SEE THE FAT MAN! FAT ALBERT!

THE FATTEST HUMAN ON EARTH!

walking down the midway with Vicky
to the clank roll and thunder
of the giant ride machinery
hidden behind stretched
once bright
now fading
canvas
lights lock bars
cheap speakers blaring
cheap pop hits
coupons asphalt
and lines for rides like
the Himalayan, wild mouse
black widow, caterpillar,
tilt-a-whirl, bubble bounce
presided over
by road weathered men
tattooed slack
with boredom
cigarettes dangling
from indifferent lips
and Vicki says,
"Let's go to the freak show!"
we go to the one where
for a certain number of coupons
you get to view
a variety of freaks
more freaks per dollar
what a bargain

I have forgotten most
of what I saw
in that shadowy tent
that day
there was a black man called Popeye
who could make his eyes bulge
way out of their sockets
a couple of listless pygmy goats
and Fat Albert,
not black like the cartoon Fat Albert,
surprisingly not eating,
just sitting watching TV
the barker led the crowd
from freak to freak to freak
giving the spiel
and each one did their
little freak dance
then it was Albert's turn
the barker talked about
how many pounds of bacon
and dozens of eggs and biscuits
Fat Albert had for breakfast
then Albert gobbled Twinkies
for the crowd
then pushed the play button
on a cheap cassette deck
Little Richard tinny howling
"AW Rudy! Tutti Frutti!"
and Albert began to swing
his enormous gut
from side to side
bulbous fat filled pendulum pushing
open his shirt's bottom button exposing
a fish white triangle of skin
and as the crowd laughed
I looked into the eyes
of this man
this Fat Albert
and saw something less than hollow
like negative space
his mind was somewhere else
dream of not even god knows what

Slim beautiful women?
a sun filled road he walked
as a child?
Porterhouse rare, salad
and stuffed baked potato?
a Gilligans Island rerun?
the cool hands of his
mother on his forehead

and he caught me looking
and flashed silent anger
"Get out my eyes you sonofabitch!"
and I did

then Vicki and I
tumbled back out onto
the blue skied
autumn streaked midway
and we talked stealing-
that is "liberating" the pygmy goats
to a hippie farm but that's another story
and later that night
playing percussion with a reggae funk band
pounding the congas
guzzling guiness stout
drumming harder than usual
drinking faster than usual
I could not drink or drum
Fat Albert's eyes
or the crowd laughter
out of my head
could not shake the thought
that I was a part
of a so called civilization
that lived off
and laughed at
and sucked on loneliness
and I played so hard
my fingers split open
like they hadn't in years
and I wrapped my swollen digits
around a fresh one
icy cold
drained it
in two pulls
on my way
to the dressing room
where I burst in
grabbed our drummer David
by his jacket
pulled him toward me and said
"Look man! If I go crazy and start smashing shit,
and they come and take me away,
tell everybody
it wasn't the guiness, it wasn't the guiness!
It was the Fat Man!"