Wicked Secrets & White Karma

He is Furious

when he finds out that she is a suffragist

secretly giving his money to hysterical man-haters

to unsexed unhinged unfeminine agitators.

"Ain't men generous," he overheard her emote,

"Anything but the vote!"

She wanted temperance?

Ha!

He'd show preeminence!

He is drinking wicked moonshine from a fat white mug

when she comes home that stormy night, oblivious and smug.

He is drunk as a skunk.

When she saw him, she shrunk.

He picks up the knife.

She begs for her life.

Half asleep, the frail girl is going to the outhouse, when she witnesses her father disfigure her mother.

She is frantic

knowing he now knows about her secret affair.

He was there

in the theater, when she was escorted by her new lover to see Gone With the Wind.

He uncovered her foolish adulterous sin.

So she hurried home to gather her heirlooms, especially her late aunt's lace

and her great grandmother's white vase.

He was listening to the Beer Barrel Polka, guzzling cheap gin

when she hurried in

and their marriage came to a violent end.

Their daughter awoke from a dazzling dream of Oz to encounter a nightmare far more horrifying than flying monkeys or a wicked witch.

She is frightened.

Hiding downstairs in the closet, she uses a flashlight to brighten

the unfathomable report of President Kennedy's wicked death.

The bold black HEADLINE on bone white newsprint takes away her breath.

She cried

reading Jacqueline was by his side

when he died.

Hearing the kitchen door slam, she turns off her light.

In total darkness, she is forced to listen to their fight.

She knows they're both drunk; she can tell by their slurring.

The edges between Dallas and Detroit start blurring.

There are three gunshots.

Then the commotion stops.

She hears the beer can pop.

Her mother moans in pain

while her father goes back to watching Wagon Train.

Fifteen years later, she died of a drug overdose in Spanish Harlem on the night the nation celebrated its bicentennial.

Her open dead eyes reflected the fireworks.

In 1909, he was the alcoholic misogynist who battered his wife

In 1939, his essence had returned as a woman who was abused by her drunken husband

1n 1961, that same soul saw yet another mirror of itself

｡･ﾟﾟ･ ･ﾟﾟ･｡ r e i n c a r n a t i n g

as a frail child

to be traumatized by her father.

***

Everything comes full circle.

***

On a spring day in 2026, in a tavern called Sneakers,

while Justin Bieber sings loud from overhead speakers,

a man sits alone, unlocking his girlfriend's white cellphone

to discover her Big Secret.

Feeling bitter & betrayed, he picks up the Tequila

...then deep remembrance stirs

And he stops.

_________________Bolt⚡