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flag day, 1971 by m.i.blue I was thumbing a ride to school and a shiny new blue vw bug pulled over. When I got in I saw this tall gink with wild eyes wearing an american flag around his neck like a cape. "Oh yeah...", I remembered, "It's Flag Day." "YES", said the guy, looking directly into my eyes a full four seconds while he floored it through an intersection. He indicated the car around us with weedy eyebrows: "I stole it from my SCHOOL..." then smiled: "I stole the FLAG, too. I'm the FLAG BOY... I took a lot of PCP this morning... This is the PRINCIPAL's car... I stole it... It's a HORSE TRANQUILIZER..." That was all he felt I needed to know. He headed into some sidestreets and put the pedal to the floor. Going around the first curve, I already knew what was going to happen when we went around the second. I got that weightless, stomach-lifting feeling and we went over on two wheels like a circus act. The car tumbled, two-and-a-half somersaults right down the middle of the residential street, and the old red, white and blue was wrapping around and around both our heads like a puppy. When we stopped rolling and pulled old glory out of our faces, we were upside-down in the capsized bug and we could see the neighbors drifting across their wet green lawns toward us through the shattered safety-glass of the windshield. I was giggling. I think I must have been in shock. By the time the first neighbors started reaching us in their bathrobes and work drag, like angry villagers holding newspapers instead of torches, we'd already popped out of the crumpled vehicle and started to rock it back up onto its tires. It went over like a toy and as we climbed back in the flag boy was yelling to the gathering townsfolk: "It's okay! It's my PRINCIPAL'S car! It's a VOLKSWAGEN...!" As if those words could explain everything... and at least a couple of the suburbanites were nodding that they understood, shaking their white faces at the caved-in vw roof. I never made it to school that day. Turns out Flag Day was the first day I ever shot drugs. Go figure. |
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