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Jackson Pollock interviews John Sweet
Author: Jackson Pollock interviews John Sweet 1 comment
  pollock: why the hell do you keep writing poems about me?!
sweet: because you're my favorite poet.
pollock: but i'm a painter, you dumbass!  and a semi-literate one, at that!
sweet: but still.....
pollock: no - no "but"!  stop writing about me!  do something else!  get drunk!  get laid!  Just leave me alone!
sweet: ummm..  aren't you supposed to be asking me questions?
pollock: i said LEAVE ME ALONE!
Submission Date:
01 Mar 2008 Category:   Flash fiction In Podcast and Chap-book
and these are violent times

And eleven hours later, I’m 400 miles away from home and sitting at the bar.  I’ve read my poems to indifferent silence and now I’m sitting at the bar drinking a coke.  The guy that read before me is sitting to my left, and of course we’ve never heard of each other, and we have nothing to say.  I thought his worked sucked and he had no comments on mine that he cared to share.  He’s on his third vodka and cranberry juice and goes outside between drinks to smoke.

To my right is the woman who arranged the reading, tall, cute, straight dark hair and wire-rimmed glasses.  Walked up to me when I first got here with my notebook and my backpack and introduced herself, says she’s the Nicole who had emailed me, says she loves my work and I smile, my legs still stiff and awkward after too much time in the car.  And she gives me $75 in crumpled fives and tens, my paycheck for the night, enough for a cheap motel and gas.  My backpack has some clothes in it, and a stack of CDs, and a bag of animal crackers.  I have a cooler in the back seat of the car with soda and some frozen bottles of water, a couple of apples, a bunch of grapes.  My plan is to be up at six the next morning and get the hell out of here.

And the money is still in my pocket because Nicole’s paying for the drinks.  She has a beer in front of her and we’re eating pretzels from a bowl.  The last poet of the night, a woman whose name I vaguely recognize, is reading a long piece, is gesturing dramatically, and I turn around on my barstool to watch her.  The crowd is rapt, Nicole smiling with her eyes closed.  The guy on the other side of me has gone back outside.

And later, after it’s all over and we’ve all been belatedly introduced, everyone has gone their separate ways.  Five poets disappeared into the night, and the man and the woman who had helped Nicole organize everything, and now her and I are the only ones left, the two of us sitting at a small table in the corner of the room, and she’s switched to rum and cokes, and I’ve switched to bottled water.  And she’s got her shoes off, is sitting across from me with her feet up in my lap.  Is leaning in and raising her voice over the sound of Springsteen on the bar’s sound system blasting through the chorus to Rosalita.  Is telling me about a relationship she was in with another woman, says she just broke it off, says I miss being with a man, you know?  I miss being fucked like that, and I’m thinking about my wife at home with the girls, the three of them asleep in our bed.  I’m thinking about how shitty things have been lately, how she told me last week that it wasn’t working out.  How she wished me luck when I called her from the motel to tell her that I’d made it here alive.  The sound of her voice from another planet.

And I look at my watch and it’s just after midnight, and say I should be getting back to my motel.  I feel Nicole’s toes sliding up and down my legs.  I offer her a ride home.

And I jerk awake at six to the sound of the alarm clock that I brought, reach over and turn it off.  Lay back in bed listening to my heart pound.  Move my left hand under the covers and it brushes Nicole’s naked thigh, and I feel myself starting to get hard.  She murmurs something, moves closer, reaches out and starts stroking my cock.  Asks if I can stay a little longer.

And it’s nine o’clock when I pull onto the highway.  Left Nicole in the parking lot of the bar, waited to make sure she got her car started, then went to get some gas.  Called home on my cell phone, but no one answered.  Thought about leaving a message, but didn’t know what to say.  And I dig through my backpack looking for some music and come up with Nicole’s panties, which she must have stuck in there when I was showering, and I stare at them.  Black and lacy, and I’ll have to ditch them at a rest area.  I’ll have to change the password on my email account.  And I squint into the weight of the sun and drive.

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I'm so glad I stumbled upon this website. -Sarah wearealwaysalwaysmortal.wordpress.com 		01 Mar 2008


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