Conversation is dead.

After work we congregate at the Do Drop Inn,

Tom, Mike, Mary and me at four-thirty on the dot.

We sit there drinking Bud and sometimes Johnny Red

Solving the world’s problems until we fall off our stools.

The recession, the bankers and their golden parachutes, the bailouts. Russia and North Korea, too. Dirty bombs.

A right winger, a left winger, a moderate, and an indy.

Mary, the indy, voted for Ventura, a professional wrestler.

She liked the bald look and his raspy ‘roids voice.

We yack about the Yanks and the Sox, how A-Rod had a fling with Madonna. How Joe Mauer might hit four hundred this year and whether Brett Favre will
play for the Vikings.

We grouse about guns and how if Obama tries to take ours, he’ll have to
pry them from our cold dead hands. Yes, we know Charlton Heston said that. And to think, he played Moses.

We hash over our pending divorces, how much money the old lady is gonna steal, the old man in Mary’s case.

We talk about our kids, how all they care about these days is texting and sexting, how dating is called hooking up.

We talk about music. Tom likes Johnny Cash.

“He’s dead,” Mike says. “Johnny will never die,” I say.

“I like that duet he did with Bob Dylan,” Mary says.

We’re a motley crew. Hey that’s almost a pun. “What’s a pun?” Tom says. Even our names are clichés. What’s it all about?

“We’re here to serve and honor Him,” the right winger says. Even that’s a cliché.

Let’s go stick up a liquor store or maybe a Savings and Loan or two and relieve the monotony. 


Dave Schwinghammer's published novel, SOLDIER'S GAP, is available on Amazon.com.