I grew up in a poor family.
We were poor,
but un-happy.
It seemed like good times were hard to come by.
And most-days,
we didn’t have two nickels to rub together.
But I remember, too,
those times when we did have two nickels,
& we’d rub them together
all night long.
One evening,
while driving down an old highway,
I picked up a mysterious hitchhiker.
I asked him where he was headed,
and in a deep voice,
he told me he was going to Memphis to see his mama.
ii.
Now this hitchhiker was very polite,
always replying with a
“Yes, Sir”, or a “No, Ma’am”,
depending on the question or
how the lights of the passing cars
reflected off my eyes.
iii.
I asked him his name, and
he laughed softly to himself, and replied,
“Let’s just say it rhymes with Presley.“
Then he gave gave me a wink.
***
I immediately began making guesses,
“Tresley?
Quesley?
Frezley?
Schlessley?
Zezzley?”
But the mysterious hitchhiker only winked again
and asked me to stop making guesses.
iv.
He told me that life had taught him a valuable lesson,
which he would reveal to me,
if I was willing to listen.
***
I said, no, but
he began to weave a tale, anyway,
which I will relate to you now.
v.
The mysterious hitchhiker
told me that many years ago,
he had willingly given up the august spot-light,
and the adulation of millions
for anonymity and adventure.
He traveled the world several times and again,
solving crimes, and exploring mysteries,
such as,
living for forty days in
the Pacific Northwest wilderness,
searching for Bigfoot.
***
At the end of his journey,
the hitchhiker concluded,
that maybe Bigfoot was a thing
that could only
be ‘found’
when searching within oneself.
vi.
Nevertheless,
when the hitchhiker returned home,
he found a note left by the actual Bigfoot,
that read,
“Just stopped by to say, Hello.
Yours,
‘Bigfoot'”
***
But then, as an afterthought,
on the back, Bigfoot mentioned that he hoped
the hitchhiker was not hiding somewhere
in the Pacific Northwest wilderness
just to avoid paying back the $40 he owed him.
vii.
This, of course, was not true, for as,
the hitchhiker had previously noted,
it was he who had been looking for him!
viii.
Unfortunately, for the hitchhiker,
Bigfoot, had taken the opportunity
to crash at the hitchhikers pad for several weeks, too,
eating all of his food,
breaking all of his chairs,
and doodling all over his personal stationary.
***
What was worse, Bigfoot
had run also off with his ‘old lady’.
***
This surprised the hitchhiker the most of all,
because he had always thought
she worshipped the ground he walked on.
And, in a way, he was right,
as she would eventually leave Bigfoot, too,
and move in with
a piece of ground.
PART TWO
ix.
The hitchhiker grew sullen and he
turned his attention back to
looking out the car window.
x.
As we passed though a small town,
the hitchhiker interrupted my whistling
and asked if I could let him out
near a Ralph’s supermarket.
“I need to pick up some-thing for my mama,” he said.
xi.
I obliged, and pulled into the Ralph’s ample parking lot,
but after I had parked the car,
I suddenly realized that I was all alone.
The mysterious hitchhiker was gone!
xii.
What could it all mean?” I asked myself.
Then I noticed something on the passenger seat.
It was the hitchhikers,
Ralph’s value club card.
Had the hitchhiker been trying to teach me a lesson about savings?
It was just all too much for me to process.
xiii.
Nevertheless,
I went into the store,
used his Ralph’s value club card and
saved fifty cents on paper towels,
and box of microwave sushi.
***
“Savings.” I said confidently,
as I walked my discounted loot up to the counter.
xiv.
As I paid for my items,
the grocery checker looked at the name on the receipt
and said, “Thank you, Mr. Nestlé!”
I nodded,
struck a rock n roll pose,
curled my lip
and said,
“Thank-you-very-much.”
***
“Oh, all right,” said the checker.
CONCLUSION
xv.
Exactly ten years later to the day,
I was on the same road again,
and happened to stop at old highway diner for breakfast.
xvi.
There I overhead three truck drivers
talking about a
mysterious hitchhiker
they had all individually encountered.
xvii.
“Trying to get home to his mama.” Said one.
“Disappeared into thin air” said the other.
“Looking for his Ralph’s value club card,” said the third.
end.
Did you know that
you and I are breathing
the same molecules once breathed by
Nebuchadnezzar,
Julius Caesar,
& Abraham Lincoln?
It staggers the mind.
So, in that way,
the next time somebody says that you have bad breath,
say, Do I?
Or, does, Julius Caesar?!
It was so hot in L.A.,
I saw a guy on the street corner, and
he was frying an egg on the sidewalk.
The thing about it is,
when I came back later,
the guy was still there,
& he was still frying eggs,
but now there was a line around the block to
get a sidewalk egg sandwich.
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I bid adieu to my
family & friends
and told them that I would most-likely be gone for years.
I was about to embark on
a dangerous journey into
uncharted lands, terra incognita,
to make my fortune.
But, life had a surprise in store for me …
for it only took me 15 minutes of panning for gold,
when I suddenly hit the mother-load
of boredom.
Mean-while on the boulevard des capucines …
Monet & Manet
walk into a shake joint
to see a dancer named Moanet.
Later, after the show,
Monet turns to Manet and says,
“Any impressions?”
For you & I,
the skull & crossbones on a
bottle of disinfectant tells us,
Do Not Drink!
But to a pirate, it’s just the opposite.
To a pirate, it says,
Do Drink, me matey!
ii.
But that’s probably why,
so many pirates died from
accidentally
drinking Windex.
Did you know,
Old McDonald’s farm used to
get a lot of noise complaints?
But it’s not for the reasons you might think.
Old McDonald,
suffered the Night Terrors!
my mother in lockdown.
I remember I was always
late for school.
Back then, though, the school called it,
‘being tardy’.
These days I am still always late.
Though now it’s called, just being late, only.
I miss being tardy.
I had a note for that.
To-night’s tale:
Knock-Knock! You’re Dead.
***
Pray,
dear fans of horror & the unknown,
have you heard tell the true story of the ghost
of the Cecil Hotel?
Would you like to?
Wait!
Before you answer,
remember that I definitely cannot hear you,
so if you’re still saying, Yes! Yes!
You can stop, all ready.
ii.
Our story, friends, begins in the 1940s,
when a down on his luck, door-to-door salesman,
checked into a downtown Los Angeles business
known as the Cecil Hotel.
iii.
After settling in,
he called down to room service
and ordered a bottle of cyanide, and the lunch special,
which also had cyanide in it.
Long story short:
The salesman is now doomed
to walk the hallways of the Cecil hotel for all eternity!
iv.
The first reported sighting
was in the late 1950s by
a unlucky family who had traveled from
Missouri to California to see
the famed orange groves of Anaheim;
only to learn, upon their arrival,
that the groves had been torn down
and replaced with a theme park.
v.
According to the family,
around six o’clock that evening,
they heard a tapping on the door of their hotel room,
and believing it to be room service,
opened the door,
to suddenly be confronted by the horrifying specter!
The children screamed.
The mother screamed.
And the father began to panic,
as he had just paid for dinner,
and he did not remember
ordering a ghost.
vi.
Without a word said,
the ghost went directly into the room,
wheeling in a vacuum cleaner behind him.
With a wink, the ghost poured a half a bag
of planting soil onto the carpet,
quickly vacuumed it up,
and then using the skills he had honed for a generation,
tried to sell the family
a half bag of planting soil.
vii.
They bought the bag,
if only to get rid of the ghost,
although, the father noted later,
that it was sold at 1940 prices,
which was a steal
for quality planting soil.
viii.
But, that was not the end,
for the moment after the ghost had left,
the bag disappeared,
the stain returned,
and the family was charged an
exorbitant housekeeping fee
for the damaged rug
viiii.
The next ghost sighting was in the 1960s.
The hotel had by this time had fallen into disrepair,
and was know as a illegal gambling haven
for jacks players.
One such jacks enthusiast was a young man,
who had just returned from a disappointing day-trip
to Anaheim to visit a famous theme park,
only to learn that it had recently been
torn down and replaced with orange groves.
viiiii
At six o’clock that same evening,
the man heard a tapping on the door, and voice
inquiring if the woman of the house was available.
But when he opened the door,
the ghost immediately reached into the man’s chest cavity,
pulled out his still beating heart,
showed it to him,
put it back in,
and then using the skills he had honed for a generation,
tried to sell him life insurance.
viiiiii.
There is a happy ending, though, dear readers,
for the very next morning
the young man, shaken but not stirred by
the events of the previous evening,
attended the jacks tournament,
where he finished in the top threesies.
viiiiiii.
In the 1970s the ghost passed away.
The sign on the elevator said
‘Out of Order’
and that was alright.
I was in no hurry.
“Whichever order is fine with me, elevator!” I said, as I stepped in.
But instead of an adventure in randomity,
I was taken directly
to the basement floor.
Where I remained
for two weeks.
