He leapt out of the car just before it was blown apart.
A lumbering bear of a man,
He vaulted cleanly through the open window—
The damnedest thing I ever saw.
He propped himself up on one elbow,
Fanned himself with his hat.
“I’ve decided to give up drinking.”
I helped him up,
Inquired where he lived.
He gave a sudden jerk of his head—
He had trouble keeping his balance.
He asked me for a light,
Mumbled something I didn’t catch.
He was talking absolute nonsense.
A crowd gathered on the opposite side of the street.
Shrapnel had penetrated his head and chest.
I felt my pulse quicken.
The ringing of fire alarms.
The still of the night.
I asked him if he had any thoughts on how it had happened.
His big brown eyes were dull and unexpressive.
He nodded vaguely.
He gave a long, weary sigh.
You didn’t need x-ray eyes to know what was going on.
He began yawning and looking at his watch.
Then, suddenly, zoom! He was off.
Source: New Oxford American Dictionary
Everyone was out of it in the fifties: cops sitting around drinking, blowing smoke, and kidding; gangbangers making careers of slingin’ ‘caine. I’d wonder why and do another line, but I never looked at it as if I were some big drug addict.
So Diane smoked jive, pot, and tea. She was twenty-two years old, a real foxy little chick with auburn hair. She wasn’t especially smart, but she was built—gams and a pair of maracas that will haunt me in my dreams. Boy, she was smooth. She was moving with a fast bunch of kids who did drugs and played mind games and had group sex and I don’t know what else.
I told her I’d make her a star, and she said, “Oh yeah?,” all blue-eyed about it. I was showing off, ego-tripping. A small-fry writer like me! I was just about nutty, I was so lonely—a carefree single lesbo looking for love.
Everybody knew she was bound to come unwrapped. She came at me something awful, but I don’t take crap from anybody. Not anymore, toots, not anymore, my precious darling angel.
Source: Dictionary of American Slang