A Buck and Two Bits, by Michael W. Thomas

Gas, by Edward Hopper (USA) 1940

A Buck and Two Bits  
Auburn, Massachusetts, June 1933

A buck and two bits.
yesterday was two-ten,
the day before, three evens,
the day before that most nearly five,
but that was those wedding cars
bound for Fitchburg
up from somewhere south,
hadn’t checked the needle
past Pawtucket.  Lucky I was here,
they said.  Half-drunk.

A buck and two bits
and it could have had six appended…
those kids, girls, twins I’d say,
agitating for a Payday bar apiece,
and I was on the point of being glad
the guy had honeyfuggled me 
with two promo boxes, 
but the mother she hushed them good,
and their station wagon 
was just whitewalls in dust,
and there was me 
holding the bars like God’s own doofus. 
Slaps instead of chocolate.  
Pretty much the way.

A buck and two bits
and pump three is still kicking,
blockage or air in the feed.
I’ve told the Company,
been waiting on their promised guy
since before Labor Day,
and anyway their sole and present focus
is phoning daily, sometimes twice,
Sir, it’s Gene from Global again,
just seeing how the figures do seem
to be laying themselves out.                                              
Like the phone bouncing the cradle
is going to magic the odds. 

A buck and two bits
and the oil-rack’s rusting up,
third one since Christmas,
and the side-roof won’t felt itself.
I work along, setting the nozzles,
feeling the day’s farewell at my back.
Soon time for the last of the tenderloin,
then that broadcast the woman with the girls 
was giving out about, 
Roosevelt going all Caesar-voiced. Again.
Strength in boondoggling, new worlds at dawn,
that beautiful day beyond the blue horizon.

A buck and two bits.
I set the last nozzle.  Less and less I take in
the trees across the road.  Every night, it feels, 
they drag a yard closer.
Too much like a ruck of the faceless.
Too much like the dead of the Marne.  
The Payday guy, though, he left me a three of Pabst.
And I’ll have one of his bars, hell, two,
on behalf of those sad little whupped little girls.
Charge them to Gene from Global.

Michael W. Thomas

Boondoggling: a government project that wastes time and resources, associated, often unfairly, with initiatives during Roosevelt’s New Deal era (1933-39).

The Marne: the Second Battle of the Marne (July-August 1918), in which US troops were involved.

Pabst: one of America’s best-known beers, established in Milwaukee in the 1840s.

Michael W. Thomas lived for several years in Canada and now lives in Worcestershire UK.  He is a writer, musician and singer.  His latest poetry collection is The Stations of The Day (Black Pear Press, 2019). www.michaelwthomas.co.uk