The Gorko Gazette

The Flasher

Instead of reporting him
we made a pact
to keep it zipped
at least until we’d shared him
with every kid we knew
because we knew
that as much as he loved
showing it to us,
he’d never buy our candy
or give a fuck
about little league.

---

Summer, 1975, Speedway, Indiana

Going commando meant wearing no underwear. We also called it going wedgie-proof. One time Mike shit his pants while we were on bikes on our way to steal Mad Magazines and candy from QuickPick. He took them off behind the Warren’s shrubs and then we hung them from the antenna of their Dodge Dart. They weren’t dripping but it was more than just a skid mark. More like a melted fudge bar. Mike wiped his ass with leaves then wiped it some more at a gas station over by QuickPick. He stayed commando all the way up until we got back and went swimming in Ted’s pool. It was almost dark by then because we’d played caroms plus about half a game of Risk at the game center at Meadowood Park, plus horsed around on the monkey bars. At Ted’s, Missy, Ted’s little sister, smiled at me and later tried to dunk me. Ted’s mom made us PBJs and Fritos.

---

Dixie Cup

If Earl Kragiel ever said or did
one fucked up thing to me,
I can’t think of what it was.
That’s a hell of a thing
to say of any old friend.

But I have to take it back.

When we were very young
he splashed & dunked me
in Little Platte Lake
before I could swim
or even go under.

But in miserable junior high,
I was happy on my sleeping bag
on the floor next to his bed
listening to Boston and Elton John
on his AM/FM clock radio
and looking at the magazines
we stole from Mr. Kemp’s tool shed.

And that’s why I kept it secret,
the time he asked if I knew
what cum looks like,
then said don’t watch.

---

Just Before the Divorce

Sometimes, instead of cereal
it would be sliced up banana
with sugar and milk,
but outside of breakfast he loved
hamburgers with ketchup, chicken,
and spaghetti with meatballs.

He believed that tow trucks
carried toes, and that someday
he would hammer to heaven
a tree made from lumber, nails,
and maybe some masking tape.

He had a sticky rubber alligator
with white teeth and red gums
named Marvin.

He called grasshoppers hoppergrasses.

One day, after he got not much older,
his mom and dad went for a walk
and even tried to climb a tree,
and maybe even got past the first branch,
but all he knew was his mom
snapped her ankle like a stick.

From across Moller Road,
neighbors gawked and joked
about the idiot lovebirds
who’d forgotten their age
even as a mute ambulance bounced
spinning red and blue beams
through the boy-tall grass
he’d played army in after lunch.

---

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Grant Vecera teaches writing, literature, and thinking at Butler University and at Indiana University Indianapolis, where he lives with his lovely wife, daughter, bicycle, and two cats. His poems have been appearing in various illustrious literary periodicals on and off again for about 30 years.

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