poetry » Page 1 of 1

So many of us have such fond memories of third grade,
To a third grader, the grass is greener, the sun is sunnier, the imagination is clear and sharp.
But my most vivid third-grade memory isn’t of holding some little girl’s hand in the playground or the wonders of science class.
No, the thing that I remember most is Gordon Spoonwell kicked my ass.

I don’t know why he decided to kick my ass.
But every kid in third grade got beat up by Gordon Spoonwell at least once.
Beating people up was his gig, it’s how he rolled.
It was his thing.
He was the biggest kid in third grade for three years running.

When the day for my beat down came he caught me
at the edge of the playground leaving school.
But I was ready.
I’d been watching Bruce Lee play Kato on “The Green Hornet” TV show.

But it didn’t help.

Gordon Spoonwell didn’t even have to kick my ass.
He just threw me on the ground so hard that the ground kicked my ass for him.
My head klonked on the hard packed dirt making a sound like it was made from hollow wood.
My body felt like a squirrel that got hit by a car.
My vision blurred as I sniffed back tears.

Now in all his years of beating people up,
Gordon Spoonwell had never had a beat down go that easily.
Normally, he would have to throw some punches or something.
But he now stood over my incapacitated body having expended no effort whatsoever,
And it confused him.

He leaned over to see if I was dead.

In that moment, I summoned all my strength, pain and fear and
I hit Gordon Spoonwell right in the head,

With my Star Trek lunch box.

Now back in those days, children’s lunch boxes were made from
The same metal that folding metal chairs were made out of.
And it made an awesome metallic bang.

I hit him in the head
Next to the lump where his mom had whacked him with a heavy wooden cooking spoon
Next to the dent where his dad had popped him with a three-quarter inch open end wrench.

Now, there’s no way you’re going to hurt Gordon Spoonwell by hitting him in the head
With a Star Trek lunchbox,
Even one made from the same metal that folding metal chairs are made out of.
But people didn’t really hit Gordon Spoonwell that much,
Except his mom and his dad
And his older brother
And his other older brother
And his drunken uncle Pete
And his older cousin Hilda,
Maybe a few others
But people really didn’t hit Gordon Spoonwell.

He stood there staring into the distance
Wondering why it didn’t hurt to get hit in the head with a metal Star Trek lunchbox.
He stood there thinking about getting hit in general.

And that’s when I did it,
I made my escape.
I dashed from the playground, vaulted a fence,
Flew down alleys, cut through backyards.
I ran like a striped-ass ape.

Nobody ever ran away from Gordon Spoonwell.
We all knew we’d only get it worse if we made him wait.
I knew that one day he would kill me.

But that night a miracle happened.
That night a divine miracle from God happened
And the next day there was a new kid in school.
There was a new kid in school and his name was “Marion”.

New kids in school automatically got moved to the front of the beat-down line
And boys named Marion got moved in front of the new kids in the beat-down line.
Gordon Spoonwell forgot all about beating me up.
He forgot my name if he even ever knew it.

But, as the years and decades pass
I’ll always remember the day
Gordon Spoonwell kicked my ass.

Sometimes I'm walking down the yellow brick road of life
and everything's going fine.
The sun is shining, it's a beautiful day.
Then I look up into the clear blue sky
and see hundreds of flying monkeys headed my way.
These aren't cute little squirrel monkeys
or funny chimps that do tricks.
No, these are big ugly flying apes sent by some bitch out West.
They just want to screw up my life.
They want to see that I get no rest.

They show up at the worst possible times
like I'm being interviewed for a great new job.
The guy likes my resume.
Then here come the flying monkeys.
They burst into his office, start trashing the place.
Jumping on furniture, throwing papers on the floor.
The guy hands back my resume and says, "you're not what we're looking for."

Those damned flying monkeys...

I'm on a dinner date with a beautiful girl
I think she really likes me.
We're eating, we're laughing, we're having fun
then holy crap, here they come.
Flying monkeys swarm from the sky.
They're pulling her hair.
They're eating her fettuccine with their furry paws.
One of them is throwing poo.
My date shrieks and flees shouting,
"Don't call me again. I don't ever want to see you."

Those damned flying monkeys...

If I had my old shotgun
I could take out two or three.
But there would still be hundreds more.
Besides if I did that,
there'd be bloody monkey guts all over the floor.

If they didn't exist, if they weren't real
I could live a life of ease
but you just can't have a yellow brick road
without some flying monkeys.

It was the right combination of fins, feathers and fingers, over millions of years that got me into this apartment.
It’s a nice place and very exclusive but my background check revealed my impeccable history going back to the primordial ooze.
“He was a great neighbor,” a small spec of bacteria told my potential landlord.
“He lived here back when we were all just organic molecules.”
The great character references from the vast puddles of brown green slime struggling with autotrophy impressed my landlord and he immediately drew up the papers that got me into this apartment.

It was the right combination of people passing through the space I occupy that got me into this apartment.
The nerdy school kid fleeing schoolyard bullies led the long-haired pot smoking surfer to meet the sharp dressed sales rep
who removed his suit and tie to reveal the weird wise old hipster settling into the community.
Not that I’m any of those people now.
They lie strewn along the sidewalk in the form of skin dander, sloughed off dead cells and hair.
Sometimes, I feel the urge to follow that path backward and reassemble that nerdy school kid so I can give him the hard learned advice that will save him future suffering:
“Vodka and tequila don’t mix.”
And I would thank him for the work he did that got me into this apartment.

It was the right combination of civilizations that got me into this apartment.
The old Greek guy calculating the radius of the stylish arches and that whole group of people that anonymously sent me a small box of electrons to power my hi-def toaster oven and gave me everything I needed to solidify the carpeted floors under my feet.
If you look at the final page of the dusty volume of the complete world history they’ve reprinted the actual street map that got me into this apartment.

As much as I love this apartment, someday I would like to move to a larger one with a Jacuzzi and room for a dog.
Naturally, a bigger apartment would mean a bigger demand for money not yet born.
And, there would be hateful chanting of angry mobs condemning my covetous materialism.
“The water in your Jacuzzi could quench the thirst of dehydrated children and your dog could provide a Thanksgiving dinner feast for an impoverished family!” They shout.
But the cosmos is a big place with plenty of water and dog meat for everyone.
We just have to reach out with the right combination of individuality and collectivism to take hold of it.
Of course, we’d have to stop beating the shit out to each other and collect up our tokens for the first month’s rent.
Then we could all sit in the Jacuzzi, pet the dog and relax, reflecting on the path that got us all into this apartment.