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There are only two things in life and they mingle with each other in a
helpless perpetuity much like the hovering buzzards in a caricature of a dying
man in the desert, hopeless, alone, unaware of such birds and their eagerness
to prey on him. But even the dying man in the desert knows what I’m talking
about. He’s felt the sting, that unstoppable queasiness deep inside, the nagging
physical aches, and a paralyzing stopping power that’s enough to leave you
crying in bed for a week. Life, it’s either women or food poisoning. There are
no other routes.
The first time I got food poisoning was about seven years ago after
consuming a half raw, fully tainted corn dog. It was in a ghost of a town that I
used to call home, a small factory settlement off of the road to bigger places.
The people were blind and lame from taking in too many fiberglass particles and
cedar shavings. I had gone back looking for something I saw as a child, a place
with fresh air, space, and freedom. Instead I found fresh air, space you couldn’t
afford, and a freedom that was relative to your status of indentured service within
the factory of your family line. But I guess it was something.
The meat of the sickness didn’t take hold until a few hours later, when I was
shacked up in a plywood motel with a girl I knew growing up. She was prom
queen, and I still had this thing for her. Thankfully, Julie replaced her perky
perseverance to stay one step atop the general gap toothed population of the
spiritless town with an unabashed promiscuity that arose from one too many
rejected college applications, babies, and black eyes. We were both self-
medicating soul searchers who happened to bounce into each other at just the
right time. Whallah! A match made in heaven.
My stomach was letting out these sharp distress signals, little atomic
bombs that went off every five minutes, telling me ‘you’re either getting really sick
or dying buddy, but whatever it is, you’d better get ready for it’. So with the
gurgling and the head starting to throb, I pulled Julie onto me. We got into it
pretty hot and heavy for a few minutes, but when my shirt came off, it came to a
halt. Not because I suddenly wretched the foulest assortment of Diary Queen
value menu products on her writhing body, but because of a tattoo. Julie leapt
backwards off the bed, staring at the sentence on my chest while restoring to
original state, any articles of clothing that had previously entered into
dishevelment or otherwise come undone during our therapeutic festivities.
“It’s sick,” She bawled at me with a backwards drawl. “You must be some
kind of maniac or killer to have that on your chest. I’m getting out of here.”
Six months after reading Thomas Wolfe, with little contemplation, but
thorough inspiration, I went to a tattoo parlor and got the title of his book You
Can’t Go Home Again inked onto my chest. I believed that the idea in this one
sentence could be summed up by so many people in so many ways. In fact, it
had. When Julie saw it, she thought:
“You can’t go home again, ever! Because when I’m done with you bitch,
they won’t be able to identify you!”
And maybe she was right. But I didn’t have time to think about it much,
when the phone started ringing. It was the front desk clerk and he said in
mucousy snarl, “Everything alright over there, a woman just tore out of the
driveway really scared like and half naked.”
“It’s alright,” I said, feeling the final warning bell going off in my guts, a huge
quiver that nearly made me lose my lunch from two different exits. I didn’t
mention the diarrhea, but it’s like siphoning the gas out of a car with a tank that
never goes dry. You’ll be tackling some heavy reading material if your eyes can
focus while fighting the dizzy spells.
With a last desperate lurch toward the bathroom, I screamed into the phone
at the clerk, “I can’t talk right now! I’m going to vomit about fifty times!”
And it ran its course for the next five days. In the worst of its clutches, I was
a blank form expelling all solids, hallucinating, and dehydrated to the point of
near death. Even so, it steadied like a raging river must eventually, weakening
to the bothersome but bearable headaches, chills, and slight queasiness that
aroused a lingering fear of a second bout. One that tipped the odds against and
started the process anew. But I was spared such an incident and allowed to
plod my way through this world just as foolishly, promising never to share my
stomach lining again with a parasite or my bed with a bad woman, but always
turning my head in interest at the first jar of mayonnaise that’s been expired for
six months or at the woman that is selling her goods off at wholesale prices.
The second time I got food poisoning is now. Down at the river’s edge
while inhaling hamburgers containing equal parts meat and unidentifiable
materials, cooked by a man who looked to be more qualified for removing
human waste from outhouses. Hanging my arms over a rail guard along the
river, with the old familiar rumblings calling, makes me reflect on my first time.
Tapping my chest, I think of the tattoo, and know I can’t go home again. I’m
afraid there may be a warrant out on me for plotting to killing that dame. I spill an
introductory heave into the water below and think about getting a tattoo of the
well read turn of the century author Jack Black’s book on my back. You Can’t
Win.
helpless perpetuity much like the hovering buzzards in a caricature of a dying
man in the desert, hopeless, alone, unaware of such birds and their eagerness
to prey on him. But even the dying man in the desert knows what I’m talking
about. He’s felt the sting, that unstoppable queasiness deep inside, the nagging
physical aches, and a paralyzing stopping power that’s enough to leave you
crying in bed for a week. Life, it’s either women or food poisoning. There are
no other routes.
The first time I got food poisoning was about seven years ago after
consuming a half raw, fully tainted corn dog. It was in a ghost of a town that I
used to call home, a small factory settlement off of the road to bigger places.
The people were blind and lame from taking in too many fiberglass particles and
cedar shavings. I had gone back looking for something I saw as a child, a place
with fresh air, space, and freedom. Instead I found fresh air, space you couldn’t
afford, and a freedom that was relative to your status of indentured service within
the factory of your family line. But I guess it was something.
The meat of the sickness didn’t take hold until a few hours later, when I was
shacked up in a plywood motel with a girl I knew growing up. She was prom
queen, and I still had this thing for her. Thankfully, Julie replaced her perky
perseverance to stay one step atop the general gap toothed population of the
spiritless town with an unabashed promiscuity that arose from one too many
rejected college applications, babies, and black eyes. We were both self-
medicating soul searchers who happened to bounce into each other at just the
right time. Whallah! A match made in heaven.
My stomach was letting out these sharp distress signals, little atomic
bombs that went off every five minutes, telling me ‘you’re either getting really sick
or dying buddy, but whatever it is, you’d better get ready for it’. So with the
gurgling and the head starting to throb, I pulled Julie onto me. We got into it
pretty hot and heavy for a few minutes, but when my shirt came off, it came to a
halt. Not because I suddenly wretched the foulest assortment of Diary Queen
value menu products on her writhing body, but because of a tattoo. Julie leapt
backwards off the bed, staring at the sentence on my chest while restoring to
original state, any articles of clothing that had previously entered into
dishevelment or otherwise come undone during our therapeutic festivities.
“It’s sick,” She bawled at me with a backwards drawl. “You must be some
kind of maniac or killer to have that on your chest. I’m getting out of here.”
Six months after reading Thomas Wolfe, with little contemplation, but
thorough inspiration, I went to a tattoo parlor and got the title of his book You
Can’t Go Home Again inked onto my chest. I believed that the idea in this one
sentence could be summed up by so many people in so many ways. In fact, it
had. When Julie saw it, she thought:
“You can’t go home again, ever! Because when I’m done with you bitch,
they won’t be able to identify you!”
And maybe she was right. But I didn’t have time to think about it much,
when the phone started ringing. It was the front desk clerk and he said in
mucousy snarl, “Everything alright over there, a woman just tore out of the
driveway really scared like and half naked.”
“It’s alright,” I said, feeling the final warning bell going off in my guts, a huge
quiver that nearly made me lose my lunch from two different exits. I didn’t
mention the diarrhea, but it’s like siphoning the gas out of a car with a tank that
never goes dry. You’ll be tackling some heavy reading material if your eyes can
focus while fighting the dizzy spells.
With a last desperate lurch toward the bathroom, I screamed into the phone
at the clerk, “I can’t talk right now! I’m going to vomit about fifty times!”
And it ran its course for the next five days. In the worst of its clutches, I was
a blank form expelling all solids, hallucinating, and dehydrated to the point of
near death. Even so, it steadied like a raging river must eventually, weakening
to the bothersome but bearable headaches, chills, and slight queasiness that
aroused a lingering fear of a second bout. One that tipped the odds against and
started the process anew. But I was spared such an incident and allowed to
plod my way through this world just as foolishly, promising never to share my
stomach lining again with a parasite or my bed with a bad woman, but always
turning my head in interest at the first jar of mayonnaise that’s been expired for
six months or at the woman that is selling her goods off at wholesale prices.
The second time I got food poisoning is now. Down at the river’s edge
while inhaling hamburgers containing equal parts meat and unidentifiable
materials, cooked by a man who looked to be more qualified for removing
human waste from outhouses. Hanging my arms over a rail guard along the
river, with the old familiar rumblings calling, makes me reflect on my first time.
Tapping my chest, I think of the tattoo, and know I can’t go home again. I’m
afraid there may be a warrant out on me for plotting to killing that dame. I spill an
introductory heave into the water below and think about getting a tattoo of the
well read turn of the century author Jack Black’s book on my back. You Can’t
Win.
contact the eds at:
editors@thetruthmagazine.com
editors@thetruthmagazine.com
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