All My Ex's Live In Taxes
May 26, 2000

April 15 has come and gone. Even in Starkansaw we have done our patriotic duty. We Starkansauceans gladly pay the price for a civilized society, for garbage protection and police pick-up, for pothole repair and the mayor's parking space. Compliance is voluntary which means you have to do it - or else. You dig?

That doesn't make sense, you say? Well, neither did any of my ex girlfriends, wives and concubines. And pardner I'm still paying' for it. That's why all my ex's live in Taxes . . . and Taxes is the neighborhood where your money will be.

Welcome to Taxes, people. Taxes is an annex just outside of Starkansaw proper in the W-4 quadrant. It's a big neighborhood, really, right between Downtown and Queens. People living in Taxes think they're the coolest because they get everything for free.

They don't have to work; in fact if they get a good-paying job, they have to move out. It's a place where able-bodied men line up to get permits to park in the handicap zone, and where tourists line up to visit Andy Capp's home. It's a place where you stand at the counter of the office supply store for a 90-minute wait, only to find out they sell nothing but red tape. People shop at the food stamp store and get gas at the Voucher station. Most people here suffer from the AID syndrome. Lot of bad backs in this neighborhood. It's a place for unemployed people of all ages to line up to get paid 400 years worth of back wages.

In Taxes they've got an old saying: "You can take the boy out of Taxes, but then you've got to take Taxes out of the boy." Are we making any sense yet? Here in Starkansaw proper, cents is all we actually make. The rest goes to Taxes.

My daddy Alcatraz Starke always used to say, "If you want change, then go to McDonald's." Boy was that a long time ago. Then one April 15, I'm drowning in a sea of Schedule Cs, 1099s and receipts when all of the sudden it hit me like a 714. I've got less than ten minutes to get this stuff together and drop it off at the nearest post office. It just ain't gonna happen, I thought. In the background I could here ol' Willie on the radio singing the final chorus to "Pancho and Lefty:" "All the Federales say, they could've had him any day. They only let him go so long . . ."

It was all so surreal. Deadline Fever started taking over. I got out the phone book and found the number for the Starkansaw Office of Revenue Etc. or SORE for short. I dialed. When the man answered, I disguised my voice.

"Hello, am I speaking to a SORE agent?"

"Yes," the man replied.

"Uh, yeah, I would like to know if in regards to paying our income to Taxes, is compliance, by law voluntary or compulsory?"

"Well it's voluntary - but you have to pay it."

"I don't understand," I said. "I thought 'voluntary' by definition means 'of one's free will.'"

"Well you're free to comply or not comply," he said, "but if you don't comply, just like Al Capone Starke, you will go to jail."

"But sir, that's not voluntary, that's compulsory," I argued, "and if it is in fact compulsory why doesnąt the law just say so?"

"Now hold on there," the man said. "Before we go any further I need to get your name." "W-w-why?" I asked. I knew about the awesome power of SORE. My mouth was getting dry. I guess I kind of panicked. I told him my name was Willie Nelson and that I lived in the town of Back, Taxes, and then I hung up.

I called up my friend Pete from Sunset Beach. "I need to get into Taxes by morning," I told him. He told me exactly what I needed to do.

The next morning I grabbed my wheelchair, rolled right into a place on the Starkansaw-Taxes line called Entitlements R' Us, and asked for a short form called a WD-40. I filled it out and next thing you know I'm full-fledged citizen of Taxes with enough benefits to put even the Amazing Lesko to shame.

As for Willie, he had his golf clubs taken away courtesy of SORE and Uncle Son of Sam until he pays his debt to Taxes. In the meantime, it's Raiford Starke helping out ol' Willie perform his community service to the tune of "On the Road Again" before an audience of screaming rednecks. As I stare out into the crowd, my mind wanders a little bit and I start thinking, it's amazing what just a little WD-40 can do.

On the dole again.. I can't wait to get on the dole again. Makin' music and gettin' food stamps with my friends. I can't wait to get on the dole again.

-- Raiford Starke's CD 'Speak Me' can be purchased online at Big Cypress Records.

© May 26, 2000, The Seminole Tribune