return to DavidWord

(spoken word)

bobandalice

i want to tell a story about bob and alice they were my friends, especially i want to tell about the stories they told me about golden tongued robbie stern, fiery intellectual suzie who died of a brain tumour but that was a long time after, and about the guy with the bees who didn’t like sds. i want to tell these stories but i can’t, they are buried in peanut butter along with me and bob and alice

why couldn’t i be an alcoholic or a heroin addict. these are real vices that you can be very cool about. peanut butter just makes you fat and old. but enough about me.

bob and alice were a couple years older than me. they weren’t old enough to be like my parents, but they were like my grandparents. they told stories. in the underground office. waiting for the phone to ring. bob and alice and fred. bob and alice and fred were anarchists. fred had a dog. she was anarchist. i said her fleas were anarchist, but that was when we were still friends. fred was not like my grandparents, but that was not his fault.

bob and alice. they were waiting across the street. they still are. buried in peanut butter. waiting for me to dig them out. bob and alice and even fred and even fred’s dog.

alice was a strong woman. alice of bobandalice but only because bob was so short and quick. alice of bobandalice because they were really good friends and a good friend is better than nothing and nothing was better than what the nuns had planned for her. alice of bobandalice because that’s the way the world is and i cried when i found out the truth.

they were waiting across the street. at karen’s house. they had sent her over to make the first move. they were sorry. i knew it. i was sorry they had to be sorry. they waited. i was the leader of the peanut butter conspiracy. i drew funny pictures, but not like karen or dan. i could type really fast. big deal. and i liked people, just about everybody.  even cops when i got to know them so i tried not to. i’m a lot older now, but back then i liked almost everybody so they made me a leader. sort of. of the peanut butter conspiracy.

karen came over to tell me they were there. karen who could draw really good pictures. karen whose father was probably an a number one bastard, whose boyfriend was definitely an a number one bastard but didn’t mean to be, karen who cried in my arms all night before her abortion in the morning, who i reached out and touched with lust filled fingers and said don’t cry when i really meant don’t cry for him.

karen said they’re waiting. i knew they were waiting. she said they’re sorry. i knew they were sorry. she said fred was there too – with his dog. i liked his dog.

she said they’re waiting. they’re sorry. they miss you. and i missed them, maybe even fred.

but i was the leader of the peanut butter conspiracy. i could type really fast. i liked everybody even bob and alice and fred and his dog and her fleas. i was the leader of the peanut butter conspiracy, and i had principles, and a conscience, and promises to keep-- and way too much peanut butter.

alice they fried you
over and over
the bastards
you had hair as black and skin as white as a nun’s habit
did that draw them to you
you could type really fast
even faster than me
you could talk and tell stories
you were hard and soft
and i loved you like a sister and a mother
i swam underwater wearing goggles and looked at your pussy hair
it was black, like a nun’s habit
you answered the phone late one night and said sorry, we were fucking
i thought it was for effect
no. for protection
from the nuns
from their doctors
from the wrong kind of love – the kind they burned you for
i wish my goggles had been painted black

return to DavidWord