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This writing was accepted for publication in the 84 page perfect-bound issue... Down in the Dirt magazine (v108) (the July-August 2012 Issue) You can also order this 5.5" x 8.5" issue as an ISSN# paperback book:

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Glass Eye performs

Fritz Hamilton

    Skinny & bent with age, Glass Eye moves through the Blue Line Train to Long Beach. When he has enough people watching, he gouges his glass eye out of its socket & exhibits it to the disgusted & frightened commuters. He reaches out with his other hand to collect the coins of the outraged & pitying throng. Glass Eye does this all day long as the train goes from Long Beach to Union Stn in L.A. & back again. When the train stops running at midnight, Glass Eye gets out at the end of the line in Long Beach to count his earnings & retire to the streets for another hour of panhandling, & he gets another bottle of Cisco or Maddog 20 20 or Nighttrain to sustain him until he finds a dooway or dumpster where he can spend the night. He awakens early to get another bottle & start the routine all over. Maybe he can find enroute a piece of clothing less foul & malodorous than what he’s wearing & make the change. Maybe he’ll go to the beach to strip down & swim away his filth. Maybe he’ll even make it to the senior center for a square meal. This can reduce his desperation & loneliness.
     Anyway, the constant guzzling of cheap wine can make you pretty squirrelly, & what’s more like a squirrel than a rat without a fuzzy tail?
    So Glass Eye finds himself on the Long Beach platform at the end of the day, & a rat that’s bigger than One Eye stands beside him.
    “You look like shit,” says the rat, “& you smell like shit. You have the soul of a rat but the body of a broken down old man.”
    “Thank you,” says Glass Eye.
    “The kindest thing I could do is eat you, but I suspect you taste like shit.”
    “Thank you.”
    “Being polite doesn’t cut it, Fred.”
    “Cut what, the shit?”
    “You’re kind of clever for a piece of shit, Fred.”
    “How do you know my name, Rat? If you know my name, you already know too much. The kindest thing you can do is leave me alone.”
    “Isolation will get you nowhere, Fred. Even a rat like me needs some companionship. The platform is now vacated. The trains have stopped running.”
    “I thought so too, but one’s coming our way right now.”
    “I can’t take it, Fred. They don’t allow rats on the train.”
    “I’ll find companionship on the train.”
    “It’s arriving now, Fred, & there are no companions on it. You’ll have to ride it by yourself. Maybe you shouldn’t ride it by yourself. If you don’t get on it, maybe I’ll be your companion, but I think I’d rather eat you. Here it comes, Fred. What are you going to do?”
    Fred falls in front of the train. Nobody seems to care. The train runs over him & doesn’t stop. The rat disappears.

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