash bottles at hookers with crooked eyes
and stained faux fur.
i walk by apartments with closed venetian blinds
and can't help but wonder who is or has been inside
so i smash a bottle for them too.
i'm amazed at the chaos of wild-eyed drivers
honking and swerving and they're so good i wonder
if they have jobs or if they just do this all day.
i'm not finished with my bottle
but i smash it for them anyway.
it takes a lot of broken glass
but eventually i forget about the smell of piss
and sweaty vendors and
i finally see the beauty of hamburg
as the glass crunches under my feet.

Good Advice

I barrel through the house
in a fit of rage
My son watches me
pound my fists
swear
slam the door
as he sits in his high chair
I tell him it's pointless
there's no use in trying
we're going to hell
this whole world is insane
but he just stares at me
and drools.
I stop to take a breath
and realize
he has a point.

Richard’s Auto Body

I don’t know what draws me here. Every time I enter, I’m flooded with fear and guilt like the body shop itself rests on an ancient burial ground and my presence alone is enough to summon demons and bad karma. But I always stay until sunset, giving me just enough time to sprint home before my dad’s Audi putters into our driveway. I can’t read the clock, but I know I have plenty of time for conducting business.
I suppress the mental images of my father’s furrowing brow and angry beard scratching as I make my way through the body shop, toward his office. The flimsy sign on the door reads Employees Only. I push the door open and stand on my toes to hit the light switch, careful not to flip the one on the left which controls the air compressor. With a clink and a hum, the fluorescent bulbs flicker on, revealing the vast, comfortable mysteries of my dad’s business.
It isn’t so much an office as it is a walk-in closet tightly crammed with filing cabinets and a desk. Crooked, framed pictures of Dad smiling with nameless clients and their priceless cars clutter the walls. A stack of outdated NHRA calendars threatens to topple from a shelf above my head, but years of lacquer overspray have forged it into an indestructible tower. The tiny room is cluttered and unkempt, subtly harboring the secrets of being an adult, and more importantly, being my dad.
I climb to the padded seat of the swivel chair where, after a few silent, fluid spins, I get down to business. The surface of everything is covered in a thin layer of Bondo dust and empty paper coffee cups litter the desk. I’m careful not to disturb much as I open the top drawer of the nearest filing cabinet labeled BILLS. I search through tubes of insta-weld and putty knives before finding a suitable estimate book with plenty of carbon paper left.
A yellow phone sits on a stack of tri-county phonebooks. It is spattered with colorful blotches of paint and pink repair putty. After disconnecting the line, I pick it up and press it to my ear with a shoulder, allowing me to talk and write. I speak with a man about repairing his nineteen-something Ford. It’s always a rare car, irreplaceable to the customer- which is why they choose Richard’s Auto Body. I use words like quarter panel and after market parts, ambiguously describing the method I will use to repair their one-of-a-kind vehicle.
My cursive is no more than crooked, chaotic lines with violent, swooping tails dancing across the page in peaks and troughs. I stop every few seconds to lick the pen tip, though I don’t understand why. I inspect my work as I hang up the phone with another satisfied customer. It’s scribbled and illegible. I smile.
“Yup,” I say aloud, “Just like Dad’s.”

Shock and Awesome

I recently learned that The Tarheel Opry house here in Jacksonville has an Internet capable jukebox that can download music off of a website for an extra fee. This has HUGE potential. Here's my plan.
1. Wear the tightest jeans I can buy, maybe a flannel shirt and a cowboy hat, (I'm assuming this is what people wear in these places)and walk in the door like I'm the best damned line dancer in Onslow county.
2. Go straight for the jukebox, download Leafhouse by Animal Collective and place it in queue after Garth Brooks and whatever else people two-step to.
3. Go to the bathroom and take off all my clothes, except my zebra-striped boxer briefs I wore under my Wranglers.
4. Cover my body in brilliantly colored paint, with sparkles and swirls and sticky rhinestones. Decorate my face like a panda. Maybe a kitten.
5. Patiently wait for the intro to Leafhouse.
6. When the music starts and people stop dancing to stare at each other in confusion, I bust through the doors with a WHOOP! WHOOP! WHOOP! waving my arms and slapping my thighs in an interpretive dance which resembles the mating rituals of a an ostrich, but better.
7. Dance until the song is over, or a drunk xenophobic redneck spears me into the Coors light display.

That would be amazing.

Bluebird-Charles Bukowski

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.


there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you?