More Spaghetti

Ontology of an Outlaw or How to Rob an Bank full-a-bills or How Cowboy Jim Died

Wheeled in his corpse on horse feet

what the doctor said:

Apparent cause of death exsanguinations dew entire to the seven gunshot wounds suffered deep in his Chest cavity, also of note the bloodied lip, the bits of broken glass in fist, a long rigid scar some years old straight down the left side of his face

what the bullets said:

Liver wound to heart wound the explosive segments of meat now drip full register, both lower leg wounds report little or no surprise and overall only the gunshot wound to the neck reports any cool harmony

what the bloodied lip might say, or what jim’d say to himself in heaven in robes impossibly white:

well fuck I’ll miss my horse

what the broken glass was able to speak for itself:

I think the world a stage and all its actors deaf dumb and blind to the oncoming of their constituents, I with this double transparency can both reflect Jim’s impending doom and tell him how to react, the rage to feel, seeing his brother to his back loaded gun in hand, I would have punched me too

what the long rigid scar some years old straight down the left side of his face said:

received in cock fight over the sum of some money paid out to the robbers but inwardly dealt by minds in whole to the other till Jim in grandeur leapt table side and stopped the fighting with a fist and some witches brew

The prairie speaks:

This measure of my earth severally times newly conveyed worms some distances to nourish the fields

What Jim’s Colt Samson said:

to the prairies to the grasses I bow in several ways, firstly drawing light to myself I drink the black bucketfuls of vision into my well bred skin, thundering muscles and the weight of bank bags still evident in my skin markings

What Jim’s Cold Laura said:

1. an uppity bank teller in san Francisco

2. a man, no reason, no name, foul disposition

3. some whore said owed money of

4. the sky several times, the stars Arcturus, Vega and Rigel

5. a mangy dog ill tempered to wake the owner

6. The owner

7. a friend and compatriot too eager for wealth, a gun-duel at sundown

8. a floorboard, a clapboard picture frame and a doorknob causing a ricochet largely believed to have killed my final victim, namely Jim’s brother by a severe wound to the head, neural images showing the bullet to have entered below the left ear traveling north northwest at six hundred miles per hour exiting the skull at the right temple imploding several brain masses, interrupting several thoughts and imploding them by chain reaction, Jim saw his brother die

Jim’s brother lamenting his own passing to Judas Iscariot:

The Vital action to note here is that I did not intend to kill my brother had he not been such an indignant cowboy, had he not provoked me and had he not stolen my wife, my money and my dignity, not that my betrayal ended karmic but that his death, the meanness and tears in his eyes, the shock and awe all my last thoughts were as a way of reconciliation a recoil for both of us

What Judas said:

I know how you mean

What a bystander said:

No doubt those men had their reasons but such a violent bloody way of going about it, I tiptoed in and saw both were dead, or namely that one was nearly dead and the other stone cold sure as dead as anyone ever been, I nipped my foot in the bloody glass on accident and held the man’s hand out of common courtesy, he drew his weapon futilely I suppressed the instinct and he drifted away to another place

what those fellow warriors in Valhalla sang to Jim:

congratulations you are Among us

What the Sheriff said:

Good Riddance

The prairie speaks once more:

If in all the annuls of history the legend of Jim Crown comes about again to sweeten the lips of braver men

then write it in the prairie books

speak for each and every one of us,

open a tome to several pages on the exsanguinations

the saintly hood of Jim

nevermore to be heard on this earth he, it is told

in his death whimpers noted how sorry he was to his brother

that this is an awful mean life and that only he meant

retribution not revenge, that only he meant to give as gave

to take as took and win as won, to be a better man as a better man

to sling guns to steal women and generally smoke several times a day