Deconstruction of the Blues

The Goodbye Party

62 THE GOODBYE PARTY Most little boys just sit up on their Daddy’s shoulders and ride But Alyosha was bent jiggling over looking back down at Bruce He didn’t know it was his Daddy’s goodbye party that all the poets had shown up to see him off vampires and lions whores and clowns ten years of love feast in the belly of party again He didn’t see his mother Olga off to the side softly drunk and hopeful as if she’d fallen from a great height fracture lines pride rage loss didn’t know his Daddy was leaving for money taking a job in Las Vegas to try and hold his rocky family together in his arms A poet in Las Vegas? This party like the splitting of a cell You could smell time burning You could feel flesh tearing These celebrants mostly childless many single or divorced misfit cross sex druggies strippers old roaring beats 63 anti-shapes silhouettes Bruce had led them published them centered them But Alyosha didn’t know any of that He just knew this immediate joy bouncy-bouncy way up horsy and he wanted to share it leaning over beaming and gurgling into his Daddy the poet’s upside down face ...