COP LUNCH

Recall the divine blah sec towards the middle of your stolen library copy - Kerouac, Visions of Cody - then you know the sten gun spray of three pages glassing deli and diner, swabbing decks of chrome and subway tile, chanting greasy cheese-laden OM over cheeseburgs and steak sands and splits with onions, kraut, cheese, heavy ass-on-tap yellow mustard sprays, Dexter Gordon or Sonny Rollins or Mingus on juke, a whole bar load of London Fog wearing motherfuckers slurping down coffee ten, twelve hours old, black as bloody stool, Chesterfield, Pall Mall, Camel smoke dense as lower eastside knish, guys with names like Sal and Tommy and Nicky shoulderin .38s and .45s and even some fuckin hotshit totes a .357 or some thimble dick makin for sweet jesus' lack of humor shoulderin a .44 but the fuck can't shoot it without proppin himself up against a shithouse rat.

If you're here, the place is fuckin familiar. Maybe you're a fuckin cop. Maybe you just like to eat like em. If you do, the cop lunch is many things. Sustaining, heavier than death itself. Covered in chili and cheese and onions and grease a ruddy yellow river of rust. Something on the go maybe smelling of roadkill on a 100 degree day. Chicken wings and fried gizzards and livers looking the same goin in as goin out. Hamburgs held together with mayo. Bacon hanging like browned bunny ears from buns buttered and toasted and fitted with half-pound steaks.

What's a split, he says. It's a fuckin hot dog, asshole. It's a man's dog. A nigger dick singed over high fire and broken open, lookin like one of those Hindoo devil tongues, forked, street of flesh. Bunned and sauced and covered in beanless chili like Montezuma's revenge. Never ketchup. It's always mustard and mostly always French's or Gulden's or Batempte if you're in Brooklyn - maybe. You wear this as much as you eat it. You taste it for the rest of the night. Maybe you're sitting on an apartment. You've got it comin' outta both holes. Keep the windows cracked and you can smoke so long as you keep that cherry at prick level. You're gonna need the Pall Mall smoke to cover the sulphur. Farts tromboned over pleather seats. Creaked against plastic chairs. Drifted into wind. A stakeout smells like death, I'm told. I believe it.

Meatloaf sand, liverwurst, pastrami, london broil and french fuckin dip. Buckets of au jus. Maybe there's some Ike & Tina on the juke. These guys have panda eyes. Brains boiled in numbers, addresses, contacts, texts and subtexts, details of details. Grilled cheese - a double or triple decker. Fries, chips, a side of chili, maybe matzo ball soup. If you play it right, you won't get fuckin charged full price for the liver and tongue sand. Sneak a tallboy. Aint sposed to drink on the clock but what the fuck: You've been sloggin away for 72 hours. Time is motherfuckin tactile. Feel your legs movin through it. Egg Salad and tuna melts and handfuls of Utz. Fuckin buttered wheat toast and three boiled eggs. Wind your partner out of family and pension, his face a tattoo of disgust. Roll them windows up and gas him down. When you're eatin like this, you're eatin the cop lunch, fuckhound.