Odd Jobs

That he was a Renaissance man for all seasons,

A lion in winter, spring, summer, and fall, was unscoffable;

Indeed, he was those and infinitely more.

And how could he have been otherwise,

Shouldering, as he had, so much hands-on experience,

Acquiring such a bouillabaisse of life skills,

For his having engaged, the entirety of his itinerant existence

(A euphemism for his peripatetic, patchwork pilgrimage,

His pinball's tortuous, circuitous odyssey,

From the plunger's reasonably straight, then curving, corridor,

Through the minefield of bumpers, rails, holes, and saucers,

Down to the flippers' feeble flailing, into silent extinction),

In odd jobs calculated to advance him from day to day to day,

Maneuver him through hit-and-miss vicissitudes,

Guaranteeing him, if not Fort Knox, another night of fool's gold,

Where he might pleasure his lesser, baser instincts,

Rest from the rigors of being raped by society,

For his blatant lack of formal education, no matter his good heart,

Bed down, proud of knowing he'd done, well,

Whatever job he'd been hired to do, that particular day,

In whatever venue, state he'd find himself performing,

Doing what he could to advance his survival's sketchy agenda —

Veterinarian's midwife to distressed pregnant heifers and sows;

Chief jambalaya line cook at the Court of Two Sisters;

Sepulcher installer for New Orleans's Ninth Ward;

Census taker for the Okefenokee and Okeechobee swamps;

Rule-book editor, for Parcheesi and Monopoly, at Parker Bros.;

Manhattan's crane-safety inspector; pastrami slicer at Katz's deli;

Louisiana-bayou-alligator wrestler and skinner;

Window dresser for Victoria's Secret and Frederick's of Hollywood;

Chronic blood donor; crash-test dummy, for Jeep;

Unlicensed designer-gene assistant to an anthrax epidemiologist;

Professional Koran, Croc, crack, and calzone salesman;

Standby embalmer for Slumber Crematoriums Unlimited;

Cab driver in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness;

Piano-bar singer at AA's national headquarters; theater usher;

Janitorial technician at the St. Louis County jail, in 63105 Missouri;

Choral director at Gallaudet University;

Boys' camp counselor and nocturnal-circle-jerk-project leader;

Candler with a trained eye for bloody yolks;

Small-town men's-dress-trouser-sewing-factory coal shoveler;

Stunt man for shark-feeding-frenzy and sex-orgy scenes?

And then, in a meteoric flash, all was done —

His leonine apprenticeships, his Renaissance accomplishments.

His tenure expired, passed, and he was promoted into the afterlife,

Where, with nary a glitch in time, space, and nothingness,

He easily resumed his salmagundi of odd jobs.

Heaven provided even more opportunities than Earth had.

To this day, when the moon is particularly low, full, and orange,

And the loons yodel and tremolo from their misty haunts,

And the aurora borealis is an ocean of undulating jellyfish

And if you look long and hard, you can see him standing there,

In Bob Stupak's Intergalactic Casino of the Outer Cosmos,

Dealing five-card monte, wearing but a bow tie and a smile.

08/18/08 - (2)