“The Artist”
by Robert Julius
I took the usual route home. Passed underneath the 22. Must’ve been a dozen colored tents, tattered and torn, tarps flapping in the Santa Ana winds like they’re a good gust away from sailing to someplace nicer. Maybe someplace with less of a stench, away from the cud and muck and scum and sluts. That ain’t no way of living. That’s what my uncle, the Governor, tells me. And I believe him, for the most part. See, I knew this woman who used to hang out underneath the 22 some weekends. She don’t got a name, or if she does, she wouldn’t tell me because maybe she’s too old to be with someone like me. She’s a nebulous sort of woman, hair all over the place, you know, in the places that matter, and her eyes do this dodgy kind of thing where they look you straight in the soul but not long enough to mean it. But that don’t matter, not according to my uncle the Governor. Read more…