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Radio Verté presents A Hooga by Corey Zimmerman.

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Misery Guts Act 2

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Summer of 1915. The Great War is looming on the Eastern Front. The first fighter plane takes off

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against the wind. People eat about as much lard as they do hog. Friday nights are for player pianos.

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And many Americans still hoof it everywhere on foot, meandering along as slow as molasses in

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January. While up in Detroit, Henry Ford has got one hell of a flame under his ass.

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Smack dab between St. Louis and Chicago, snug in the arms of the mighty Mississippi

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and the Illinois rivers. The Spoon River Valley is carved by trickling waters like a hot knife to

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butter. It thatched quill of maize rye and a vast stretch of Indian grass known as Big Blue, growing

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wild and free. Now it's been said that Big Blue grows so tall and robust that a man on horseback

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can see but an arm's length before his own face. But on sweet occasion, begging to prove we ain't

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all a bunch of country bumpkins I suppose, the rich soil has been known to sprout greatness with

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vision beyond such nose length, beyond leaves of grass, amongst the plains spoken, librettos soaring

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high above with tireless wings, crying out against thy blindness. And by any look, with a dash of

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grace and a thick slathering of fat, the leaves may vary from green to burgundy to a dried up brown,

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the seed head course with three spikelets resembling a turkey foot, a booger if you catch one in the

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heel. And it's no secret that larger than life skies come a dime a dozen about the heartland,

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the wild blue yonder tending to make a big thing of it, stretching out all entitled like about the

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generous stretch of American girth. It is a beautiful and pastoral land with yawning pastures

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of grazing cattle. Where all a man needs is a good dog and a shotgun, and more often than not,

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down-to-earth folk remain just that, salt. Sunflowers, lilies, buzzing insects,

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butterflies, birds, and leaves in a radiant glow. The three-story five-bedroom victorian

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behind the broad sugar maple is painted pearly white, elegant yet moral and sentimental,

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charmed with a rocking chair veranda that wraps tight like a belt about a bloated man's gut,

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providing shade and lemonade on long summer days, giving off the pretense someone's bringing home

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the whole damn hog. Getting your foot in the door, you'll feel right at home amongst peacock feathers

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and paisley, old gold, terracotta, olive drab or khaki, red and yellow embellishments, and threads

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of Japanese gold that accent the times. The walls, pasted with warm patterned hues of purple and sage,

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raise 16 feet into the foyer. At the foot of an open staircase, oak floors bordered in cherry

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with a Greek key pattern reflect the colorful rays pouring in through the stained glass trance.

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Old photographs of bygone folks hanging straight on their nails,

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wet collodial plates of shadowed figures with shifty eyes unable to stay focused for the 22nd

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exposure. The fireplace mantle is lined with a few of 1915's best sellers,

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the Valley of Fear, the Good Soldier, and of human bondage.

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About the matching dining room set carved heavy and overstuffed, fresh flowers fill a vase,

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large floor-to-ceiling windows allow a cool breeze, and crystal chandeliers sparkle.

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A Tiffany lamp stands in one corner, a mahogany grandfather clock in the other,

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chasing the ever-fleeting moment.

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The sun rises upon a tranquil world, and beams down upon the peaceful village like a benediction.

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And so on, long modernized.

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The sun rises upon a tranquil world, and beams down upon the peaceful village like a benediction,

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and so on, long modernized, deconstructed, and destructed, for a new, nihilistic approach

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as we approach that looming war curdling on the horizon.

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As I stare out my bedroom window, overlooking the oaks and maples of the high part of town,

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my father's voice rattles up through the floorboards.

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Oscar, get down here!

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Meanwhile, gracing the kitchen with the waves of her chestnut hair, worn in a prominent

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side part, fringe nearly touching the brow, lobes exposed, her flesh as warm as ivory,

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my mother is a contemporary woman, dazzling, easy on the eyes, flared skirt creeping up

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the calf further each year.

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Dutifully, she beats orange juice into a bowl of eggs, and saws carefully through a loaf

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of bread, mindful not to slice open her finger, before dropping two slices of life into an

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electric toaster, 1200 watts.

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In fat sizzles, the scent absorbing into the threads of morning, the clock on the hot point

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automatic range reads 728 a.m.

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Better get a move on, she says as I pull out my chair.

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Dog killings baffle police, my father, a sandy skinned man with slender, clean cut, dark

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brown hair, slick back to the left, a blue surged suit with thin legs allowing him to

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easily cross one over the other.

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The world, I tell ya.

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Scorning, reviling, and deriding through a pair of round wire rim glasses, Federal Reserve

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Act signed into law by President Wilson.

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Just who in the hell does he think he is?

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He's gonna get an egg to the face.

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You're working against the clock, dear, says my mother.

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I hate school, I say, pouting, cheek full of bacon.

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Why do we have to go to school in the summer anyhow?

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The way it's always been, dear, she says.

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A toe head, here I sit.

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Oscar Clyde Olson, age 12.

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A little gentleman wrapped in Robin's Egg Blue, Mihai socks, knickers, wheat skin, hazel

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eyes, rosy cheeks, full of soggy, undercooked bacon before a sorry excuse of a carbon-rimmed

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egg.

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Anyhow, you love to read, she says, slicing a banana right down the middle.

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No one likes me at school, I say, because it's true.

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I'd cried when Jimmy slugged me in the eye.

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14, living on a fixed income of violence.

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And I'd cried in front of the whole damned lot.

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And everyone laughed and threw apples at me.

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Even called me a bookworm.

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Which I suppose is no surprise to anyone.

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And Andy, handsy Andy.

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He tripped me.

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And hell if I didn't fall flat on my face right in front of Susan of all people.

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Oh, sweet Susie.

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I can't bear the thought of his grimy hands all over her.

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Now that I think of it, during that late spring snow, Tim Tim, the cops kid, well he stole

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my jacket.

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And I came down with a fever.

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But hell, I didn't mind.

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I got to stay home from school sipping on chicken soup all day.

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My father even brought me sherbert in bed.

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Ice cream never asks questions, he says.

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Ice cream understands.

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Boy will he be a hard act to follow.

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An income poop's gone off the deep end this time.

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Hell, we're already hanging in a balancing act.

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Unable to come to terms with the day's news, as always.

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Pant legs bristling as they always do.

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Tingling with the electricity of the times.

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It's just not on, I tell ya.

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A damn central bank will serve only a handful of financiers at the expense of the small

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banks.

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The fool's gonna wreck the economy with inflation.

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Boy if I could give him an earful.

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He's throwing the baby out with the bathwater, I tell ya.

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What's inflation?

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I ask.

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Who's gonna select the board after all?

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Hell, we're handing it all over to the feds.

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Like a bike tire, I ask.

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They're gonna run us into the ground, I tell ya.

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It's a goddamn cacostocracy.

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What's a cacostory?

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I ask.

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Unable to wrap my tongue around the tongue twister of a word.

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Now one of my father's favorite hobbies was throwing his vocabulary around small town

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folks unable to wrap their minds about his ivy-choked education.

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You see my father studied at Knox College.

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Along with the likes of John Puford, Egerley Masters, and Eugene Field, the poet of childhood.

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Bullfrogs and bellyaches if you ask me.

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My father continues.

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A government run by idiots and dimwits is what it is.

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Damn thieves.

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Somewhat unable to keep a lid on it.

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Static filling the air.

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I tuck my neck to the left and watch as flamboyant gestures, like a curious dog.

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I might dare say there's something about his hands.

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They are manicured, graceful, somewhat womanly.

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On the other hand, my mother's hands are scarred and blistered from ongoing experimentation

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with housewifery.

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No better than crooks, he tells me.

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Out for blood.

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Hell, the mob is more organized than Uncle Sam.

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And no less honest.

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Paper crinkling, exclamations, another rhetorical question.

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Did you know bank robbers stole an equal amount the government took last year in taxes?

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To the dollar.

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Expletive.

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Incompetent idiots can't even pave the goddamn roads with all that cash.

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Slide in an orange omelet from a heavily smoking pan to his plate.

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Quit your cursing, Mr. Olsen, my mother said, fiddling sticks of her own.

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Such is life.

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Besides, you got yourself a brand new car, mister.

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Easy for you to say, says my father, dropping the paper to his lap to inspect his eggs.

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Using his fork to examine the blackened underskirt of the beat up jalopy.

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Oscar, why don't you play ball with the boys after school?

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She says, you've been lying around with your nose in grandpa's books all week.

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You must stay as fit as a fiddle.

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Typhoid is going around.

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Typhoid is always going around.

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Sawing down the middle of his rubber omelet.

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You know, honey, we can afford help.

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We do have a maid's quarters after all.

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So why not put it to good use?

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Butler's quarters too.

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The other boys hate me, I say, yoke bleeding out.

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Join the scouts, she says.

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I hear they as I scrunch my nose as my father interrupts.

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Reading is good for the boy.

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You don't want to be a nymph can poop, do you son?

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And besides, you certainly are one to talk, Miss Olsen.

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You have your snout in a book of your own every time I turn the corner.

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Reaching for the maple syrup.

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I tell you what, when I get home from work, we can toss a few.

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And leaning in with a whisper, or go get his sherbert.

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Hands pressed to her hips.

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That's right, you could use some fresh air yourself, mister.

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Nonsense.

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Feeling finer than frog hair, he says.

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Right as rain.

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Sweetening his fatty bacon with glistening syrup.

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Scraping char from the skillet before dropping the whole crime scene into the trash bin.

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Lord knows you spend too much time in that dusty bank vault anyhow, says my mother.

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Laugh in stock.

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He's off his trolley, I tell you.

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As he stands to toss the tribune with a glance at the smoking trash.

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Honey, you're gonna burn down the house.