Look up the word “bitch” in the dictionary and you probably won’t see a reference to the name “Lucille.” But in my own personal dictionary a woman I knew 20 years ago named Lucille was bitch personified in the sense of being a “malicious, unpleasant and selfish woman.”
Lucille ran this apartment complex where I worked as a maintenance guy for about three months. She was an obese and obnoxious bundle of negative energy as I had ever seen. My life was a living hell while working for her in those apartments. I won’t give specifics because she still can summon my rage. Just take my word for it that she was not a fun person to be around.
After a massive three-day party on the farm where I once lived, I decided I had about enough of being treated by Lucille like a third-world child in a sweat shop. I mailed her my master key to the apartments, told her this just wasn’t working out and gave her the address where she could send the remaining money owed to me.
That New Year’s Eve on the farm — Dec. 31, 1985 — I composed what was the first of an occasional series of bad poems devoted to the ill memory of Lucille. The first poem which was written while the blackeye peas were cooking was “Dancing on the Fat Lady’s Toes” and included the lines:
“Squish, squish, squish
ow, ow, ow.
The fat lady’s toes.”
All subsequent poems have contained “dancing on the fat lady’s toes” in the title and the above refrain.
And so, even though the blackeye peas are just soaking and not yet cooking, I offer the 2005 version. The recent revelations that the Bush administration ordered spying on its own citizens provide a backdrop for this poetic offering because eavesdropping is just an activity that would have been up Lucille’s alley. (And as it turned out, so was embezzlement. God, there is SOME justice in the world sometimes.)
Big Brother Listens In As I Dance on the Fat Lady’s Toes
Sophisticated technology?
It isn’t needed.
All one must do
Is listen in to hear
The crisp crackling
Not of a winter’s fire
Not of some sinister plot
But rather the sweet crackling
Of revenge.
Sweet revenge
That comes from
Once again
Dancing on the fat lady’s toes.
Squish, squish, squish
Ow, ow, ow.
The fat lady’s toes.
To bad poets everywhere I bid you a good 2006. Lucille, I’ll see you in Hell.