Curly takes a trip

“I never did heroin, except for one time, this guy shot me up. This white guy, down there on Sunset Boulevard. That was in 1966. He said if you ate anything that day, you’d get sick. It was a good high, but that was the last time I did that.

“Another time, this guy gave me half a pill. He said, ‘This is LSD.’ I said a little half-pill like that ain’t gonna do nothing to me, but I took it and I was messed up for 12 hours! I went to a party, and the pretzels started moving!

“That was the last time I fucked with that. I only take regular medicine, now.”

copyright © 2008 Wyatt Doyle

a real pisser

This morning I saw a young man piss himself in the street. He just stood there, stock still and locked to the spot, while a wet stain darkened the inseam of his ratty light blue jeans. Eventually it ran down over the back heel of one of his worn Chuck Taylors, splitting into a pair of tiny streams that snaked along the concrete.


copyright, © 2008 Wyatt Doyle

west pointer

“The strangest thing happened to me today. I went for a walk at lunch, and as I was coming back I got stopped by this guy; he seemed like he might have been homeless. He asked me, ‘Which way is it to Hollywood?’ He was heading the wrong way, so I pointed to correct him—‘That way.’

“He shook his head. I told him, ‘Well, that’s how you get to Hollywood.’

“‘No!’ He shouts. ‘Which way is it that way?’ And he’s pointing the wrong way!

“Later I thought I should have just agreed with him and said, ‘Okay, go that way and turn, then turn again up the block and keep going…that way.’ You know, turning him around the right way. But all I could think to say at the time was, ‘It’s the other way!’

“He snorted and kept walking, waving me off like I obviously didn’t know what the hell I was talking about.”

copyright © 2008 Wyatt Doyle