The Purple Heart

Wilber asked Porterhouse to come with him to examine the newest house he bought, he said it was foreclosed on by a bank and he'd gotten it for a song. The previous owner had killed himself, he had never recovered from the war in Vietnam. All the windows were covered with red paint and blue dots were painted on all the walls and on every item in the house. The only thing without blue paint was a framed flag with a Purple Heart, a Silver Star, a Combat Infantry Badge; Porterhouse knew these were high honors. Wilber threw the frame in a pile of garbage. Porterhouse told him he'd been studying martial arts and he'd recently learned a new move called a pelvic strike. He said if it was done right, you could knock off a man's penis and testicles. Porterhouse retrieved the flag and medals and walked out of the house. Wilber voted for Trump and the Pence.

He went home and sat in his favorite chair in the backyard. He brewed a pot of steaming sumptuous coffee over a hot fire in his hobo pot and wrapped his Navajo blanket around his shoulders. His grandfather from Quanah in the panhandle of Texas had given him a Comanche arrowhead, when Porterhouse wanted a special brew; he added it to the burnt blackened pot. Thinking about the mountains, his ladies, and his cat he wondered about it all. Later he heard that Wilber had found $30,000 in the rafters of the basement and rather than finding the family to return the money to, he had kept it. Porterhouse called his amigo, Jesus and said he had some poetry reading around Providence and in New York City. He quit working for Wilber, he thought his greed would eat him like a zombie werewolf.