Attention
Earthlings
He was one
of
those
chuckleheaded
losers who
was
always trying
to
call God on
his
spaceship
from
a
disconnected
public
phone,
goes evil on
you
when you
refuse
to pony up fifty
cents
for the
righteous
cause of
interstellar
communications,
wants to do
something
special before he
passes on like
getting
shot five times in
the heart
like
Gary
Gilmore.
Refugee from Another
Planet
Whatever Way Out
Machine
he'd come in on must
have
malfunctioned and left
him
stranded still dressed
in
decades-before-the-millennium
duds: bright floral surfer
pants,
loud striped t-shirt, leather
thongs
and rose colored glasses
that
mostly concealed his drug
spaced
eyes. He was trying to
hitch
a ride to the coast to
join
an enclave of pot
growers
and potential cult
suicides,
the name of his
destination
tattooed on his forearm in
code,
a place eight miles past
nowhere
at the bottom of a cliff that
a Richter Scale 8 had
dumped
into the Pacific, not even
memories
left
behind.
"don't die without
jesus"
the wino
sd.
leaning
against
the Bus Stop
sign
clutching a fist
full
of wet
pamphlets
he'd either
picked
from the garbage
or from a mugged
pair of born
agains,
along with
enough
pocket change
for
a jug of dago
red,
"Save
yourself,
brother. Buy a one-
way ticket to
salvation.
Just a dollar,
man,
for a
dream."
I thought
maybe
I'd give him
half
a sawbuck for the
lot,
send him on his way
to the promised
land,
thinking, as
drunk
as he was
already,
crossing four
lanes
of traffic, heedless
only of the neon
spirit
light in the
distance
that said "Liquor",
would bring that
brother
home faster than
a
lightning bolt from
above.
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