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Poem-a-Day
 
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What Scrapper Kevin Said to Me at Apple Jack's Tavern in La Honda, CA

WHAT SCRAPPER KEVIN SAID TO ME AT APPLE JACK'S TAVERN IN LA HONDA, CA

They call me Scrapper Kevin,
you know why?
It’s how I make a living.
Scrap metal.
Can’t fault a guy for making a living
any way a guy can.
But people around here,
a lot of ‘em hate me.
That guy over there, for instance.
Jesus Christ don’t look at him
God damn it.
That guy’s here to kill me.
There’s a hit out on me see.
See there’s this lake back in the woods
over there, you don’t know it,
don’t nobody know it
until you go in there.
It's a bad curve, a lot of folks
miss it and go right clear
through the brush.
There’s gotta be ten,
a dozen cars in there,
some with bodies in ‘em,
bodies still in ‘em.
Everybody knows that.
You don’t gotta be a genius.
This guy I knew, he lost his daughter
in there. She was texting him.
Well somehow the rumor got started
I’ve been dragging cars up
out of there for metal
and now this guy's been talking
about killing me,
throwing me in there.
See how I like it.
That's what that guy there's
here to do.
Don't think I don't know.
This here’s a small town,
La Honda’s a small town.
I swear to God I’ve never been
down there in that water.
I don’t care how broke I get,
I’ll never go in there.
Can you imagine?
Those bodies in there,
years some of them
bodies been in there.
I know what they must look like.
I’m from Michigan.
Every winter some idiot
kids’d get drunk and drive
out on the ice and it'd break.
Of course it would.
They'd go right in, it wasn’t uncommon.
Trust me I’d never touch that
water. But I’m not gonna lie.
Sometimes driving by I think
man all that metal.
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