The Love Song of JP Stankus

The Love Song of JP Stankus (1/9/09)

JP Stankus, 43,
lived a life of squallardry
among the cast-away debris
all strewn about haphazardly.

Years and years the neighbors talked,
stared at him with heads all cocked,
gawked, but in the end they chalked
their fate to knowing they had balked

in ever doing anything
about the situation.  Spring,
summer, fall, and winter—ZING—
flew by.  No one pushed the King

of Filth with harsh redress,
no one made the least progress
(on account of cowardice?)
to get the man to clean his mess.

Finally, the bank-men came
men in suits who looked the same
men of numbers, not of names
to put an end to Stankus’ shame.

They drove up slow in Cadillacs
with paint to match their suits—both black—
the men who never smiles crack
and parked in front of JP’s shack.

“Your neighbors, they will kindly thank us,”
said the men to JP Stankus
“for the men down at the bank
rank the neighborhood as rank.”

Mr. Stankus, rather smugly
held his arms to chest quite snugly,
called his pit bull, Mr. Pugly,
and said, “Hey boys, this might get ugly

if you don’t get off my lawn.”
He turned to Pugly, with a yawn,
and told him “Show these boys your brawn
if they don’t get themselves gone.”

Pugly grinned and Pugly growled,
up and down the yard he prowled,
slobber dripping from his jowls,
and the bank men left with scowls.

After that they brought the mayor
with the county land surveyor
“Stankus, he is one tough player—
this plan is our only prayer.”

“Mr. Stankus, we just need
to check the lines upon the deed.
Your mess, we think it may exceed
your property,” the Mayor decreed.

Mr. Stankus, all disheveled,
noted the surveyor’s level,
pad of paper, pen and bevel,
and said to him, “Well, by the Devil,

measure twice, but just come once,
it won’t make no difference.
I know by experience
and I won’t take your dalliance.

His property in back extended
back to where the highway bended
and though his neighbors were offended
on the lines his garbage ended.

“Gentlemen, this all was fun,
but I’ll never be undone.
You wished you’d win, and you got none,
and in the end it seems I won.

Pugly, show these two men out,”
said Stankus, “Boys, you know the route.
Afterwards they reeked of trout
a smell that leeched its way throughout

the Mayor’s office, City Hall.
The odor penetrated walls
along the floors it seemed to crawl.
Just then the Mayor received a call.

The secretary, with clothespinned nose
(thankful that she’d brought in those),
said, “Sir, don’t let me impose—
it seems that your daughter chose

to call you when you were so busy.”
The Mayor, though he was quite dizzy
and all the town was in a tizzy
decided that he’d speak to Lizzie.

“Lizzie, dear, now isn’t good!
As your father, I think you should
evacuate your neighborhood—
if I could, I know I would.”

But she told him, “Listen, Daddy,
I know Stankus is a baddy—
and perhaps the grossest laddie
in all of Greater Cincinnati

but for our town I’ll take a chance.
Maybe he’s more than first glance
would have him be.  I’m of the stance
that maybe just some good romance

might cure of his stinky ways.
Listen: give me seven days
to set the Stankus heart ablaze.
I promise you, I can amaze.”

Terrified for her wellbeing,
but incapable of fleeing
town, and thus forth guaranteeing
loss of both his job and seeing

all his rivals take control,
he weighed it on his mortal soul
and realized that, on the whole,
someone had to tame the troll.

“Lizzie, we’ll give you a week.
Wow him with your brash mystique,
and your faint knowledge of Greek.
That will let the neighbors sneak


into his yard to start to clean
the garbage piles up unseen
and clean up that darned obscene
odor with a big machine.”

Her mission clear: de-grub the grub.
Her choice of weapons?  Not a scrub
brush or a shower or a tub:
she telephoned Mitzy’s Dance Club.

Lizzie got a reservation,
then she called the aberration
who had caused the consternation—
then, without procrastination.

“What you want?” said rude JP
“This is Lizzie, from P.E.
You once went to school with me
in the class of ’93.

I just wondered… would you mind?
I know that you’ve been much maligned
by pretty much the town combined,
but JP, I am in a bind.

It’s Friday and it’s getting late
and I don’t have a dancing date
and I would sure appreciate
if you would be my foxtrot mate.”

JP Stankus was confused—
all his life he’d been abused—
frankly, he just wasn’t used
to pleasantries.  And so bemused

as he was by her idea
he said in an instant, “See ya
8:00.  We’ll travel via
my old truck.  The pizzeria

next to Mitzy’s makes some great
garlic bread.  Or have you ate?”
“I haven’t yet”; to obfuscate
was a great skill for debate.


Lizzie bested old Tom Sawyer.
It was a talent her employer
valued.  She was a truth destroyer.
Lizzie Gordon was a lawyer.

At half past eight, JP arrived.
Lizzie’s joy was all contrived,
she let her stinky escort drive
and prayed for strength just to survive.

On the road that they drove south on,
Stankus said, “Hey, γνώθι σεαυτόν—
know yourself.”  It seemed forgone
to her that this bizarre, withdrawn

and filthy man would know the stuff
that they discussed—not one bit fluff
and facts he spurted off the cuff:
an Einstein underneath the gruff

exterior he liked to show.
And all this time, she didn’t know.
She’d never even say hello—
this was really apropos.

The nasty man that her town hated
merely loathed and underrated
hygiene, had it always slated
after ideas he created,

ideas in his head that swirled.
Ideas that could change the world!
Ideas that could be unfurled
if professors hadn’t hurled

when he tried to go to college.
Since no one seemed to acknowledge
his brilliance or just apologize
and let him share his knowledge,

JP Stankus became bitter,
turned into a stinky quitter.
Lizzie hoped he’d reconsider,
smiled with an honest glitter.


No one stayed this time to taunt—
his odor cleared the restaurant  
but JP, his only want
was to enjoy their little jaunt.

Meanwhile, back at JP’s house,
every neighbor and his spouse
shoveled up cockroach and louse,
all as silent as a mouse.

“How much more?” the neighbors wondered.
Garbage bags filled by the hundred,
when at last the silence sundered
with a roar, a beast that thundered,

and it shocked the cleaning crew.
The Mayor requested (no one knew)
a new device from Kalamazoo—
it now made its Ohio debut.

The label said “THE DISINFECTOR.”
And the county health inspector
and the regional director
of the Midwestern Health Sector

held their breath and flicked the switch.
Nothing.  They looked for the glitch,
townsfolk asked “What is the hitch?”
And the Mayor started to twitch.

This would cost him their affection.
It might cost him the election
if these masters of inspection
failed mechanical resurrection.

“Aha, it seems a wire’s loose,
I’ll plug it in—now give it juice!”
The sound effect the tool produced
at first seemed something like a moose

and then a lion, then a train,
then the engines of a plane—
something they could not restrain…
then all was quiet once again.

BOOM!
The shock wave was louder than loud
the blast raised up a mushroom cloud
and draped Kentucky in a shroud
as on the Buckeye side it plowed

through buildings, cars, and over trees
to Lexington and Sandusky
while windows broke off in D.C.—
they heard the blast far overseas.

By this point, though, JP eloped
with Lizzie.  He no longer moped,
no longer used anger to cope—
he just discovered using soap.

And the two moved off to Athens;
JP taught a course on math, and
Lizzie dished out legal wrath, and
that is where their story’s path ends.

(One last note, as an addendum:
the blast flung people but didn’t end ‘em.
But now they stink.  Who will befriend ‘em?
Will you stand up?  Will you defend ‘em?)