House of Paine

bean town credit crunch fall '89

 since i'm lookin to refire up
bizzwise

 i'll soon be cruisin
 for a thick and long 
                credit line...

heres   chapter 2 
   of how and when
 i lost my last line ....

============================= 


brief up date

the past spring
i'd discovered the two bobs
 had blown 
both paines  nuts off



 picking  up in media res
 here we are the folowing fall
ball-less-ly  
 wondering  the seraglio
 tryin 
 to make a date
 we couldn't possibly keep ...
         


  ...


----------------------


 so  there we was
  or there we wasn't

in fact we was
me and paines 
so  far from "there "anymore...

only we didn't quite
 fully know it yet

sales were sliding 
still slowly 
but sliding

the water in the hold was rising 

we'd started the lay offs 

i'd begun 
to approach our landlords
for lease relief 

by then 
inside bob
  " the cockroach "
was  never  seen out
       of his shade drawn
                 darkened office 

and to my knowledge
 no one went in there 
except him either

he was there each biz day 
because he had to be there
to collect his money
under the terms 
of tha caste iron contract .....


staff speculated some on this ...

"whats he up to in there 
for christ sake ?"
they asked each other


i suggested 
he might be 
trying to turn himself
       into
"a platonic form "

but most seemed to favor 
       the notion
 
"he's playin with that yo yo "

the one with
 the  two headed 
               snooppy dukakis on it
the one his pal 
the property insurance sleeze
                      had given him 

 who knows

isn't it reckless
 to speculate 
on what a member
of another entirely different species 
does 
when outside 
the range of direct observation ?

one thing for sure

this company  shit slide 
we were on
was no longer
any of his look out 

but if bob one 
wasn't caring a fig 
 around this same time 
a fuck load
 of other  mini-biz folks
           were 

cause the bank examiners were in town  

and
speculating was rife
and scary
 
"what's  goin on
up there
on 
 the top floors down town
                         anyway...?

 whats gonna come out at us
from the big banks ? 
 

these  guys from washington
        are 
"the rough house boys "
the same guys who 
"cleaned up the southwest energy patch "
  like cyclones clean up a trailer park

  panic words were cascading in all directions

 "what the hell happens
when these fellahs get 
all the way 
TO THE BACK OF THE LOAN FILE
and find  my fat ass out fit
     moonin back at  em ...?"

another  regional hecatomb ?


like denver and dallas   perhaps 

"nah... we're to eastern core for that"

"oh sure ..too eastern core.... yup ..."



I,myself,
comrade president pink
was rift assunder
 by all this

of course i was

right?



 the better part of me
the klass traitor

the trust fund blood bather ..

this meism  
had all he could do 
to keep from dancing 
              an obscene jig 

the idea my whole pant loaded
  generation
of guilted  new england pricksteins 
were just about to come
               a cropper ....

 " purest ambrosia "
               as my old man might say


"purest ambrosia ...." 


but errrh


   wasn't i also
one of those guilted pricks?

   albeit a little one
and 
now  financially ball less
                       to boot 


    umh ah all the worse eh?

so this lesser/larger
                  half of me 

too long  mired in shameless commerce 

that part of me
had all he could do
to keep the whole of me 
                    in one  stoic piece 

"the leader "'s  obligation

right?

at least in front of" staff"
-----------------------

lets jump in  here


 apparently 
by october

even stolid old 
         double entry dave 
down there behind his glass topped desk
  at my accounting firm:
hammet  bryan  and pepito 
was gettin caught up 
     in all this frenzied 
  tower spec-ing 


one day 
when he must have had 
               his three cornered worry hat
jammed on too tightly

he for some 
inexplicable out of the blue reason
                                    decides to call 
                       me 
me 

   "the scionic loon of norwood"

                      about "all this stuff"

" so pink....
 what's  ahh your take  ?"

 a wide opening eh ?

i should have shot him the works


right ?

 something like

"well dave..

i'll tell ya
 what i think...

i think
those good old boys 
down in the towers
       are fixin'
to skin this  tinker toy town alive 

i think in six months 
   we'll  be seein'
the  polished skulls 
of small bizzness men 
piled a hundred high
               on every
                       busy street corner 

i think 
by this time next march 
every where 
  ya go
the place will reek
from 
 the rot
 of abandoned flesh
and the smolder 
        of still burning debtors 

i think 
no matter anyones intentions

we're just about
           to enter a period

                  of drastic apostacy
                       and 
                            chiliastic delusions 

i think Appolian himself
              the  arch-angel of destruction  
                     the  prince of avedon
                    is about to  re awake 
and come stalking the land

stalking 
      for all the  little dip shits 
out here
      like you and me dave

he's comin'  for us dave

comin'
    to disembowel us 

and right 
        in front of our families 
             

 
              by the thousands 
we'll fall 

by the thousands.......

yes Avedon himself 

wings like a dragon 

feet like a bear

and 

all clothed in
                    scales 

slimey silvery scales
                  like a fish

scales
dave 
    that are 
         his pride 
                  
                     his pride  dave
                                 his pride "

----------------

but i said no such thing

instead i said 

"have ya heard from marston means ?"

 yes i asked him
about 
 good old marston

paine's   loan officer
                at the  first fedreal  bank 
of boston

the holder of our two million dollar 


"pay  immediately apon  demand "note 

   


-----to be continued -----