South of Heaven Read Online Free PDF

was a pretty bad spot to be in, but Four Trey winked at me and said it was no sweat. “Someone will come along, Tommy. Just relax and the time will go faster.”
    He jumped the ditch and stomped around in what little growth there was on the other side, making sure that it was free of any vinegarroons or centipedes or tarantulas. Then, he lay back with his hands under his head and his hat pushed over his eyes.
    I went over to where he was and lay down next to him. We stayed that way for a while, the incessant Texas wind scrubbing us with hot blasts. And at last he pushed his hat back and squinted at me.
    “Written any poetry lately, Tommy?”
    “Nothing,” I said. “I kind of got out of the habit along with eating.”
    “Let’s have some of the old ones then. That one about the road seems appropriate under the circumstances.”
    I said I wasn’t sure I remembered it, not all of it, and he said to give him what I remembered, then. So I did:
    I can still see that lonely grass-grown trail,
    Which clung so closely to the shambling fence,
    Sand-swept, wind-torn at every gale,
    A helpless prey to all the elements.
    Its tortuous ruts were like two treacherous bars,
    So spaced to show an eye-deceiving gape,
    So, while one ever struggled for the stars,
    They hugged too close for actual escape.
    Escape—tell me the meaning of the word.
    Produce the man who’s touched a star for me.
    Escape is somthing for a bird.
    A star is good to hang upon a tree…
    “I guess that’s about all I remember,” I said.
    Four Trey said he liked the poem very much, but it always gave him a touch of blues. “How about something a little lighter? A couple of limericks maybe.”
    “Well, let’s see,” I said. “Uh…oh, yeah.…”
    Quoth Oedipus Rex to his son,
    I have no objection to fun.
    But yours is a marital menace.
    So play games no more
    In you-know-who’s boudoir.
    But practice up on your tennis.
    “That’s actually not a true limerick,” I said. “But here’s one that is:”
    Said Prometheus chained high in the sky
    Where he’d alternately shiver and fry.
    While great birds of carrion
    His liver made merry on,
    “I’ll bet they’d like Mom’s apple pie.”
    Four Trey made a chuckling sound. “Go on, Tommy,” he said. “How about that booze poem? The Ode to a Load or whatever you called it.”
    “Gee,” I said. “Now, you are going back. I did that one when I was just a kid.”
    “Mm, I know,” he said drily. “But the old things are best, Tommy. So give me what you can of it. Let me hear that grand old poem once more before I die.”
    I laughed. “Well, all right, if you want to punish yourself,” I said and I started in again:
    Drink—and forgo your noxious tonics,
    Nor pray for cosmic reciprocity:
    Earth’s ills for heaven’s high colonics.
    Drink’s virtue is its virtuosity.
    Yes, drink—or close
    Eyes, ears and nose
    To all that’s hideous and heinous.
    Let moss grow on your phallic hose…
    I broke off, for Four Trey had rolled over on his side, his back to me. I waited a moment, and when he didn’t say anything, I asked him what was the matter.
    “You,” he said, his voice coming to me a little muffled because he was speaking into the wind. “You’re the matter. You know, if I was really a friend of yours, I’d kick the crap out of you.”
    “What?” I said. “What are you talking like that for?”
    “Prometheus,” he said. “Oedipus Rex. Cosmic reciprocity. Goddammit…” He rolled over and faced me, scowling. “What kind of life is this for a kid as bright as you are? Why do you go on wasting your time, year after year? Do you think you’re going to stay young forever? If you do, take a look at me.”
    I was surprised at his talking this way, because he just wasn’t the kind to get personal, as I’ve said. He never liked to get too close to anyone since, naturally, that would give them the same privilege with him.
    “Well,” I said, finally. “I don’t entirely waste my time,