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  • Ode to the Man in Red Sweatpants, and: BA in English
  • Jeff Simpson (bio)

Ode to the Man in Red Sweatpants

When the man in red sweatpants on tonight'sepisode of COPS says that, once finishedwith a batch of kitchen sink meth, he boilsthe coffee filters to siphon every last residualmolecule, I feel grateful to have my teeth intact,to have sweatpants without any holes in them,a house with houseplants and a decent back porch,for I've been down, but not that down.I've been low, but never too low, though I'veknown folks who asked directions to the valleyof death, have talked to them during visiting hours,wrote letters, sent care packages, and still I'mgrateful, as I imagine you are sometimes grateful,that the man in red sweatpants is out there,running around the woods, shirtless and dizzy,trying to make things work or work things outbecause somebody's gotta take one for the team,someone has to be the goose among the ducksat recess. While I was eating my unpronounceablesandwich from the fancy sandwich place, the manin red sweatpants was burning his fingers.While you were busy blow-drying your hair,the man in red sweatpants was keeping upwith demand for those of us hiding our livesin plain sight like cia operatives or that Bostoncream doughnut I didn't want my coworkersto find among the glazed. Stand still and the beastwon't see you—or he will—in which caseyour best defense is to run in circles, shoutingand thrashing your arms. Yesterday the newsreported that java stands in Seattle have turnedto sex to survive in the marketplace. [End Page 99] Picture light rain and scantily dressed baristasin black bras and see-through tops blowingkisses, grinding beans, pouring steamedmilk from containers that, at certain angles,reflect a distorted canvas of tan skin.Picture the lady in Tulsa who got busted filminglove scenes with her lab and blue heeler,my urologist advising me to drink more water,masturbate less. And what about the man in redsweatpants? Everything's going as planned untilthe deputies escort him to the squad car.He makes a beeline for the woods—a terrible pathto follow when evading law enforcement—and gets tackled by Rosco, canine extraordinaire,as the crowd goes wild. If the monkey doesn't get you,the dogs will. If someone doesn't shoot youin the face over car keys, you'll be struckby lightning or die in a gas explosion. Have no fear.Thy Fritos and bean dip will comfort thee.Someone will prepare a table; heads shall be anointed.These things will follow, will carry you untilevery need's compressed, every drop squeezedout like love, like the last sip of coffeeat the bottom of your cup. [End Page 100]

BA in English

There was so much to learn in those days, so manythings I avoided by hitting the snooze button and countingbackwards from ten. I remember my first poetry professor,an ex-chopper pilot who flew two tours in Nam before landingon the conclusion that for all its Oxford-shirt dullnessacademia is safer than bullets and leaky hydraulics,and how one night over beers and corndogs he confessedhe's still terrified of trees except the ones that stand half-deadand lonesome against the horizon like you'll see driving westdown I-40 toward Amarillo, where there's little more than cloudsand feedlots. This was at a time when I was really into hair geland The Pretenders and generally sabotaging myself,be it sleeping with my girlfriend's sister or leaving the newgallon of milk on the counter until things appeared in the jug.I suppose reading the canon and getting high with Mike Chandlerbetween classes kept me sane just as the adjunct professorwho complained about her band director husband and his boringtrumpet when she should've been dishing Huck Finnand the transformative power of rafting, kept me entertained,even if I...

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