More about New Years

Po Boy Views

By

Phil LaMancusa

Truly Tom Thumb

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Homey’s Humor

            January is the time for resolutions; but, Homey ain’t got time for that truck. Homey’s down on the corner of Anthony and Claude, pitching pennies with the boys, drinking breakfast from a bag. Homey’s thought about ‘gainful employment’ but Homey’s got bigger fish to fry, he know where the real action is. Homey ain’t no fool gonna mess around with no resolutions; Homey likes the way he is just fine. Gonna cop some lunch at Saint Joe’s, maybe hustle some over by The Court of Two Sisters; selling beads to the rubes and bumming butts from punks. Homey ain’t ready to change. Homey’s ready to clown; betcha he can tell you where you got dem shoes.

            January is the time for resolutions; but Clarence thinks he might pass this year. Clarence is busy. Clarence hasn’t had time to wipe his rear since the season started; pickin’ up shifts like a glass eyed mule pullin’ an eight seater. Makin’ it through the days and nights on caffeine, nicotine and alcohol. Clarence’s just tryin’ to catch up. Sleep is something he can do later; sleep is for people with no bills. After Jazz Fest, they cut his hours, first to four days a week and then to six hours a day. His Old lady ain’t never worked a day and he picked up a second job bustin’ suds at that jive café on the Square. Resolutions? How about this? Get those one percenters to give up some green to the guys at the bottom; get that fat cat that runs the café to cut loose with some health bennies; get some groceries to fall from the sky and the damn city to stop charging him for the water he uses to brush his remaining teeth? How about a resolution to hit the lottery and buy a chicken farm? “Hey! Who you lookin’ at?”

            January is the month for resolutions; but Samantha Marie’s having too good a time. Her Daddy’s rich, her Maman is good lookin’ (LOL!). The social season’s in full swing and Twelfth Night begins Carnival; all of her friends are planning parties, shopping for the perfect costumes for masquerading. Every day brings more invitations; she’s even going to a couple of Krewe balls! OMG! Christmas was simply awesome with ‘Santa’ bringing her everything that she asked for and more! Of course the holiday breaks will be broken up by the necessity of her furthering education, but school never did interfere with joie de vive, n’est pas? Sure college is, like, time consuming, but, won’t her sorority sisters make up for that? And how about that great looking crop of seniors? Really, she could throw the soiree to end all soirees and she’d invite them all, but, Mamere just had the floors refinished.

            January is the month for resolutions; and, boy, does Manny need to make some.

His life went into the toilet about ten months ago; it’s all he can do to keep his hand from flushing it. If everything hasn’t gone wrong in his life, well, then the only thing that is lacking would be a direct lightning strike to his cajones. But it’s his own doing, he knows it; it’s his own fault.

            Sure, his job wasn’t all that but he didn’t need to tell the boss to kiss his ass, did he? And then the drinking, turning himself into a fish; nights out at the saloon knocking back shots of Jameson with beer backs, chain smoking. Snappy comebacks and video crack. Those days away from home with women of dubious reputations; his wife leaving; his best buddy buying the farm and his slow descent, decline. Going down. Way down. Credit axed, living in van in someone’s back yard, doing temp work and finally sobering up for the holidays, missing the life that he wasn’t wise enough to cherish. She even took the dog.

January is the month for resolutions. And doesn’t Doris wish that she had that luxury. Back living with her Mama babysitting her unwed choice to deliver an eight pound baby girl just out of diapers; her Master’s Degree not worth the paper it was printed on. Knocked up by a guy who wouldn’t know how to pour water from a boot if the instructions were on the sole, one olive shy of a Greek salad and if his brains were dynamite wouldn’t have enough to blow his nose. But he was pretty though, boy was he pretty.

Student loans, frozen foods, too much worry and not enough sleep. Graveyard shift at the Waffle House and her body turning from lithe to lumpy. Getting into her uniform as Kelsey Grammer earns another million with his reruns of inanity.  Another load in the washer; her mother tells the same story for the hundredth time.

Alone with Senior Chardonnay on her night off with the house asleep she muses about what she would give up; tickets to Wimbledon? Going to the film festival in Cannes? Perhaps Vail for a sky holiday, water polo, her Jimmy Choos? Her Phillipe Patek?  For sure, she’d give up life’s wins and losses… she’d be satisfied to break even.

January’s for resolutions, eh?  If you’re gonna have them consider well: be careful what you promise yourself and be ready as a harsh task master. If you’re passing on the self improvement, then bless you; you’ve taken the easy way out and have nothing to lose. We all walk the walk, one way or another and we’ve got no choice but to wear our own shoes; nobody told us that it would be easy, we’re all doing the best that we can. That said, I say: sally forth into the sun, the rain or the fog and have a blessed New Year.