SH*T CITY CHRONICLES:
Tales of Pain, Passion, and
Civil
Wrongs in America's Recent Past
A Rhyming Narrative
by
Woodrow H. Sears, Ed.D.
SMASHWORDS EDITION
PUBLISHED BY
Woodrow H. Sears, Ed.D.
Editorial/Design Support by
PleasantValleyPress.net
Sh*t City Chronicles
Copyright © 2011 Woodrow Sears
Smashwords Edition License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal use and may not be re-sold or given away. If you want to share this book, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and didn't purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.
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Editor’s Note
If you’ve read any of the dozen Human Resource Development books Woody has published on Smashwords, you’re familiar with his style.
Sh*t City Chronicles is very different from the business books, but the style is the same. It is a both a celebration of the best and an indictment of the worst in American culture in the 20th and 21st centuries.
Woody doesn’t pull punches. He rarely (if ever) beats around the bush to soften a message or forces the reader to try to figure out exactly what he’s trying to say. As a matter of fact, he never tries to say anything. He simply says it!
That he can successfully translate this “totally Woody” work into A Rhyming Narrative without sacrificing his style is yet another testimony to his skill as a writer. The real “Woody” is present in every word: he is a keen observer of the human condition, but equally important, he shares with the reader not just his anger and frustration but also, his heart, his intellect, his own regrets, and his humanity.
Sunny Deuber Carney, PleasantValleyPress.net
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
The Second Full Moon in August
Lascivious Tales of a Traveling Man
Gutless Wonders of the Western World
Doing Time at the Five and Dime
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Provincetown
As a Californiac hopelessly smitten by the Golden State,
The Golden Gate, the golden grasses of summer and the great
Sense of freedom this polyglot population provides,
I was unprepared for Provincetown and the sunset that divides
The tip of that curvilinear peninsula so completely from
The distant mainland as to be cast adrift in some
Golden haze. Wow! I knew why the fretful drive from Boston
Was worth the effort. As a traveler I've learned too often
That getting there is the better part of the trip.
But not Provincetown, Cape Cod Bay being defined by that tip
Of land perched precariously out in the Atlantic.
But why speak of geography when I had expected a frantic
Autumn weekend of Indian Summer revelers catching the last days
Of summer before the harsh New England winter chilled the rays
Of a sun too paltry to punch through the humid hank of stone
Cold air straight from the Polar Maritime High traveling known
Courses and picking up moisture to become the howling Nor'easter
That savages the dunes and bends trees Thanksgiving to Easter.
What I found was a town full of gentleness because, by accident
Or by some effective underground communiqué, it was evident
That the town had been taken over by gay women for the weekend
At least. And the town was full of them, holding hands,
Touching, strolling, talking, laughing quietly. A few bands
Of six or eight, but mostly couples with none of the tension
Of male/female contenders for the boss role, no dissention
Manifesting itself in pouting, boorish behavior by either
Party, nor any of the hyperactive groping and giggling. Neither
Was there any drunkenness, unusual in so large a crowd
So late in the day, nor any dissonant music played loud
By tone-deaf hoodlums carrying boxes as "look at me" devices,
Nor any swaggering groups of adolescent punks to cause crises
At intersections and entrances to bars. None of that bother.
Just gentle women being easy with themselves and each other.
There's a lot of it around, they say, what with our culture
Having permitted women the emotional freedoms men were sure
Were harmless for women but emasculating for he-males.
What a laugh to see what has blossomed for females
Tired of the emotional suicide dealing with most guys requires.
That was the thing, that was the mood, the idea that inspires
These memories, a kind of collective knowledge of escape
From the threat of beatings, drunken rages, almost-rape
And more. The freedom from that braggadocio, flimsy, tinny ego
That keeps pathetic and uncaring guys afloat when they know
In their heart of hearts that there's no one there.
Empty shells, puffed with packaged soft porn and hot air
About baseball scores and quarterbacks or tennis and port tacks
Depending on their socio-economic levels. But all hiding the cracks
Of their shattered illusions about heroic deeds they never did
And powerful moves never made and choices from which they hid;
Knowing all the while that they were choosing but afraid
To own it. Resorting to that male solution, getting laid
And maybe drunk, too, using women as retaliation in their combat
With the shadows of the people they might have been but for that
Bitch, that shrew, that nagging c*nt who drives them, hag-ridden,
To perpetrate stupidities that can't be hidden
From anyone, mostly themselves, and that's what makes them mean
And spiteful and punishing to wives and children.
Obscene!
These are not "women's issues" but problems of a sick society
That permits tits and ass advertising without any propriety
Or sense that no girl child needs to grow up faster,
To be seduced into revealing clothes and roles that cast her
Too soon into the meat market of All-American boy-girl games.
Those Provincetown women could tell the same story with names
And dates and parental pressures and in the face of all that, why
Not have kids without fathers? Why have husbands?
Why cry,
Like Momma did every night?
Go back to Provincetown and be happy!
The End of a Fantasy
The last of the family slaves was Aunt Nancy,
Nanny to my father and his siblings 100 years ago.
She had retired to a shack on the family farm, rent free.
It was only logs and tarpaper, but she was just a n**ger, you know.
I reckon it was 1942 when she died
And we rode the Trailways and walked a mile to the rites.
(Slaves indeed! People thought we'd lied—
No car and the power company'd turned off the lights.)
The strange democracy of death worked even then
As shy children of two races giggled and peed in the briars
While my father and uncle stood in a circle of black men
Passing around a pint of bourbon like a group of Irish liars.
Twenty years later they removed the "whites only" signs
In public places and began to break the color lines.
And at funerals still they may stand around and pass a pint
Like they're friends—but everyone knows they ain't.
Harley-Davidson Dreams
South enough that the L.A. smog
Had just begun to tinge the day,
I heard the rattly rasp of a Harley Hog
Passing two lanes away.
Engineer boots perched on the cruising pegs,
Sprawled back in the sleepwalker's
Open-armed groping grasp of the handlebars,
Black leather chaps flapping around his legs,
Gob of keys and Buck knife at his side,
Cheap plaid shirt and silvered glasses.
Ponytail and bandana-tips stuttering in the wind.
Dad implied
By the moon-faced momma
Laid back against the swastika-tipped sissy bar.
Fringed moccasins easy on the pegs
Jeans, river-runner's shirt, and bandana, too
(Hers was red, his was blue)
And the blanket-wrapped bundle cradled
Between her breasts and belly.
Pang of pity, jolt of judgment!
Where is it written that a new messiah
Cannot be launched from the back of a Harley?
The Second Full Moon in August
Stunned by the unreal gold presence
Emerging above the dark hills,
We watched in silence as the blue moon rose.
No words were necessary, I suppose,
As the blue moon ripped the ass-end off August
And plunged us into September–
The month of separations and the waiting game.
Summer memories already collecting dust
In the backwash of busy lives. Remember...?
Four moons from now, from this same deck we built
During your encounter with
American History Before the Civil War we must
Remember to celebrate the conjunction of
Three orbits for December—
Future bound!
The Last Week Before School
Pressed, coiffed, and squeaky clean,
Giggling about the cocktails and wines
Gobbling snacks like the first food they've seen
In months. Not starving—nothing that bad—
Just kids of divorce returning home to Mom or Dad.
The youngest is five, the oldest a 'teen,'
A somberness about them belying their ages,
A cast of eye to suggest the pain they've seen
As they flip the pages of the airline magazine
Trying to behave and to be cool
Hurtling toward home the last week before school.
Some are moving, you can't keep them down,
Using the aisle like treadmills in cages,
Trying the patience of passengers and attendants who frown
Stern warnings while volunteer grandpas try to play clown
To quiet undisciplined kids. An attendant confessed that, as a rule,
"Anything's better than the last week before school."
Busted Locks
Remembered now some 40 years.
A red-ribbon bow hung on a grandfather clock
To celebrate a relationship on which the lock had already been busted.
The pain of failure and the anguish of abandonment
Still burns like an unhealed wound—cement-
Hard scar tissue yielding maudlin sentiment
To punctuate happy times with tingles of torment
Sprung from memories that won't stay crusted
With a protective coating of ennui.
Can't believe this is happening to me.
Guess it's remorse.
Remembering old failures, of course
Is as silly as thinking sad thoughts for that horse
Dead on the roadside outside Matamoras
As I watched the vultures do their thing, disgusted.
Maybe it's the passing of another natal milestone
That spawned this melancholy tone
Or an early warning mechanism to say
Watch it, kiddo, before it all slips away
From a guy running too hard to catch up.
I hear! Enough of sorrow's cup.
Captains
I.
He would have been as forgettable as one in a pack of crows
Except for one idiosyncrasy—
He owned no civilian clothes.
Strange even in a menagerie of misfits—
the Green Machine—
He had garnered dispensation to paint his Chevy OD green.
Sundays he donned the dress uniform of the season,
Starched and stiffly white or red-striped blues
For mass and the blessing the Catholic God imbues,
Then returned to the BOQ for a change of hues.
Starched fatigues and polished boots—jogging the reason.
Civilian gawkers and incredulous Marines new to the base
Watched this lifer double-timing the parade field
Carrying, at port arms, his Browning Automatic Rifle.
The macho image was so grotesque it was hard to stifle
The derisive laughter of those who fates weren't sealed
By sociopathy and civilian freedoms they couldn't face.
Now half a century from then to date,
Did he survive the Vietnamese adventure?
Did he then pack iron as a rent-a-cop at someone's plant gate
(Like an ex-major who ranted about the Marine Corps cure
For faggots and hippies who don't park straight)?
II.
This garrison commando's boyish face was not aged by the steel-rimmed glasses,
Nor by his arms-akimbo steely glances at junior officers at whom
He hurled epithets about lace as he screamed for them to get their asses
In gear. I see him still prancing angrily across the platform in the training room.
In retrospect he wasn't all that bad.
Truth to tell, it was quite sad
That his warrior's grit was never tested
Before he found himself bested
By a line of junior officers entertaining his wife
While he spent nights honing his Ka-Bar knife
On field exercises. Revenge isn't always great.
He resigned to run hick town theaters in a Midwestern state.
III.
He should have worked for IBM,
Marching up the career ladder for them
Or for some other corporate enterprise
That worships, in whatever guise,
The pristine purity of white maleness.
Color over competence and all that mess.
Oh, yes, pure. He had a seven-generation
Clean bill of health. Documentation
Demanded by the family of his Puerto Rican fiancée
Who claimed pure Castilian lineage back way
Before Conquistadors brought plague and clap to decimate
Native peoples too gentle to retaliate.
Even to an old Southern boy like I,
It was a strange preoccupation to try
To rank people by the content of their veins
And to use such stuff as reins
On the reproductive game.
Seven grades, not two, from Castilian to n**ger.
He was proud, and the subject provided the trigger
So he could claim
Some refugee on the Mayflower bore his name.
IV.
I was a captain, briefly, too.
Resigned my commission because I knew
Winning in Viet Nam was the fantasy
Of that arrogant, Camelot-crazy
Collection of pure white Christians
Who did not care how many missions
Were required to plague those heathen natives
Into submission.
With no trace of contrition,
Creating assassinations,
De-stabilizing sovereign nations
They had no idea how far gooks could go on handfuls of brown rice
To defeat civilized warriors bivouacked with steaks and Scotch on ice.
The ultimate Shit City Chronicle, friend,
That dirty little war we just couldn't win.
And don't you believe that no one knew
Because, by God, that isn't true!
Commandant of the Marine Corps David Shoup
Gave JFK the gospel poop:
"The whole of Southeast Asia is not worth the life of one Marine for all the difference our having been there will make."
Can't blame you for choosing propaganda over this rhyme
But facts keep emerging over time
To validate that prophecy in '62.
See for yourself what I just said is true—
That the Camelot crowd couldn't hear Eisenhower
And went tripping off on ego and power
To rescue the Romanized residue of French colonization
And stole 58,000 lives from this still-disbelieving nation.
Bachelor Pad
Bachelor pad, all right. Playboys
On every surface in sight. Adult toys
Gathered round the king-size bed/throne—
VCR with stereo, portable phone,