California
I swear on a whole stack of the Good Book, that Pa just
walked in one day in ‘37 and said we were all going to California. Ma didn’t
even question it, so I guess she knew it was coming. Pa bought an old truck
from Halo James and stuck a house on top of it. He then told us seven kids that
we were to be ready to go by sun up the next morning. Pa had been bringing home
little or no food in those days and he said that going west would be the answer
to everything.
Chicago
When Steven, my older brother, won a whole heap of money
from somewhere that we ain’t too sure of, he bought this crazy automobile and then
said that we all going on a trip. After our parents died, Steve promised to
take care of us all, so one day he said that we were off to Chicago where he’d
got a job as a tax man for some guy called Al Capone. He was taking his
favorite gal, Sally who was working in a speakeasy and needed somewhere to roll
her stockings down (I don’t know what that means either).
The Other Side of The Mojave
He was known in the neighborhood as Captain Fantastic on
account that he was always doing amazing things. So when he invited everyone in
the Big House to cross the desert in his Big Palloosa, we all jumped at the
chance. He was going to squeeze all six of us into his palace on wheels. He slept
in a big bed on the top and boy could he snore. We kept cool on the real hot
days by standing in our shorts and keepin’ all the windows open. Last I heard
he got buried in it, a few years back.
bobby stevenson 2016
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