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Dry Run

So then
(way back when) regrouping from a broken
affair marriage in shambles
no job
	he moved the family
to Atlanta to start over furniture
and car gone
with the wind no cash nothing left but the Diner's
Club which they used for literally everything
food lodging cigarettes
gas booze and instant credit from Rich's until finally
he managed to hire on as creative director
at a small 
ad agency across from the Coca Cola HQ on Spring Street
where right away things 
started looking up like coming out of prison 
his wife said like on The Price 
Is Right paycheck every week smiling tellers 
at the C & S
good morning Mr. Bones
				parking
space with his name
on it five year old Ford Falcon with a decent stereo new
recaps
and an office only an oak panel away
from the burned-out
second banana that used to write Charlie the Tuna
commercials
back in Chicago reduced
now to taking orders from his truly who didn't
as it turned out
have to do much of anything creative except cover his ass look
busy in the AM make
a few calls till noon then off to a long (usually
free) lunch
and considerable drinking with media reps jingle 
writers agents and various
performers and execs who could take their medication 
quietly without whining about the check 
Jim
Beam Tanqueray Dewars Tequila Gold never
quite zonkered but
always on the edge trying to embrace
the rhythm
of the city
		skyline
changing whole
				world
changing anything possible
can't turn
around without bumping into somebody on the move 
even an alumnus like
Dickey
already a star by then but still
a member of the club
			eyes
bulging weaving 
				his hands
in the air to show how he brought the P-38 in over
the target death
and destruction in his wake but only bombed
out of his
mind now like the rest of them trying
to see how much
fire and ashes they could throw down and still function but after
lunch what? why let's see (says his truly to him-
self) how about we
drive out to Channel 17 (Turner's 
infamous Super Station which made the cheapest 
commercials in town) 
screen some tacky Decatur Federal stuff then zip down Peach-
tree to the Sans Souci happy hour call the agency
from the men's room lying through
his teeth that he has to be at WAGA-TV toot sweet
for an emergency edit then hang up do a quick 180 over to Ansley
Park to fuck
some babe at a friend's garage
apartment pussy being next to booze on his must-do list
in those days stumbling
back to the office at five to catch 
his breath make it home by seven down Ponce de Leon 
to Decatur
family supper and the whole day's work
yet to accomplish before morning not a bad life all in
all for a young (make that semi-young) turk
except that one evening dead
tired from a day of particularly frenzied
action he's
met at the door by the tearful wife who allows
that his two sons
haven't eaten lunch a single time the entire year long at Miss Ginny's
day care because nobody
ever bothered 
to tell them the meals were included in the monthly 
payment and you know
what the boys said she says when I asked them what they did
at lunchtime when all the others
were eating they
said they colored in their color books and they didn't mind
really they didn't
because they understood how poor we were
and how hard dad had to work and if we could do without they could do
without like in the Bible
or on Johnny Quest when him and Hadji
got lost in the Amazon and had to find their way home by
								celestial
navigation which is so astonishing
to his truly 
that he tries to put in a call to Dickey by way of Al
Braselton but Al
is out
on the Chattahoochee and Dickey too
for all Al's wife knows can
					she take
a message just this says his
truly you tell
Al to tell Dickey that tomorrow
morning when I take my boys to Miss Ginny's day care for the day
you will not catch
me in the parking lot out there weaving
my hands 
in the fucking air no
			goddamit
I will be down on my knees praying to the wide-open
collisionless color
of the morning sky (what others would call the dawn) begging 
God to protect them from protectors
like me (like Dickey) 
who will hug them and abuse
them and blast them to smithereens
and regroup 
to rewrite it every godforsaken day peering back 
through the flak at the shitstorm of words engulfing our names
jerking every lever
we can get our hands on to fan the flames

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