Long about last August that bastard Bill Kowalski moved his sorry ass in. Parked his mattress at the top of the stairs, set his TV on a couple of cinder blocks and called it home. He'd sleep through the Today Show, but wake in time for Truth or Consequences and the soaps. Then he'd nap until the cartoons came on.
He had a little kitchen set up there in the hallway; a mini-fridge with a hot plate on top. This is him chowing down to his favorite meal, Chef Boy-Ar-Dee. See that lady's leg? It's a cardboard cutout he fished out of a dumpster behind some porn shop. His idea of art.
His rent money dried up by October and we had to kick him out. I heard he's living at the Rescue Mission now. We couldn't peel the naked lady off the wall, so she's still there.
***What makes Bill a bastard? We are so curious...***
Saturday, November 10, 2007
~Bastard Bill Kowalski by Al E. Yus~
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Looking at the back of her jacket, he sputtered, "Why won't you move in with me? I have a lot to give you. I work a 40 hour week. I don't hit you. I don't screw around. You'd only have to pay half the rent and utilities. I'd even spring for the food."
With the turn of the door knob, she walked out and turned her life around.
Long about last August that bastard Bill Kowalski moved his sorry ass in. Parked his mattress at the top of the stairs, set his TV on a couple of cinder blocks and called it home. He'd sleep through the Today Show, but wake in time for Truth or Consequences and the soaps. Then he'd nap until the cartoons came on.
He had a little kitchen set up there in the hallway; a mini-fridge with a hot plate on top. This is him chowing down to his favorite meal, Chef Boy-Ar-Dee. See that lady's leg? It's a cardboard cutout he fished out of a dumpster behind some porn shop. His idea of art.
His rent money dried up by October and we had to kick him out. I heard he's living at the Rescue Mission now. We couldn't peel the naked lady off the wall, so she's still there.
Every Year
Every year, when we passed through town on our way back East, we'd stay the night with Gerry.
He was the only one of us still left in town. We'd all moved away, within days, months of graduation, a couple years at most. But he kept the same studio on University Street he'd had since my sophomore year.
For dinner, he'd nuke some frozen peas and carrots in the microwave and grilled a thin gray steak, or he would make tomato sauce that had to simmer for a minimum of six hours. At midnight, he gobbled spaghetti on the bed-cum-couch that served as his only piece of furniture.
Every year he asked how we were doing and we filled him in. And we asked how he was doing and his lips would stretch into the thinnest possible smile. He'd discuss his plan to move to Dallas in quick brushstrokes before unrolling the mural of explanation of how his employers were assholes, his coworkers retards, and his landlady a bitch.
"I'm gettin' out of this town," he told us every year. "Just as soon as I can save up some money." He owed his landlady a lot of back rent.
Every year he said it. "Movin' to Dallas soon. Soon as I save up the money."
Meanwhile, I developed crow's feet.
Post a Comment