jj jackman in the midst of seven - index
petrified wood 3/10/00 bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang i smashed my hand in silence on a light beige sand if you will vinyl aluminum with a dot in the middle riveted ATM machine without making the slightest sound (as he reads in his monotonous although- i’m- obviously- contextually- quite- sound- but- lack- the- luster- to- project- my- own- work- with- sufficient- enthusiasm tone) before Emma received her tip in the form of a four dollar power ball lottery ticket (she graciously let me slide) before Milton in his social do not discriminate against the white boy without any special attributes at least apparently so in the presence of Derek bought me a second Molson draft even though the one i was drinking was as yet not actually paid for (i left a twenty dollar bill at the office, and it wasn’t in my billfold how embarrassing!) before asking Becky if she liked my poem which had as its conclusion something that i had already said previously or so she said it wasn’t always like this i mean really there was a time once upon a time in my life it wasn’t always like this it wasn’t like this when i sat on my red square foam padded fabric with gold threads chair on black metal frames overlooking the white shaded green triangulated porcelain S on a brass pole lamp overlooking Uncle Johnny’s brown and white daguerreotypical calm dude holding a fly fishing rod photo in a frame next to his on-the-way-to-California- to-be-a movie-star-then- to-become-a-marine-then-to-die-in-Guam piece of petrified wood that he gave to my mom while i listened to “walking in the rain, dah dah” with my plastic 3 x 5 transistor radio with the new fangled snap in 9 volt battery that only got two channels that you got free when dad bought six dozen Upjohn Unicap Senior blue and white boxed glass bottled vitamins and then Gene Pitney ... “when these little minds tear you in two, what a town without pity can do”... and that “pretty woman” walked on by and at twelve i didn’t even know who she was yet but already i was emotionally involved with her and “don’t call me angel in the morning bay bee” would be released in maybe six more years when all that was left of my mini music box was a white plastic triangular lucent on the broken edge remnant next to the Westinghouse washing machine in the laundry room where the praying mantis cocoon hatched and my grandmother murdered sufficient numbers of these one inch miniature insect prototype of the boy- when- you- were- a- kid- you- had- respect- for- this- four- inch- long- menace- that- would- rarely- fly- not- like- a- Japanese- beetle- if- you- threw- it- up- in- the- air bug that she massacred with a broom in frantic we- don’t- have- these- things- in- italy- even- though- i- was- born- in- America swings so that at that very day the species was scheduled for at risk registration before everybody even knew that there was an endangered species list and the beneficent over indulgent father who hates his kid enough not to beat the crap out of him for ev’ry good reason when it was legal hears that the black shark that cost five dollars died in the twenty nine gallon fish tank discovered with white eye fungus rocking in limited motion behind the Wisa overpowered filter curved suction tube in the left upper corner before Uncle Ben, not of famed white rice stature dry heaved at the dinner table telling us how the Marines take away dead bodies from the battle and though our Uncle Johnny was really and tragically dead, he, Uncle Ben, was actually believed to be deader than our dead uncle at the time the bodies were loaded until he was surprisingly revived and that’s why he was able to visit us up from Fullerton before he spent the next two hours in agony in the bathroom as much concerned that my honest Abe grandfather would tell the police that his trunk was full of stolen furs as he was about the pain of the loose lead in his stomach and abdomen and we never really knew the exact day that that piece of petrified wood disappeared or my two cigar boxes full of pitchin’- when- you- threw- them- they- were- so- stiff- they- knocked- the- other- kids’- down- and- you- got- to- keep- them cards or my rock- that- Barry- tried- to- get- back- that- his- mother- gave- me- without- asking- him- ‘cause- i- was- good- in- science collection we were too happy to care then and we wondered why we never saw Uncle Ben again but i think of him every time i pass by the rice section in the supermarket “oo dee jay jay” “what Gram, don’t call me jay jay” “oo dee jay why don’t you sit down and eat your potatoes and eggs i made them with the peppers this time i made the orange and tomato salad for you too with the olive oil and da Laura salt, eat you’re so thin”