THADDEUS RUTKOWSKI


CHECKPOINT HOUSTON / BLOODY EEJIT / MONGREL BLUES

CHECKPOINT HOUSTON

At Checkpoint Houston, between First and Second avenues, few tried
to enter without identification.

However, if you had no proof that you lived in the frozen zone, you
could talk to the cops, and they probably would let you make a call in order to get home.

If you were already home and ordered food from above Houston, you
had to go out to meet the messenger and bring the meal below Houston yourself.

No one got shot trying to cross Checkpoint Houston. We were not
treated like defectors at Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin.

Not far from Checkpoint Houston, at bus shelters and train
stations, there were bulletin boards with photos of those who went missing.
We knew they weren't really missing--they were totally gone.

A day after Sept. 11, on the way to my apartment, there were
Several police sentries and a fence of yellow tape reading, “Do not cross.”
Luckily, I was allowed to go home.

Inside our place, we lived in a mist of smoke and dust that smelled
like detergent or cleaning chemicals.

Some of our friends said they wanted to leave the city. They
wanted to move out west or upstate, or hide in a bunker in New Jersey.
but we knew that most people would stay where they were.

[reverse]

BLOODY EEJIT

I_m walking down the street wearing a lei‹not a normal accessory, I_ll
admit, but I_ve just been to a Hawaiian restaurant‹when a hooligan
approaches me and asks, _Where_s the luau?_
_I_ve got a luau,_ I say, _but I kept it in my pants._
I notice a black blur as a beer can comes flying through the air.
Then crack! I get hit on the head. At first, I can_t think‹a tingling runs from my skull to my toes. But as soon as my brain starts working again, I thank the tiki of hops that it was a can, not a bottle. It was a can, not a keg. A can, not a truck. Still, it was a full can, and it packed a punch.
I pick up the can‹it is no longer a black blur; it is more of a
Silver cylinder. And then I go looking for the bloody haole eejit who threw it. When I find this eejit, we may hoist a few, but we won_t be hoisting beers.

[reverse]

MONGREL BLUES


When I got to the West Coast, I felt I_d crossed half the world. There,
I
quickly learned that I was the only Twinkie (the only Asian
halfie--among the
surfers, cultists and Republicans I encountered. I couldn_t fool anyone
except myself that, as a half-white, half-yellow person, I was passing
in my
new society. So I looked for others, like Bumblebees‹black-and-yellow
halfies (who resembled Twinkies, at least in terms of racial percentage.
But
I couldn_t find any, and when I asked where to look, people said, _What
are
you, F.O.B.?_
_I may be naïve,_ I said, _but I_m not fresh off the boat._
I continued my search for other mutts, but met only the occasional
angry dog
accompanying an official guard. I tried not to let those dogs be sicced
on
me.

[reverse]