Reynolds & Midway XXIX.

But everybody wants to be that guy,

you know, w/ snappy comebacks, pithy quips.
His 'glasses don't go flying across the floor',
when slapt by starlets. Reynolds & me, we
shuffld out of the theatre, he with a half-
tossd bottle of NyQuil, for a dex-enrichd
attention span, twenty-nine yrs ago,
upstate New York. One day we went spelunking|
Come, say it straight: we spiderd thru some cavey
tunnels in Minnewaska, climbd the lemon-
squeeze, he calld it. On a skinny ladder
I held white knuckld; above, the light pourd
trickling, hence the appellation. Once
topside again, & out of the Blyan darkness ,
Midway became a hero: Elbows outward,
dry hands spannd astride his flaccid beltloops,
he, confident again on Terra Firma ,
waxd poetic: Mts come out of the sky
[hand extended like a Grecian statue's]
about us & we stand there , range across—
80s campfire girls in soggy swimwear
toggle the switch from apogee to nadir,
raise the temperature a fair °,
& alter orator to /chatterbox,
whilst Reynolds, who cld pass for Frampton's
sexier younger brother: loosely springy-
bronzy curls in radiant array,
his teeth rectangled as piano keys
for soft hamfisted bungled melodies
I sketchd one morning. In the afternoon
we journeyd 'round the edge of Newburgh, bent
on misadventure. I was homeward bound
and he my city guide, now Northplank Tavern
occurs to me: another early evening—
Reynolds morphs from Thomas into James,
a Scot or Irishman to Englishman,
and in that fuddlehole, the polishd bar
of heavy wood, we bowd our monkish heads
and askd the tapster, he in natty togs,
despite the absence of the nodding off
& frequent gents & warmers of the barstools'
chinny wives or one-night flirting skirts,
if he wld tell us tales behind the labels:
monastic men brewd this one, sediment
settled at the bottom, potent as wine.
My eyes took in the mirrors, oaken beams
across the high, archd ceiling; then the floor,
buffd smooth enough to cast reflections, stood
straight up & struck me, & I slept. True heroes
never went down like that, the rough & tumble
sluggers in Key Largo, Casablanca,
hard-assd on celluloid; those black & white
packers of small revolvers stood upright
& stood for something, somewhere. Play it again,
                                                                                 Sam.

- 12.14-15.13