Issue 4's annotated answers
See blank questions firstTale o' Fieno
by Don ModiKa
Well, what can I say about Friday with Fieno. I arrive home from reading to blind children down at the shelter and he's there at my apartment already, camped out in pro-pack position, with the left breast of a sultry red-head in one hand and a bottle of Chivas Regal in the other. The liquor was from the local Jewel, who can say where he got the woman, another of his two-bit floozies that he uses and throws away like so much waxed paper. "Donny!" Fieno slurs, reeking of liquor and cheap perfume. "How're the old boys hangin'?" he asks and he reaches for my inguinal region. I manage somehow to avert the thrust and usher them both inside before the police arrived. "John," I said, glistening tears forming in my eyes. I put on coffee for the wretch and offered the young lady my old Carroll Hall sweatshirt to cover her humiliating nakedness. "John...how could you come to such a pass?" Fieno just laughs, that spiteful, hate-filled laughter of the damned that he invented, patented and sold at a considerable mark-up. He guzzles down the last of the brown liquor and smashes the bottle against my black velvet painting of Ralph Reed that cries. He throws the blowzy slut down on the floor and comes at me. He was mad I tell 'ya. I thought the was going to kill me. He grabs me by the lapels and shakes me hard, not once, not twice, but thrice! Then he throws me to the floor too, again laughing that terrible laugh that haunts me in the four in the morning sounds of my mind. Gathering his bimbo for some nightmare of depravity and degradation God knows where, he ushers himself out uttering cryptically, "It's better to burn out...than just fade away." Then he disappeared into the Chicago night. If he's out there I can only say: Come home, Johnny, we love you. Come home.
| Jack Hay, in e-mail to John Fieno: "Johnny Fien-rock... Call me. Through the volunteer work I've been doing I have access to some of the better drug and alcohol addiction treatment centers in Ohio. 'Cause if you ain't thinkin', you must be drinkin'." | Valentine Haiku, by Johnny Fever: I-M-A-B, near A lonely flower, buzzing Be my Valentine |
| Ode to Johnny Fever, by Fuzzy Don ModiKa
He is a potent Force of Nature He is a leader of men, adored by his troops, feared by his enemies, cool under fire. He knows the metric system but doesn't use it, he's that hip. He donates blood. The man can dance. Women sense his power and seek him out, but he denies them his vital life-essence. He loves animals and children. World leaders approach him for advice. Has has turned down two Medals of Freedom. He is the Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Virginia. He single-handedly toppled the Soviet regime in tiny Albania. He can play the banjo. | |
