-utility-

Crap!

The old guy upstairs

Just got his Gas bill

And he’s at my door

Wanting to know

How much my Gas bill is.

Two hundred thirty five he yells.

He inquires frantically: You pay that much?

How much you pay? He insists.

He’s a pain in the ass.

But so's the Gas Company.

So I'll let him.

He’s got the bill in his hands

Threatening to shut off his own gas,

And it’s February.

He’ll do it too.

He’s nuts.

He spends a lot of time in the basement

Bopping things with a hammer,

And he builds and paints giant plywood cutouts

In Christmas themes;— little boys in their vestments;

In Surplice and Cassock, holding lit candles,

Their oval mouths wide as if singing 

Looking more like the vinyl blow-ups on display

In that dark little video joint on the corner of

Bedford and Eighth. 

Once in a while I hear glass smashing down there.

Now he’s sitting at the table in my kitchen

Ranting with a sticky string of spit

Exercising at the edges of his mouth
As I put the sharpest knives in the drawer.

I think he expects me to do something
About his Gas bill.

He’s married to an old lady who walks with a walker,

Who calls me on the telephone

In fear of a strange car parked across the street.
They're doing some drugs over there she says.

She asks if my smoke-alarms are beeping.

Do I have any batteries?

Can I make her some copies of Social
Security documents?
What's he doing down there she wonders aloud
Through the sweating earpiece.
I'm a-scared she moans.

Christ.

I’m done for.

                                           Fall River