AI
I served time in the Gulf,
and I am telling you
when I came home and found her packed up and gone,
it wasn’t long until I hatched a plan.
I located the man behind it all,
staked out his apartment and his job.
Then one afternoon, I dressed up in camouflage,
loaded my AK-47
and went to Hot Dog Heaven.
I found them in the parking lot,
sharing kisses over lunch.
I came up from behind, but changed my mind
and walked right in front,
and aimed through the windshield,
before they had a chance to see who it was.
I shouted my name, hoping she would hear as she died,
then I went to the passenger side
and fired at his head. A red mass
exploded like a sunburst.
At first, I couldn’t believe I’d done it,
then I put the gun down
and looked at my hands, which were steady.
I pulled open the door,
before I knew what I was doing.
I just had to see what he was hiding in his pants.
It was pathetic, a sad, shriveled thing
there between his legs
and not the foot-long
she had said made her scream with pleasure.
I did hear screams, but they were coming
Noise, I thought, as I fired at her body again.
Of course, I’d turned the gun on myself.
What else could I do to erase it all?—
the 911 calls, the sirens in the distance,
but the ordinariness of murder overwhelmed me,
possessed me like a spirit
and I thought how easy it would be
to take two or three more people with me.
Instead, I decided to give myself up,
plus I was out of ammunition.
I guess it is my destiny,
to be a living example for other men,
who are only bluffing when they threaten violence.
Now once a week, I write a column on relationships
for the prison publication.
I base my advice on actual situations.
For example, Clarence Thomas.
He had a dick fixation, just as I did.
For me, it was a torment and my downfall
and nearly his.
Ultimately, the question is always
how far are you willing to go?
I think within his parameters,
Clarence went the distance.
As far as I’m concerned,
he’s earned his place on the Supreme Court
and stands tall beside all the other men,
who haven’t given in to a woman’s scorn,
who are born again from the fire of their ridicule.
If you ask me, Anita Hill got off too easily.
I would have caught the bitch
some afternoon, while the cherry blossoms
were in bloom
and boom, solved all my problems.
Oops! I think I wobbled over the line
that separates fantasy from crime.
The counselors tell me all the time
I’ve got to get it straight
how the imagination sometimes
races on without us.
But I know Debby and Ed are off somewhere
eating wedding cake
and letting me take the fall for their betrayal.
Is it fair that on the other side of this wall
Clarence has it all
and I have nothing but a ball and chain?
That reminds me, I checked this Othello play
out of the library.
It’s about a guy
who loses his reputation and his wife,
well, he kills her, but she made him.
I found some parallels to my own life and Clarence’s.
Othello’s black.
But the other subtler thing is how a man
must stand up to humiliation,
must retaliate, or lose himself,
who when he finds some pubic hair
in his can of Coke
must ask, regardless of the consequences,
who put it there?