The Unauthorized Autobiography of Me. Section Two.

 

Riots broke out when I lost the election.

"Seems like a good hobby, and nice for us journlists! I suspect you could help some of the journalists cut down their longer ramblings to more focused pieces..."

James Mackintosh. Senior Columnist, Markets. Wall Street Journal.

I walked home from

Tuttle Grade School

every day for lunch.

Less than a block.

That seemed normal to me;

and when I got to high school

and everyone else got hot 

cafeteria food, and I got

a summer sausage sandwich

and an apple in a wrinkled

brown paper bag

from my mom,

that, too, seemed normal to me.

Food was no big deal to me

as a kid.

I was skinny, with a long nose.

I looked like the number '1'.

Now I weigh over 320 pounds.

What happened?

What the hell happened?

Dad was always fat.

Mom was always thin.

They both smoked like chimneys.

My sisters starved themselves

to stay thin.

As long as I did hard physical work

with the circus, and walked and

bicycled everywhere, I could 

eat like a pig and never gain

an ounce.

Once I learned to drive

and got a car

after I was married

 my weight

began to climb, and has never come

down except once.

I'm gonna have a can

of oysters on a bed of

lettuce and cucumbers

for lunch today. 

With Italian dressing.

And flat bread.

I tell myself I'm drinking ice water.

But there's Shasta in the fridge

and I'll drink that.

Milk. Ice cold milk.

Whole milk.

Kids were supposed to drown 

in milk sixty years ago.

I drank mine with Nestle Quik

when I could get it.

Two full glasses each meal.

That was standard procedure.

My bones must be 

so indestructible 

that they will outlast the planet

and float off into outer space.

Grilled steak over real charcoal.

The grill lit using Wizard Charcoal Lighter,

with that terribly disfigured man 

on the label --

a monster, really.

He must have burned himself

while lighting the grill.

A marshmallow

impaled on a willow branch

 set on fire

over the dying coals

tasted of ashes and vanilla.

The backyard. Childhood 

summers so hot

the street asphalt turned to Silly Putty.

I chewed little balls of it

I pinched out of the road myself.

Then a paper plate.

Spilled hamburger and pickle

juice on the dark green lawn

as the sun hid behind Wayne

Matsuura's house.

In the dark I hefted a

marshmallow torch

to keep the plunging 

bats at bay.

Watch out -- it'll get in your hair!

I could believe in vampires

on summer nights long ago.

In Canada I'm known as 'loup-garou.'