Pierre

Written and read by Alex B. Fine

Guitar by Ben Ellis

* apologies for bad recording

 

When I woke up he was staring at me calmly.
“Pierre,” I said, looking into his eyes, “You deserve the very best; a long walk on a cool autumn morning. I know that’s what you want and I’m going to give it to you. I’m the man for the job.”
I stood up. I was naked. I walked to the window and pulled back the curtains and the room filled with light. Pierre watched me. I put on a pair of black skivvies with blue piping.
“Pierre, as you know, these are my favorites”, I said, chuckling wisely. He stared at me.
“Listen”, I said, “what is mine is also yours. Now with that in mind, today I will fry four rather than the usual two eggs (I will, it’s fine), and the side of ham–you know the one I mean–shall be cleft in twain, just as the single-serve peach yogurt shall be divided once, equally.”
I opened the door and when I did Pierre lifted his head. He got up when I left the room and followed me down the dark hall and into the kitchen. As I walked in my skivvies I could feel my calves rattling anchored firmly to my shins and I felt strong; I felt like walking for years, like Thomas Jefferson strolling through Philadelphia, detached from the customs of that city but still feeling strong in a pair of colonial skivvies perhaps not unlike these.
I lifted the spoon out of the jar of bacon grease by the stove.
“Now,” I said, waving the spoon, “my little rabbit, haha, let’s see if we can’t put something together, no?” His left eye seemed to close a little.
The skillet heated and the lump of gray bacon residue turned clear and spread across the black surface. As I cracked open the second egg and poured its contents into the skillet I turned around and saw Pierre sprawled on the kitchen floor, asleep.
“Pierre, my man, don’t even think about taking a nap at this juncture.” I laughed as I turned both eggs over with the spatula, and the broken yolk of one leaked through albumen and out into the center of the black frying pan, hardening as it did.

Good old boy

This was a boy people liked.  He had a good feel and you liked the look of him.  Standing in the garden of a man he just met he could say nothing and the man would be buoyed.  Or he might say I like your garden and the man would be buoyed.  He would say this or that to whomever and get his point across without needing to, even to old people.  Dogs approached him unsolicited and he had a calm and worldly nanny’s way with children who showed him their toys.  When he helped some local Mexicans erect their home no one felt weird and the Mexicans one time picked him up at the U-Haul place; no big deal, have you eaten, and so forth, no guilt experienced by anyone.  He stayed up late with his neighbors watching a documentary about gas chambers but no one felt weird or sad because he would say don’t sweat it and would help them keep it at arm’s length and all that and they would think in the bathroom alone that it is what it is and I think a Bodhisattva could experience a bad feeling but still think hey this is beautiful and smile inwardly.  And they would think a Bodhisattva is a good compromise given everything I have going on and they would smile inwardly in the bathroom, into the mirror but inwardly.