Clarence Odbody

Clarence Odbody was George Bailey's guardian angel in Frank Kapra's film, It's a Wonderful Life. He dove in a river to save George's life, but dove in before George, who was still contemplating suicide the moment Clarence hit the river, immediately followed with the singular inter vivos purpose of saving Oddbody, which ensured their survival as Oddbody had pre-calculated. As I think back, Mr. Odbody has been there for me, many, many times, as well. When my Papaw, Paul Clifford Smith, ran his truck off the road drunk in Roane County and jettisoned vomitus throughout the cab after flipping us over en route to Warburg. I was a baby, sideways resting on the passenger side window with the singular little purpose of where I should put my half drank Coke on account of the vomit. Stll diapered when they took us both to the Roane County jail. My mother was never informed after the Smith family fetched me. I had shat and was passed from some stupid Roane County Deputy Sheriff, arms outstretched, to my Grandmother, Anna Mae. still a little guy, I sneaked outside while Art was probaly fucking my Mommy, climbed in the Tempest, and knocked my soon to be father's car out of gear, whereupon we rolled down the steep side of the ridge, destroying his beloved Buick and the peripheral chattle of others; Or when I tried to bake myself to death in a hot car while my mother was shopping for dresses - the people came with water and ice - a perfect act of adolescent recrimination. Pure success. She was horrified; Or when I flipped a tractor down a steep hill into a pond unscathed; Or those hundreds of times I should have died of drugs; Or in 1979, when we crashed into a car head on, breaking my neck; Or when Slayer Thor attempted in earnest to beat me to death with num chucks; or when the devil, freshly pummelled by my fists, pulled a shotgun on me and chambered it as I implored him to "do it, goddammit!"; Or the time I got beat half to death and hospitalized the etiology of which involved my drunken stubborn refusal to withdraw my shod feet from a goddamn coffee table; Or when I had a loaded shotgun sunk deep into my rib cage once by a madman; or when I had to crawl using only my elbows to the highway as I lay dying. So, I'm beginning to get the message and act accordingly. It is very likely that my luck and Clarence Odbody have terminated. Now comes careful stewardship of these serial salvations with gratitude and a reliable intuition that warns me that my luck has finally run out. But, unlike so many of my clients, I'm alive to tell about it.