Ocean Beach Equipment Rental
At 7:45 am there’s bunch of people
fidgeting in a line waiting for the AA
meeting on Bacon. It seems everyone
is smoking like it’s the last thing they’re
allowed to do. I pull in next door to pick
up a pressure washer and the guy at the
counter is a trainee. He’s not a high school
kid, he has a turtleneck of tattoos and more
on his shaved head. The man helping him looks
scary too with no teeth and a bolt through his
earlobe. Hit F4 and then return he says,
and tattooed man says I did and the boss says
No you didn’t, or it would work, when he wants
to say Hit F4 and then enter, you dumb fuck.
.
A Jobsite Late 1960s
Bobby Gongora climbs wood-framed walls, like an animal, using only his fingers and toes. Nobody can remember the name of the joister who got fried in Alpine when a strand of his long, sweat-wet hair fell into the connection of his Skilsaw plug and an extension cord. All superintendents are called shit-for-brains or something similar. Bill Knauer tells how he ended an argument with his wife by firing a round through their TV and shouting, Who’s next? Spider can never find his tape measure and Hog Man tells him if it was up his ass, he’d know where it is. Three Fingers says to be a plumber, all you have to know is shit rolls downhill and you don’t work on Fridays. Older guys talk about local magnates like Trepte, Golden, and Hazard, who they think are building the world, and Ronnie Thomas kisses their asses by saying he would like to see solid concrete from La Jolla to El Centro. Fat Jimmy uses fifty cents worth of electricity to cut four inches off a perfectly good stud and scribbles Meet me at Vaquero’s, 6 am. Lenny says Caltrans workers are fucked because some guy invented a shovel that can stand all by itself. Red says his uncle Bud needs saw blades to sharpen to get by after his heart attack. Freddy spits out a mouthful of bread and cheese, claiming Art’s wife’s sandwiches are not nearly as good as her blowjobs. Joey talks about Tony Rosenlund, the golf pro developer who set a woman up in a Santee apartment to take care of his favorite subcontractors. He says Tony took the boss up in his stunt plane where they did everything but crash and scraped a wingtip landing at Gillespie Field, and the FAA was still investigating when Tony blew his own brains out. After work, a bunch goes to the Doll House, where the big Samoan bouncer can pick up the slate pool table, to get drunk and watch Biker’s girlfriend perform.
.
Remembering You
Like the lover you left for me
I feel only pain and pissed off
and it is stupid how the bedroom
and my heart compete for emptiness.
During rare sleep, I dream I catch
my hate creeping into a photo of us.
It carries a dagger clenched in its jaws,
the knife you left in my back. It’s a good
thing I woke up or you’d be dead.
Before she died, Rosy found your sent
on the bed. She licked the spot, thumped
her tail a couple of times, then kissed it
with her anus. Eat a dog’s butt worms,
Judas. She filed you in her olfactory.
I defiled you and don’t miss your texted
lies or lying tongue in my mouth. I feel
fresh freedom and while the sheets hang
out to dry, I’ll hang out at the animal
shelter, looking for love.
.
Candy Store at the Summit
My diabetes is almost history.
There are people who would kill
for my A1C, but I’ve earned
it by riding a few thousand
miles on my twenty-speed bike,
trusting its derailleur to blend
my strength and gear ratios
to get me to the top of
mountains, like Pike’s Peak
and Mauna Kea. I summited
Mount Whitney a few years
ago and Mont Blanc last
summer, but right now
I’m creeping up Mt. Ventoux.
Tourists looking up from
Vaison la Romaine, think
the white is snow, but it’s
rock that reflects summer
sun to make it ten degrees
hotter. My legs are on fire
and sweat pours off my face
like a ruptured water tank.
I’m only five hundred meters
from the top, but today,
fuck the diabetes, I’m going
to the candy shop.
© Ron Lauderbach
Ron Lauderbach writes poetry mostly to have fun but also to preserve memories and tell stories. He has a MFA from San Diego State and approximately 60 of his poems are in several journals. He won Honorable Mention in the 2022 Steve Kowit Poetry Contest and has a chapbook, Snapshots, out from Kelsay Books.
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