i know a girl

i know a girl well yeah he says with that grin that toothy dirty old man grin he says yeah i guess really she is all woman

i know a woman

this woman i know she give me a wink when i say this this woman she give me a wink because she know i know she plays both sides of the fence she know i can see both sides this woman she is torn nee perhaps stretched between betwixt that communal world that peace love and tie dye the universe will provide save the world loose skirts and cotton tops that expose all that bossily loveliness of the hippie

and that pouty faced green purple tequila sunrise colored hair middlefinger to the air stern nihilist kiss my ass fuck you fuck your mother fuck your sister fuck your dog and the horse you came in on combat boot wearing yeah i’m talking to you punker

and that most uncomfortable middle ground of corporate vice presidency where they just don’t want to know they just don’t want to care

i mean that hippie thing i mean it’s not like she’s that old hippie hanging out down by the statue in the panhandle the old hippie that maybe might have touched his tongue to tab a few too many times

might have got on that magic bus might have kind of forgot that he got on that bus next things he knows that bus driver of the mind he’s nudging you in the consciousness in the middle awareness with the toe of his boot he’s saying the bus driver he’s saying

hey buddy last stop

just like my friend fred with no hair on his head he used to get kicked off the five fulton all the time that was after he got kicked out of his apartment way back when way back in the day when i first met him turns out that night i met him he was being asked to leave his place

fred he just didn’t know it at the time

i mean we both me and fred we both knew these guys who went to college with me these guys e and m and and these guys e and m and a few others chrono and stenks and black-man and a few assorted stragglers we all played cards we played cards every wednesday night started playing middle of freshman year kept it up til we graduated

except black-man he never graduated perhaps he gave too much gave more than he could afford

and e and m they used to have this little business they used to collect package and distribute via the official postal service of these here united states of america certain illegal contraband acquired by rather questionable and most certainly unsavory means sent from atlanta georgia air mail to brockport new york boxes upon boxes filled with lovely lovelies both natural and manufactured they didn’t discriminate they were businessmen they discussed transactions over speaker phone during said wednesday night poker game

quantities strains brands prices shipping aliases shipping logistics rented mail boxes

yes quite the enterprising young men misters e and m and fred with no hair on his head

and i graduated and moved to san francisco and fred with no hair on his head he moved to san francisco and either e or m one of them sent post cards to us both sent to me and sent to fred with no hair on his head yes even then at the young age of twenty one twenty two fred he had no hair on his head and so yeah we each got this post card making the intro

and we gave each other a call he called me i called him i forget who called whom first but we met at this bar over on geary and masonic because fred heard it was the greatest and with fred as i came to know fred with fred everything was the fucking greatest

man that weed was the greatest man that burger was the greatest man that weekend was the greatest the fucking greatest man i gotta tell you

and we met at this bar at geary and masonic it was called the pig and something some irish bar yeah go figure some irish bar on geary it’s not there any more but we met at this bar

we were having beers fred had just come from barbecuing at his place and well it seems while we were sitting around drinking beers and getting to know each other and telling stories like twenty year olds tell stories and getting drunk and laughing and yelling in the bar like assholes who just got legal and

it seems that while all this knee slapping good time all this revelry all this merriment trending toward ribaldry was going on whilst we bellied up to the bar and drank pint after pint with a random jameson’s woven into the order seems that old fred well he had forgotten to completely put out the fire had neglected to douse the coals like old smokey had been asking him since he was but a wee one spinning his dreidle back in westchester and

those back decks down in the mission they can get kind of windy down there those little whirlwinds coming whipping down off the hill and that little fucking hibachi it just danced across the dried up redwood planks and lit that thing on fire and

the fire department got summoned via the magic of nine one one and since dear old fred with no hair on his head was not home since old fred was out getting drunk with me since old fred was otherwise indisposed the firemen in all their finest rubber suit helmeted keppele and hoses our heroes had no choice but to take ax to door

chop chop

and fred with no hair on his head in the early hours of the morning he returned home to yellow tape criss crossed and up and down his door or rather what was left of his door and his landlord who patiently explained that the place was now uninhabitable because well the firemen had felt it necessary to spray water through his apartment to the deck and

maybe it would be best for fred to find another place to live

and so fred he moved to his brothers house his brother who was older and wiser and had moved out to san francisco years before and had married and had become a very successful salesman of the highest regard and whose wife was a bit of an agoraphobic and she rarely left the house

and yeah i forgot to mention that fred well he was unemployed at the time

and fred and sister in law well let’s just say that not only was sister in law agoraphobic and rarely left the house well she was a bit compulsive about the cleanliness of her own personal hoosegow and our dear fred in the midst of his unemployment felt perfectly fine simply hanging around the house getting stoned and drinking beers and watching television and talking on the phone to his friends back east talking about what a great set up he had and well he was the oscar of this unlikely relationship and sister in law she had words with hubby and

fred moved in to my place shortly thereafter

and slept on a palette on the floor in the living room my dog she liked to cuddle up with him at night i’d come walking in before going to work going to take the dog for a walk there they were i felt bad splitting them up and i lived on fulton street a one bedroom flat near the museums and the five futon it came right by the house and fred

he’d go out drinking take the five fulton home well back to my place and just about every time he’d pass out he’d wake up out by the beach the bus driver kicking him in the ribs saying

hey buddy hey pal

last stop

it’s not like she’s that old hippie no

and

i mean it’s not like she’s all sid and nancy either she’s not some frail pale white punker chick listless and uncaring and anarchist and talking smack

and doing a lot of heroin

it’s not like she’s that stringy haired brunette who moved in with who lived with n b after college that would drape herself over him like curtains like a bathrobe

n b and she after college they drifted into the world of not giving a shit

unbelievers agnostics

whose art was all about giving up not surrendering but simply fucking letting go

they’d go to shows but they didn’t mosh they didn’t slam they stood on the side and grooved and critiqued and n b wrote cynical reviews rants polemics for the local underground newspaper for pennies a word

and she would paint using only black oils and white oils and any shade that she could concoct using black and white oils

it was all so dobie gillis stereotypical that

yeah they got bored and

yeah they floundered a bit

toying with politics

but the anarchist party in atlanta georgia was not exactly a growing phenomena in the reagan eighties and so

yeah they had to drift into doing a little heroin

snorting it at first maybe chasing the dragon if they got hold of some good choice black tar then they popped it then they hell what the fuck then they just shot up heroin what the fuck

and then they had no money

because n b he spent all his trust fund that went pretty quickly and they moved to a place down in that no man’s land near the marta line between georgia state and inman park and they tried to start a little business on the dregs of his trust fund and that failed

because they liked to do a lot of heroin

and they started this cleaning service

and they would clean out houses

but that kind of ended when they got caught casing the places coming back later and stealing stuff

and then they found a very creative outlet they called it

shopping

hey what you doing man well dude we’re going shopping this afternoon

yeah they would hit high end department stores shoplift incredibly expensive things and then return them the next day for cash refunds

because they liked to do a lot of heroin

and they were serious punkers and n b would put on headphones and play his bass to the stooges late into the night and smoke fag after fag and she would talk about how fucked up the system was how the president was a fucking faggot crook and how the fucking hippies were faggots and how the fucking panda bear at the national zoo was a faggot and how the faggots were faggots

because they liked to do a lot of heroin

and then they just disappeared

and then one day they just weren’t there then one day they just didn’t show up

they just disappeared

and

he says no

he says no it’s not like she’s that listless punker no she’s not

he says yeah

i know a girl well yeah he says with that grin that toothy dirty old man grin he says yeah i guess really she is all woman

i know a woman

this woman i know she give me a wink when i say this this woman she give me a wink because she know i know she plays both sides of the fence she know i can see both sides this woman she is torn nee perhaps stretched between betwixt

those two worlds

he say yeah he say she fight so hard to touch both sides she try so hard to keep in touch with both sides maybe every now and then actually getting down in that puddle and wallering around getting all dirty

maybe mixing up with the dead kennedys

maybe nibbling on some marijuana tainted chocolate toffee till she gets the nods

but hey he says

but hey

she still

fighting the man

fighting from becoming the man

goddamn he say goddamn she put up quite a fight

so she don’t get stuck in that vice presidency of corporate america middle

those shoes though they be hot they way they put that wiggle in her walk the way they put that shake in her shimmy

and he say and he grin you know how i dig those starched white shirts pulled all tight pulled all snug across those sugary cones of delight high beams up and bright and blinding

but she don’t want she just dread that middle ground that most uncomfortable middle ground of corporate vice presidency where they just don’t want to know they just don’t want to care

he say yeah best simply to get on the bus and disappear