triumph @nowionlywantatriumph@shrike.club

And he talked for forty-five minutes and nobody understood a word that he said, but we had fun filling out the forms and playing with the pencils on the bench there, and I filled out the massacree with the four-part harmony, and wrote it down there, just like it was, and everything was fine and I put down the pencil…

And everything was fine, we was smoking cigarettes and all kinds of things, until the sergeant came over, had some paper in his hand, held it up, and said “Kids, thispieceofpapersgot47words37sentences58wordswewannaknowdetailsofthecrimetimeofthecrimeandanyotherkindofthingyougottasaypertainingtoandaboutthecrimeIwanttoknowarrestingofficer’snameandanyotherkindofthingyougottasay—”

And they all moved away from me on the bench there, and the hairy eyeball and all kinds of mean nasty things, till I said, “And creating a nuisance.” And they all came back, shook my hand, and we had a great time on the bench, talkin’ about crime, mother-stabbing, father-raping, all kinds of groovy things that we was talking about on the bench.

And the meanest, ugliest, nastiest one—the meanest father-raper of them all—was coming over to me and he was mean ‘n’ ugly ‘n’ nasty ‘n’ horrible and all kind of things and he sat down next to me and said, “Kid, whad’ya get?” I said, “I didn’t get nothing, I had to pay $50 and pick up the garbage.” He said, “What were you arrested for, kid?” And I said, “Littering.”

And I, I walked over to the, to the bench there, and there is, Group W’s where they put you if you may not be moral enough to join the army after committing your special crime, and there was all kinds of mean, nasty, ugly-looking people on the bench there. Mother-rapers. Father-stabbers. Father-rapers! Father-rapers sitting right there on the bench next to me! And they was mean and nasty and ugly and horrible crime-type guys sitting on the bench next to me.

“Kid, I want you to go and sit down on that bench that says Group W ... NOW, kid!”

And I proceeded to tell him the story of the twenty-seven 8-by-10 color glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and the paragraph on the back of each one, and he stopped me right there and said:

“Kid, did you ever go to court?”

And I proceeded to tell him the story of the Alice’s Restaurant Massacree, with full orchestration and five-part harmony and stuff like that and all the phenome—and he stopped me right there and said:

He said: “Kid, we only got one question. Have you ever been arrested?”

Proceeded through, and when I finally came to the see the last man, I walked in, walked in, sat down after a whole big thing there, and I walked up and said, “What do you want?”

Proceeded on down the hall, gettin’ more injections, inspections, detections, neglections and all kinds of stuff that they was doin’ to me at the thing there, and I was there for two hours, three hours, four hours, I was there for a long time going through all kinds of mean nasty ugly things and I was just having a tough time there, and they was inspecting, injecting every single part of me, and they was leaving no part untouched.

Didn’t feel too good about it.

And I went up there, I said, “Shrink, I wanna kill. I mean, I wanna—I wanna kill. Kill. I wanna—I wanna see—I wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth. Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean kill, Kill,
KILL, KILL.” And I started jumpin’ up and down yelling, “KILL, KILL, “ and he started jumpin’ up and down with me and we was both jumpin’ up and down yelling, “KILL, KILL.” And the sergeant came over, pinned a medal on me, sent me down the hall, said, “You’re our boy.”

‘Cause I wanted to look like the all-American kid from New York City, man; I wanted—I wanted to feel like the all—I wanted to be the all-American kid from New York, and I walked in, sat down, I was hung down, brung down, hung up, and all kinds o’ mean nasty ugly things. And I waked in and sat down and they gave me a piece of paper, said, “Kid, see the psychiatrist, room 604.”

They got a building down New York City, it’s called Whitehall Street, where you walk in, you get injected, inspected, detected, infected, neglected and selected. I went down to get my physical examination one day, and I walked in, I sat down, got good and drunk the night before, so I looked and felt my best when I went in that morning.

Came to talk about the draft.

And we was fined $50 and had to pick up the garbage in the snow, but that’s not what I came to tell you about.

—and then at the twenty-seven 8-by-10 color glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one—and began to cry ‘cause Obie came to the realization that it was a typical case of American blind justice, and there wasn’t nothing he could do about it, and the judge wasn’t going to look at the twenty-seven 8-by-10 color glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us.

Man came in, said, “All rise.” We all stood up, and Obie stood up with the twenty-seven 8-by-10 color glossy pictures, and the judge walked in, sat down with a seeing-eye dog, and he sat down, we sat down. Obie looked at the seeing-eye dog–and then at the twenty-seven 8-by-10 color glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one–and looked at the seeing-eye dog—