Untitled - ScholarWorks Home - California State University, Northridge

cheeks and haven't-dozed-a-nano­
second in 26 consecutive hours eye­
glaze for a potential Charlie Whitman
redux, and figure I've got just enough
gas & food & beer $$$ to reach Las
Vegas. I hold in my T-shirt pocket the
address of the son I abandoned 6
years before and his mother, with
whom I had spent a few sweet com­
forting nights not so long ago but
never knew really, but who is now the
very Lotto ticket to all of my future
character and purpose ...
My name is Abel and so-named is my
little boy. He'll probably want to
bring his gnarled and tarnished bullet
to school for Show & Tell. He is, it
dawns upon me, as I drive thru
Victorville, not far off the age of the
Latino boy shot-dead in the stairwell
of the UT Li-berry tower, as daddy
called it, by the firer of my ballistic
memento (tho my recollection of same
tragic moment in time comes via the
Kurt Russell-led MOW I saw some
years back while waiting for my un­
employment benefits to once again
run dry and so might not be 100% on-
7
target, pun intended all the way.) I'm
listening to a block of the Stones on
KLOS as I cruise east on the I-15, ass­
deep in the midst, as I intimate, of my
19 th Nervous Breakdown. I have, tho,
Sympathy for the Devil, and I hope like
my momma did when she was
shivering behind that Austin Texas
bench in fear for her very life that my
new family will, alas, take pity on me
and Gimme (the) Shelter I so
desperately desire & need.