Pony Payroll Bones Talking The Legend of Joe Cement and the Derelict
Matthew PonY Bones Proctor
(I don't care if you believe this or not. This is truth that happened in the truth. This is a story about fishing.)
Johnny Ox painted
a HeX sign for his friend
Joe Cement, who
worked down at the fabled
Industrial Factory.
This all happened in Pennsylvania--
The Sun turned there in the back dark of God.
Joe Cement had gone
two lonesome lackadaisically whole months not catchin
one God Damn fish
worth it in that
Susquehanna River.
Spring had sprung sung
and soon
summer would bring the malaise
of sultry wallow.
A season where a fool may mistake
sweat for tears tumblin down.
This was 1954... or
1955--
Joe Cement took
that Hex sign and hung it
on his fishing shack
--above the missing door
Suddenly, a half dressed derelict
with faded torn tan work pants
and a button up shirt
with all tha buttons
missing and wearin only one leather
left boot
with two toes stickin out--
He wore a beat up
leather hat.
He walked up to tha
fishin shack
and then spat bloody
spit on the hex sign.
Joe Cement just stood there
petrified like a mummified
cat tossed in Grandma's bath.
Dumbfounded, yes he was Mr.
Joe Cement.
The derelict took an old hunting knife
out of a sheath from his leather belt and ran
that blade upon the top of his mud caked right
foot slicing deeply.
He did not scream--
he did
no screamin or hollerin or
complaining.
He grinned with
a red hole mouth
showin three front teeth on top
and one back tooth lingered there
in the back dark of the red hole
where the tongue swished around
like a snake---
He took a leather case off his boney shoulder--could be
a gun
yea a gun Joe Cement thought...
sweat trickled down his face out of anxious pandemonium
fear.
A cold wind blew over the wide Susquehanna
River--
Mr. Derelict
had a fiddle, Not a gun.
Joe Cement felt the confusion heavy--
he was sure the crooked thangs he once
did to bring about stupefying minor
obstacles for the worker's union had something
to do with this. He was wrong, yet right.
Rightly so.
Mr. Joe Cement's tongue tasted sour and so did the
air---and also no fish were bitin.
Mr. Derelict announced with a voice
divine,
a mystical divine wheel 6 spokes rolling orator--
"Joe Cement, I play you a rain song!
Ghostly thangs
sent me here--I came into this world thru
an upside down door
drowned on this here very river bed. I Once died
and meet death in the other life from here. I am not a ghost.
I am not from your God. Joe Cement Here
is YOUR rain song that will bring you
fish!
COMMENCE!!"
Immediately
Strange Sounds emitted
-violence pulled
tha fishin rod outta Joe Cement's hand.
The sun turned purple.
Clouds tore
apart into wet crimson colors
Fish jumped outta tha river on their own. Jettisoned out. As if SHOT out of invisible cannons neath the fog brownish hue blue river currents.
Some fish leaped at
Joe Cement, himself--slappin into him hard--and harder--very hard--stinging--hurting--all these fish committing mass suicide for him---
Then simply, a cat fish knocked
Old Joe out
right in the skull---simply so.
Joe woke 7seven
hours later
it was way after midnight and rain splashed upon
splashed down
and Joe Cement still found himself still part of the
convoluted convergences and humming hungry convulsions
conversing throughout human life---
All his senses seemed to be on the brink --as if they were each nervous deer
ready to dart in the tangled sanctuary of the shadowed forest--
and this was not a dream.
The Derelict still stood there yet radiating a pale
hue powder blue glow amongst the rainstorm thickly snagged night.
He spoke to Joe---No thunder blew out the sky nor did lightning bring the flash of white terrifying lightning---only the wind stirred the wet arms of trees--leaves
wept--
"Joe Cement, I gave
you fish, I also
saved your life, pulled
you from the rising river
that was approaching
swiftly
your knocked out spooked comatose
temporal blackout--
100 year flood tonight you see!
You won't drown like I did way over
somewhere in that other life.
I ain't no ghost. or what you would call a ghost.
I ain't no demon. I ain't no angel. I am something
you can not get. I am something you can not
get a handle on old boy!
Tell Them this if you must tell anybody anything!
Tell them a some times man who suffers the tuberculosis
of the soul saved your life
Mr. Joe Cement."
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