Top of Victory and The Tape Recorder

Two Poems from The Telescope Builder series


Top of Victory

I was climbing up the hill
Taking a shortcut to Dan’s house
When I saw the snake – a rattler?
I didn’t wait to find out. I ran and ran.

That was the last time I took the shortcut to Dan’s house
That was the last time I climbed that hill
So I wasn’t the one to find the body
A few days later at the top of Victory Boulevard.

A little guy named Ricky Cohen found it instead.
He was hiking around up there.
It was the body of a young guy
with a shotgun blast to the chest
and a piece of paper in his hand.

I heard the story from the other kids
I was so upset that I decided
I should write a poem about it
So that I wouldn’t have nightmares.

The poem began,
“They found a boy by my house today
There was a note in his hand with blood.”
I don’t remember the rest.
But I don’t think I had any nightmares.

I read in the newspaper that the suspect was the older brother
Of two of my classmates, Willie and JoAnne.
JoAnne could tell that I knew
from the way I looked at her.

Even when he got older, Ricky Cohen stayed small.
He’d go to bars and pick fights with bigger guys.
Then he’d show them pictures of dead people
And say he was a Mafia hit man.

If not for that snake
I might’ve been the one to find that body
So I have said again and again
Thank you, snake.

Thank you, snake.


The Tape Recorder

I always think about that day
At the school named after the telescope builder.

Mike was by the lockers
And called me over.
He didn’t usually talk to me.
Girls liked him and he had a lot of friends.

He asked me to stand and block the view
So people wouldn’t see him open Terry’s locker
And steal her tape recorder.
He had seen her combination.

I told him I would do it if he gave me the tape.
I didn’t need a tape but I thought I should ask for something.
He said OK. Then Frannie came over to see what we were doing
So Mike didn’t need me anymore.

They took the tape recorder from Terry’s locker.
"Hey, I get the tape," I said.
"You don't get SHIT!" Frannie said.
We climbed the junior high fence and left.
It was a beautiful day.

Two years later in high school
Julie and I were standing outside at recess one day
when I heard the sound of hooves.

It was a horse-drawn carriage, carrying a coffin.
“I heard this would happen,” Julie said.
It was Terry, she said. Terry had killed herself.
And her parents wanted us all to see.

So I always think about that day
I helped Mike and Frannie steal her tape recorder.
At the school named after the telescope builder.
And when I say always, I mean always.