P-Town Wail by Minea Herwitz

In the Spirit of “Howl”: A P-Town Wail

I have seen the folks from my high school plugged up with babies in tightly
stretched wombs squeeze into sequin ball gown purgatoria flipped upside
down in the limo crying for more
the little angels of Hell parade name-branded like smoke stacks strutting peacocks
and bubblegum ballsacks coming out from discount jeans and glow-in-the-dark boxers
who held needles to tin-foil Bibles with lighters going click clack in the dark back
seat of a cheap truck with windows open to the eucalyptus breeze in the back lot
and pierced tits, clits, noses, runs in panty hoses stained mascara faces and ironed
out hair pulled up to hide the sleepy look plastered on their faces from the drugs
all them grass stained carpet burned books tossed aside like the way mommy kicks
them out of the house when she can’t stand her kids no more at least til tomorrow
I’ve seen them cut up calling slut to the backyard dog with safety pins in their ears
hanging loosely behind the gas station talking smack smoking crack
coming out with nothing at all, nothing at all, thinking bout stealin some
shit from Ross or otherwise, a liquor bottle from the grocery market store
under their sweaty shirts and takin it to the beach
who cried when boob jobs gone wrong in big sobs in echo stairwells sayin fuck
the principle, fuck the police, fuck you, too and get the hell outta here I just
don’t care any more
who tattooed themselves silly with the only words they clung to skin tight alley
pants and zippers in the playground coming down all over chests and faces
getting fucked on the plastic red curly slide
who binged hungover high at Denney’s grand slam beer can under table made
milkshakes with Coors and wandered pissdrunk to the beach
who waited at seveneleven for a butt to smoke the last leaves out of
who sat on parents empty terraced gardens while they were out and lined up for
coke and snorted crushed anti-this anti-that til everything was anti-
something and the tv was on
who plugged in shot up cried out wailed on this that and them and pesty little
brothers forced to stay in their rooms and peak out at nylon stocking stiletto
condoms filled gasoline tanked carbon babies in the garage inhale, inhale,
ex
who cheated on tests, girlfriends, boyfriends, teachers, momma’s a Jehovah’s now,
daddy’s run away, oil change, oil change while I stay the same
who worshipped springer, simpson, and who killed kenny, spelled “enough” with
two “f”s like fingered freddy waiting through classes, wading through
mudwater til graduation elation came and then, Ah! the workforce
manifesto of brilliantine eyes and the green gold for the gringo who could
learn a trade like Ace, Texaco, or gym machinery
who wallowed in despair tacos and supreme illiterate beings like sour cream,
hoping for a diamond to descend and climb the mountain of stability in
marriage and sickness like a grease spot on the driveway next to a C-ment
lawn flowering with weeds and dust and chain-link sorrow
who bought a dog from the mall, who bought lunch from the mall, whose cultural
ignorances are smoothed at the mall with Pad-thai, chow mein, corn dog
bliss and Mickey D’s 40 oz. melodies like a rapture and were saved by the
neon lights of cigarette stores and corn nut cemeteries all over the hill and
out of sight and San Francisco a glowing haze in the stranger distance a
world far and foreign when all you’ve got you’ve got here in our
capitalistic little hole with everything you need and more and more and more
who lived and died in a suburban abyss, whose friends came to the church for one
last goodbye, who crashed drunk into trees in cars going too fast, who went
to the beach, and cried
who held a crucificial sacrifice and one last drink held to the stars who themselves
blur with the pop music rhapsodies of saturday nights
who fevered for lays and maybe a train, taxi, or rolling bucket and the lights on the
hills to fade and for me to be away from here but then to be lost alone
afraid a coward in skate shoes in a world of big words and nowhere to go
but back to the bars, the surf lounge or Winter’s or the back alley blues and
the sewage smell from the wafting american flag and the fag walking
jumped by five preteens with nothing to do
who had nothing to do and went to the beach, to the strip mall, to the basements of
their older friends who pushed heavy carcinogenic nursery rhymes trying to
feel sublime subliminal but only felt minimal small town redneck local
yokel son of a wailing bitch who shakes the rugs in front of her house with
an ashy Marlboro dangling from yellowed lips and jaundiced skin
who promised you everything and delivered you from nowhere birthed you from
your sunken house swept you in their souped up rides rode you down with
blaring music til the tears in your eyes were the closest thing to emotion
you’ve felt in a long time and its only the wind from the opened window on
the passenger’s side
who keep digging holes and spewing pus and spending time and money on wasted
dreams and soiled days who live to die and are dying to live
who rot, like the town rots, like the streets rot, like the railings at the pier rot where
families fish for contaminated fish from polluted grey shorewater tidebreak
broken backs and broken mortgages in a city where no sidewalks lead out,
only buzzing freeway roads that ascend high up the mountain to another
City and at last, another
whose worlds collapse in glass bottled manufactured pity soaked wet dreams and
cash withdrawals from ATM headstones and burritos to go, but to where?
and by what means? with a third eye on the cop cars that sit and stagnate on
the streets like the rest of us corpuscular corpselike caveats the big one the
big cadaver of a hometown whose stink and stench fills our mouths and
minds like peeling flesh from the grill on Easter sunday
who labor and tinker in underground labs bent over cash registered sadness in
blind-sided eyes and hands blackened fishy odored mechanical me,
exhausted and ignited by the rumble of my engine and the power steering
fluidity of my hard earned paycheck balanced diet weight loss commercial
additives flood through me, O holy dusk, I have had too much again
who gemstone stud their cell phone fancies invisible visions of the future caught
gasping in the frigid air of frozen fish fingers and scamper off to buy more
wine for mom who thanks you for being 21 or older to fuel her habits
screaming this is the American dream faggots! this is the american dream!
and the bossa nova tweed toting seedy faces in opaque shadows
and the madonna in her own temple, shag carpet fishnet whore dancing to the beep
of her own microwave
and the hidden father fortress on his internet industry whose wife stands by the
avocados while he jerks off to gay porn with pop corn and the kids are in
their rooms listening to empty lovesongs from absent parents who wage
war on the television and send their kids to services to school to their rooms
for being what their parents see in themselves and hope they turn out better
and the bitter old people who never got their hot tubs
and the freeway that divides us under one God
and the golf course
and the rust
and the gun slinging pigs in the parking lot waiting for the teenagers to come out to play
and the speedometer who’s tired of never going over fifty
and the houses who suffer from neglect
and the homes that do not welcome but alienate, isolate, insulate, contemplate, and
turn up with empty hands and stomachs
and the beach with the shitwater that flows once a week
and the ocean who doesn’t know anything at all
and the day that knows no end
the joint that knows its end
and the child who knows the end is near
and Jesus in the rafters, welcome home, O, welcome home.