… of course real sugar + actual gin is better for one than what I’ve concocted just now, just right now, which simulates a daiquiri if you close your eyes + ‘member those afternoons outside of the Mirage in Las Vegas, debating whether or not you should go see the dolphins they kept out back, or the Beatles holograms, or the Cirque du Soleil, or Criss Angel, a concoction I deserve + have hard-earned after treating my innards like a trash can for two decades: instant ginseng tea, blueberry glace, a pinch of Dr. Gillams’ Natural Vitality (orange flavored), one scoop of Vital Reds, and water. I prefer it shaken, not stirred.
Reading me tonight some Melville + Holderlin, his Bread & Wine, today practicing some tarot for the unborn at a Starbucks in Chocktaw, OK, nicest one I’ve seen + far too nice for this town, it’s refreshing to see a ‘Bucks where, unlike those in Baltimore Austin Oakland NYC et al, there’s no code you need to punch in to use the loo.
Don’t sweat your mild plane failure as long as you stuck the landing, + thank you for dogearing my most local + loyal bookie, who is now considering a buy now/pay later model … and for vouching safely for me, for once without perjuring yourself. I don’t ever take your help for granted, + I’m adding it to the ledger that is the tab of my beholdenness.
As far as the hooch, no one talks about furnishing the wagon, decorating it like the temperance ladies did, like a Rose Parade float. Mine is freshly painted, and I’m still staining its wood, and there’s a foot brake and a turn signal and the horse is one of those coin-operated porcelain studs outside of the Alpha-Beta. Two bits gets you a ride and a haiku:
Free TV channels –
Bare-knuckle boxing, Matlock –
Immolate me, please.
More soon, give your lady all the conveyances plus the proverbial sugar for her bowl – boy those song lyrics really have aged well.
Zachary Amendt is an award-winning screenwriter and national-level debater whose fiction has appeared in The Masters Review, Underground Voices, Phantom Drift, Ranger, and Barely South. He was a Million Writers Award finalist for the title work in his debut story collection, Stay (Montag, 2014).