03/06/01

I was reading one of Percy’s books on Walt Whitman in the middle of the night trying to take my mind off the note left for Phebe on Stash Skimington‘s door. I became inspired, I guess. Got this poem inside my head. I jotted it down:

A MAN’S POEM

A poem won’t do if a poem don’t rhyme
like a clock won’t do if it can’t keep time
markin’ every hour with a ringin’ or a chime
You might just forget it if it ain’t the easiest thing to say
and poems are awfully funny with nothin’ funny much to say
Momma’ll be up all night, worried her son is gay
Man ain’t made to sit with flowery things to knit
Still, Cowboys anguish too, they just can’t write for shit.

I wasn’t done writing my poem a minute when my probation officer, Cupid Boy shows up at the door. I think he was hoping to catch me in the act of cooking up crack cocaine on Percy‘s kitchen stove. He said he heard about my fire, knew I had been burned, and wanted to stop by the new place, see if I needed anything. I felt like saying some privacy and a few more hours sleep.

Percy is asleep up until that point, but he gets up and moving in a hurry, wants to serve the fucker breakfast. Starts chatting it up with Cupid Boy while he cooks a little something for the fucker, wants to know where he’s from, where he grew up and all that. It’s then I realize I knew the kid’s parents---they both grew up on farms out in Minisink country.

Your people were farmers! I say exuberantly, mortifying the shit out of him.

You mean, stockmen? He corrects me.

Then he zings me with this: Well, you two seem to be settled in well here---like an old couple or something.

That’s what the girl next door thinks too, I say, fake-laughing.

Yeah, I think you’d like her, Percy says to the kid, Linda’s very pretty, and has such a wonderful personality.

Great, watch it turn out I play a role in matchmaking Cupid Boy and Cupcake, I say to myself.

Spoke to the investigators later on. They seem settled at this point on Hiram Palfrey being the person responsible for the fire. They also seemed inclined to believe he did himself in afterward by jumping off the bridge. They said if they recover Hiram’s body in the Hudson the case may be put to rest at that point.

What about Stash Skimington being the culprit? I ask.

We’ve talked to him. We’ll likely talk to him again. But right now he’s not our main suspect. You have to keep in mind Joe: not everyone out to screw your wife is gonna be out to kill you too.

Good fucking gracious.