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Fact Checking Fake News


07.29.19 Posted in today's words by

Claire Scott’s most recent poem to appear here was “Are We Allowed to be Old?” (June 2019)

Fact Checking Fake News
By Claire Scott

So glad you’re back, my love. I was getting a bit worried what with it getting dark and all. And you seem so happy to see me, such a bright smile as you reach for my hand. Susie was afraid you wouldn’t be home in time to read Frog and Toad or Frog and Toad are Friends. Or Frog and Toad Have a Big Fight and Only One Survives. I made your favorite dinner, boeuf tetrazinni and will open a bottle (the fourth) of Dom Perignon. POP!

The Fact Checker hunkers in the corner, fingers flying across his MacBook Air. Dark rings under sunken eyes. His coat looser by the second. A wet-blanket-sourpuss who won’t ever take a break. He hands me his notes:

#1. Her face was rage-red when she swooped through the door. You hadn’t seen her since she stormed off weeks ago, saying you were a lazy-laggard alcoholic who gambled on sports, on horses, on cards, on roosters.

#2. She didn’t reach out her hand, you idiot, she pointed a gun. At you. A stubby pink Glock 19 pulled from her purse.

#3. You don’t have kids. You never wanted any. Snotty-nosed-self-centered brats that eat into your hard-earned cash. Or would if you ever got a job. Your words, pal, not mine.

#4. What are you thinking, you blockhead. You don’t have a clue how to cook. She was the one who made soups and stews, dusted the chairs, scrubbed the ceilings, washed your stinky socks, collected your three-pack-a-day cigarette butts from the carpet, the counter, the coffee cups.

#5. You are a lame-livered alcoholic with five DUIs and seven serious falls. You promised to quit. Made a docudrama out of dumping scotch and bourbon down the drain. No booze in the house. Ever. As you stashed bottles under the couch, in the closet, behind the curtains. As you made endless trips to the garage for slugs of tequila. As you met your sponsor at Rudy’s Tavern for a round or two or five.

#6. That “pop” was a gunshot, you malingering moron. She fled the scene, lobbing a final fuck you. Look, buddy, you’re bleeding all over the floor.

The nurse just kicked out the Fact Checker. No Visitors After Nine. Alone with my story at last.



2 Responses to “Fact Checking Fake News”

  1. Charlene james says:

    Fact-checked is great, really strange but hold you there, congratulations

  2. Dianne Deloren says:

    Wow, sounds like she knows a thing or two about living with an alcoholic. If this is fiction, it’s a pretty darn good depiction of what it’s like. Her sly sense of humor still bleeds through the anger, however, a saving grace. If not for that it would be pretty grim.

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