To Children We Give Brightening
c.r. Nco v.1
So I am grabbing a Pulitzer.
It's made out of platinum with dead elephant inlays,
the statue appears like this hunter in a rifle stance.
A flock of mated greenbacks are slung over
the hunter's back between an outstretched palm and my trophy.
I take the podium. Tap the microphone.
"I want to give thanks..
for this greatest of American achievements."
I look at my wife in the audience just then.
She is finally wearing those black nylons I bought ten years ago.
They still fit. Her neckline glistens with
some pearls borrowed from her grandmother.
The old lady soaked them in lemon juice to get a shine.
She is wearing a black velvet frock that looks soft,
beckoning to lounge against
and burry your face just up to the cleavage point.
She is pouting her lips.
I am gripping the cold metal of the voice neck.
"Had it been for my wife..
I never would have made it here.."
There is some shifting at this.
Perhaps the audience didn't hear me right.
It is time to clarify.
"Had I done the damn laundry,
picked up the house every time that OCD bitch wanted,
or found the right corporate job...
she wouldn't be wearing that
made-in-China gown from the good people of Ross clothing.
It wouldn't smell like an old lady when I disrobe her.
There would not be a tear on the back under the left cheek.."
Natalia is looking quiet now..
she hides her head under two slim arms
that are as white as rock snakes.
Her brows are stiffened,
she is using the nose to sneeze me off the stage with head tilts,
eye glares, lady coughs and kicks beneath the table in the first row.
I see it all.
"I see this Pulitzer in my hand..
these hands that should have gotten paper cuts from tax files five years
ago..
the hands that should have dug that pool she wanted.
These hands should be bleached with chlorine,
iodized for ph, gone rubber with plastic plumbing."
I look at Natalia directly.
"WHAT DOES TEDDY ROOSEVELT SAY ABOUT MY HANDS??!"
Natalia is burring her head.
She wanted to bring my mother,
but I said that my mother was not part of this award
and so dismissed the idea. Now I turn to the audience.
Members of the distinguished board.
Persons of the Press who had received minor versions of my own award.
"Yes, if it was for you all, I wouldn't be here."
I look at the stately dressed man in specks.
"If Mr. Edwards had been able to delegate
paper shredding more like Henry Ford,
I would not be here."
Edwards drinks a martini and pretends to look on.
"If Tenneil over there had filed the SEC paper three years ago,
instead of filing a Long Island girl in Martha's Vineyard...
I would not be here.
(I pause to let this sink in.)
Perhaps he would have been (up) here ...
maybe there would be a congressional award!"
Congressman Adams from Boston is looking for his blazer now.
The temperature had changed.
Perhaps he is thinking of that smoking habit he gave up.
He is searching his belly pockets on the vest,
seeming quite out of water.
"I have a light for you, distinguished gentleman from Boston."
He does not address the stage but continues
fumbling with his vest as he takes blazer to hand and paces toward the door.
"Many of you are here tonight..
cause the so called crooks are behind bars.
Though you do not write to your neighbors in the syndicate,
but make stately sums off their stories and revisions to my book..
they're not alone in their dreams of you at night. "
A waiter drops a tray.
He is allergic to the conversation but the man sitting under him is not.
There is a hive effect of chair ditches as
more than one onlooker does the proverbial 'fooey' with his or her hand.
My Natalia is still being a lady.
Watching her man play a hand she feels will lose.
"Shakespeare said,
'Make no folly of the audience's folly'
I say let us laugh at our foibles. "
The room is astir and so I have to shout now
for the precious few who did not receive my award
but dissipate their jealousies in realization that it will be my last.
"HAD THE PRESS NOT FAVORED WALL STREET,
HAD THE POLITIICIANS NOT FAVORED NEWS..
had the media governed itself,
had someone else won this award..
(no) I would not be up here today..."
There are few listening.
"But there would still be book 2."
© 2002 Nco