Pete McLaughlin
Four years ago today, Pete McLaughlin killed himself. Almost his exact age, living less than an hour from him, I never knew him or his work until, a week ago, putting some books in a Little Free Library, I found his book. This is the title poem.
I Wish I was Billy Collins by Pete McLaughlin I wish I was Billy Collins. No, not George Clooney, just good old Billy C. I bet Billy lives in some charming upstate hamlet, probably New York or Vermont. His house is rustic and inviting no gate, just a hand-painted peace sign out front and a box that says "free rhubarb, take some" a wrap-around proch and swing, tasteful unpretentious curtains, a happy chimney whispering out aromatic smoke, and there's always an apple pie cooling on the window sill. And so here I come now-- Yes! It's me, fantasy Billy smiling the smile of the successful rolling up in my vintage (but not gaudy) '56 Chevrolet pickup my dog Thoreau, a rescue of course, riding shotgun manic chickens scattering crazily as I pull in. You see, I was in town, at the diner, with Clem and Lefty and Cecil sipping coffee and discussing the high school football team's prospects. It's fall--everything is beautiful. My wife, who works with orphans, has just come in from her pottery studio. She kisses me and informs me that my agent called and Harvard wants to honor me again next month. "Oh how tiresome," I say. "I'd rather play horseshoes with Clem." But I go anyway. Some wealthy hedge-fund alum whose literary daughter has all my books dispatches his pilot to fetch me. He glides into our cow pasture at the appointed hour. We don't have cows anymore, too much work. But it's nice not having to drive to the airport. I make my speech. Everyone loves me. At the reception afterward as usual some comely twenty-nine-year-old grad student her siren's hand lightly on my lapel lets me know just how much my work has meant to her. ... but I'm used to this by now so it's no trouble. I'm such a great guy. Back at my hotel suite I toss off a quick poem for the New Yorker and sleep soundly as always. I even wear pajamas. My children all work for Oxfam and are expert mountain climbers. I never need Viagra my eyes are 20/20 my teeth so sound the dentist has me visit only once a year. But sometimes... on quiet evenings when I'm tinkering with the Chevy (I call her Sylvia, after Sylvia Plath) the Red Sox game quietly on the radio I find myself wishing I lived in Santa Cruz... yes in a musty studio apartment with a decrepit cat who barfs violently on the carpet at four a.m. it's as though he's trying to turn himself inside out for Christ's sake and neighbors whose high decibel, jack-hammer style love-making comes and comes again hard through the cheap-ass half-inch sheetrock wall penetrating even the protective pillow I press to my beleagered ears and a voodoo smoke alarm with a freaking mind of its own and a malevolent marauding murder of hoodlum crows who seem to derive particular glee from shitting only on my car... But that lasts about two seconds, tops I shake my head, smiling sheepishly, and I chuckle softly to my silly Billy self switch off the light and head upstairs to bed to my extraordinary wife and sleep like a fucking baby. |
Thanks for that Max. I found this story.
https://goodtimes.sc/cover-stories/u...ory-pete-poet/ I thoroughly enjoyed the poem. The fantasy Collins' perfect lifestyle is very funny. It really captures the ambivalence a lot of people have about him, I think — finding him smugly annoying yet maybe secretly wanting to be more like him. Not jealousy of his success so much as his being an all round aw shucks good guy who is impossible to dislike. And so by disliking him it makes you dislike yourself a little bit. And he even has the temerity to be a self-deprecating good sport! Grrr…ha Quote:
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I like it, though it takes a bit too long to get to "But sometimes", the turn at which the lineated prose of the joke turns into an actual poem. Very sad what happened to him.
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Thanks, Max. I never met Pete, but he was the friend of some friends... I know they miss him terribly, and I appreciate seeing this poem again here.
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