Andy Caffrey
I had my first rubbery eggs this morning.
...slippery's more like it
$1.69 breakfast in Las Vegas
$200 FUBAR yesterday
ripped off by an activist doctor
homeless now two years!
Frantically trying to
get to Tennessee
for court at 9am today
Late night trailer park
ticket purchase
frequent flyer coupon secured
at midnight
got 2 hours sleep
My ride got lost
missed my flight
by 4 minutes
So I spent the night sleeping
on the floor of the new
Las Vegas airport
...my oldtime friend doesn't call
Casino register ringing
Slow moving cart
for slow moving people
garbage truck back up ring
every 2 minutes
Bomb prevention warning every 3
"Do not accept any packages
if asked to
by someone you don't know.
Immediately report instances
to airport personnel."
Voice sounds like...
...Martin Sheen
Apocalypse now
Rain
coat
pillow
No one bugs me
not even once
"Don't leave any bags on the table
(what table?)
or leave your bags unattended...
for even a NANOSECOND."
I wonder if Martin Sheen does these
recordings
It wouldn't take any time at all
they'd just say
"Do your Martin Sheen"
I know it sounds commercial, but...
I mean...the anti-nuke
protester
sells cars...afterall!
...during the greenhouse invasion
the Antarctic ice shelves
break up
There's a 4 mile wide volcano
under the western ice sheet
under 12% of all the ice
on the planet
INSTANT 20 FOOT SEA LEVEL RISE!
worldwide
(he'll lose his westside ranch house
first thing)
THEN 50 FOOT SEA LEVEL PLUMMET!
ALL IN JUST 100 YEARS!
Drip, Drip, Drip
The North Atlantic current
increasingly dilutes
with fresh glacial melt
It slows down
the engine creaks
into stillness
Salt water not so salty anymore
the fish hold their breath...
The Ice Age Stormbringer Roars
down on Europe
for another 1,000 years
700 million refugees who hate
every other race
who colonized the entire planet
Now looking for a place to live
a friendly handshake
a welcome mat
the statue of liberty
9:00 court case for me
across the country
in 15 hours
Missing the flight to Nashville
I call my attorney
at home
If I take the last flight to Chicago
in 30 minutes
I can make it to court
in the afternoon
Will the judge see me
or will he issue a warrant
and forfeit the $1,000 bail
a newfound friend put up for me
Put up for our side
an ally warrior in the war
against the stupid greedy powerful's
radiation...
I got dosed already.
Watts Bar America's last nuke
24 years in the making
most likely to melt down
TVA even has their own
Karen Silkwood
Where's Al Gore?
Trucks yank cable
Through unseasoned concrete
stripping deadly wires bare
Most whistleblowers of any nuke ever
Set to load fuel next month
while I homelessly struggle
He'll call the DA
and call me back
in 20 minutes
20 minutes later
I call his wife says
he went back to the office
to get the DA's number
didn't have it at home
I have to decide
in less than 10 minutes
to use my only ticket
if I don't hear from him
Prevent the warrant
or blow it off
presume I'm fucked
Stop pushing reality
like a speedfreak banshee
and zendo
Accept and deal with
what tomorrow brings
unblinking
no call
I take the first leg to Las Vegas
can't give up now
The winters are warmer
More insects & rodents & viruses
survive
and invade
New Northern Territories
that pioneering spirit
I look down at the desert
and watch the mice
with the hantavirus urine
stroll toward the cities
bandana hanging out of back pockets
The atmosphere is really only
8 or 10 miles thick
you know
Up to the ozone layer
and the stratosphere
no weather up here
Just distant spaced molecules
styrofoam reactions
with car exhaust aerosol
droplets sufates & CFCs
Blow & Slice electrons
off trillions of rarefied
ozone molecules
But for us
the humans and all
the other earthly creatures
The troposphere is where it's at
the weather layer
I'm 6 miles up
Flying over the puny ripple
called the Sierra Nevada Mountains!
They stick up 2 miles
One third of the way up
to me
in the airplane
But I look across
for thousands of miles laterally
across the onion peel section
called Turtle Island
And if the airplane piolet
gets infected with madness
and points the plane to the stars
Just that 2 mile more height
of the Sierras would send us
into outer space flight
Then I look down
this puny little ripple
merely a planetary scar
is all that it takes
To stop all the rain
and make nevada and utah
a vast desert
for hundreds of miles
Thousands of bleached white bones
of our brave ancestors
who should have stayed home
The stupid incessant
mindless blaring
of a deadened female voice
Sprays my ears obliterating
my attorney's sweet voice
20 seconds at a time
flight time not mine
WHAT STUPID IDIOT
PUT THE AIRPORT SPEAKERS
over the telephone boothes
30 second respite:
His soft calm voice
"The judge says
'Don't come in tomorrow.'"
I gulp and begin
"You mean I'm Screwed--"
The BLARE again
mind numbing barrage
Excedrin headache flight #717
without the headache it stops:
"You mean it's over?"
"No. We can reschedule it later--"
DISGUSTING INCOMING FEMALE BLABBING
UNABOMBER VOICE!
I TRY to think through it
this voice of death
is getting me down
"How soon will I see the judge?
Should I fly on?
Next week?"
"In 12 days or later
if you want
court dates have freed up."
(Freed up court dates
is that the only freedom left
in this withered nuclear America?)
So I have to eat my ticket
or hang out penniless in Tennessee
alone losing 2 weeks of the battle
All my Tennessee friends are in Mobile
taking over a logging ship... whoppee!
I have no money
my storage locker is 3 months behind
$100 phone bill due Tuesday
$1.69 breakfast
The U.S. pumped out last year
more CO2 than ever before
and no one notices anything
I wince at the sound
of a 40 mile long crack
in the ice
The Antarctic Penninsula has warmed
5 degrees in the last 40 years
The UV pouring through the ozone hole
has destroyed the plankton
in the richest plankton Riviera
in the world
no food for the krill
no krill for the penguins
who now swim 100 miles out to sea
to find some food for their babies
returning 9 days later
trying to force feed the dead
80 survive 2,000 die
New percentages we'll have to get used to
a new level of deadening
more soul death
Senator Gordan, an ex-astronaut asks
"Why do we need salmon in Oregon?
if we got some in Alaska?"
I think about the guy
spending his whole life
making rubbery eggs
Underage Asian busboys
old lady waitresses
desperate and afraid
To face their social security season
without a cushion
chasing tips
on dollar 69 breakfasts
Doing their best to smile and be nice
to hold on to love & community & friendship
and all the things that really make us human
Cheap gas
We never pay the full costs
at the pump
In a greenhouse world how much
will our children have to pay
to rebuild an entire planet?
Where will they go
When half the land is under sea
or when they wait out the 100,000 year Ice Age glaciation?
And why will our children's children's children
for over 100,000 years
10 times longer than humans have been talking
have to tax themselves forever
to be safe from our nuclear waste?
Produced for our century of living the life
of the murderous, bull-headed Rush Limbaugh
American Dream consumption infected
In Las Vegas
for years before my airport floor night
flight bomb flutter reflections
And for a few more years after
I get up disgusted & hurting
for these sweet lonely trailer park ladies
and the fatherless vietnam lad
pouring my coffee
leaving my tip
twice the price
of my rubbery eggs
I'm going back to Berkeley
back to the trenches
via Nevada hwy running alongside
the east side my Sierra scar ripple thinking
I've got 10 minutes to carry my 3 bags back to Greyhound
where this 15 year old kid is waiting
to finish his 3,000 mile ride
To see for the first time in 10 years
his father who now runs a brothel
100 miles out in Lathrup Springs
I can go back
and write a fundraising letter
to my oh so aware
and concerned liberal friends
Then 10 days from now once again
figure out where I'm going to store my stuff
and how the hell
I'm getting back to Tennessee
written Oct. 20, 1995
revised Nov. 4, 1995 3:30 am
Copyright (c) 1995 Andy Caffrey