Atlantic City

“Wrote a poem last night, Pal,” said the clown with no name.

AC

it smells like Atlantic City kinda,

musty and taffy, makes you think of fun

and smushed cigs on splintered boards

and stagnant pools and ripped felt

and fountains that don't work anymore,

and seagulls that screamed when you woke up

hungover with a bucket of coins in the bed, 

and that ocean water you captured

in a pickle jar you washed out

then brought to the beach

and knelt 

in the breaking wet salt rush

and scooped

as a face you still try to forget 

smiled

so big

at you

from the two chairs you shared

in the sand

That Time Eric the Actor Nailed Vegas’s Sports Future & Trump Fired Him

“Mean, Eric wasn’t squarely on the head but he was pretty damn close,” said the clown with no name.

“If he said Atlantic City maybe Trump would’ve agreed, bought in, & actually made a shrewd business deal,” said Pal Davis.

“Las Vegas Golden Knights. Las Vegas Raiders. They’re already there. Who’s next? Clippers? Rays? Liverpool?”

Stan

“Stan Mikita died the other day,” said the clown wearing the Shelley Berman glasses.

“Pal told us about him once,” said the clown donning the banana yellow papier-mâché head which covered his real, much tinier head.

“Well no — it wasn’t about him. I’m not a big hockey guy,” said Pal.

“We’ve all seen Wayne’s World.”

“It was just that I was in Aurora, Illinois years ago …”

“…”

“What?”

“Now I can’t remember what the story was.”

“Wasn’t it with –”

“Oh, now I remember. We were driving around Aurora, trying to find Stan Mikita’s Donuts, down this street and that — but it wasn’t anywhere on the GPS. We stop at this convenient store and ask the clerk and she didn’t know where it was either. Said she never heard of it. So then I get concerned that it’s all getting very Rod Serling. False memory. Mandela effect.”

“So what happened?”

“Pull next to a jeep with a bunch of younger kids and ask them where it is and they say it doesn’t exist. And never did.”

“Stan Mikita deserved his own breakfast joint.”

“He changed the sport.”

“Accidentally put a curve in his blade, then found out he could launch wrist shots like clay pigeons. And that was it. No one played with a flat blade again.”

Love Theme

“Sounds hack to say but if I had to pick one song and not two songs, but just one, and that’s it? I’d pick this one,” said Pal.

“He was born William Emanuel Huddleston in Chattanooga, Tennessee. In 1920,” said the clown with no name.

Phone/Rest

“Always thought these things on the back of old phones were … mutants. Falstaffian siamese twins,” said Pal.

“You can still buy them on Amazon,” said the tall clown.

Phillies

“What is pine tar, anyway?” asked the clown with no cowboy hat.

“The players use it to grip the bat better,” said Pal.

“No I know that but … what is it?”

“It’s uh. I don’t really know. Some sort of stuff you get from trees. Not sure.”

“Says it’s residue from heating up and pressurizing pine wood. When you do it you get it — and you also get charcoal.”

“Oh yeah?”