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------- ------- ------- ------- Bob finished his beer and left the change on the bar. Back out on the sidewalk, he squinted in the bright afternoon sunlight. ------- A frizzy-haired woman waved to him from a nearby doorway. -------“Robert!” she called. ------- “Yes?” ------- “Come on! Steve’s not here yet, but we can get started.” ------- “Miss, I think…,” but she’d gone inside. -------It was the local radio station, a big room with a glassed-in booth at the far end. The woman was on the phone. ------- “Damn!” she said and banged down the receiver. “That was Steve. There’s been an accident. It’ll be fifteen minutes before he gets here. Robert, it looks like we’ll have to scrap your interview on “Live Poet’s Friday.” I’m really sorry. Maybe Steve can work it in next week.” ------- “I’m sorry too, uh . . . Sharon,” Bob said, reading the nameplate on her desk. “Could someone else do it?” ------- “Afraid not. Herb has to get the kids so his wife can go to work. He’ll set up some music.” ------- Bob nodded. He wondered where Robert was. Maybe he was stuck in traffic with Steve. ------- “How about if I do my own interview?” he said. ------- “Oh, I don’t know.” ------- “I guess you’d need Steve’s okay, huh?” ------- Sharon looked insulted. “I’m the station manager,” she said. “Could you do that, Robert? I hate to run just music.” ------- “Let’s try it,” Bob said. ------- “You’ve done this sort of thing before?” ------- “Oh sure. It sounds like Herb’s about to wrap it up in there.” -------“You have your poetry with you?” ------- “In the old bean.” Bob tapped his forehead. “Here we go.” ------- Bob nodded to Herb and took his place at the mike. Sharon shot him with a finger. Pow. ------- “Good afternoon, listeners! This is Bob, sitting in for Steve on Live Poets Friday.” He gave Sharon a thumbs-up. -------“Today we have the pleasure of talking with poet Vernal Poole. Vern, it’s good to have you with us.” ------- “Thanks, Bob,” Bob said. “It’s swell to be here. I always listen to your show.” ------- “Great, Vern. I understand you’ve been on the Cape about a year now, and you come from Philly?” ------- “Philadelphia, right. The City of Brotherly Love. Can we say that on the air? That’s a joke, Bob. Yep, I was in the wholesale seafood business in South Philly for thirty years. And I end up on Cape Cod, eh? What a hoot!” ------- “Ha ha. Right, Vern. So you’re a fisherman-poet?” ------- “Wholesale fisherman-poet. I get seasick on boats.” ------- “Uh huh. And you’ve brought some of your work? ------- “I do improv, Bob” ------- “Very interesting, Vern. That must be...difficult.” ------- “Nothing to it. There’s always poetry running through my head. / Turgid tropes, like viscid bat shit, / spattering a new seersucker suit. /.” ------- “Seafood, you said?” ------- “For 30 years. / Gloved hands weave a quilt of writhing fish guts. / Heads abandoned, glare at bloody boots. / .” ------- “And then…you retired…” ------- “Yes, sir. / Sharky Pool, my daddy, ran the scam, / until the Eye-Tyes shot him dead at Pat’s Cheese Steaks. / I knew when to call a halt. / The fishy business prospers now in fine Italian hands. /.” ------- “…to the Cape.” ------- “That I did, and it was the best move I ever made. / Cape Cod, bastion of the newly innocent, / defenders of the piping plover, / deaf to pleading from beyond the bridge. / Ever seen one of these suckers, Bob?” ------- “Vern, that’s a nasty looking knife!” ------- “/ They call this a dragon’s tooth. / I drew it from a corpse in old Macao. / Its blade so sharp it cuts the air. / Hear it screaming when I SLASH!” ------- “Vern! No!” ------- “It’s only a scratch, Bob. A little furniture polish will take it out.” ------- “God, Vern, I thought one of us was going to die.” ------- “/ No, Bob, that was just our cue. / We’re bowing out, Act 5, Scene 2. / Here’s Steve just coming into the studio.” ------- “Yo, Stevo! By golly, Vern, you put on some display of poetic virtuosity, but I’m afraid we’re almost out of time. I’m going to turn you over to the master. -------“Steve, meet Vern Poole. What a sketch this fellow is! Sorry to guys run, but I have to whip up Moo Shu Pork for fifty tonight and emcee a charity ball.” ------- ------- July 07 ------- ------- |