mickeytheswan

Here's a funny story
from when I was a janitor.

Once I week I hauled out a
dozen or so recycling bins.

Every so often I go on a
trenchcoat binge. I have one
for rain, one for dinner...

I have this coat that I
really love and wear it
every winter. Its a long thick
black coat, the kind that
cowboys wear in movies,
or sailors; but I like mine

I found one like it on a fence
long ago on a special night &
wore it till it fell apart. This
one is its replica and represents
how lucky I am.

Once I lost my coat at the Commodore Ballroom & my buddies waited for the coat check girl to find it, but they said it was an old coat and I should just lose it. I described it as being full of holes with the lining ripped apart and they finally found it.

So one day I'm taking out the recycling bins when some kid who lives in the building says something I can't understand. "Whu?" I say. Then he takes out his retainer & says:

"My friend saw a suspicious looking character go into the parkade so we called the cops."

I checked everywhere.

I was very diligent.

I didn't want anything to go wrong while I was on the job.

I checked the parkade thoroughly & each floor systematically.

& then something occured to me.

I was the suspicious looking character.

...me.
I had just spent up to an hour and a half looking for myself, with pay.

Once I bought a really nice trenchcoat & walked around on New Year's like I was all that.

Once I got stopped by the police & frisked under the suspicion of armed robbery at knifepoint.

They were really serious and scared. When I told them about my criminal record (another story) they laughed very hard & then let me go.

I found the original sailor/cowboy coat on a long walk after the busses quit. That night, long ago, I became "the poem itself," whatever that means now.

These are some other storiesabout me and coats.

MickeytheSwan "Picks Bottles & Acts Rich"MickeytheSwan "Rides a Bike"MickeytheSwan "talks to Robert"MickeytheSwan "Gets a Cheque"MickeytheSwan "Wears a Coat"MickeytheSwan "Visits with his In-Laws"MickeytheSwan "Burns his 4skin"

7 printmaking methods
29 human figure paintings
the portrait
pen & ink drawings from t.v.
studies of bus stops
studies of taverns
commercial portfolio portrait of an artist as a young man
(& other novels drawn by me)
paintings from C.R. Avery's "A Shotgun Wedding"
a contribution to Jabbar al Janabi's "Anu"
the diarial adventures of Mickey the Swan
sha.la.la.la. (the late 20thCentury.bop)
the quick brown fox view guestbook
sign guestbook

MiketheSwan
@yahoo.com

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