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Ippuku suki
O-kaasan moto ga
seipukku.
Mother likes her
smoking breaks so much more
than suicide.
Agassi with Dinner
At the dinner table after fields of weed pulls
dump runs that were marathon with their stench
refusal to unload that which had settled
we broke Italian loaves with noodles tossed in
virgin oil and fresh picked basil.
Removing a hat to the side,
hair sitting in caked wisps
it refused to be combed down.
Nonie asked about school.
Granddad kept one eye on the tennis match
the other watched my response.
Andre' Agassi aced the serve and granddad sipped some red.
I hoped Andre' would have a good night
for then the old man would dip the bottle again
moistening his tongue--
sharing that part of him that thatches boys along
like Christmas presence.
Nonie wouldn't take help with the dishes
so we went outside lighting up his Winstons
my camels
his 100's
my kings.
Tonight's chat would be about tolerance
taxes
-- weren't they both more than duty?
The bottle he brought forward
looking at the label
just as some fathers find their bastard sons.
It was rare for Jim to drink outside his room
Alone.
I was so glad that Agassi had shaved his head
played strong
so that granddad could talk about Canary Row
San Francisco mission
home as a Stockton shelter
meeting Nonie
finding work.
Nonie said the sun came early.
I had better lay my head to
pages and pillows.
She cut a check for a full days hand
smiled with substance
"good night for now
remember school."
To Children We Give Brightening
I am handed a pedestal
of platinum with dead elephant inlays,
the Pulitzer Prize appears like this hunter in a rifle stance.
A flock of mated greenbacks are slung over
the hunter's back between an outstretched palm and my trophy.
I take the podium. Tap the microphone.
"I want to give thanks..
for this greatest of American achievements."
I look at my wife in the audience just then.
She is finally wearing those black nylons I bought ten years ago.
They still fit. Her neckline glistens with
some pearls borrowed from her grandmother.
The old lady soaked them in lemon juice to get a shine.
She is wearing a black velvet frock that looks soft,
beckoning to lounge against
and bury your face just up to the cleavage point.
She is posing her lips for a stage diving kiss.
I am gripping the cold metal of the voice neck.
"
Had it been for my wife..
I never would have made it here.."
There is some shifting at this.
Perhaps the audience didn't hear me right.
It is time to clarify.
"Had I done the damn laundry,
picked up the house every time that OCD bitch wanted,
or found the right corporate job...
she wouldn't be wearing that
made-in-China gown from the good people of Ross clothing.
It wouldn't smell like an old lady when I disrobe her.
There would not be a ink blot on the butt of her left cheek.."
Natalia is looking quiet now..
she hides her head under two slim arms
that are as white as rock snakes.
Her brows are stiffened,
she is using the nose to sneeze me off the stage
with head tilts,
eye glares, lady coughs and kicks beneath the table in the first row.
I see it all.
"I see this Pulitzer in my hand..
these hands that should have gotten paper cuts from tax files five years
ago..
hands that should have dug that pool she wanted.
These hands should be bleached with chlorine,
iodized for ph, gone rubber with plastic plumbing."
I look at Natalia directly.
"WHAT DOES TEDDY ROOSEVELT SAY ABOUT MY HANDS??!"
Natalia is burring her head.
She wanted to bring my mother,
but I said that
my mother was not part of this award
and so dismissed the idea. Now I turn to the audience.
Members of the distinguished board.
Persons of the Press who had received minor versions of my great
triumph.
"Yes,
if it was for you all
, I wouldn't be here."
I look at the stately dressed man in specks.
"If Mr. Edwards had been able to delegate
paper shredding more like Henry Ford,
I would not be here."
Edwards drinks a martini and pretends to look on.
"If Tenneil over there had filed the SEC paper three years ago,
instead of filing a Long Island girl in Martha's Vineyard...
I would not be here.
(I pause to let this sink in.)
Perhaps he would have been (up) here ...
maybe there would be a congressional medal!"
Congressman Adams from Boston is looking for his blazer now.
The temperature had changed.
Too bad about that smoking habit he gave up.
He is searching his belly pockets on the vest,
seeming quite out of water.
"I have a light for you, distinguished gentleman from Boston."
He does not address the stage but continues
fumbling with his vest as he takes blazer to hand
and paces to the door.
"Many of you are here tonight..
cause the so called crooks are behind bars.
Though you do not write to your neighbors in the syndicate,
but make stately sums off their stories and revisions to my book..
they're not alone in their dreams of you at night. "
A waiter drops a tray.
He is anemic to the conversation but the man sitting under him is not.
There is a hive effect of chair ditches as
more than one onlooker does the proverbial 'fooey' with his or her hand.
My Natalia is still being a lady.
Watching her man play a hand she feels will lose.
"Shakespeare said,
'Make no folly of the audience's folly'
I say let us laugh at our foibles. "
The room is astir and so I have to shout now
for the precious few who did not receive my award
but dissipate their jealousies in realization that it will be my last.
"HAD THE PRESS NOT FAVORED WALL STREET,
HAD THE POLITICIANS NOT FAVORED NEWS..
had the media governed itself,
had someone else won this award..
I would not be up here today..."
There are few listening.
But there would still be book 2.
© Philipe Nicolini 2003. All rights reserved.
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