The Chain Letter (An American Tragedy)

Ohdammit sez John I’m in trouble So I sed why John? John sez I got the bill for my insurance And I haven’t got no money to pay it Cause I won’t get paid for swoking and bailing Keith Guymon’s hay till next week I done told him that would be just fine When he ast a week ago but LaVerne she went and opened the damn envelope On a chain letter and I ain't got no time To write out twenty copies I got to get that hay finished So what am I posta do now? I sez what John? John sez It’s the damn govament Sends them things out I know it And it works with the post office and The insurance to keep you in line I sez what John? John sez my brother oncet He got this chain letter back home He didn’t have no time To write out his copies neither It sez he has four days to wrote it Before the luck comes good or bad It ain't never good I heard of Be he forgot Back then it was $5,000 this feller got In four days and then later When the govament ruint the money He put on a zero it was $50,000 And then it was $100,000 Now it sez he got $420,000 It’s the same guy it was in That letter back then Just the numbers changed It’s the way the govament has To let us know how much He’s gone let the money be worth But the next day because he hadn’t Wrote out his twenty letters He lost all that money But my brother he was busy too He didn’t do his letters The third day after He had to go kill these pigs For this man but this other feller Was gone bring his milkcow down Get her bred to my brother’s bull He told him go ahead and do it He sez he’d have his boy Walk her down the road It wasn’t far So while my brother was gone His boy brought her down Turnt her in the corral He climbt up on the fence to watch It might of been fine Except the hogs been rooting Up under the barn wall My brother he borrowed This lectric fence He strung it along the side of the barn So the bull mounts up on the milkcow She turns and backs him up Against the barn he’s stuckt He gets his back feet Tangled in that lectric fence One in front and one back He tries to move and he just tightens Up the lectric wire That boy he sez you could hear it Zzip zzip zipp that bull He starts to bellering Milkcow she don’t know What’s going on so she backs him up Tighter against the barn It isn’t no way he can get off He commences to jumping up and down On her and trying to get his feet Loost of that lectric wire But he caint it goes zzip He bellers and she backs up more It goes zzip again It was like he was doing a dance Like them crazy people do Trying to get his legs loost Hollering like a sonofabitch So it was hogs there too They heard it and here they come It wasn’t natural and a hog It won’t let nothing that’s not natural Stay that way around them It has to get right or go away or die That boy sez they all run up Grunted and squolt like hell When that didn’t work This one old mean bitching sow She run right in between them She bit that bull right on his seeds She wanted him to stop acting that way Making all that noise Jumping up and down like that Right now That bull he just went over backwards Right up against the barn Like he’d been shot in the head Knocked the whole goddam end Of the barn down Fell right on his back The end rafter come down On his chest it torn a piece of skin off His pecker to his seeds Wide as your hand They swolt up like basketballs From the hogbite Broke ribs they figured But it never did kill him That milkcow she wan’t finished She kept backing up And fell down right on top of him It was only the end of the barn Come down the rest stood up That boy he’s ascairt He got daddy’s milkcow up Off my brother’s bull he left He sed he seen enough for oncet My brother that night He’s coming home from killing them hogs He never knew none of this happened yet He’s driving see? and he’d lost His picking finger on his left hand In the leaf springs of a wagon When we’s kids so He’s driving left-handed And doing the gears and picking With his right hand It was a moon out so he’d turned off His pickup lights listening To the radio because his battery Wasn’t much good He couldn’t do both While he was driving He couldn’t see good as He thot he could He hit this big chuckhole Slung him right into the steering wheel He figured it would of broke his nose If he hand’t been picking But his hand took the cushion It only gave him a nosebleed But almost broke his hand Where it hit His knuckles was bruised so bad He couldn’t even open and shut His fingers for a week He had to drive the rest of the way home Left-handed and lean acrost And shift with that hand too He thot the other one was broke But it wasn’t He got home and the first thing He seen was the end of his barn out That bull standing there Inside the barn with his head down low My brother thot he’d butted it down He run in the house to get his gun He was mad he would of kilt that bull But they told him how it happened So he didn’t He went out to look But it wasn’t no way they could Get that bull to go back in that yard Where them pigs was He wouldn’t go out the barn They him him acrost the butt With a board he’d just stand there He didn’t care no more They went in the house My brother he got out the dishpan And soaked some cold water So he lain his hand in it To get the swollen to go down He wouldn’t tell them how it happened At first but while he was setting there With his hand ducked He remembered that chain letter He jumped up and run to get it Sloshed water all over the kitchen floor He was hollering how long’s it been? How long’s it been? They sez it happened this morning It was just his morning He sez whar? they sez when the sow Bit the bull on his seeds Knocked the barn down He hollers no not that How long’s it been since I got This here chain letter in the mail? They sez oh three days He sez goddam I only got one day left My brother he set up all night Writing out his twenty copies He had to tape the pencil to his hand Cause it was swole up His fingers wouldn’t bent They sed he even wrote some With his left hand It was so bad you couldn’t read the words He got them all done by sunup The fourth day like it sed And took it to the mailbox He waited all morning on the porch Till they remembered it was Memoral Day The mail he wouldn’t come My brother he about had a worm He run out to the mailbox And got them letters he run over To his pickup and clumb in It wouldn’t crunk He’d run the battery down Listening to the radio Goddam my brother he was mad He busted the side winder With his head when the pickup Wouldn’t turn over Jumped out and slammed the door So hard it didn’t catch It bounce right back and hit him Right on his swole-up hand It hurt so bad he sez He nearly fainted of the pain He knew he had to get them letters In the mail So he walked all the way to town It was more’n ten miles back then It worked Nothing else happened They got the end back in the barn Without it coming down But they had to shoot the bull finally And eat him Because he wouldn’t do nothing Just set there and waste away He’d seen enough they guessed It wasn’t no way he’d go Back out there with them pigs In the corral Since then ever time We seen a envelope in my family It looks like it might be a chain letter We don’t open it till we got time To set down right then And make out them twenty copies Like it sez to do But this time LaVerne must of forgot It snuck up on her When I got home it was laying On the table and it wasn’t nothing I could do It was my name on the envelope I know it come from the insurance company It was two years ago the man’s wife From the insurance called She sez to LaVerne then that she wanted her To come to her house She wanted to tell her about selling Amway LaVerne she sez she wasn’t inarrested A week later here comes The insurance bill By god it’s gone up almost double I sez how come you didn’t go? You could of just set and nod Now see what happened? But it was too late So I’m gone to have to stay up tonight Writing chain letters I done wrote one to send to the insurance So he’ll know I did it And let the govament know I wrote him a note on the bottom And sez I’ll pay the insurance bill As soon as I can But things is tough all over I just hope he’ll understand I’d as soon right now Rather not have no luck at all But I am willing to cooperate If that’s what my duty is As a patriotic American citizen