Chain link fence around the Project,
separating us from them…
keeping the poor away
from the lower middle class
of my old hometown.
Hell, I didn’t need no damn fancy car,
or any car, for that matter.
And clothes, suits, sweaters,
nice shoes…?
Nothin’ nicer than my old Acme boots,
my friend.
I hustled my butt off at Kroger,
stocking shelves, mostly…
that, and bagging and carrying to cars.
Once in a while I got a quarter tip.
But I was always there,
usually early, never late,
and never called in to say I wouldn’t be in.
They liked that.
Started training me on that big ol’ cash register,
with all those buttons and keys and register things,
where I had to know taxes and categories
and hit the right buttons every. single. time,-
and was never under and never over –
my drawer was always right.
They liked that, too.
And I was fast –
I got pulled from wherever I was
when the orphanage station wagon pulled in –
‘cause she always bought enough to feed an old mansion
full of growing boys and girls,
and she liked it when I rang her up –
she was out of there in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.
They liked that, too.
One day, clearing a paper jam on my register,
I saw what the problem was – it was like that on all of them.
Told the manager if he would shut down my register
when my lunch came ‘round
that I would fix it for him.
He was doubtful, as it was usually a hundred dollar job
when he had to call in a repairman,
and he said he’d give me twenty bucks cash if I really could,
but a tenner for tryin’.
Took that ten and went to the hardware store in the plaza,
and with a pair of sharp point needle nose pliers
I fixed that register so it would never jam up again,
and the manager asked me if I could do that with the rest of them.
I said sure, and I did.
Took a few hours after work, but it all came out in the wash,
and I got a few extra untaxed bucks for it.
But that ain’t what I’m here to tell you about.
And I ain’t here to tell you about Sally, either.
But I will.
Redheaded girl from east Texas,
they make 'em well, over there...
Drove an old VW beetle
and lived in a nice house over on the good side of town,
(her daddy was a well-known and highly respected lawyer,
known all over CENLA (Central Louisiana),
but she kinda liked this poor government project boy,
for some reason, that I ain’t never figured out.
We were fun, though.
All through that lost summer of 1963,
we were sure fun.
And in November they shot John.
Sally and I drove up onto the levee
on the Red River,
just sat there, looking out at the night sky,
thinkin’ about how that day had gone to shit.
I was thinking I should maybe get out of town,
get away from it all,
and thankfully,
when I proposed to her,
Sally turned me down.
A little more than a year later
I went into the Army
at seventeen.
But I ain’t here to tell you about that, either.
I might, later, but not right now.
I had worked my way into being senior cashier,
and the gopher for problems or questions
from the others on the front line at Kroger,
and I was doing cashouts at night and dragging the gold
for deposits.
Once in a while the manager would tell me I was in charge,
Everyone knew it, no one minded,
and he would take the day or afternoon off or whatever –
always thought he had a little squeeze on the side overtown –
didn’t matter to me, though,
as he always paid me an extra three bucks an hour then.
I convinced him to convince the home office
to pay for decent plexiglass windows for the store,
due to all the hurricanes and such we would get down there
in the center of Louisiana….
and one day a tornado came into the parking lot,
tore out everyone’s glass windows,
flipped a pickup with an old wooden rocker in the truck bed,
and sent that rocker slamming into our windows…
and they held.
the manager liked that.
But I ain’t here to tell you about that.
[to be continued...]

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