By Rich Logsdon

(written in honor of the recent Bud-Lite commercials)

Come on in.
Would you like a beer?
I was telling our friend Luke here
(we're watching the Bulls, by the way;
it's half-time,
and Bud Lite's talking toads,
Franky and Louie,
are stealing the show)
that apathy is preferable to involvement.
He agrees.

My position is immoral, you say?
Of course it is.
But why risk life and limb
to prevent the neighbor's punk kid,
wired on speed half the time,
from getting beaten black and bloody
by a group of his friends
wielding aluminum baseball bats
if doing so might mean injury,
even death to me—
or maybe a lawsuit brought against me
by my ivy-league neighbor
(a very powerful local attorney, by the way)
for trying to save some angry adolescent
addicted to Southpark
from getting his pimply face caved in?

(Hey, let's listen to the toads.
That's Louie, the "hit" toad, talking.
Jesus, these toads are funny.
What's the score, by the way?)
Why take a bullet
for someone who,
later this week,
may shove a gun in my face
and send me to kingdom come
because I looked at his girl?

Why take a punch
for the 87 year old lady
in the wheel chair?
She's soon to die,
and, besides, I'll miss ER...or something else.
(Jesus, these toads are funny.
And who ever heard of a singing frog
with a nervous twitch?
I shoulda written commercials
for a living.)

OK. So call me a beast.
But consider this:
the world you imagine,
the Pope running the ship,
Mother Teresa saving souls in Calcutta,
has already sunk.

Iım not my brotherıs keeper, pal,
and donıt tell me I am.
Today, if Cain slays Abel
right out my front door
I pull the shades,
grab a six pack,
and turn on the tube.
Then, because Abel was a prick anyway,
I ask his brother inside for a Bud-lite.

Anyway, half-time is over,
Michael Jordan is on the floor.
(How many points has he scored?
And what is the score?
And who are the Bulls beating up on this time?
Dennis Rodman is as funny as the toads.)

Jesus, these toads are funny.
Would you like a beer?

About the author: Rich Logsdon has taught English at the Community College of Southern Nevada for over twenty years. He received his Ph. D. at the University of Oregon. Currently, he is the editor-in-chief of Red Rock Review, a new small literary journal that is sold coast-to-coast. Rich has had stories recently published, or accepted for publicaton, in the following magazines, all accessible over the Internet: Gothic.Net, Slumgullion, Night People, State of Unbeing, Barking Spider, Noir Mechanics, The Oracle, San Francisco Salvo, and Yellow Dog. His story Baby Tuckoo appears in this issue of Psychozoan, and his story Sweet Sounds appeared in our Spring 1998 issue.

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İ Copyright 1998 by Rich Logsdon