Chapter 6. Y.C. Wong Kung Fu Academy

I stayed in my bed for three days
And on the fourth day I went to Tammy Lafay’s house
I talked her into keeping my piano forever
She gave me a thousand dollars for it
Took a long time chatting her up but finally she went for it
I drank about three mugs of tea sitting there listening to her talk about the stairwell
One thousand dollars in my pocket
I went over to the jewelers
And I bought a ring
Not the best one they had but something
A die cast, real simple
Then I walked over to the Y.C. Wong Kung Fu Academy
And I signed up my son
I walked along the streets even singing a melody to myself
Some unknown thing

When I got home I took those stairs four at a time
I locked the door and I set the package on the table
But you couldn't see it in all the chaos of the table so I made a quick decision to clean the table real good
Comet and uh 409 and
After the table was sprayed and clean I decided to clean the whole apartment
It took an hour just to put everything away
I had alphabetized all the children's books
Put away all the toys
Vacuumed his room
Gathered all the clothes that didn't fit him and put them in the bag
Then I went through all my books
Took all the books that I really didn't want and put them all in a box
I went through all of my clothes
Took all the clothes that I, I never wear and I put 'em in a bag
Then everything that I had I put in the laundry
I was darting down the stairs across the street every 20 minutes doing all the laundry
When I attacked the closet I resurrected an old blazer
The one I always wore when I wanted to feel intellectual
I brought it to the dry cleaners
Beyond this, I organized our bookshelf with its kind of random, scattering of stuff
I pocketed an old Brodsky book about Venice

I walked out feeling glad
Mighty glad
My eyes were even wet
Nothing succeeds in which high spirits play no part
That was Nietzsche
I straightened up my back and I started towards the park nearby
I didn't know what I would do at the park but
One could rest there I figured
That's what I needed, just a little bit of rest
I looked at some yellow flowers reaching up towards the waning sun and I felt just like one of them
And once out on the grass I felt my body firming up against the cold
And some last final fumes of a burned up song
Puffing out my ears