Black Betty, Bam-ba-lam


A tree-lined arroyo
ran down the mountain
right into town,
so we had cover
four blocks from
their main drag.

Whispered conference:
    
     Sneezeweed:  "You can slide
     along that wall, and then. . . "

     Me:  "No, I'm walking.  
     Sneaking only works
     when you know the place.  
     The haircut makes me look
     straight from a distance, and
     a distance is all I'm gonna need.
     I don't plan on striking up
     any howdy-strangers
     this time of night."

She had hacked off my pony tail
and considerably curtailed my facial hair.
"Sharp shiv's a girl's best friend," she said.

So with my stained grey Stetson
and the cowboy boots
I borrowed from Father Jogues,
I looked like scenery in any town
for a thousand square miles.

"Back by sunrise," I said.

"If you're not,
I fuckin reap the place."

It's hard walking easy when
you want to run.  But I have had
so much practice faking cool
that I made it all the way
to their main intersection
looking like I had someplace to go.

There I said my first howdy-stranger:
woman in black with a shotgun
sitting on the curb near a hanging corpse.

Black Betty, she said her name was.
Her Angela Davis 'fro was dusted with grey.

"Who's your friend?"
I said, nodding at the corpse.

"She's a Doggie.  Daughter of the Goddess.
They tried to bring peace
after the grunts rose up,
but they were pacifists,
so they all got killed.
She was the head.
There's a bunch more
hanging in the Big Ditch,"
she said, hitching a thumb over her shoulder.
"They hung the leader here to make a point."

"And you're the honor guard?"

"Hell, no. I'm Raven Clan.
To us, hanging's sacred.
An offering to the birds.
Nobody's cutting her down
till Raven doesn't want her anymore."

"The grunts let you run around loose?"

"Grunts here are mostly Chicano.
They think the Clans are brujas
and leave us alone.  They watch us, though,
just in case."

She gave me directions to Bear Lodge,
and I nodded to the two boys
smoking on the corner
as I turned left onto Market.

I was wondering why the clan
would set a Buddha statue
in front of the door
till the Buddha stood up
with a baseball bat like a toothpick
in one huge hand.
"Howdy Brother," it said,
in a voice a boiling pot of mud
would have if it could speak.

"How'd you know?" I asked.

"Bear that can't tell Bear ain't Bear,"
he said.  

His name was Asshole Bob,
because he'd been so obnoxious to his leary.
He stood six eleven,
weighed five hundred and twenty-five pounds.
"I'm a delaying action," he said.
"Bullet could take me out same as anybody,
but then they'd have to move the corpse,
and that'd slow 'em down."

I asked why be so careful
if they weren't under attack.

"Case you ain't noticed,
the power's off.  That means food's spoiling.  
Not for us, though.
Got a meat locker in the basement,
beer cellar below that,
grain and veggies in the second sub-basement,
all kept cool and dry by solar panels on the roof,
where we got snipers.  They saw you coming."

So they fed me--bacon, biscuits,
buttermilk, oranges, pears--
and I went back up the mountain
with a ham (still hot), a small keg of beer,
and an escort to bring us all back down.

Nobody fucked with the Bears.

Good reading, Rick. One question,

 I don't plan on striking up
     any howdy-stranger
     this time of night

to

There I had my first howdy-stranger

reads weird to me. Tom

The whole stretch?  Or just the phrase?

No, not the whole stretch, sorry. The turn-around from "no howdy-stranger" to "my first howdy-stranger" took me by surprise, didn't pick up any recognition that it was a turnaround.

Was hoping the odd phrase would signal that Bear was aware of the turnaround.  Dude's got a dry sense of humor, and this is his second tour in hell.  In that sense he's like the priest.

I Really Wanna Know


"Heard you got a delegation last night."

"Just some pilgrims."

"I want to question them."

"Can't do that, Manny.  They're
under the Bear."

"Maybe I'll take 'em from you."

"Have a beer first.  Catch."

"Don't want no cerveza.
I'm responsible for what happens
in this town.  You gotta have respect."

"Manny, my friend, How many times
we had a beer together?
Me tossing you a bottle,
that is respect.
And if you wanna be the big patron,
why not get the lights back on?"

"We're workin' on it.  How you keep
the beer so cold?"

"Solar on the roof.  No big secret.
See it from all over town."

"You better not be planning anything.
The bosses are dead and the Cools' day is over.
It's the workers now.  We run things."

"Too bad you killed all the folks
who made things happen."

"They kept it from us.
We'll figure it out.
Grunts ain't dumb."

"Didn't say they were.  Here.
have another one."

"Thanks.  You still got
that bear in there?"

"Den Mother?  Sure do.
Eight hundred pounds of love.
She's eating up a storm right now,
getting ready for nap time."

"She hibernates, huh?"

"Yeah, but don't get ideas.
A winter-woke bear's a mean cuss.
We tiptoe around her
when things get cold."

"Her and you about the same size.
Oughta go dancing."

"Who says we don't?"

Added a character to reply 140.  She insisted.

good reading...

All Along the Watchtower

"You told that beaner
there's a bear in here."

"There is, little dude.
Her name's Den Mother.
She lives on the third floor."

"My name's Dragon."

"Heard about you.
Grunt to leary in one jump.
No offense, but
you get to be five twenty-five,
everybody'll look little to you, too."

"Can I see her?"

"The bear?  Best not.
She's blind.
We found her as a cub
with a face full of buckshot.
Don't know what happened
to her mom.  We brought her here.
She lives on the third floor.
Has the whole place to herself.
New scents disturb her,
so only a few of us visit.
We feed her a lot of different stuff
to keep her interest, but mostly
she just wanders around
one shoulder to the wall,
or she sleeps.   Sometimes
I play guitar and sing to her.
She likes Simon and Garfunkel."

"Does she ever attack?"

"Now and then she
gets cranky and takes a swipe,
but she's basically calm.
The hash oil we put in her grub
helps some."

"A lot of hash oil for one that big."

"That's just stuff we tell the cits.
She's not a griz, just a little black bear,
a hundred and fifty pounds, give or take.
We trim back her claws
so she won't dig through the floor,
so when she does take a swipe,
it's just a love tap.  Half the time
she misses altogether.  Never bites.
Can't see well enough."

"The beaner was scared."

"Sometimes that's a good thing."

"I'm starting a clan.
I'll remember that."

Goog Goog a Joob

"How come you
keep calling Manny a beaner?
You're a beaner too."

"I'm a Dragon."

"You're a beaner first."

"I'm a beaner Dragon."

"I didn't know you could smile."

Why Can't We Go on as Three?

"NO!
And if that bitch
tries anything with you,
I'll open her
from cunt to breastbone!"

"Look, it's not her idea.
Asshole Bob says the Bear women
hate having an unattached girl around,
especially one who's not Bear."

"That doesn't mean
you should marry her!"

"She's gotta be spoken for,
the way you're spoken for.
I'm Bear.  You're mine.
If I say she's mine, too,
they'll hang a claw around her neck
and leave her alone.
It's still open season on Cools out there,
and she doesn't have a Clan.
If the Bears turn her out,
she's dead."

"Yeah, and when I get fat,
you'll have somebody else
to entertain you."

"Didn't happen the other three times.
I'll like watching you round out."

"Why did you break up
with the others?"

"First one left me for an artist.
Second couldn't stand to wander.
Third thought I was a bad influence,
loafing around the way I do.
She shoulda been a Straight
with all that ambition.  Owns
a chain of boutiques now."

"I like to wander.
And I stalk better than you do.
You couldn't run far enough
to shake me off."

"Wouldn't think of it.
Now, can I tell everybody
Miss Mary Mack and her cat
are wives two and two point five?"

"I suppose we'll have to sleep together."

"Yeah, but honestly,
she sort of creeps me out,
and I never liked sleeping with a cat."

"Well, in case you two get frisky,
I'm sleeping with my blade."

Dog and Butterfly

"Are you Sleepswithbear?
My name is Lilac.
I keep the Book here at the Lodge.
Is it true you married the cat lady?
If it is, I gotta write it down."

"Full name's Ching Monkey Sleepswithbear.
And I married Miss Mary Mack and her cat,
whose name is Medea.  Mary wanted
to make sure the cat was official.  It has
some of her DNA in it."

"Wow.  I like bears, but I wouldn't
put my DNA in one."

"Me neither.  But what can you do?"

"Well, I think you're cool.
Most men wouldn't do that
just to keep a woman safe.
Now you got to protect her,
keep her fed, all that.  And if
she gets knocked up, the kid's yours.
You only met her the other day, right?"

"Getting shot at together
makes a quick bond.
We'll get a divorce
after this shit's over."

"If you survive it."

"Right on."

"<Giggle> We say 'right arm' now."

"Outa state."

"<Giggle>
<Pause>
I wanna tell you something.
You need to know this.
Everybody does, but most won't hear."

"A secret?"

"It will be, if nobody does nothing.
 It's about the Doggies.
Daughters of the Goddess."

"The ones got killed."

"Shot like fish in a barrel.
They lived in the Big Ditch,
an arroyo that used to be Main Street
till the idiot men that settled the place
cut down all the trees
and the water didn't have anything
to hold it back.  In 1890 the monsoon
dug out a trench eighty feet deep
and a quarter mile wide.
Only one house stood,
owned by a woman who had the sense
to sandbag it when the rain started.
After the Rev, a bunch of women
settled in the ditch, calling it the Cleft of the Goddess.
Folks called 'em Doggies,
and they really believed in peace.
You coulda raped one and she wouldn't have
done so much as grab for a rock.
What woulda happened is her Sisters
would swarm on you and hug and hug
till you couldn't stand it anymore
and put your thing back in your pants.
That's what made 'em hated.  
And not just by Grunts.
Straights and Cools hated 'em too.
See, they would get between
a man and his woman
and soak up his anger
so he couldn't hit her no more.
Men called 'em dykes, and some were,
but mainly the men were pissed
that the Doggies took away their punching bags.
So when they rose up,
the Grunts poured rifle fire into the ditch
and hung the leader.  The Clans
sat around and cleaned their nails.
I wasn't a Doggie--man messes with me,
he's got a ballbat coming--
but still, those girls
deserved better than that,
and people should know
what happened to 'em."

"You want me to tell the story?"

"I want you to see for yourself.
There's still bodies unburied."

"Let me tell Sneezeweed I'm going."

"She'll want to go with.
With that Angel black,
she'd be dead on the sidewalk."

"We gotta get her some new duds."

"Just come with me.
You got Bear all over you.
So do I.  They're still leaving Clans alone.
We'll go down to the grocery store,
cross the bridge and get some beer.
Look into the Ditch but keep moving.
I'll tell Asshole Bob so he'll come looking
if we get stopped.  But we won't."

"All right."

"I knew you'd take the chance.
Bears are brave.
But they're not always kind.
<Giggle>You need a third wife,
just say so."

 

dear Rick

as i continue to return here and enjoy not only your pen
but also the snippets of song titles and lyrics,
Came The Revolution keeps bringing back
thoughts of The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
by the recently departed Gil Scott Heron
and vaguely as well as the backwards
and forwards of  "Revolution 9"
from "The White Album"
from Lennon.


just a few fun items to ponder
many thanks

silent lotus

`

Soul Man

On the bridge I met the priest.

“Hey, Ike,” I said, “Whatcha doin?”

“Last rites.  They won’t
let me go down and bury ‘em,
so I’m doing it from here.”

“I thought these guys
were all priest lovers.”

“Lotta Prots among ‘em.
Baptists, Church of Christ,
Nazarenes.  They don’t like priests
any more than you do.
The Angels like to think
we’re some kind of spy force,
but the Baseball Massacre
caught us off guard too.
They’re letting us
walk around for now
because they don’t know
what else to do.
Even odds they do us like the Doggies,
especially since we broke from Rome
the day before the ballgame.”

“You broke from Rome?!”

“Great timing, huh?
Yeah, that creepy little old Hitler Youth
they got on the throne now
was the last straw.
Let those soft-handed little gangsters
have their gold-encrusted rules.
The Holy See of the USC
is now Emporia Kansas,
and our pope is Bill the First.
Before everything blew up,
it looked like San Francisco
would recognize us and declare us Cool.
But that’s Mother Church for you—
always out of step.”

“Jesus,” I said.

Lilac tugged my sleeve.
“We gotta go, man.
The guards are looking at us.”

So we went,
the stink following us to the store.

Sky Pilot (Second Verse)

On the way back, he was still there.

"How long you gonna pray?" I asked.

"How long would you
want someone to remember you?"
he answered.

"Must feel good
to be out in the open," I said.

"Speaking of feeling good," he said.
"What happened to alll that fear
you were carrying around?
You're walking like a man
who's right where he belongs."

That surprised me.
"Hadn't thought of it.
I guess I don't have to worry
about who's trying to kill me,
'cause now I know."

"You and me," he said,
"we got our dials set by the Rev,
and here we are again."

I laughed.
It felt good to laugh
there on the bridge
above corpses
with armed enemy on either end.