A thrilling smack
—Ted Greenwald
who’s
funnier when you’re
fifty
(than when you’re in
your
late thirties). I, be-
fore
e, except after sex.
Which
somehow sounded
just
as good at fifteen.
This
is everything, almost
the
very end of everything,
the
everything that gets
stolen
right from between
my
legs. Just got, that is.
What’s
the difference be-
tween
two black and gray
camouflage
backpacks?
Funny
just will not do for
this
wise-ass crackpot,
will
it? Speaking of off-
color
humor ... just will
not
do for this wisecrack.
More
comedy ensues, it
never
fails. For example,
take
all of the instructions
at
the Tenderloin Police
Department
(a charmer of
a
community haven, please
allow
me to ensure you).
When
asked about the
report
I’d be filing, I
begin
with fifteen pages
of
handwritten words (“it’s
part
of a much-larger pro-
ject,”
I try to get out of the
dry
craw near my goozle, and
somehow
manage before the
now
imaginary “and much,
much more...” comes out
like
the square wheel of
my
father’s long lost verb-
alized
breath. Ah, libido,
how surreal! I think, smooth
as
a song as sung by Mel Tillis.
“...all of my important files,
you know, with labels like
“bills,” “housing,” “job-
search,” and “urgent.”
“It
was really just a back-
pack
filled with earnest
modesty
and endless ‘im-
portance,’”
croons Tillis,
as
if honey from my stut-
ters,
“just a backpack
that
fell alseep in the
wrong
man’s backyard.”
