Prose Poem: Body and Soul. (Dedicated to Andy Newman.)

 

I first met Andy Newman at the National Archives in Washington D.C.  Where we were both looking up the use of lentils in political assassinations.  It was interesting work, and very revealing.  Did you know that Mahatma Gandhi . . .   But no, the world is not yet ready for that particular revelation.  Maybe someday, when pelicans can rhumba.  One day he and I brushed off the documentary dust and went out for a cup of oolong tea together.  He really opened up to me:  Did you know, he said as we sipped from earthenware jugs, that I was born and raised by an Aleutian family?  I knew better than to say a word, because it was obvious he had a yarn to tell; my inscrutable silence would keep him going.  They were kind people, he went on, always giving me the choicest bits of walrus blubber and rubbing my chest with ambergris whenever I came down with a cold.  But I sensed there was more to life than harpooning skuas on the storm-tossed sea, so I left home when I was only thirty-two.  To make my way in the world.  I drifted down the coast, working as a longshoreman, pedicurist, grease monkey, and soda jerk.  Anything to keep body and soul together.  Then I met a woman.  At this point he prodded me with the halberd he was carrying, for I had fallen asleep at his stirring tale.  He continued:  She was as mysterious as the East.  As defiant as a cranky six-year-old.  And as beautiful as a baseball card.  She taught me everything I know about journalism.  And soon I was working for the Shanghai Clipper in San Francisco's China Town, running numbers for Larry Ferlinghetti on the side.  Just to keep body and soul together.  We had finished our tea, but I wanted to hear the rest of his story, so I ordered bear claws with caramelized onions.  We both dug in with unalloyed gusto, as he continued his tale:  But one day I caught her using a Bic pen instead of the turkey feather quill I had given her -- and it was all over.  I moved out of our split level ranch house in Sausalito and thumbed a ride to the Big Apple.   Where I had to start at the bottom again, polishing spittoons at the New York Times.  Then I got my big break.  A roller rink in the Bronx had hit an iceberg and was sinking.  I interviewed the survivors and won my first Pulitzer.  Now look at me, he finished, standing up to brush off the crumbs.  I have no trouble keeping body and soul together!  In fact, I have donated my body to science and sold my soul to the highest bidder at Sotheby's.  I had to agree with him that life is what you make it -- as long as you split the check fifty-fifty.