Ergin Sutter...

Ergin Sutter was a mean man. Quick to anger. Beat down anyone come ‘cross his path of ire, and his ire was always afire, mean old motherfucker, he was. He had five boys. Each and every one of those boys hated their father…one died hatin’ him. He beat them – had them beat each other ‘til disgust drove them out to parts unknown. Didn’t matter they never seen each other again – didn’t need to. He done that to them. Killed their souls. Mean old bastard.

Arthur was the big one. ‘Turo. He played a little football he did, but was never too bright to be gon’ to college, but he played in the Army and some men came round to see – take a look at this big mean kid. Head like a block. Thick everywheres. T’ighs de size of watermelons inside his pants. Had a time with Pittsburgh, but not regular. He was a defender, linebacker maybe, hurt people, until they hurt him.  Bad. Just takes once sometime. Wasn’t worth much after dat, and went to work on the docks. Heard a rumor he got crushed under a forklift, but that don’t sound right. For the forklift.

Messel was next and he bore the brunt of Big Arthur. Took a beating that kid. The first victim you know – after Art, cause the old man started in on Arturo – dats what his Momma called him. She left, went back to Puerto Rico or Nicaragua or whatever. Messel, he was slight, and wiry and wise. I think. The beatings never got to his mind. His mind was strong. He took it. Messel Sutter is a city controller in Arkansas, somewhere. Do you believe that. A controller – in charge of all that money. But back then he would bloody little David no end, until little David choked on a dog at the Giants. No one felt worse than Messel. Messel missed him the most. But the old man had one less mouth to feed.

Now I am looking out my window to that of another. This man looked vaguely familiar yet was older than most of my acquaintances. He looked Weathered, not of the outdoor variety, but still Well Worn. Weary. He was opening pill bottles one at a time – medication – for various ailments, most resulting from the fore mentioned ‘Weathering’.

He watched himself in his own mirror as he dropped each pill into a small crystalline dish sitting on tiled countertop. One by one until there were eight. Eight pills in the crystalline plate. He stared at them wondering if they were worth taking and how close would he be to the end of it all if he decided to stop altogether. Would he go fast, or slow, from some kind of rot inside to take his heart, his gut, his spine or his mind ? 

He trusted. And Lost. In his youth he proclaimed with naive hubris  “I believe you trust someone until they prove you wrong then you never trust them again.”

Of course he had it precisely reversed, and that was his first big mistake. No one gives a shit about you, Clarence. You are not the savior nor the center of their lives. They are!

They don’t trust you for a second, Clarence. Understand that. No one trusts you. … and they sure don’t need your blessings or salvation for redemption.

You are the background, scenery, atmospherics, part of a mingling choreography all warped around Them. Not you, Clarence.

(Forgive me. I have no right to 'bestow' a name on you...sir. I belittle you because I fear you. I could be you in some years time not long.)

He raises a glass, then the pill dish, tipping it efficiently into his mouth contents slide onto tongue and he sips water from the glass through a green straw. He wipes his chin. Looks again into his own sagging eyes, then turns out the light. Did he brush his teeth? He did not remember.

The window goes black, as does the mirror. No more peering into this void. No more stranger to avoid.

I’ve trusted and lost. I’ve been disappointed and I have disappointed, I have exceeded expectation, but come short of more. Mine included. The fault was mine, the gift mine to waste. We make choices, or they are made for us. I have been lied to and I have lied. There is no judge.

Morals are the guise that disguise survival.

welcome the calamity

Let them think me mad.

Make it easier on everybody.

No shame on ‘der part,

no guilt on yers.

He just gone and lost his mind.

Nothing we did wrong,

nothing he could do about it.

Just lost it.

Like keys in a parking lot.

Everybody does it –

got somethin’ to lose

since ev’body does it

you excused.

I tell you though.

Somebody drove you to that lot

because you got no car

and don’t need no keys.

So Who that somebody be?

I’ll never admit was you

Too late

Too little to prove

Just as soon

take that truth

With me

To insanity

where

I’ll welcome the calm

like I once welcomed

your arms

before

suffering your calamity

before surrendering

to your harm

shift dance

clear child

marvelous

Eagle Rock was about as far as I could go but yet it felt far enough. Different enough for now, until I step off even further and change my world. Don’t know where that might be at the moment, or how it might be. I have ideas, who knows? So for now, Eagle Rock will do. Beautiful lights from a hilltop that could slide at any moment from a ripple underneath. City engineers and all concerned. Talk of elevations, excavations and evacuation that I simply won’t hear. I’m staying. No I won’t be caught be on the TV because my wife will see and come after me…with a cleaver. No I do not exist, not up here. That’s just not my life. I’m a renter. A subhuman sub-leaser. A transient. A strange dude passing through. If I have to and it all slides, I guess I’ll go‘long for the ride. I don’t have anywhere else to go. Like those poor folks in the south. Victims of cold fate and worse weather.

You can see The Rock across the sweep of hilltops from the termite-riddley deck, three hills over where  someday the freeway cuts through. There she is. Morning sun cresting over the face. Is it 9:30? Must be close…the eagle emerges from the stone. No, not as defined as she once was, weathering away eventually to featureless, but not gone yet. A beautiful morning to catch the Eagle in the shadows. Soon enough she’d be a bleached out ghost of herself, but this morning she soared from the stone face.

So why does the phone ring? WHY now? And who? It will wait. I slide the glass slider behind me to block the beckoning peal which reminds me, “Isn’t  Sutton pitching today?” 
It’s a day game, Business-Man’s Special. (It was a different time. Sexist? You bet. Old boy? Manly? You betcha.) Businessmen from the valleys and the south bay and oc met downtown and procured hooch and cooch in Chinatown, in dead daytime neon hotels baking in the mid day sun, windows open thin drape stand unstirred behind while couples stir behind those, Hot August with the Cubs in town. Now into the seventh inning their frisky business giving new meaning to the stretch. Catching the play-by-play on an RCA while rolling in the hay with some China babe, in case the wife should inquire about the botched double play in the bottom of the eighth when Lopes threw the ball away, beating the traffic to the 5 and clear sailing on out to Pacoima by dinner. “So how was the game?”

Great, except for a play in the bottom of the eighth blew the game

(in the midst of a blow job).

“The Lopes throwing error…”

“Is this my Mom’s gravy?” I say.

The phone again and I can not stay away:

“Marvy’s” gone missing.” Brubeck played in her background. I had no words, so I listened briefly, then she sobbed and brought me back to life and it’s eternal humbling . “A big gadgetron demo on the Miracle Mile…a comeback of sorts…but there is no gadgetron…never was.”

He probably got lost coming home, Netty.

 Never GOT there. Damnit! Hear me? Never got to sell what he didn’t have in the first place and never showed up where he was never scheduled to show up to display. Ask questions. Take some notes. He is missing believe me.

How’s his health? Med’s? Disortentation? Anything? …maybe Blackouts?

He is fit enough with the head and the heart to take public transit clear down to Marine World last month. The bones are bad, so he rides. Otherwise…? She shrugged, “He’d walk.”

Net’ I believe Marvy went to the day game at the Ravine. He’s a mingler and maybe he thought he could drum up some business. Allowing for transfers and all – a good hour and half to the stadium from the Westside. Bet that’s what’s up.”

If not, then Marvelous Marvin (MARVY MARV) man of a thousand gimmicks and gadgets was gone.

Netty’s big break in life (and it sure as hell wasn’t in my employ) was meeting Marvy. Marvy was the king of sling and he sure could sling it. Netty had stayed late one night at her humdrum job and took a dangerous stroll over to the Pantry for a late supper. Marvy had just left his Chevy in a lot down by the Coliseum, closing at ten as it did every night. Kismet, they met, two stools apart at the counter. He convince her she shouldn't be waiting for the bus at this hour, and she was charmed by his gentlemanly manner. He drove her home in the shiny new exec Impala, which tickled her fancy and curled her toes. I lost her that night, best secretary I ever had, but she was eternally happy until this moment, then she sobbed,

“He left the piece behind.” And she didn’t mean a pistola. Marvy was famous for his bad rugs. He figured he didn’t fool a soul so why spend ridiculous money and pretend, when he could go cheap and share the laugh and save the cash. He never left the piece behind. Never. I could now comprehend her concern. May Ling would have to wait.

ngl-cty-dst

Angel  (city)  Dust

Dry heat

 blown from desert crust

by santana’s  torrid gusts

stirs

noxious envy &ozoneanger

anxious rashlibido&inner (city) lust

the empty siren wails

 blows through windows

 curtains trail

flap like cattails

dusting decorator walls

from echoes canyon deep

like a victim’s final weep

down dark gilded halls

carpets seep

while the wealthy sleep

in luxury's keep

The devil’s menace slip and creep

No gravel’s crush

Nor  floorboard creak

But there the same.

……some bitchmother’s

Murderous freak…

with butcherous lust the blood he seeks

On …..Angel

City

dust.