First try, Tanner did a wallie on a slumlord’s brick wall— 

Slushie and a gut-shot. Tell me your Tanner story… 

When he fell into the fire pit, that wasn’t the end of it. If the acid-in-the-pocket-
While-biking-in-the-rain story is true, that wasn’t the end of it. 
He rock-and-rolled the mini half-pipe in the backyard on Washington. 
When a girl at the Longbranch Sunday Sessions read her poem 
About how love is like a rose, how the thorns prick you, 
Tanner drank beer from a Long John Silver’s cup, 
And shouted from the shadows in his gravelly voice, des-perate! 
After I kicked him out, dude still had the nerve to ask 
For a free coffee, and fuck it if I didn’t give him one… 

Slushie and a gut-shot. Tell me your Tanner story… 

Long before that, he boardslid down 
The bent handrail at Old National Bank, then did 
A boneless off the telephone booth. When a lady 
In a white suit with shoulder pads hustled between us, 
Tanner shouted, don’t call the cops! Afterwards, in a basement 
On Hospital Street, he froze rat poison on a spoon, pulled it 
Out of the freezer, laughed, and asked, you wanna lick? 
If you never gave him a ride to his sister’s house, 
Maybe you never witnessed his human side or maybe you did. 
If his sisters weren’t home, maybe you took him somewhere else, 
And then somewhere else if nobody was home or nobody was answering.
Eventually, we headed back to the strip, cause fuck it, nowhere else to go…
We listened to Punk-O-Rama #5 and ate Jimmy John’s. 
He ollied the chain blocking the bank’s drive-thru, 
Got his foot snagged, and landed back-first on the grip tape, 
Kept rolling, kept laughing, and finally shouted, landed it! 

Slushie and a gut-shot. Tell me your Tanner story…

People say he deserves a statue on The Strip. If the town installs 
A memorial bench outside Old Town, I say let’s make it a giant 
Cement skateboard—eat Dairy Queen on it, drink tallboys 
On it, smoke weed on it, grow old on it, fucking dream on it… 
When Tanner crashed in our living room at Oak and Poplar, 
Some nights he talked to himself. When asked about it, 
He said his friend died near the hospital. 
When he was close by, sometimes he still saw her, he still missed her… 

Slushie and a gut-shot. Tell me your Tanner story… 

One time, he wore a wetsuit at a party and announced, if you’re cold 
In a wetsuit, all you gotta do is pee in it and you’re warm again. 
I bought one of the tribute-to-Tanner t-shirts 
And I felt a little weird about doing that. As I cut open the package 
With scissors, I snipped right through the center graphic 
And I accidentally ruined it. I thought Tanner would appreciate that. 
A friend texted me, I bet Tanner would say something like, 
You slayed your shirt, dude, but 100 times more clever. 
And I can’t help but imagine Tanner, wherever we go next… 
Lounging among the gods, telling those shifty fucks, 

Don’t be a poser.