The Crazy Bob Chronicles

I. Radio Parts  

You don’t remember that night of cocktails  
at the wharf bar and after, the climb up, up the stairs  
to the roof, to look at stars from your tenement on the hill,  
city and sea spread below, Jack Daniels flowing?  
 
You were glad I hadn’t worn my cute skirt  
and strappy heels, that I went like a treehouse  
tomboy, cursing and giggling, the blinking red  
lights from the towers framing us, two crazy kids.  
 
You said radio waves controlled us—the government,  
from the aldermen up to that smoked-ham-of-a-President—  
in on it.  You painted the town with your conspiracy  
theories, starring in some mental institution tragicomedy,  
 
a film noir of searchlights and chimney stacks.  Some  
listened:  your neighbor, Dog Face, who smoked Gitanes  
in a Betty Page haircut, who could quote Kerouac on demand,  
and admired my pentagram necklace—you should know,  
 
she wanted me.  But you, with all the dismantled radios,  
messages from aliens who would destroy the city, strewn  
about your room, how I miss you.  Tonight I stand under  
the stars, another cigarette between my fingers, smoke curling  
 
into question marks, wondering if they ever let you out,  
if you’re back on the meds.  Or not—suspecting that  
everything is tuned into it, as you tear into another  
plastic housing, chasing voices, chasing ghosts.  
 

II. The Witches’ Hammer  

You were the only person I ever knew  
who owned a copy:  the infamous, the foul  
Malleus Maleficarum, given to you by Dog Face,  
who said it brought nightmares, her pagan heart  
thumping terror every time she passed her bookshelf.  
 
Now it sits on my own, next to the Diagnostical  
and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.  I still can’t  
believe you gave me this rare tract, this handbook of murderers—  
your nervous twitch, your wide eyes.  Its raggedy, yellowed  
pages spew forth Christian evil; Kramer and Sprenger,  
 
two sick dudes.  The day I picked you up from the clinic,  
you were crumpled and pale, grasping your amber bottle,  
having met all the criteria for paranoid schizophrenia.  
They had located your Crazy:  a third nipple, an odd-shaped  
birthmark, witness accounts of you curdling the milk  
 
of a neighbor’s cow—your voices, devils in the seat  
of your brain.  Five hundred years ago, you would  
have burned.  Now Risperdal is your Green Miracle,  
they say.  The tremors will start later, as will anxiety,  
insomnia; the exorcism of a little pill unbearable.  
 
They’ll take away your sharp objects, your belt,  
speak of shock therapy.  Kramer and Sprenger  
tell me:  For he was once possessed and had to be put  
in chains, and everything had to be applied to him  
which is customary in the case of demoniacs.  

We drove away that day, to a green pond  
by an ancient cemetery, where mood invoked  
storm.  Do you remember, Bob, that I was not  
afraid of you, that I swore under the snarling sky  
and boiling thunder to fight your demons?  
 
 
III. Country Boy  

Respite.  Enchanted by sunflowers,  
vegetable gardens, and the potent  
salve of herbs, you say you can live  
 
out here with me, far from doctors.  
I think you are putting on weight.  
My cranky old neighbor likes you,  
 
gives you a dull, rusty tractor blade,  
talks about the Great War with you.  
It’s like having another kid, and I have  
 
to call you in for supper, where your  
meds wait beside the lemonade glass.  
It’s a summer of windchimes,  
 
chickadees at the feeder, skinnydipping  
in cold rivers, lazy barbeques.  
We climb mountains at sunrise,  
 
fish the lake at dusk.  And I know,  
from your tousled hair, boyish  
grin, you are happy.  You are  
 
normal.  It occurs to me that  
I’d better save these moments but  
the only picture I take, of you  
 
and a fish at sunset, water dripping  
from your line, I will send in a frame  
to your hospital room a month later.  
 

IV. Martyr Complex  

Begin with the best of intentions.  
Do not leave your lover terrified  
 
and twisting.  Smile brightly  
and maintain a positive attitude.  
 
Be the only one who cares.  
 
Visit on a regular basis.  Bring news,  
crossword puzzles, shaving cream.  
 
Comfort him in his room and feel like fucking  
Christ.  Keep looking for a loophole.  
 
 
V. Bartering for Dog Face  

After catching Joe Murderer  
and the Motherfuckers over at the Wharf  
Rat, I walk into some skinhead rage—Hitler’s  
Children—at The Snakepit, just as their lead  
singer cracks a beer bottle over some chump’s  
 
skull.  The mosh pit’s packed, a surging  
mass, an angry centipede wearing hundreds  
of Doc Marten’s, slick with sweat, stomping.  
It’s been two years since I met Bob in here,  
an all-girl punk band, the Killer Barbies,  
 
screaming in the background.  He was  
hollow-eyed in black leather, trailed me  
into the bathroom with coke after flirting  
over shots of JD.  I had no idea he was  
any crazier than me, no idea when he hiked  
 
up my miniskirt later that night, we would fall into  
the shadows of the valley, into a warped landscape  
of love.  I sit in the corner we always skulked,  
order a shot of Jack for old times’ sake, when Dog  
Face walks in with two others through a strobe  
 
of bodies.  There’s a greasy, groomed man, another  
girl.  Dog Face looks through me with glassy eyes:  
those voluptuous curves, now planed—garter belts,  
torn fishnets, face a heavy mask of makeup.  Her pimp  
parades her down the gauntlet of bar, stops, makes her  
 
twirl like a puppet for a fat man with a turtleneck  
and Van Dyke.  I cannot hear, but understand gesturing  
as they barter for her body and hell, probably  
her soul.  I’m not supposed to see this, three stools  
away:  A small, white packet gets palmed from one man  
 
to the other, as Dog Face stares into the distance.  As the fat  
guy takes her to leave, I see her ragged nails, bruised hands,  
and I can’t take my eyes off them, for these were hands that  
once caressed my neck, tried to pull my face into their orbit,  
and even though I never played that way, it doesn’t mean  
 
I didn’t love her.  A scuffle breaks out on the floor,  
as gladiator-sized bouncers rustle two drunk skinheads  
out the door like rag dolls, ridiculous Swastika,  
Iron Eagle tattoos flashing over fish-white skin,  
and when I turn back, Dog Face and her fat man  
 
are gone.  Gulping down another shot of JD, I imagine  
that, up at the state hospital, Bob is better off, shuffling  
in slippers and pajamas, doing crossword puzzles  
in a sunny window, already forgetting about the rest  
of us, this shit life he could be living.  Oi! Oi!  

bellows the lead singer in the red stage lights above  
all the bouncing bodies.  I clasp my soul a little  
tighter to me, swig my liquor, and head into the salty  
harbor evening among the junkies and prostitutes,  
throat burning, heart cracking just a little further.  
 
 
 
*Note: This poem also appears in The Legendary:  
http://www.downdirtyword.com/authors/laurentivey.html