28/07/2013

Sunday bull session

Billy the Kid
via wikipedia
It's a lovely day here on Alligator Creek, breezy and hot, about 90° on the screen porch. I have the fan on. I'm drenched but I don't care. I guess I'm acclimated. Across the street, Sonny Boy is holding forth on his screen porch in that booming, gravely voice of his. I catch snippets.
"You gotta have heart. That's what I put on the internet too. You gotta have heart."

"......my daughter, her own cousin says, what a beautiful Italian woman."

He's talking to his dad, who occasionally injects a nearly inaudible but definitely gravely grunt or comment of his own. I can't see them. Palm fronds block the view, as does their screen and the perpetual shadow, as their porch faces north. But I can hear bits of what he's saying over the whir of my fan, the wind in the palms, little seaplanes buzzing up and down the coast, cars whooshing on the nearby road that skirts the ICW... bits and pieces....

"I read the whole biography of Billy the Kid the other day... Died on July 14th, 1881. 21 years-old. Blue-eyed. Weighed 120 lbs... The first time he went to jail he escaped... Went to Arizona on a horse, alone.... Went to New York on a horse, alone.... Mexico, on a horse.... alone.... before he was 21.... He was in the desert by himself.... He had to go to to the Indians.

He has (Yes. He said "has") some brains.... Five hundred miles of desert.... You know his mother was an immigrant... Came over on a boat from Ireland... His mother died when he was 15.... 15... so he started runnin around... got in trouble, whatever... his step-father didn't want nothin to do with him so he went out west... He looked at Florida and said "what the hell?"
Later he switched to personal reflections.
Kewpie doll
via wikipedia
"They had a kwepie doll, know what I mean?... I lost everything I had....bowls, furniture, my gun, everything.... Left me in a little bit of shit.... But anyways, I was packing up to leave, the house was full of crabs and fleas. I had no vehicle, no money, my social security check was cut off..."
Then Mom returned from the ravioli run.
"What the hell is this? Who wrecked this chair? What the hell happened here?"
 Sonny Boy,
 "I put tape over it."
 And thus ended the Sunday bull session.

--------------------------------------------------------

And, besides doing this post and going to the beach for while today, I redesigned my poetry site, annasadhorse, and added a new piece titled Music Theory.

3 comments:

Roy said...

Is it a bit like BBC television? You can't really understand it at first?
But that was great. I now feel like I know Sonny Boy, and I'd enjoy having a beer with him. (!)

asha said...

Oh indeed. The stories abound! It's his art form.

Roy said...

My grandma in Oklahoma said her aunt told her she knew Billy the Kid from when he went down there to hide out. She said he was just a punk, and no one liked him.