You get that shaky town itch there ain’t nothing will do but for to scratch it. I walked off a gig in Battle Creek once; my skin so uncomfortable I would have walked to shaky town just to keep my nails from drawing blood, itching to the quick. Friend of mine said it was more like a burning; she’s up north in fog town, quit with the quick boys, found her a safe one. She sent me a picture a few years back, a studio shot, the kind that says ‘You won!’ you won a posed wallet size, the full package costs 144.99. Some dough faced infant with fine blonde angel hair, a guy you couldn’t pick out of a line, and her in the middle, baby on her lap, looking an awful lot like someone who’d given; when the itch creeps up or the burning starts in the core and fan out she takes a Benadryl.
Corner of La Cienega and something else there’s a little stand, best double chili cheese size in the world. It’s the way they slop the chili on the half built burger in yellow wax paper, it’s the way you find your spot on the curb to eat, it’s … the shaky town itch. When I was a man I was the Captain of a small intell force, we did broke code on the wrong side of the sandbox. The inside. Some Semite languages are already a code, zealots are paranoid that way, but the righteous are just like sociopaths --- if you’re not going to get the credit why even bother? I don’t miss the sandbox, but it’s one of the few places on earth I never got the shaky town itch. You get a belly full of MRE’s or C-rats though and every mouthful of dust makes you want to trade your immortal soul for a double chili cheese size. I’m not sure my immortal soul is worth that; I’m positive a double chili cheese size is.
I get a card at Christmas from the kid. He’s in Flagstaff, smoking dope and waxing his boogie board. He’s part of generation Zombie Apocalypse. Every generation thinks they are the last; his makes it sound like a joke. My folk’s generation built bomb shelters and watched I love Lucy. I guess commies and zombies don’t need a lot of prep. The distinction is the folks were going to hide and wait out the nuclear winter; my kid plans to boogie board stoned into the fray. The other distinction is my kid doesn’t want any ‘splaining and Obama, unlike JFK, would blow the Bay of Zombie pigs to shit and back.
Me, well, I guess come the end of times I’m bound for shaky town where a man would hard pressed to tell the difference. I read a novel like that once. They never talked about it directly, but the end had come and gone and the people, like cockroaches, went on about their business. Shaky town is like the sandbox; hard to tell in the smoking husk of a building was a temple or a tenement. Like it matters.
Maybe I’m like the kid; I hope to Christ he ain’t like me. I’d just as soon meet the end on an Electra glide wearing a courtly kimono and stoned to the tits. You wanna go/you wanna stay; you got the shaky town itch.
Prompts
Bad intent, Claude Monet (I’m thinking impressionism, not the guy), Chiclets
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