Romance Out West
 

Come along Elect,
& listen to how The Kid walked
out on a good wife
to run off to adventure
with The Sill.
Worst thing on his conscience now,
but it was the fatal attraction,
& he went for it.
His wife said of it
"all the lights went out,"
& tonight he knows what she meant.
Sill swore by the stars above
she loved him on sight,
knew he was the one for her,
& damned if he didn't feel the same way.
Sill asked him to play slide guitar
on a record she was to cut,
so he lifted a brass lipstick tube
out of the house
& flew off down to Los Angeles.
He was a fairly busted-out drunk
& she was a terminal junkie,
but his doom was very visible,
hers not so much yet,
so the plan was to dry him out.
They moved their act into the house
of a friend of hers,
on a hill
in sight of the Hollywood sign.
The Kid thought her friend seemed
like a fairly nice guy
on first meeting him;
a guy practicing to audition
for "The Singing Cowboy" role.
This guy had a girlfriend
living there with him,
& she & Sill were kindly solicitous
of The Kid, starting him
on a regimen of peach kefir,
multivitamins plus iron supplement liquid
& their special cocktail
of coconut milk & raspberry juice,
delicious medicines to replace
Wild Turkey bourbon whiskey,
the cowboy's color T.V....
Which may have been part of why
the guy decided to take a real
dislike to The Kid.
He'd pass a door quickly
& say, "What a Man!"
in a decidedly hostile way...
then go back to coming on
eerily, unctuously
friendly & patronizing.
It hurt The Kid's feelings.
Sill was baffled;
she'd figured these guys would be
fast amigos.
his gift did come down for him
& lifted them up
& he wrote "So Long At The Fair,"
& paid The Sill back
for nursing sweet life
back into his body,
bringing her kiwi fruits & bananas,
bricks of marzipan,
Perrier water,
Earl Grey tea,
& his desperate, raggedy,
even hopeless manhood,
its arms around the bonnie poor
lost girls of the ages,
lifting the bale,
until she swore to him
she'd seen The Kid,
& their faces could turn
the rain like stones.
Sometime later The Kid faced that guy
in a pop star's living room
& explained how he wished to Hell
the guy had just smiled...
then budge his air a little bit,
said a quick prayer,
& left satisfied.
This was years ago.
The guy's girlfriend has long since
gone south.
The Sill died.
The Kid in his revery figures
"if I ever meet that brother again
maybe we can be civil,
now my empty cup
is as sweet as the punch."*

* * *

4/26/91

* This guy [Russ Giguere] belonged to "The Association" — had a couple of hits, "Everyone Knows it's [Windy]" & "Along Came Mary," which features this hook: "Now my empty cup tastes as sweet as the punch."