After Thought

Black gelding with white front pasterns. Nice gait. Had to truck out to the Marina Mart, nearest place to buy cigaret papers, odd place, very religious, sacred junk for sale, Mary on a key chain, little picture of the white Jesus with those eyes that follow you wherever you go. Have to buy a pouch of Bugler to get papers, as it's a sin to sell papers alone, drug paraphernalia. God, I hate proselytizing, it's such a bore. Got out my pocketknife, slit the package open and removed the papers, left the tobacco on the counter. Stop on the way home and watch the lovely horse for a few minutes. My tenses slide under the weight of memory. Cold wet morning, windy, but some yard work in the afternoon. If you see The Utah Kid tell him his lesson took. Some reading. Rosco's funeral was with full honors, cremated with the day's garbage, ashes dumped off the bridge that spans Thrash Creek right where the outflow flows from the College Treatment Plant. It's a really nice spot, actually. The Chemistry Department had several large pyrex stills and our moonshine was legendary, we had our own cooperage, we had our stands of oak trees, we charred barrels, used them once for sherry, then aged the shine in them. After his service we all got shit-faced, the entire school, and there was not a problem until the impromptu fireworks show. For the local cops, we were off-limits, a land-grant, we had our own cops, retired janitors who understood our behavior better than some young buck with a brush cut. But that night the local cops moved in, our retired janitors couldn't stop them. Several other people died, that little Albanian guy, nobody ever spoke to him, he smelled really bad, and one of our women, at that time a small percentage, Bertha, who's breasts were so large and solid that she was actually probably responsible for Rosco's death, because she had shattered both his eardrums, demanded he bury his head there. Listen, I like to think I would allow anything, but my life belies that, I seem to have certain standards, what's not allowed, I'll bore you with a list: trash, in any form, long poses, remembering anything, any pet, tattoes, a specific mushroom.