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I'd like to read a poem about
John Dryden if I can find it.

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Here it is, he's
also he was mentioned

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in the poem about the chainsaw.

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This poem is called
"John Dryden."

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"Dry, they call him, and dry
is what he hopes never to be.

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Though spring water is
all his drink six nights

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after the welfare comes,
and most all his feed too,

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I sometimes think.

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So once I saw him bring
down a hare at seven rods

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with a stone, and it
didn't look lucky either.

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When I asked him if he knew a
famous poet had the same name,

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he looked at me not
quite contemptuously.

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And yet I took a while to see
his scorn wasn't because he

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was smarter than I credited,
for a fact, he can't read

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but about half what's
printed on the welfare check.

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But rather because he'd been
asked so damn many times

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before, and he figured
I should have known.

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I should have too.

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Dry is not dumb,
he's only crazy.

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Well anyway, that's
the general impression

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around the plot, which is
what they call this section.

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My neighbor rounds
up her kids and locks

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her door when Dry comes
striding and caroling up

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from up the hill from town in
his outsized rummage pants,

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with a carton of grub held
like an offering in both arms,

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and his coat gone slanty-wise
from a fifth of Sauternes

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in the pocket.

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Paranoid, I'd say, but
there's more than a few

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in these mountains,
and sometimes I'm

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not just certain about myself.

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But I know Dry, I know he hasn't
worked four consecutive days

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on any one job in 15
years, that's indicative.

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Once we were haying up
at Marshall's and Dry

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took offense because a car
with a shield on the door

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drove into barnyard and
Dry thought Marshall

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was telling the CIA on him.

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And he came after Marshall
and me with his hay fork,

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chasing us around the tractor,
his face dead white like snow

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that's thawed and frozen again.

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He did, and it
wasn't funny either.

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My kidneys ached
for two hours after

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from thinking about that fork.

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Finally, he saw he
couldn't catch us.

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He threw down the fork and
marched off, straight as a bee,

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over the meadow, the pasture,
the orchard, the fence,

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and was gone.

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That year, Marshall and I made
the rest of the hay alone.

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One time Gilbert told how
he and Dry were cutting

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sugarwood for old man Saunders
up toward Codding Hollow,

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and Dry took one of his
spells and came after Gilbert

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with the axe, and Gilbert yanked
quick on his chainsaw string

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and remarked, Dry, you
damn fool, listen here.

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Just you set down that thing
or by the jumping Jesus Christ

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I'll cut off both your arms.

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Dry set it down about three
inches into a black birch

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stump, and marched straight as
a bee over brakes and brambles,

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hobblebush and thornapple,
and he was gone.

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Which may be indicative too,
he can be took right sudden,

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but when he's
licked he knows it.

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And he's a fair
hand at marching.

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He told me once it was
here 40 years back.

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Them days was cruel, he said.

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Awful cruel.

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Things were turning
on the slow reel.

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And he made a motion
like so, like the bobbins

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down to the woollen mill
when they run half speed.

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Why hell, he said.

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I had one of them $5 gold
certificates, you remember?

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I felt like I was
rich, and I was too.

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But I spent it running the
cunt, and it come back,

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and I spent it again,
then it come back again.

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So help me, over and over, till
the damn thing wore itself out.

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I carried the pieces for
years, but they're gone now.

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One time Dry
vanished, clean gone.

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No one knew where,
and don't know yet.

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But when he came back, I
met him up in the woods,

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and he stood on a spruce
log and threw out his arms

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and said, God Hayden, it's
Moxie in the can being

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back in these here
goddamn mountains again,

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and he laughed.

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The last what you
could call steady job

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Dry had, as far as
I know, was 1945,

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down at the rendering
plant in Burlington

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where he slugged
cows with an axe

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and pushed their guts through
a hole in the floor all day.

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Stink?

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Jesus, I guess I stunk like
a she-bear in whistling time.

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But I made good
money, 40 a week,

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and that weren't
bad in them days.

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But I spent it all running
the cunt, every dime.

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I got throwed out of five
fleabag rooming houses,

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and I wasn't even drunk,
just owed the landlady a week

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or two.

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Well, running's what we say a
bull does when you turn him out

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to pasture with the cows.

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So you can see how Dry it
felt about that, at least

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providing you've ever
watched a bull in action.

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But now, goddamn it, Dry
spit and grinned sly-like

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with his uppers, which is
all the teeth I've ever

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seen him wear.

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Now you could lay a big
slobbering juicy one

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right there, right
there, ready and open,

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Him leaning and making a kind of
slicing gesture along the log,

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and I couldn't do nothing.

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I couldn't touch it, I
couldn't hardly spit on it.

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And he spit and grin.

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It'd be all wasted,
Hayden, I'm fucked,

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fucked, and I ain't but 59.

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How old are you?

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That's Dry all right,
the nailhead every time.

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Well he lives up in the
old Connell sugarhouse

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now that he's shingled all
over with sap bucket covers

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to keep the wind out, till
it looks like a big tin fish

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in among the pines
near the brook.

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And there's plenty
more he could tell you,

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like how he got bit that
time by the cattle grub,

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and took the purple
aguey, or how

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he has a buckshot
in him that keeps

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going round and
round in his veins,

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catching him sharp-like
on his collarbone

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when he don't expect
it every now and again.

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Or how he eats 40 aspirins a
day and hears sweet patootie

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music in his ears, or how
he fell in a cellar hole

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at blackberrying time
and landed on a bear.

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I says, woof old bear,
get you away from me,

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and then I climbed
the hell out of there.

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Or how-- but have you noticed
I can't talk about him

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without talking like him?

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That's my trouble.

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Somehow I always seem to
turn into the other guy,

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and Dry's the kind that
brings it out the strongest.

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But his trouble is what I'm
telling about now, for it's not

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just buckshot in his blood,
it's worse, a whole lot worse.

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His reel is turning slower
and slower, no mistake.

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Crazy?

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I reckon he is.

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I sure don't want
to be there when

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he's took bad, even now, if
he's got a fork or an axe

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within grabbing distance.

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But I'll go up to call
on him in his sugarhouse.

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I believe old Dry is
preparing to march again,

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or any way preparing to prepare.

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And I believe he'll go straight
as a bee, white as a squall

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of snow, knowing what
he damn well knows,

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over the goldenrod, the
birchwood, the pines

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and hemlock, over the
mountain, and he'll be gone.

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And then Marshall and I shall
make this hay alone, by God

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and curse old Dry.

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But in our thoughts will
remember and remember

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how that man could march."

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[APPLAUSE]

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Thank you.

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