How Houdini Died
Lotta, lotta misconceptions
about how old Harry Houdini died.
There’s the story about him
getting punched in the gut
by a football player
and dying of a ruptured
appendix. Some people
think he drowned
trying to swim up
Niagara Falls. Jesus,
no, that was not it.
That’s just fucking
stupid. Houdini
was daring. I’m
stupid. You don’t even
want to know
how I’m gonna die
and I don’t either.
It’ll be some stupid way, though,
chasing a hat or a girl, or breaking
up a dog-fight.
Anyway, Houdini
actually died of exposure,
by all accounts, in his car
trying to cross a Walmart
parking lot. It was 5
old ladies in riding wheelchairs,
a long line of stacked-up
shopping carts,
and just the crosswalk
in general that finally
did him in. So, what I’m saying is,
9 times out of 10
it won’t be the train
you’re trying to outrun,
or the bus you’re trying to jump,
it won’t even be the love
in the word “unloved,”
it’ll be that one mundane
thing, that one afternoon
you didn’t see coming,
that finally gives you
that last, kind little shove.
November 12, 2019