Last Call by David Lee Page B

the high school
    I’ve tried to esplain what she could do
    but I’m afraid it got too complicated
    could you come in here
    see if yougn calm her down any
    sometimes it takes a womern’s touch
    to get to the bottom of the problem
    that’s something I wasn’t borned with
    this time around
    be arunning if you can
    I believe she’s coming unwound
    by the minute

Third Visitation
    You know what that needs
    is some cattle
    Cattle
    Tie it to the land, the history
    You think
    I do
    about four mebbe real gentle
    grullos and brindles
    that would be like pets
    oncet you got uster them
    Longhorns?
    Indigenous
    that’s a word you said
    I like it
    mebbe even a old feed lot buffalo
    I happen to know where is at
    if we was to fence off heavy
    around the monument
    Buffalo
    Add some color
    some of that aesthetic value
    you educated people talk about
    My place is only twenty acres
    What if you was to get a lease
    on forty more between here
    and that cotton field
    Forty acres
    All right
    you’re gone press me
    eighty then
    you strike a hard bargain
    Where’s all this coming from?
    Cattle and buffalo’s on loan
    I get them back any time I decide
    cattle has the original Slaughter brand
    so I can prove it
    land is a lease
    How much lease do you think I can afford?
    I’d say upwards of a dollar a year
    forty nine years renewable
    through Willy John or his legacy
    would that do it?
    Upwards
    Fifty dollars totaled
    I’d prefer you pay up front
    I don’t want no bookkeeping
    tying up my valuable time
    You sure about this?
    Crew’ll be out to start on fencing
    seven o’clock a.m. in the morning
    I expect you ought to be awarning your Missuz
    some of them boys can be kindly rowdy
    if they don’t get morning coffee
    like it’s supposed to be

Jacks
    My granddaughter told me
    she was the 4th grade Jacks champion
    of her entire school and could hold her own
    with most girls and all boys
    up through 6th and if I’d like to try her
    she’d clean my clock
    which she couldn’t have done better
    with a Brillo pad
    while doing Around the Worlds
    she informed me it was not a fair contest
    as she honestly believed no boy on earth
    could touch her unless she cheated down
    to make him want to bet on it
    said she took Haygood Sojourner’s milk money
    every day for a week
    then heard him saying
    he Only let her win because she was a girl
    she upped the stakes to 4th grade Championship
    of the Known World after school
    on the varsity tennis court
    so they’d have a perfectly flat playing field
    he could bring anybody he wanted to referee or be witness
    said she practiced all weekend
    got up to Sixies on all variations
    where she knew he was dead meat
    coming in but to make sure
    and Don’t tell Mama
    she wore her dark blue panties
    with bright yellow stars and quarter moons
    said I might not know it
    but if a girl sits cross legged
    when it gets to Pigs in the Pen
    and lets her panties show a little
    there wasn’t any boy up to 7th grade
    who could keep his concentration
    she took Haygood’s milk and lunch money
    his Little League medallion on a chain around his neck
    spinning top, taw marble, new pencil, ball cap
    and his pocket knife he almost bawled over
    begged her to get it back
    because it was his daddy’s
    she said she told him Like my Grandpa says
    A card laid’s a card played
    you went double or nothing and lost
    so grow up and take it like a man
    she knew she could have acted like her elbow hurt
    got him to go to a third round
    and won his wristwatch
    but who wanted it anyway
    being a Davy Crockett
    but if it’d been Cinderella she’d be wearing it now
    she was tired of hearing him whine anyway
    she’d set him up in the first game
    played like she had a broken wrist
    let him get up to Threesies
    where he thought he might have a chance
    then popped the hammer
    said she ate his lunch and then supper
    like it was Belshazzar’s