You Don't Clean Your Guns

Here's another excerpt from Second Day Reported. Thanks for reading! I'm a little past the halfway point for those who have asked.

The first time I heard a gunshot, my mother’s boss had killed himself on his birthday because he discovered his wife and his best friend had been sleeping together. We’d all gone out on what I imagined was a yacht (in fact was a really big ass boat) and his wife served all the kids New Coke. I broke my two year ban on carbonated beverages (even then I loved my masochistic deprivation). We all agreed that New Coke sucked and hoped they’d go back to the original. As for the party wore on, the boss went into the bedroom beneath everyone and put a shotgun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. At the funeral everyone said he’d had an accident. The church couldn’t contain all the mourners, some of whom stayed on the sidewalk in the unrelenting August heat.

“Some accident,” my mother said. “You don’t clean your guns with your mouth.” She turned the air-conditioning in the care, way up high. “I hate that fucking New Coke,” she said. “I’m going to buy all the old ones I can. The new stuff is too sweet.”

Michelle's Spell of the Day
“I just tried to come up with some honest songs. What I was writing about was real plain stuff that I wasn't sure was going to be interesting to other people. But I guess it was.” John Prine

Cocktail Hour
Drinking book suggestion: Everyday Drinking Kingsley Amis

Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy first day of summer! Thanks for the question from Rob about the Virgin Mary. The short answer is yes. The long answer -- a post for next week.