Happenstance is Crapenstance

Out of the inkwell comes Yonki the heavily sedated quualude dealer. A fuzzy jewfro and pockmarked face wearing his favorite ribbed tank top fraying at the edges by his armpits.

He calls out to Lester the methadone freak standing stooped on Methadone Mile, cup at his feet hoping for spare change, “sir, mam, please…” Haunted by the community praying for his family because his pet chihuahua fell overboard on his cruise to Puerto Rico all those years ago — all has been a blur since.

If you’re brave then you’re good. You hope for equal pay and settle for mediation during record level floods upstate. At this point Yonki embeds his pic into his afro and orders a case of Franco American Sapghetti-O’s from Amazon. Everything else is well known history. So don’t be an inkhorn and lecture me on canned foods and drug dealers!

And just like that, nothing happens. Happenstance is crapenstance.

I ask Yonki: “How long have you had that incendiary hair?”

“How long have I had this incendiary hair?” says he. “As long as the air is rare? You dare to stare at this rarified commodified loss? Where have your hands gone, man?”

As in the case of a fountain — a girandole — the water radiates out from a central point… or a fulminating firework, but all I can muster is “that incendiary hair — metastasizing through mushroom cloud air. It’s not a visual I want to see but it continually impinges upon my consciousness.”

And just like that (again!) nothing happens. Happenstance is crapenstance… again.

I grieve the breeze and jack it all in and turn myself out. “I thought we had a deal,” I say. “It’s a churlishness you beggar and it’s you’re a beggar of a churl. We are now divested and devalued and pumped full of drugs… pointless, I tell you.”

Yonki says: “Your sedulousness leads to nothing but chaos and chauvinism and a bass line that seethes and some say — it’s on fire!“

If he makes a move in this line of business, then there’s no room for me. I’m tied up in impossible knots.

I offer: “Gordian!” Then I add “No, Givency by way of Guernica.”

All Yonki’s able to offer is “Bombs Away!”

And just like that — nothing happens. Happenstance is crapenstance.

“I might die an old man
Scribbler of trash
Forgotten paper-scratcher
But I’ll tell you this
I really love to lay around on my ass
Totally watching television”

— Ron Padgett / “Poem”