The Final Words of Riley Puckett

Some people lack the foresight to know life is killing them. I remember a bellboy with a busted wing in the lobby of the Roosevelt Hotel, back in 1946. Give me the phone number of a lady of easy virtue, who said, "I got a pussy on me, buster, that'll burn your good life down. Make you scream like a busload of school kids going off a cliff." Now here we are on Rank Mountain Road, you and me baby, and when you take off your dress, well, I must confess, you make me feel like a seafaring man. They say there's a lion roams the Plattsville Woods, escaped from the circus over in Vinegar Bend. A girl out picking wild gooseberries saw it savage a rabbit. I'd like to see that. Hell yes, I'm drunk, baby. I fell out of my mama and I started to drinking, and I haven't stopped yet. Preacher come to me in the hospital once. This would have been, let's see, 1953. I smashed my car and nearly killed my damn self. Said he'd say a prayer for me. I told him, "You can bring the whole congregation to the banks of the river, let 'em put their hands together and sing a hymn for my liver." Always did have a way with a rhyme, I did. You wouldn't believe the way I've lived. I come flying out of my mama's pussy like a man out of a burning house. I shouted, "I wanna live! Let's break some shit! Let's burn this mother down!" You spend your whole life surrounded by clowns, all pretending they're not wearing bright orange balls on their noses. Nobody round here knows shit. Everybody's playing make believe. But not that busboy. That busboy done me a favor. He give me the number of a memorable whore. That woman taught me the New Memphis Moan. And if I wasn't so busy dying, I'd show you how it goes.