Vic Swan

Fuck You

When the first words the person hears
from your mouth are 'FUCK YOU!'
angry,
intentional and loud
it can go either way.
circumstance plays a big part.
and since the first words i heard
from his mouth were,
'give me your money'
and he had back-up
and i was in a phone booth
at the time
i had little choice.
i was leaving a message
for the waitress i'd met the night before
at the jazz cafe where i did poetry.
she liked what i did, and expressed
interest
with a free scotch,
and her phone number
on a napkin.
"maybe we can get together soon."
she said.
i had been on the street,
blending in
with the homeless
phoneless,
thus the phone booth,
in front of the pawn shop
on the corner
and i was in the process of leaving
a cheerful message when
mr.'give me your money'' barged in.
'FUCK YOU!', i roared,
and still holding the
phone, with no where to go,
i hit him in the gut
hard.
he fell into his back-up
and both of them tumbled to
to the sidewalk like dominoes,
and i used my voice
like a weapon.
convincingly crazy,
loud and focused,
a vocal baseball bat,
'youcocksucknasshole
scumbag, ever try that shit
with me again and i'll break
every fucking bone in your body
and feed your raggedy ass carcass
to the rats.'
there were other choice
phrases in the tirade
but anyway,
that was what the waitress heard
when she checked her messages.
and when i went by the cafe to explain,
her co-workers said they thought
she'd left town.
and that, i guessed,was that.

but,
there was an upside.
the guy who always asked me
for a smoke,
offered me one instead,
'store bought menthol'
and i noticed people crossing
the street to avoid me
if they could,
whenever i went
to the store or plasma center.
there were glances and whispers.
i heard 'crazy old white man'
more than once
and when the
rumor got around that i cut the
ears off bodies in 'nam
i went to the pet store,
bought some dried pig's ears,
the kind dogs chew on
trimmed 'em
a bit and wore 'em like a necklace.

sometimes you have to let
a good story, or bad rumor,
run it's course.





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