A Christmas Story

When I was  real little
My Dad would tuck me into bed.
“You get to sleep.  You know Mr. Jackson is watching.”
Mr. Jackson was our chief of police
Scrawny and sixty.
And I imagined him leaning a ladder
Up against my window and shining
His flashlight in to check to see
If I was asleep. “Night,” my Dad would say
And,  as I remember it, pausing in
The dark hall way to light a cigarette Bogie style
And then his footsteps going away.
And then no more.
Later I remember going upstairs to bed
By myself.  I put the light on
And read “Famous Monsters” a fan
Magazine for those who loved them all:
Frankenstein, Werewolf, Dracula.
And I believed I was right.
Dracula would kick all their asses.
But when I got the book from the library
I didn’t even make it to the village inn.
Too damn scared and even scared
With the book under my bed.

Yes, it was strange in the fifties.
Mr. Frank Stefanik who worked in the mill
And lived behind us with his dog Oscar
Saw a flying saucer and it was in the papers.
A week late he fell off a crane.  Dead.

Mars is calling. We all were waiting.

At school I had a friend Steve
Who they called “Sputnik”
Since he was as smart and as wearied as Bob Dylan at sixty
When he was seven.   And you could listen
To the real sputnik beeping on his stepfather’s
Shortwave and we deserved Rod Serling

Yes, he was inevitable.  We had all of that
Under Cheyenne Mountain. Waiting.

Steve would come to school
With a big black eye and tell everyone
How he got beat up by black shapes
But we knew it was his stepfather.

And twenty years later I met him
In a bar and he told me
How he was just driving across a bridge
After his divorce coming back
From visiting his kids and pulled over
And just jumped in the river but
Then changed his mind …
And he laughed and we talked
About “Famous Monsters”.  He still held out
For the Werewolf but there was
Something else and he did kill himself
Before the year was out.
And I’ll always remember how we
Both leaned on the bar after he told his story.
Waiting for something worse to happen.

I Remember a Halloween of Long Ago

 

I remember a Halloween of long ago.

There was a Halloween moon. 

I was going to go with my Uncle Joe. 

"When will he be here?"  "Soon."

 

I sat and waited by the front porch light 

And watched as the ghouls crept by. 

The leaves tumbled down in the Halloween night. 

The clouds were orange in the sky.

 

With moonlight shining on the steel mill red 

As the old and familiar hell. 

And Uncle Joe was beside me…. Said 

"You're ready, I guess?  Oh, well."

 

And we began walking the dreary beat 

I walked every Hallow's eve 

To the houses there on our sad street 

Just where I wanted to leave.

 

When my uncle said. "C'mon get in" 

As we came up to his car. 

Ah, he had a flask and it was full of gin 

And the car was a Jaguar.

 

Silver and white like a god's own ghost 

And Joe put it in first gear 

Then second and third and then began to coast 

And sing like a gondolier.

 

And I could feel the moon laugh down at us 

As we glided through the night. 

"Let's just drive." My uncle said. 

And I just said "Alright!"

 

 

I Had a Friend Named Johnny Wasko.

I had a friend named Johnny Wasko.

He died on Halloween.

Had a friend named Johnny Wasko.

Died on Halloween.

 

"And he was a good boy," the old nun said.

"Not like you, Mr. Joseph Green."

 

Mr. Joseph Green.

 

Next year Halloween wind blowing

There was a big full moon.

That Halloween wind was blowing.

Big old yellow full moon.

Took my Halloween candy.

Gonna put it on Johnny's tomb.

 

Walk through Fairview Cemetery

Up to Johnny's grave.

Walk through Fairview Cemetery

Up to Johnny's grave.

Gonna give him all my candy.

My poor soul to save.

 

Gave him one Sugar Daddy.

I don't like them anyway.

He always liked Sugar Daddys

When he came out to play.

Put down the Sugar Daddy.

Then I walked away.

 

Little skeleton six feet under.

Little skeleton walking away.

Little skeleton six feet under.

Little skeleton walking away.

Lit a Salem cigarette and kept walking.

Had nothing else to say.