10 of Clubs
Sean Lovelace

Doubt arrived, you know, Doubt, the common doom. When the Ones gathered, the Zeros would leave town for the moonshine springs below the lake. When the Zeros met, the Ones would go to their basements and shoot crossbows into the unfinished walls -- pock, pock, pock. So the town felt drenched, wormed, blistered, floated. The stores would not store. The asphalt ribbons curled themselves into loops and went rolling into the sky. The rivers lay still, and slept. So thank God for country music. Country music solved everything. That and the plastic provided by Andy Warhol. (All of this altered my life profoundly; I would eventually learn to drink whiskey from a kidney bean can, and to cry.). The stores refilled with plastic. The Ones and Zeros went forth and multiplied. There is a plaque in the town: ANDY WARHOL AND COUNTRY MUSIC SAVED US. WE WANT TO BE PLASTIC. WE WANT TO LIE DOWN NOW. TO DIE NOW. TO WAKE UP TOMORROW AT THE MALL.

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