The Prose And Cons Of Having A Cockroach As A Friend Poem by Ted Sheridan

I was thinking….

I haven’t heard from my friend Kowalski, it has been at least a year, probably longer.
Last time he messaged me he and his pet companion a cockroach named Caldwell
were escaping Ma., which just so happens to be his initials, M.A. Kowalski.

The pair were traveling incognito via rail to avoid doing any of the remaining jail time
for violating his probation on M.A.’s attempted suicide, which he attempted out of the sheer
humiliation of Caldwell’s trying to solicit sex from a black widow spider in a public restroom.

Caldwell was actually the guilty party but M.A. took the rap as he knew hard prison time
would surely mean the end to their three year relationship and besides it was Caldwell
who had the computer chip implanted in his body. The chip contained their secret formula
for mixing the perfect Brandy Alexander and Bourbon based Madame X.

Anyway, M.A., who has always been a little melancholy in his communications with me
as one can never be sure what really is going on in his chaotic life or head,
simply wrote in a text message to me, “ I think we are being followed.”

Recalling the time he tried to kill his girlfriend Cherry Bomb, a Baltimore female escort
originally from the block but she and a one armed juggler from the circus had moved to
Boston a few years ago so she could be near her pimp, who in this case a well known Senator
a widower himself who had been alone since the accidental drowning
of his common law wife and mistress; who doubled as his full time drinking companion
at Martha’s Vineyard during the cold New England months of July and August.

Seems M.A. didn’t like the fact that he was sharing his main squeeze with anyone
let alone a Democrat from a liberal state like Massachusetts and so in a fit of outrage
M.A. picked up a sterling silver butter knife from Cherry Bomb's perfectly set table of T and A’s
and tried to stab her in the chest with it at least fifteen times, in what could only be called an
“Attempted crime at passion”. And had it not been for the fact that she was wearing a fake
white rabbit’s fur coat at the time, he may have actually bruised her…

But as it was she survived and later that year she left both M.A. and the Senator
and she moved in with designer and gay activist Coco Channel # 6 and a half. Coco owned
a huge house complete with white columns and a gabled roof located next to Boston’s
Valentine’s Day Massacre Cemetery and Filene's Basement Discount store where they sold
designer clothes and body parts to people who want to appear to be famous for low, low, low,
bargain basement prices.

M.A. and I had a big laugh, because nowadays it’s hard to tell the dead from the living
especially in malls....

I was thinking…..
Kowalski must have either finally made it or he is still on the run and traveling out of the body….
Which brings me to Caldwell?

2009 © T. S.