Five Poems by Richard L. Gegick

THE OCEAN

Tony’s been a cook here ever since

he was placed in the renewal center

over a decade ago.

Twice a GED failure, he can barely read,

but knows how to cook a steak, how to

work hard, show up on time.

His roommate, Daryl, is dying of cirrhosis.

They were cell mates in the pen,

rumored lovers.

I went to their apartment once,

and they slept on bunk beds like jail,

Daryl was top.

Now Tony drives after endless ticket

Saturdays to spend the night bedside

at Cleveland Clinic.

The late night highway air soothes

grease burned arms and hands covered

with blisters.

Sundays he drives all morning to

make it back for the early

dinner rush.

During pre-shift I ask how Daryl

is doing in Cleveland though I

already know.

“Not good,” he says. “But at

least while I was up there I finally

got to see the ocean.”

THE LUNCH REGULAR SHITS HIS PANTS

Five minutes after you

take his order, he’ll

wave you down, say

he’s ready to order.

You tell him he has

already ordered and

then he will say,

“I want a turkey sandwich.”

The average guest age

in this restaurant is

deceased. Christ.

This ancient man comes

in every single weekday,

and the routine never

changed.

Ginger ale, turkey sandwich,

cup of decaf, shits his pants.

You’d feel sorry for the

decrepit bastard, but

you don’t have time.

The crones on 206 need

cappuccino and the young

couple sitting patio,

drinking martinis needs

to know if the calamari

is gluten free.

So you let him sit

in his booth with

crapped pants.

You run his black Amex,

call his aide, froth the milk,

and grab a mop.

A PIG’S DICK

I remember the world pre-internet

and then after.

How the elderly signed up for AOL

accounts and played

Sling-O for hours in their therapeutic

desk-chairs, and learned

how to IM their grandchildren while

their grandchildren were

trying to score cyber-sex in chatrooms,

asking for age/sex/location.

How they didn’t know how to delete

their browser history,

visited websites like boobs.com and

thought you didn’t know.

Worse how it gave old perverts,

those stag party vets

who used to set up the projector

new hobbies.

Like this guy, Bobby, I worked with

68 and obsessed

wanted my email so he could send me

dirty pictures.

He told me once that a pig’s dick is

curly-cue like its tail

and he never knew that until he watched

a pig fuck a woman online.

THANKSGIVING AT GOLDEN CORRAL

Even though I know better, I am here because

my Grandfather can’t roast a turkey and wants

to treat the family to a Thanksgiving dinner.

What better can it get than all-you-can-eat for

twelve dollars and ninety-nine cents?

He’s chemo-sick and his fingernails black, rotting.

Still his sleeves are rolled up to show off his tattoos

done in 1941 when he was thirteen and there was a war

and he was a runaway on a Merchant Marine ship with

a forged baptismal certificate.

He fills his tray with turkey, stuffing, cranberries, potatoes,

only managing to eat half, saving room for pie.

There are so many pies here, apple, pumpkin, cherry.

And he calls the waitress, “Peanut,” and asks for coffee,

but anymore they don’t smile back.

I could go on about the despair here as I eat my baked potato

and breaded chicken wings. Here, where the lonely and obese

line up at the never ending chocolate fountain. Where toothless

derelicts eat sweet potato mush with their barren wives

and wash it down with Dr. Pepper.

But I won’t.

Look at all this food, he says.

My Grandfather believes that this is the best life can offer,

an endless bounty at a discounted price.

I will never disagree.

KISSING CUNT IN CANNES

Never been to France, though,

riding motorcycles along the Riveria,

a supermodel’s arms around my waist

like Mick Jagger, fucking movie starlets

and socialites.

Or Keith Richards so affordably

torn and frayed in a Nazi mansion

basement, high on pure junk, and

fucking movie starlets and socialites.

Been up to Youngstown,

and you don’t get laid there.

Not even Jagger could manage

in that pothole town.

East Pittsburgh is a maybe at best.

The sexiest girls in Bob’s Lounge

all have chewed fingernails and

pound shots of well tequila and

have boyfriends with monster trucks.

Even if you got the Vicodins she

wants she’s probably not going

home with anyone, but she’ll buy

the pills with her boyfriend’s cash.

And you’re exiled on Greensburg

Pike, another loser in another town

full of losers. Two generations now who

never got lucky.

Richard L. Gegick is from Trafford, PA. His fiction has appeared in Hot Metal Bridge, Jenny Magazine, and others. He lives in Pittsburgh where he writes and works as a waiter.