D.O.A.

“You knew who I was

when I walked in the door.

You thought that I was dead.

Well, I am dead. A man

can walk and talk and even

breathe and still be dead.”

Edmond O’Brien is perspiring

and chewing up the scenery

in my favorite film noir,

D.O.A. I can’t stop watching,

can’t stop relating. When I walked down

Columbus to Endicott last night

to pick up Tor’s new novel,

I felt the eyes of every

Puerto Rican teen, crackhead,

yuppie couple focus on my cane

and makeup. “You’re dead,”

they seemed to say in chorus.

Somewhere in a dark bar

years ago, I picked up “luminous

poisoning.” My eyes glowed

as I sipped my drink. After that,

there was no cure, no turning back.

I had to find out what was gnawing

at my gut. The hardest part’s

not even the physical effects:

stumbling like a drunk (Edmond

O’Brien was one of Hollywood’s

most active lushes) through

Forties sets, alternating sweats

and fevers, reptilian spots

on face and scalp. It’s having

to say goodbye like the scene

where soundtrack violins go crazy

as O’Brien gives his last embrace

to his girlfriend-cum-Girl

Friday, Paula, played by Pamela

Britton. They’re filmdom’s least

likely lovers—the squat and jowly

alkie and the homely fundamentally

talentless actress who would hit

the height of her fame as the pillhead-

acting landlady on My Favorite Martian

fifteen years in the future. I don’t have

fifteen years, and neither does Edmond

O’Brien. He has just enough time to tell

Paula how much he loves her, then

to drive off in a convertible

for the showdown with his killer.

I’d like to have a showdown too, if I

could figure out which pistol-packing

brilliantined and ruthless villain

in a hound’s-tooth overcoat took

my life. Lust, addiction, being

in the wrong place at the wrong

time? That’s not the whole

story. Absolute fidelity

to the truth of what I felt, open

to the moment, and in every case

a kind of love: all of the above

brought me to this tottering

self-conscious state—pneumonia,

emaciation, grisly cancer,

no future, heart of gold,

passionate engagement with a great

B film, a glorious summer

afternoon in which to pick up

the ripest plum tomatoes of the year

and prosciutto for the feast I’ll cook

tonight for the man I love,

phone calls from my friends

and a walk to the park, ignoring

stares, to clear my head. A day

like any, like no other. Not so bad

for the dead.

Copyright Credit: Tim Dlugos, "D.O.A." from A Fast Life: The Collected Poems of Tim Dlugos. Copyright © 2011 by Tim Dlugos. Reprinted by permission of Nightboat Books.

Source: A Fast Life: The Collected Poems of Tim Dlugos (Nightboat Books, 2011)