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Oh, the Pain of it All
by Pete Geary |
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Just a few months back, I witnessed first-hand the emotional travails that dedicated poets must face as a consequence of their art. Parked
in the street was an ancient Plymouth station wagon, a woman sitting
behind the wheel. Standing on the hood of the car was a very thin young man clad only
in jeans and a tee shirt. He was
loudly imploring the driver to forgive him, and to remember that he
really, really loved her. More than life itself. More than his poetry. A
whole lot more than that other woman. The
driver never said a word. Just started the car, and drove off. The poet rolled across the car's rooftop and landed on the street.
Badly.
We
stared at the street poet for awhile before beginning a vigorous
discussion about what should be done about injured poets lying in the
street. The consensus was
that poetry was a dangerous business, and there were bound to be
casualties along the way. No
doubt a street cleaning crew would come along and take him to wherever
it was that broken poets go. Best
to keep moving and get everyone to work.
As we reached our car, the street poet began screaming for a cell
phone so he could call his beloved and beg her forgiveness. Apparently
time moves differently for poets. It had only been about 30 seconds or
so since his beloved had gunned the engine and tossed him to the street.
The likelihood that she had reached a destination with a phone
was pretty remote. The likelihood
that she had changed her opinion of him in that time was even more
remote. But
this was a man in love, and what looked like a broken ankle at least.
He began to drag himself across the sidewalk into our yard,
crying for a phone. After another brief huddle, we decided that someone was going to have to call for an ambulance. I pulled the short straw. "911,
what service do you need?"
"Ambulance."
"Is the injured party conscious?"
"Oh
yes, in fact he's crawling across my lawn at the moment, yelling for a
cell phone."
"Is
he badly injured?"
"I
think he hurt his leg."
"Why
do you think that?"
"Because
he's crawling around the yard. Can
you get someone here soon? We're
already late for work, and I'm worried that he may crawl off somewhere
and we won't find him until the spring thaw. Especially if he finds a
phone somewhere."
"Sir,
is this is some prank?"
"It's
not a prank. We can't get him to hold still, and we don't have a cell
phone. And my wife isn't about to
let him crawl into the house to use our phone." About fifteen minutes later, a Fire Department ambulance pulled up. The poet had worked his way nearly across the front yard by then. The paramedics had a hard time keeping straight faces as they prepared the poet for transport, mostly because he kept begging them to stop at a pay phone on the way to the hospital so he could call his beloved, and offer her abject apologies for being such a worthless scumbag. Eventually
he was strapped down, loaded into the ambulance, and driven off to a
hospital. The paramedics were apparently in a good mood; they didn't gag
him. I know I would have.
My
hope has always been that the ambulance team granted the poet's wish,
and stopped at a phone booth on the way to the hospital. If not for the
sake of the poet, at least for the sake of those poor people waiting to
take care of him in the Emergency Room. |
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