Green Hell

Fine Dining With Bill and Dave (Part IV)

“Will ye’ look at all these dumb-ass shops?” asked Bill as we strode through the gallery. “An’ what is it with malls, anyway? Is there some kinda law that says ye' gotta sell stupid, tacky, useless shit if ye' wanna rent a space in one? I mean; look over there, fer instance!” He swept his arm in a close imitation of a wing block before lowering his sights on offending shop. I heard a muffled crunch and, turning about, noted that his wrist had driven an inattentive patron’s cell phone into his cheek, knocking him to the floor in the process. The man (a nondescript twenty-something in nondescript casual attire) lay still and silent, while an increasingly strident voice issued from the phone’s speaker. I smiled, ground the device beneath my boot heel, and returned my attention to Bill.

"They're so cute when they're sleeping," I said. “And nice shot, by the way. The semi-mythical one-strike knockout. Perhaps you should make a series of martial arts videos. I hear it's a lucrative enterprise.”

But his mind was elsewhere. Aquiver with rage, he glared at the hated shop, one crooked finger pointed like a scorpion’s sting. My gaze followed the accusing digit to a blinking neon sign, which flashed the legend “All Things Scunci.” Hanging in the plate glass window beneath it -- and resembling nothing so much as a disembodied anus -- was an inner-tube-sized replica of a scunci. A horror of foil and floss, it dangled from the ceiling like a child's tire swing. Within the otherwise empty shop, I spotted racks and racks of scuncis of every conceivable hue and thickness, some as fine as spider silk, others nearly as thick as bungee cords. Behind the counter, a listless, bespectacled androgyne in a faded plaid button-down lounged against the wall, leafing through the previous week's issue of People. Noting the creature's close-cropped hair, I concluded that it would never need its own merchandise.

"Oh, do be progressive, Bill," I said. "Consider this yet another of the benefits of free trade: more choice for the consumer."
"And the stalls! The stalls! They're even worse!" he wailed, ignoring me again as he clawed at his hair. "Like that one over yonder! 'The Paperweight Pioneer'? What the fuck kind of name is that?"
"A right descriptive one, from the looks of it," I answered, however much I hated admitting it. The "booth" in question consisted of an unevenly stained replica chuck wagon. Instead of cookware and provisions, though, the proprietor had stocked the vehicle with paperweights of every description: crystal balls, imitation snow-globes, smiley faces, stylized buttocks -- even a few unpolished river stones epoxied to beer coasters.(These marketed as "folk art.") Perhaps sensing that he had nothing to fear from shoplifters, the owner - an obese, florid gent in a costume-shop cowboy outfit with a "Rainbow Pride" badge tacked to his vest in lieu of a sheriff's badge-- snored and started in a rocking chair that looked too rickety to bear his weight.

"I can see that this is upsetting you, Bill," I said, steering him in a different direction before he caught sight of the next booth, "Shits and Giggles." Under normal circumstances, he might have found the place amusing, but the incident with mall security had left him in an ill humor. As I was already familiar with the shop, I couldn't ignore the possibility of  Bill going completely berserk at the sight. There was a fifty-fifty chance either way...

"Shits and Giggles" specialized in fecal-themed merchandise: flatware with turd-shaped handles of molded plastic; turd-shaped key-chains, paperweights, earrings and teething toys; even a pair of molded foam house-shoes, labeled "Shitheels." Not to be outdone by Wisconsin's "Cheeseheads," the booth stocked an array of headgear that, in Lovecraft's words, "I cannot and must not recall." There were bath sponges dyed brown, turd hand puppets; stuffed, plush turds; and an unspeakable board game: "Shit Happens." Worst of all, though, was a ceramic horror that appeared to be studded with peanuts. Judging by the product's name, "Rocky Road," I concluded that it was meant to be a serving dish for ice cream. Standing bolt upright behind the counter, the shopkeeper, a pale, malnourished young man, kneaded and twisted one of the plush turds, his knuckles white. His facial expression, which apparently hadn't changed since last I'd seen him, bore an unnerving resemblance to Richard Kasso's mugshot.

"Jaysus," I muttered to myself. "Guess I'm goin' back to Mangan's sister empty-handed, after all." I wished I could have shared the joke with Bill, but I thought I'd seen the shopkeeper playing in local drum circles on a few occasions. Given Bill's visceral hatred of drum circles... No. I resolved to keep the two as far apart as possible.

 "Suppose we just stroll around and discuss what we've seen -- try to make sense of it?" I said to Bill. "I hear there's a new book stall on the next floor. Perhaps they'll have something interesting."
"Yeah," he said with a sigh. "I reckon gettin' all peripatetic an' readin' books beats the shit out of another goddamn assault an' battery charge."
"I couldn't agree more," I said. Looking over my shoulder, I noticed that the young proprietor of "Shits and Giggles" was holding one of his turd hand puppets aloft with one arm -- pale and twiggy as a birch sapling -- and viciously pounding it with a bony fist. His facial expression remained unchanged. In a way, I found the sight comforting -- at least Bill and I wouldn't attract undue attention...

We found the book stall, and all seemed well -- at first. The selection of titles was a little mainstream for my tastes, and I took a mild -- if immediate -- dislike to the proprietor. If it seems contradictory of me to describe a man as "cadaverous" and "corpulent" in the same sentence; then it's only because our species is maddeningly contradictory at times. His faded blue t-shirt rode up over a pale, hairless hemisphere of a belly, his wisp of a goatee hung nearly to his clavicular notch, and his eyes -- glistening but watery -- winked and blinked behind coke-bottle lenses. His hair was brownish, greasy, and drawn back in a ponytail even sloppier than my own. Worse still, a pimple in the crease just beside his left nostril fairly screamed to be expressed. The aforesaid irritants aside, though, I held my peace for Bill's sake.

Determining by his animated conversation on his cell phone, that the boy fancied himself a writer (and trying to suppress a rising surge of restless ennui), I asked if, perhaps, he had a copy of Nostromo.

"The title, sir," he snapped with ice in his eyes and voice, "is Alien. The ship was called the Nostromo. Oh, nothing, Abelard," he continued. "These dilettantes just..."

If the Celt truly labors beneath a curse (aside from his temper -- alternately mercurial and melancholic; his fondness for liquor, his propensity for violence, his dislike of order, authority and even coherence; his monstrous libido; and his loathing of gainful employment), it's his innate love of the written word.

As the wild, Celtic blood of my fathers drained from my face and roared in my ears; and my hands clenched into war-club fists; I resolved in my heart of hearts and soul of souls to reprove the cretin, not for myself -- no! never for that! -- but for Chaucer and Malory, Milton and Spenser, Shakespeare and Jonson, for Swift and Donne, for Joyce, for Yeats, for Eliot, for Conrad, for Wolfe, even for Irving. (But never for Wilde. I never could abide the pretentious little faggot.) I ripped off my sunglasses, bored into his eyes with my own, and drew back as if to strike him. Despite his greater bulk, he cringed back, not even assuming  a Hollywood kung fu stance.

"You and your kind," I hissed, "are an intellectual virus -- and I'm the antibody. And you call yourself a writer? A writer? Bullshit! Bullshit, I say! Your cheeks are full! Your eyes are neither hollow nor vacant, damn -- well -- damn -- uhm -- damn your eyes! There ain't the faintest whiff of booze, blood or despair about you (at that point, I launched myself across the counter, nostrils flaring and contracting by turns, in a last-minute 'reality check.' )   I've spent the last five minutes eavesdropping on your conversation, you smug philistine! I heard you say, with your own skinny lips -- and they're the only skinny parts of you, you buttery little beach ball of a man! -- that Lin Carter and Lester Del Rey were unappreciated -- for their profound insight into the human condition! What would you know of the human condition? You're more of an outcast from our species even than either of us!" I spat, grabbing for Bill -- who was no longer there. For a moment, I wished he had been; as, frankly, I didn't believe the last assertion, even as I made it. Consequently, I'd have found his menacing, homicidal glare and  "Yeah, what he said!" reassuring.

Ignoring his absence, I continued: "Or perhaps you're the distilled essence of our species! Why, you miserable, technology-worshiping, fantasy-obsessed maggot! You haven't even the balls to be one of Eliot's 'hollow men,' or even the substance to grieve, as Yeats did, the conflict between man's will and his ultimate fate! You're a tragicomic nonentity! Comic in and  of yourself, but tragic in that you can't apprend your own ludicrousness!

I raised my hand, but needn't have done so: his expression spoke volumes. I'd singled out a few subcultural stereotypes, but had otherwise only accused him of being human. In so doing, I'd convicted myself even as I'd indicted him. As the rage subsided, I turned to him and said "At least you have a soul, though."

"No he don't!" Screamed Bill, who had suddenly reappeared. "Lookit this shit!" In one hand was a New-Agey pop-psychology book, entitled Partial Re-Birthing Therapy. In the other was a slick hardcover entitled Aborting Your Inner Child.  

"Just so Bill. Just so. Now race you to the fountain!"
I then turned on my heel and sprinted through the crowd, pausing only to point at a lone silhouette on the escalator and scream, "Stop, thief!"
"Yer on!" Bill screeched. "Last one there gotta pay the lap-dancers tonight!"

If nothing else, I'd saved a human life.

"I'm glad you're in a better mood," I said, a few moments later. "You know how I hate dealing with manic episodes on my own. It's such a lonely feeling: having so much fun, and yet being unable to share -- nay, even communicate -- it. By the way, do you suppose the mob hurt that guy? I wasn't wearing my contacts, so I had no idea that he was Middle Eastern -- until they caught him and he started pleading for his life in Farsi."

"I wouldn't worry about that, Dave-O," Bill replied. "And I wish you wouldn't feel that way. You're selling yourself short. Why, 'communicable' might as well be your middle name at times. I do understand loneliness, though. It's the performance artist's curse, as well."
As he spoke, he stared pensively at nothing in particular. A thin stream of water dribbled from each cuff of his leather jacket, and his damp pockets bulged with coins.

"Let's go, Billy-O," I said, taking to my feet. "We've business to attend to."
"Oh yeah! I nearly forgot!" he said. "But what about dessert? That's why we came here in the first place, ain't it?"
"All in good time. Did you come prepared?"

"I sure as hell did!" he said with a demented grin. Reaching into yet another of his pockets he retrieved two heavy rubber bands and two small bags of paper clips.

"Ah is purfoundly ale-yer-nated, in the romantical sense o' th' word," said he... and I believed him.

To be continued...

Fine Dining With Bill and Dave P.3 (Fiction)

"Gaah! You philistine!" I snarled, hurling the bag of ice aside. Unbeknownst to either of us, a convertible had backed into the vacant parking space beside us. The bag struck the driver in the head, knocking him unconscious. The thin plastic burst, and a cataract of ice cubes clattered to the blacktop, glittering like rhinestones on velveteen.

"I’m an artist!" I snapped. "Unlike your jacket and vambraces – which are mere outward manifestations of your aggressive and unstable personality, my jacket and vambraces are a compound metaphor!"

"A metaphor for what -- Iffen ye’ll pardon my pedestrian, lowbrow ass fer askin’?" Bill queried. "Oh, an now ye’s gonna have to buy more ice, or there ain’t gonna be no wet t-shirts an’ stiff-nippled titties to look at."

"There’s no shortage of any of ‘em in this world," I said, anger competing with impatience in my voice. "As a matter of fact, I routinely take refuge in the three treasures: cold water, wet t-shirts and tumescent nipples. Now shut the fuck up so we can attend to metaphors with complete views, right intention an’ all that eightfold shit.

"I have no idea what kind of metaphors I employ, you moron! Dammit, Bill, I’m an artist – not a shrink --- or critic, heaven forefend! I create my own reality and then leave it to others to interpret! But leave Freudian analysis by the wayside, should you dare to try, bucko. It won’t avail you a whit in my case. You’d be better served by Karl Jung."

"No offense," says he, "But ye’ sound more like Carl Rove. An’ he was an ‘artist,’ too, in his own way." He paused and scratched his head. "Come to think of it, I reckon he and his boss done ‘served’ the whole country after their own fashion, if ye’ will…"

I sighed. Bill had his moments – and damned good ones, at that. This, as it happened, was one of them. What could I say?

"O.K., Bill. Piss on metaphors. The leather jacket serves as a form of light armor. The vambraces look scary, and add ‘authority’ to forearm strikes. They also prevent the people I invariably piss off and alienate from severing certain tendons and ligaments --tendons and ligaments I rather value, mind you -- in fits of murderous, knife-wielding pique. I’ve dated Italian and Mexican chicks, Billy-O. Suffice to day that I’ve learned to respect edged weapons far more than I did in the past, and let’s leave it at that. I am a lotus of black leather and stainless steel (and perhaps the odd aluminum beer can), floating atop a muddy pond, Bubba. I hope to remain both unsoiled and un-bloodied. Does that work for you?"

"Fuckin’-A right, it does!" he howled, clasping me to his breast in warrior camaraderie – and guaranteeing visits to both my chiropractor and acupuncturist in the process. " An’ that wasn’t a half-bad metaphor, neither, by the way. Now let’s go stomp a muddy pond in somebody’s ass an’ walk that sucker dry! An honest answer is all I wanted to hear, Dave-O."

"Ask and ye shall receive," I said. "An honest answer is the jewel in the lotus of life. And I want one from you, in return. When’s the last time you showered, me bucko?"

Given the wide berth the other patrons afforded us when we entered the building, I gathered that I wasn’t the only one to whom the question occurred. As I rode the escalator down to the second level, though (Bill, having slid down the divider, had beaten me by some seconds and awaited me impatiently, his arms crossed upon his chest as he scowled and tapped his foot against the floor), it struck me that that perhaps Bill’s hygiene – or lack thereof – was the among the least off-putting of his habits and behaviors.

Upon exiting the car, he’d made a beeline for the red convertible that had caught his eye shortly before. When we reached it, he’d pointed out the obvious: that it was diagonally parked across two spaces, and that the owner had left the top down. The expression on his face spoke more than words ever could, so I sighed, shook my head, and kept walking -- silently praying that he didn’t inadvertently set himself alight. When, after several seconds, I neither heard the sound of ripping upholstery nor smelled smoke; a mixed wave of concern, relief and curiosity washed over me. An eye-blink later, Bill was tugging at my sleeve, demanding that I "find a dipsy-dumpster all quick-like."

"Whatever for, Billy-O?" I asked.

"So’s I kin git rid o’ th’ ev’dence," he stage-whispered, orbiting me in an erratic, ellipsoid parody of the Sioux buffalo dance.

"Uhm, what ‘evidence’ would that be, bubba? An’ simmer down, for fuck’s sake. Ye’ remind me o’ the hitchhiker from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre."

"This ev’dence!" he hissed, waving a now-empty gallon freezer bag as if it were a battle-flag. The plastic, I noticed was coated with pinkish liquid residue, while unidentifiable dark red flecks clung to the sides and corners.

"And what, exactly, might ‘this’ be?" I asked him, one eyebrow cocking of its own accord.

"Chicken innards!" he said, his face aglow with pride and satisfaction.

I stood in place for a moment, stroking my temples with both hands. In time, I produced a cigarette and lit it. Fixing my gaze on the pavement, I paced to and fro, trying to tread upon my own shadow, then turning my back on it as if it were a faithless lover, by turns; smoking, rubbing the nape of my neck, and digesting the information I’d received.

I took a deep drag, exhaled slowly and raised my head. Focusing on the ball-finial of the flagpole in the parking lot, I said: "Bill, I’d put the temperature at ninety-seven or thereabout. Would you agree with me?"

"Sure as shittin! It’s hot as a r’pressed high school girl celebratin’ her graduation at Daytona Beach!"

"I’ll assume that your choice of similes was unintentional," I said. "Therefore, I’ll not accuse you of hittin’ below the belt. As far as I’m concerned, any nookie I don’t have to pay for – ah! But I’m straying from the path. And I’ve also ended a phrase with a preposition, damn your eyes! At any rate, we’ve established that the temperature is, in fact, in the upper nineties. Are we in accord?"

"Like Belial could never hope for!" he said, smacking his fist into his palm. A trickle of pink oozed sluggishly and dismally to the asphalt.

"And I’d put the relative humidity at ninety-eight percent, give or take a little," I said, tugging at the corner of my moustache. "Do you concur?"

"Damn skippy! It’s ‘bout humid enough to give a fencepost ringworm!"

"This," I said, clasping my hands behind my back and resuming my pacing, "would put the heat index at slightly above a hundred, no?"

"Well – yeah," he said, nodding. "Sure. A hunnerd or thereabout."

I walked to the base of a sodium lamp, and half-sat, half-leaned against it, pondering the grey ash at the tip of my cigarette. Bill tagged along like a loyal puppy, staring at me expectantly.

"Bill," I said slowly, enunciating every phoneme as clearly as I could, while I drew Chinese ideograms in the air with the coffin nail, "This moment, in the language of Aristotelian dramatics, is the conclusion of the process of so-called ‘rising action.’ Do you fully understand the significance of that statement?"

"Pretty much," he said with a shrug.

"Then you understand that the climax of this particular episode – ‘the way it ends,’ in layman’s terms – will depend entirely upon how you answer my next question."

As he nodded the wide-eyed, innocent nod so characteristic of madmen, retardates and unlettered primitives, it occurred to me that I sounded like a South Georgia lawyer leading a witness -- or a snotty professor of rhetoric laying a trap for an over-eager freshman. I let the thought pop like a soap bubble, and looked directly into his eyes.

"Bill, why the fuck were you carrying a gallon freezer bag of chicken innards inside your jacket in this ungodly heat? A gun I can understand – it’s a dangerous world. A bag of weed I can understand – it’s a cruel world, too. Hell, I could even accept you totin’ a ‘pocket pussy’ inside your jacket – sometimes it’s a lonely world. But chicken guts? You gotta help me with this one, me boyeen. I’m really havin’ trouble with it."

Dropping my cigarette, I rose to my feet, ground it out under my heel, and clenched my fist in anticipation of his reply.

"Oh," he said brightly, "I was gon’ feed ‘em to Scooter!"

His answer deflated me like a punctured beach ball.

"Oh," I said. "Well, that makes sense. And for the record: this, in dramatic terms, is an anticlimax."

"Is that like some smartass makin’ a porno, an’ then runnin’ the ‘money shot’ backwards?" he asked, cocking his head like a confused but curious dog.

"Just so, Bill. Just so," I replied, smiling the Mona Lisa smile of the helplessly and hopelessly damned. "Now let’s find that dumpster."

After propositioning several women as we’d crossed the parking deck (and then yelling,"Dyke!" at them when they rebuffed us), we’d swaggered through the glass doors as if we owned the place. Cracking our knuckles and sauntering like two half-drunk Westies, we’d made our way to the mall offices, wherein – and in what had become a time-honored ritual – I feigned muteness and passed the receptionist a hand-written note, asking if she’d kindly page Mike Hock and Mike Hunt. As I handed her the slip of paper, Bill slapped me on the back and loudly declared: "I gotta go drop me a king-sized load, Bubba. Hope I kin keep m’ ass-cheeks closed long enough to make it to the ‘porcelain pony.’" Even more appalling than the announcement was the faux "sign language" he employed as part of the gag.

Now there was nothing Bill loved more than a well-tiled public restroom. He swore that the acoustics therein were second-to-none, and had actually been arrested for wheeling a 24-channel mixer, a Fostex reel-to-reel, a ’59 Flying V, a 100-watt Marshall stack, a drum machine and several synthesizers into the john of a Waffle House in Hatchechubee, Alabama; vowing to "…make Electric Ladyland sound like garage-band bullshit." And he insisted that he’d succeeded. As, however, the tapes were still being held as evidence by the Russell County Sheriff’s Department, I could only take his word for it.

"Hoo-wee!" he shouted upon returning, "now that there was a big ol’ dump-a-roonie! Shitfire! I think m’ pants actually fit better! An’ I sure as hell hope the air-conditioning don’t go on the fritz, iffen ye’ catch m’ drift!"

" Say," he continued, elbowing me in the ribs, "‘member that lotus metaphor ye’ was usin’ a few minutes ago? Well I reckon I done lef’ me a thing or two floatin’ in a ‘muddy pond,’ m’ownself, iffen ye’ follow me! Let’s find out if there’s a drugstore in this-here mo-tard mausoleum. I need me some Imodium, by Gawd!"

My reverie ended as I stepped off the escalator.

"Ye’ shouldn’t ought to daydream while ye’re on that sucker!" Bill said, wagging a finger at me. "I was readin’ in the Weekly Midnight Examiner the other day that some epileptic fucker over to Spartanburg had hisself a seizure on a esc-you-later an’ done fell facedown, out colder’n Kurt fuckin’ Cobain. He done got dragged into them little slots at the bottom, and it done turned his pecker into a pom-pom, sure as shittin’."

"You mustn’t believe everything you read, Billy-O," I said with another sigh. "Most stories of that sort are propaganda pieces written by the People’s Committee to End the Exploitation of Mechanical Devices – one of the wealthiest and most radical political fringe-groups in the country. They’re extremists of the worst stripe, me bucko, and not above lying outright – or worse – to advance their cause."

"The Boca Raton Vibrator Riots of ’92," I continued with an involuntary shudder, "put Kristallnacht, the Sepoy Mutiny and the Siege of Jerusalem to shame in terms of sheer, mindless savagery. It’s a wonder no one was sentenced to the electric chair."

Bill snickered.

"Boy, there’d be some serious fuckin’ irony in that, now wouldn’t there?" he drawled. "An’ what kind o’ savagery was they doin’? Stuff with, you know, blood an’ guts an’ brains an’ bodily fluids splattered higgledy-piggledy all over-like? Maybe even worse than a guy gettin’ his tallywhacker deli-sliced by a esc-you-later?"

"Irony and poetic justice," I said. "And the answer to all of your questions is ‘yes.’ Or perhaps it’s meditation upon the one point. Life is the ultimate koan, as I suppose. Oh, and when I say ‘the one point,’ I’m not talkin’ about whatever organ or appendage you’re thinkin’ of. Bill? Are you listening to me?"

He wasn’t, of course. When next I caught sight of him, he was leaning over the back of a bench some yards away.

"Sir…Roderick…groaned…in…ecstasy…as…Lady…Cheltenham’s…blond…head…bobbed…up…and…down…on…his…turgid…member," he intoned slowly and loudly, in the halting manner of a child learning to read from a primer.

"Bill, I ain’t no expert on Catholicism, an’ my Latin ain’t nothin’ to write home about," I said as the nun bolted from the bench and ran hell-for-leather towards the nearest exit, "but I don’t think she was readin’ from her missal."

"Yep," says he, nodding sagely. Oh! An’ that reminds me! Ye’ gotta hear this ‘un! A priest an’ a rabbi was walkin’ down the street one day an’ they passed this orphanage… "

The subsequent interrogation lasted half an hour, but we eventually convinced the DHS-affiliated mall security staff that neither of us was an Islamic fundamentalist Klansman. Bill pointed out that as the Ku Klux Klan steadfastly denied Turks, Tartars "an’ suchlike Moslemical folks " (in his own words) membership, we couldn’t possibly be both. This gave them both cause and pause for reflection.

"Besides," I added, "neither of us is a Muslim. Bill is a secular Buddhist Libertarian with subconscious Keynesian urges -- he’s in therapy for it -- and I’m an ex-Buddhist Anabaptist with anarcho-theocrat leanings and manic-depressive nihilist tendencies. I should probably be in therapy for it, but I’m suspicious of the medical profession in general. Here’s my manifesto, I Answer to God and God Alone, So Don’t Tread on Me or I’ll Burn Your Fucking House Down. And here’s Bill’s: Shagging Your Way to Nirvana: Eight Sure-Fire Tips for Introducing Drunken Sorority Girls to the ‘Dharma’ in Your Pants. They’re not selling very well, so I’ll just give you a promo copy of each. This means we can’t possibly be Islamo-fascists. Now don’t get me wrong! I mean; we tried it and all, but we just couldn’t agree with some of their theology. And last time we visited the Al Qaeda recruiting office, there was a sign that read ‘Irish need not apply’ on the door."

"Look," said Bill, turning back as we walked away from the Security Office. "Now they’re hangin’ a sign that says ‘Irish need not apply.’"

"Yes, but we’re only half-Irish. So it only half-applies to us."

"Tell them that. They’re lockin’ the door, too."

"The concepts in our manifestos are often complex, Bill. Perhaps they don’t want to be disturbed whilst pondering them."

To be continued

Fine Dining With Bill and Dave, Part II

“Your Luddite leanin’s is cause for concern,” said Bill, as we flounced into the car.

 

“Better a Luddite than a ‘gear queer,’” I retorted. “Besides, my revolvers never jam. Can you say the same of your faggy, Eye-talian shootin’ irons? I think not, sirrah! Since mine ain’t recoil operated, I can reload with any propellant I want when the zombies an’ Martians an’ Triffids an’ illegal Mexican Body Snatchers infected with that-there Andromeda strain of drug-resistant VD invade. An’ Patton didn’t carry no damned pearl-handled Beretta, by God!”

 

I struck my right thigh with a hammerfist and jammed my left index finger into his face, hoping to approximate the rhetorical style and stage-presence of an Old Testament prophet.

 

“Ye’re hopeless,” he grumbled. Then, without warning, his pitch contour departed from the contralto-to-baritone Finno-Ugric model, switched gears, and rocketed into something more akin to the rising wail of Mexican Spanish.

 

“Rollerblader! Rollerblader! Rollerblader!” he caterwauled, snapping bolt upright and pointing frantically at the rearview mirror. I shouldered the passenger’s side door open with all my might as Bill flung the car into reverse, clothes-lining the hapless skater in the process. Laughing and high-fiving each other, we pulled away from the curb and merged into the flow of traffic.

 

“I don’t know why,” said he, “but for some reason, that just never gets old.”

“Couldn’t agree wi’ ye’ more, bubba. There’s something fresh and new about every one of ‘em. There’s them that somersaults over the door, an’ them that slides under it. There’s some what goes red in the face, an’ others what goes blue in the face. There’s some as shrieks like fishwives, and others as gets knocked cold without even a grunt. The number of combinations, permutations, and even fantasias – if you will – on the general theme is practically infinite. Forrest Gump was right, you know: Life really is like a box of chocolates. A music box of chocolates, even!”

 

“I reckon that particular chocolate had raspberry filling, me bucko. An’ look! It’s a-leakin’ all over the pavement-like!”

 

“What did Bonaparte say about omelets?” I asked (the question being purely rhetorical).

"Just get our asses out o’ here, will ye’? Now let’s see…Whom to make the beneficiary of our next didactic-yet-whimsical jest? So many to deliver from metaphoric reincarnation in the lower realms; so little time…”

 

I opened a local “swinger” magazine and thumbed through it, scanning it for likely candidates.

 

“Wow!” Bill exclaimed, leaning perilously far to the right. “I ain’t never seen an Asura with a lingam that big before! Bet he’s havin’ trouble stayin’ on the Eightfold Path, damn skippy! Hell, he prob’ly trips, every other step he takes! I sure as hell don’t envy him his ‘journey of a thousand miles,’ though I might envy -- ah, never mind. I don’t think modern psychology accepts that notion anymore. But look at the knockers on that-there blonde preta! Wonder iffen she’s hungry for a bit o’--”

 

“Just focus on the road, Bill. Life is a journey, not a destination, after all. And leave the selection to me.”

 

“The waiter was Kasapa, Bill was Ananda, but the snippy li’l peckerhead was just I,” said he, mimicking my voice. He stuck out his tongue, but to no effect.

“Did you hear me?” he demanded, after a moment of not-so-reverent silence.

“Yeah. Get back to me when you finish ‘Jataka-ing off,’ Bubba. It ain’t your medium.”

 

“Can I run over a bum?” he asked several minutes later, as we cruised along Peachtree Road.

 

“Do what?” I asked. I’d become so immersed in the twin streams of my own reverie and the tunes coming over the car’s stereo; I hadn’t heard him. Bill scowled and repeated himself. Gazing out the window, I took in the high-speed museum/movie that was the sidewalk, frame by mortar-and-concrete frame – tramcars and taxis/ like a waxworks on the move… I didn’t see any vagrants -- but then again, Bill’s definition of “bum” was rather a loose one.

 

“I’d really prefer you didn’t,” I replied. “It’s powerful hot today, and them suckers is damned hard to scrub off the grill as it is. That means a lot of work, and in this heat, the leavin’s will be ripe as rotten eggs by the time we get home. Besides, we ain’t had dessert yet, and I simply cannot countenance running over bums -- or even neocons -- on anything but a full stomach. Somehow, it just doesn’t feel right.”

 

“You artistic types is mighty peculiar,” said Bill, fishing for his hip flask and swerving well over the median.

 

“It’s both a gift and a curse,” I sighed. “Kinda like those rock-hard, rubber Super Balls, you see? It’s fun to bounce ‘em off people’s heads, but you know that somewhere out there, some other sick freak’s packin’ one with your name on it.”

 

“Good googly-woogly! Look at the rack on that one on the corner!” Bill exclaimed.

“Oh, she’s certainly built like brick shithouse,” I said. “But she doesn’t strike me as a Super Ball-packing psycho at all. Looks downright innocuous to me -- if somewhat conceited. I wouldn’t worry about her, Bill. I do hate that purse, though. Gives me prickly heat and indigestion just looking at it.”

 

“You know what I mean, you purse-evaluatin’ closet case” he said, scowling and slamming on the brakes. “If yer gonna be a faggot, ye’ kin fuckin’ well walk to the mall.”

 

Something impacted the rear bumper with a crash. A wail followed, and a fraction of a second later, a bicycle courier slid down the windshield and tumbled off the hood.

 

“Now that, Bill,” I said, “Is why following too closely is a moving violation. It’s ‘unsafe at any speed,’ as Nader would say. Of course, it’s also a breach of the law to refuse to stop and render assistance at the scene of an accident. This presents us a moral and legal quandary of sorts – and throws letter of the law into no-holds-barred conflict with the spirit thereof. Technically, we’ve stopped – as the law requires.”

 

“But what if the accident happened because we stopped?” asked Bill.

 

“I was just getting to that,” I said, raising a finger. “Having given the matter due consideration--”

 

“Ye done considered it that fast?” asked Bill, wide-eyed.

 

“Yes. Being a twisted genius confers certain benefits – and I hang out with innumerable twisted geniuses. It rubs off after a while, you see? Now quit interrupting. It’s uncouth and it pisses me off to no end. As I was saying, we’ve obeyed the letter of the law by stopping. And our stopping, incidentally, didn’t cause the accident. His following too closely did. Remember that asshole back in Gilbert?”

 

“Ohhhh yeahhh…” he said, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand.

 

“Identical situation. Now as for rendering assistance: therein lies the quandary. Clearly, the man lying on the street before us is a criminal, insofar as he’s broken the law. Therefore, if we stop and render assistance, we’re aiding and abetting a criminal -- thereby violating yet another law. That defeats the entire purpose of the law in general, and possibly undermines our own Constitutional guarantee against self-incrimination. There will be questions, Bill. There will be questions. There always are… Do you see where I’m going with this?”

 

“Hmm,” he replied, stroking his chin and staring at the sun visor, “Now that there’s a pickle.”

 

“A vicious Catch-22, Billy-O. We live in a hard, cold, cruel, Machiavellian world. A single misstep could be our last – and besides, if we render assistance, we’re not only endangering ourselves, we’re rewarding antisocial behavior. I’ll leave you to ponder that for a moment. Hey! That siliconed Barbie doll on the corner is staring at us now. Didn’t anyone tell her it’s rude to stare? And yes, it was you who pointed her out to me in the first place. I haven’t forgotten.”

 

Dutifully, I rolled my window all the way down.

“That must be jelly, ‘cause jam don’t jiggle like that!” Bill and I roared in unison.

 

“I thought jaywalking was illegal,” Bill mused, passing me the flask as we nosed around the prostrate courier. “She didn’t even wait for the light to change.”

 

“Some people are just inherently lawless,” I replied “There’s no helping it, and our culture actually encourages it. Now do you understand why I was so adamant about not helping the tailgater? Oh! And where, I ask you, are the cops when you need ‘em? Did you see anyone jacking that overdressed strumpet up against a wall and frisking her -- or even looking at her cross-eyed? Do you have the faintest idea of how often I’ve been lectured by the ‘blue meanies’ for crossing against the light? I tell you, Bill, I’m starting to think I’m a victim of an insidious form of discrimination. ‘SWC,’ I think I’ll call it: ‘strolling whilst Celtic.’ That’s the red-haired stepchild (no pun intended, of course) of the infamous ‘DWB’. This is good moonshine, by the way. We should have had it earlier, as an aperitif of sorts.”

 

“You sayin’ you didn’t like the Mr. Boston and kiwi-strawberry Kool Aid?” he asked, a note of hurt in his voice.

“Oh, it was wonderful,” I said. “And I’m still amazed that you were able to get it in such an expensive restaurant. Maybe there’s something to be said for pointing firearms at people, after all. Somehow, it makes them more cooperative.”

 

“I just like it when they wee-wee in their pants,” he said with a nasty grin.

“Speakin’ o’ pants: Will you look at that?” I exclaimed. “That jogger must have a full two inches of ass-cheek hangin’ out o’ them shorts!”

 

“No shit!” he squalled. “Now that’s downright indecent -- in a boner-inducin’ kind o’ way.”

 

“My sentiments exactly, me boyeen. Displays of worldly sensuality like that serve only to rob the sangha of impressionable and weak-willed novices. Now pull a little closer to the curb. We must needs instruct her in the Dharma, and I can think of no better way than the time-honored Zen method. We must make her and her experience one!”

 

“Her and her? How much you had to drink, bubba? Who else’s ass you gonna make experience a grabbin’?” asked Bill in a puzzled tone. “I only see me one jogger.”

 

“Aaagh! I mean that I intend to make her one with her experience, you dolt!” I said. “Now hug the curb, Billy-O. I’m about to find out what the sound of one hand clapping actually is, thereby elevating my own consciousness, as well as hers. I’ve long maintained that instruction benefits teacher and student equally, you know…”

 

“So how beneficial did your eye find that whole instruction bit?” asked Bill, as we turned into the parking lot at Lenox Square.

“Not very,” I said, still holding a ten-pound bag of service-station ice to it. “But how was I to know she’d see my shadow on the sidewalk, or that she’d have such astonishing reflexes – or so much fast-twitch muscle, for Christ’s sake? Maybe there really is something to be said for that ‘cardio-kickboxing’ shite. P’raps I should reconsider my dependency on Fairbairn, Funakoshi and that bunch. I might even cancel my subscription to Black Belt.”

 

“Nah. Stick to what works. An’ leastways you found out the sound of one hand clapping,” he said with a snicker. “And two ways, at that: Your palm clappin’ against her ass, an’ her backhandin’ you in the eye. There’s jes’ gotta be some kind o’ profound, yin-yang symbolism there.”

 

“I hate to admit it, but you’re probably right – and let’s not mix Asian philosophies, OK?”

“Whoah there, Bubba-Jack! You was the one what made the Zen reference! If Zen ain’t syncretistic as all hell; I don’t know what is!”

 

“Point conceded,” I said glumly. “And damn, but I’m glad you were going slow!”

 

“Unlike that baw’bag over yonder,” he said, pointing at a Jag convertible painted an especially infuriating shade of red. “Fuck me dead iffen that kind o’ os-ten-tatious dis-play o’ material well-bein’ don’t piss me off to no end! And why does every one o’ these assholes seem to think the parking lot’s his personal Dixie Speedway?”

 

“Bill,” I said, checking my eye in the rearview mirror, “has it occurred to you that we’re in a Lamborghini?”

 

“Damn skippy!” he exclaimed. “An’ the onliest Goddamn Lamborghini in the YOO-nited S of fuckin’-A with a trailer hitch, to boot!”

 

“Ah, yes, of course. Very proletarian of you.”

 

“Hey, I side with the workin’ man, by God! If not for the trust fund, I’d be one of ‘em!”

 

“Speaking of that, how far will your next check go towards building that castle you were talking about?”

 

“Not very,” he pouted. “ No thanks to Mott and Bailey, Attorneys at Law. They’re real assholes sometimes.”

 

“Well, bubba, a full-scale replica of Neuschwannstein is a tad extravagant. Perhaps something a bit simpler? Something early Norman, for example?”

 

His shrug was both noncommittal and disappointed.

“Don’t want me no goddamn square keep!” he finally huffed, folding his arms tightly across his chest and sticking out his lower lip.

 

“My ma used to say your face would freeze that way,” I informed him.

 

“So says the man what’s holdin’ a ten-pound bag of ice to a shiner,” he snorted.

 

“It was the smallest bag they had!” I protested.

 

“You coulda got a fuckin’ cup of ice for somethin’ like twenty cents,” he snorted again.

 

“Yeah, but it woulda melted too quickly. It’s hot as a fiddler’s bitch today.”

 

“Melted too quickly for what?” he asked with yet another snort.

 

“Too quickly to relieve the inflammation, you dunce. An’ I’ve thought of other uses for it, as well.”

 

“Ohh, I jes’ bet you have,” he said, searching his breast pocket for a cigarette. Eventually, he found one. Despite the stillness of the air, he cupped his hands around his Zippo as he lit up.

 

“Like what, f’rinstance?” he asked, looking at me sidelong and puffing jets of smoke from the corner of his mouth.

 

“Well,” I said, “consider thermal exchange and mass. This big-ass bag won’t melt as quickly, and since there’s so much more of it, it’ll stay cold a mite longer, even after it does.”

 

“Shit on a shingle, Dave-O! Ye’ only got ye’ a black eye -- not a goddamn nuclear (he pronounced it “new-cue-lur”) flash burn! How long ye’ need it to stay cold?”

 

“Just until we spot another saucy, underdressed jogger, Billy-O. Do the words ‘wet t-shirt contest’ mean anything to you?”

 

“Ohhhh!” he said, his eyes widening in comprehension. He then leaned in and, in a conspiratorial whisper (for all that we were on the far edge of the parking lot, with nary a soul in earshot), asked: “Say, do you reckon them sports bras can keep ye’ from gettin’ a glimpse o’ some…?”

 

I cut him off with a raised index finger and nod, which, while intended to appear sage, probably just looked pretentious. (It is, after all, difficult to nod sagely whilst holding a ten-pound bag of ice to one’s face.) At that moment, Rosie and the Orginals’ “Angel Baby” came over the speakers.

 

“Bill,” I said, “I’ll get back to you in a sec.”

 

“Yeah,” he said. “Best not be talkin’ to each other ‘til it’s over. That would look pretty queer.”

 

“Queer as a football bat, actually.”

 

“Maybe we should just turn off the radio.”

 

“Fuck that noise! I love this tune.”

 

“Yeah, me too.”

 

We sat in silence until the song ended.

 

“I just had me a horrid thought,” I said. “What if us sittin’ here listenin’ to that tune looked even queerer than us talkin’ while it was playin’?”

 

Now there’s a goddamn conundrum!” he said, pushing his baseball cap up and scratching his head.

 

“Well, the nearest person is something like a hundred yards off. I’ll bet nobody noticed.”

 

“Oh, no!” he exclaimed, shaking his head furiously. Staring directly through the windshield, he poked his cigarette at the HO-scale figures entering and exiting the mall.

 

“Now we could run nekkid through this-here parkin’ lot an none o’ them motherfuckers would notice. Hell, we could run nekkid through this-here parkin’ lot, handin’ out crack an’ PCP-laced joints by the Hefty Cinch Sack-ful -- and wheelbarrer’ loads o’ porn involvin’ fat broads and farm animals -- and still none o’ them motherfuckers would notice. But if we sit here talkin’ – or even not talkin’ – with a song like that playin’; every swingin’ dick in Atlanta gon’ notice, an’ conclude that we’s a couple o’ butt-hounds. It’s jes’ the way o’ the world.”

 

“Well, it probably didn’t help that you backed into the friggin’ space…”

 

“Aww, shit!” he exclaimed, slapping his forehead. “I didn’t even think o’ that!”

 

“An’ here I am, holdin’ a bag of ice to my face. Ever’body probably thinks we’re Tinkerbells, and that you’re an abusive sumbitch, to boot!”

 

“That’s jes’-plain ridiculous!” he howled. “What a ‘magination you got! An’ here you was jes’ sayin’ maybe nobody noticed!”

 

“Goddammit, I jes’ don’t wanna be seen as the submissive type!” I roared back.

 

“Keep talkin’ that kind o’ fudge-packer bullshit, an’ I’ll black your other eye!” Bill thundered, clenching and brandishing his fist.

 

“Jes’ keep talkin’ your bullshit, ‘Bigtime,’” I said with a sneer, turning to spit out the window in disgust. “I’ll put both fists an’ both feet up yer ass, mark my words.”

 

The bag of ice had effectively halved my peripheral vision. Therefore, I was taken completely aback when I noticed that my “lung-oyster” had landed perhaps six inches to the right of a pair of hideous maroon pumps. As my gaze traveled ever upward, I inventoried (silently, and with a mounting sense of horror): support hose sagging beneath swollen ankles; near-cylindrical calves, their varicose veins barely visible, like raw shrimp seen through a glaze of caramel; the hem of a floral-print skirt; and then a purse.

 

Like the pumps, it was colored a hideous maroon – all the more hideous for being slightly mismatched.

 

And if pumps and purse were the focal points of a still life rendered in shades of pure horror by a latter-day Goya; their owner was a vision of hell that would have driven Hieronymus Bosch stark, raving mad.

 

She towered and tottered above me, her left hand (sheathed in a faux-silk glove -- yet another shade of maroon) clapped to her left jowl. Rheumy, green eyes glared at me from sockets both purple and puffy. A mouth -- a rough-dug pit, guarded by a palisade of long, yellowed shoe-peg teeth, the dissolution induced by braces having continued well beyond their removal; its perimeter demarcated by two impossibly maroon, slug-like lips -- hung open and undulated wordlessly, like an elliptical Jell-O mold set upon an idling dragster. Beneath it, adipose “stem cells” – the unformed (but somehow malformed) embryos of both wattles and multiple-chins, each a tumescent promise of grotesquerie yet to come -- jiggled like the throat of an outraged, epileptic (and horribly mutated) Tom turkey with goiter.

 

A too-pink, too-smooth spot above and to the left of her (recently waxed) upper lip left me in an ever-descending, Gollum-like spiral of morbid speculation: Moles! Moles, it was, my precious! Was it dark, my precious? Was it unsightly? Hairy? Unflattering? Cancerous?

 

Topping it off like a plastic maraschino cherry plunked atop a rancid, freezer-burned sundae was a surreally awful “Prince Valiant” hairdo. Where age -- like its overused, metaphoric counterpart, winter -- might have left its hoarfrost, thereby lending her a kind of dignity; cosmetic science had only glazed her with faded patina of whoredom.

 

Staring in revulsion at her immobile, faux-auburn “helmet” – which glittered back at me like the eye of a malevolent serpent, from beneath a sun-hat woven by Donatella Versace on a bad acid trip -- I half-screamed, half-vomited the words: “Jesus Christ!” even as she shrieked, “Oh! How disgusting!”

 

“Ye’ kin say that again!” howled Bill as he yanked me away from the window. “I’m sure you got acute angina an’ all that, lady, but you got the scariest tits I even seen in m’ fuckin’ life! Hell, I’m surprised one o’ them suckers ain’t already crawled up yer ass of its own accord, an’ come a-bustin’ through yer ribs like somethin’ outta Alien! Now leave us alone an’ go eat strychnine or somethin’! We’s havin’ a bad day, an’ ye’s only makin’ it worse! Fuck me runnin’! Ye’ even done made Dave blaspheme!”

 

“Frankieeeee!!!” she caterwauled.

 

“Jis’ shaddap an’ git in da caaaaah, Alice,” said a short, thick, New Jersey voice -- which, unsurprisingly, came from a short, thick, New Jerseyite. Bald as a pickled onion and stout as a fireplug, with a chin as aquiline as his nose, he wore his demeanor (and his outdated, pin-striped suit) in a way that suggested a comfortable pension, stoic resignation to his fate, and utter stupidity, in equal measure.

 

“It’s jis’ a coupla faggots ah-gyooin’ wit’ each udda,” said he. “Don’t pay no attention to ‘em. Ya jist gonna encourage da bastids, an’ dey’re brazen enough dese days. Whole woild’s goin’ ta hell, I tell ya. Two growed men sittin’ around tawkin’ about dat ‘fistin’ or whatevah dey cawl it -- in broad daylight, even. An’ climbin’ all ovah each othah, ta boot. Nauseatin’. Jist nauseatin’.”

 

He shook his head, even as I raised the middle finger of my right hand at them.

 

“Fit subjects for a latter-day Juvenal,” I sneered, shoving Bill aside as they drove away.

“Fucking silly crone! And why are you wearing a leather jacket with metal vambraces in this heat? Have you taken leave of your wits, for fuck’s sake?”

 

“Ye’s wearin’ one, too,” he said.

 

To be continued…

Gibbous Moon Over Dreamland VI

Swearing and flailing, Bill and I managed to untangle ourselves from one another.

“Is that what people mean when they say: ‘Celtic knotwork’?” he gasped.

“Prob’ly not, you Celtic knothead, but this ain’t the time to quibble over etymology,” I puffed, shoving him towards Walpole. “To the rescue, Billy-O! To the rescue! Hospitality demands no less, and our uninvited guest’s conduct fairly demands that the unmannerly, unmanly fucker be hospitalized! Once more unto the breach (of propriety, as I suppose), bubba!”

“Spoken like a true Knight Hospitaler! Now gimme a straight razor! I’ll breach his fuckin’ carotid artery!”

“You already have a cutlass, you simpleton!”

“Yeah, but it’s in the shop! Radiator’s all shot to shit! That’s why I’m drivin’ the Lamborghini.”  

“Remind me to brain you with a rolling pin when this is over, Bill. But for now, let’s teach the ‘Towering Inferiority Complex’ here a stern lesson in etiquette!”

“Hae’ ye’, vulgarian!” he bellowed, as we made to rescue the old hippie from his assailant. “Now prepare to receive correction, courtesy of the stainless brand of Emily Post! And fear not, Goodman Walpole! We’ll water your Birkenstocks with this cretin’s blood ere dawn spreads her fingertips of rose—although Dave and I did know a chick named ‘Dawn’ who spread--”

I faked a loud cough, stomped on his foot, and brought my index finger to my lips.

“– And hopefully before someone calls the cops!” he continued, momentarily chastened.

“Well said, me bucko! Well said! Now to the throng!”

 

We need neither have bothered nor worried, though neither of us even suspected as much at the time. At best, we hoped only to spare Walpole a terrible beating, and to serve Hansen an equally terrible lathering for swinging on an innocuous, elderly (however irritating, on occasion) man in our presence.

With grace and agility belying his years and apparent physical condition, though, Walpole deftly sidestepped each of Hansen’s attempts to strike him. Seizing the behemoth’s wrist, he twisted it and stepped diagonally forward, locking it, the elbow, and the shoulder. Somehow – he made it look ridiculously easy, yet Bill and I could never subsequently agree upon the exact sequence of movements – he slid the carbine off his left shoulder, bounced it off his hip, jacking one up the spout in the process, and levered Hansen’s arm with the fore-stock, leaving the muzzle pressed against his cheek.

 

Squalling in shock and pain, Hansen fell to his knees.

Walpole puffed on his “doob” and sang a line from “Crossroads”: “I went down to the crossroads/ fell down on my knees/ I went down to the crossroads…” 

Squealing like piglets – or delighted, naughty little boys upon discovering a hidden cache of fireworks, slingshots and other contraband -- Bill and I leaped up and down for sheer joy. Shouting and pointing, we sang Walpole’s praises to the star-studded heavens above.

 “Jesus preserve us, Billy-O! Did you see that? Our acid casualty is a regular Achillês of Aikido!”

“Yeah, but I’m not sure what, exactly, I saw!”

“Lord have mercy, Walpole! That was too cool for words!”

“Me too! Me too!” exclaimed Bill. “Where’d you learn that?”

 

Walpole didn’t answer. He narrowed his eyes as a serpent of blue smoke crawled up his cheek from the joint in the corner of his mouth. Hansen’s were wide with horror, rolling back and forth between Bill, me, and the business end of Walpole’s M1.

“Grease the ornery fucker!” shouted Bill. “Cap him! We’ll swear on a stack of Bibles, Korans and Necronomicons that it was self-defense -- on account of it was!”

“Peace, man. I don’t, like, want to pull on nobody just yet. Like, bad karma an’ all that, y’know, man?”

 “Well,” said I, drawing my falchion from its scabbard, “ -- and this is strictly off the Akaşic record, mind you – I’d be more than glad to propitiate the forces of karma, thereby relieving you of the responsibility. C’mon Walpole! Be a bud, and you won’t even risk reincarnating as an Asura or preta. My own ‘hungry ghosts’ are wailing to be fed, and I’d welcome the chance to smite this ‘un hip and thigh; to grind his bones to make my bread.”

“Yeah, what he said!” exclaimed Bill. “Fee, fie, foe, fum! And I know this dipshit’s a squarehead and not an Englishman-proper, even!”

“You know, they all look alike to me,” I muttered to him, placing a hand alongside my mouth.  

“Yeah, I noticed that, too,” he replied in a hoarse whisper, scratching his head. Wonder how they could tell each other apart at Maldon or Stamford Bridge. Mayhap one side reeked of lutefisk an’ the other of pork pies and overcooked turnips”

“Shh!” said I. “I think ‘Walpole’ is an English name. Ol’ Horace’s ‘Cousin America has run off with a Presbyterian minister’ remark an’ all that, dontcha know? We mustn’t be rude, bubba -- especially as we’re fixin’ to wet our steel an’ bruise our knuckles in the defense of etiquette. That would be downright hypocritical of us, don’t you reckon?”

“I’ll check The Best of Miss Manners, and Richard Scarry’s Big Ol’ Fuckin’ Book of Etiquette (the boor’s is a boar in that one, iffen memory serves me correctly) an’ get back to ye’ in a couple days, OK?” he asked.

“Agreed,” I said. “And may the best man get laid most often – but not at the groom’s expense.”

“Right, then. An’ speakin’ of that, let’s get back to ‘The Chemical Wedding of Christian Walpole,’ shall we?”

 

Returning his attention to our visitors, Bill pointed at Hansen and snarled: “Sorry ‘bout the interruption, Walpole. We was havin’ ourselves a scholarly chat. But we’ll stomp a mudhole in this goofy sumbitch’s ass, and walk that sucker dry! Just watch us!”

“You guys might not have noticed, man,” said Walpole, taking a long drag on his joint, “but I don’t exactly need help here, man. I think I got the situation under control. It’s all cool, bros. Everything’s, like -- totally fuckin’ copacetic, you know?”

“Damn skippy!” said Bill. “That’s ‘cause I use that antibacterial soap everybody’s ravin’ about these days!” 

“The whole antibacterial soap issue has been troubling me for years,” I said, thumbing the blade of the falchion. “Does this mean that for the last few centuries, we’ve all been using soap that doesn’t kill germs? Does it give the lie to the efficacy of lard and lye? I sense a humanist plot! If ‘God is dead’ and ‘cleanliness is next to godliness,’ could it be that – ?”

“Not tonight, bubba!” said Bill, shoving his hip flask into my hand. “Not tonight!”

“Well, I was just saying…”

“And I was saying,” Bill interrupted, “that that was the most bitchin’-est move I’ve ever seen! How’d you do that, Walpole?”

The old man shrugged.

“Aw, just somethin’ I picked up when I was off ‘findin’ myself’ in Southeast Asia,” he said.

“My cousin Delbert picked up somethin’ in a cathouse in Ratchaburi!” exclaimed Bill. “He never said so himself, but I hear tell it was the bullhead clap. Even with penicillin, it took him damn-near six months to get rid of it!”

 

 “Whoah,” I said, raising my hand. “That was nauseating, Billy-O. I bet even my tapeworm’s puking right about now, ‘matter o’ fact. But thanks for sharing it, all the same. Now how, exactly, did you find yourself in Southeast Asia, Walpole? Oh, and that move wasn’t from Muay Thai, Bando, or Krabi Krabong, and I don’t recognize it as Pencak Silat. No, its roots lie farther to the north, I think.”

“Well, kinda sorta yes and no, man,” said Walpole. “I found myself over there back in ’68, courtesy of the draft. Happy fuckin’ New Year, if you get my drift.”

 

I nodded and he continued.

“Learned that and a whole bunch of other stuff from an ROK, in exchange for explaining Ginsberg and Bukowski to him, dig?”

“Pfft! Don’t even bother explaining ‘em to me!” I snorted. “I much prefer Eliot and Yeats, although I’m learning to appreciate Milton.”

“I thought you graduated from Roswell,” said Bill.

 “Yep. And I was born in a crossfire hurricane, to boot,” I said. “And speaking of boots; these boots were made for walkin’ and that’s just what they’ll do.” Walking around to Hansen’s right side, I faked a kick at his torso.

“Do y’all know how easy it is to bust a man’s ribs when they’re all stretched out like that?” I asked all present.

The oaf winced and whimpered.

 

“By the way, Hansen,” I said. “ ‘Y’all’ is only used when the speaker addresses a group. It’s the informal second-person plural; rather like the German ihr. I don’t know why I’m telling you this, as you, to all appearances, are completely uneducable. It’s a bitch, isn’t it? Having to second-guess one’s own motives, I mean. Conflicting impulses an’ a’ tha’ shite. Perhaps I’d like to see you learn something before I split your skull. Or maybe I simply want to make you look stupid – not that it requires much effort, mind you -- before I split your skull. Fuck me dead if I know which. And this weapon, by the way, is eminently suited to splitting bone – even the four or so inches that in all probability comprise your cranium. You’re almost certainly too ignorant to understand the differences between a falchion and a sword-proper, so I’ll explain them to you. A sword – whether single- or double-edged, is, in essence, an enlarged knife; a cut-and-thrust weapon. The falchion, on the other hand, is an enlarged cleaver. Ever butchered a deer or hog – or even seen a Chinese chef at work?”

 

By now, the big man was shaking like a leaf. His face was bloodless – usually a danger sign – but his fear had turned to panic and frozen him.

“Be cool, man,” said Walpole.

“ ‘Cool’ is my middle name,” I replied.

“Liar, liar! Pants on fire!” howled Bill, capering about like an African witchdoctor. “That ain’t what it says on your driver’s license!”

“And how would you know what my driver’s license says?”

“ ‘Cause we look alike, so I borrowed yours to buy booze when I got that ticket!” he blurted.

“You – bastard!” I hissed at him. “I spent a week hunting high and low for the fucking thing, and you… you… you… had it all along?”

“Not now, bubba!” he squalled, raising his hands to protect his head. “I been drinkin’!”

“I’ll deal with you later, “ I said, pointing the falchion at him. “Meanwhile, we have more pressing business. Your call, Walpole. You’re the offended party, after all. So what to do with this gobshite?”

“Can we string him up?” asked Bill. “I got some good static line! Or maybe we could feed him to Scooter, even! Ooh! Or both! How’s about both?”

“Put a sock in it, id-monster,” I said, raising the falchion. “You’re still on my shit list.”

 

“Like, mellow out, bro,” said Walpole. “All that vindictiveness is gonna, like, poison your system. Bill’s like, your best friend, man. Dig? I mean, I like comin’ over here ‘cause you guys are so – well, like the Three Musketeers, except there’s only two of you.”

 “Uhh…”

Bill tugged at the corner of his moustache, before exclaiming: “Both for one, and one for both – or something like that!”

“Right you are, Billy-O!” I said, brushing away a tear. “And an emotional moment like this simply demands a fierce hug of warrior camaraderie! Aristotelian dramatics, and all that! You can buy booze with my license any time, me bucko!”

“Dude! You’re my best friend in the world!” said Bill, drunk on wine, adrenaline and confusion in equal measure. He opened his arms and lurched towards me.

“Gimme a sec, bubba,” I said.

I sheathed the falchion, slapped Hansen upside the head, and then went to meet him.

“That was, like, totally un-cool,” said Walpole. “I asked you to mellow out, man.”

“Me too!” said Bill, ducking past me and serving Hansen with a cuff, himself.

“Is anybody, like, listening to me?” asked Walpole.

“Ooh! Right inna ear! That just had to hurt like a motherfucker!” I exclaimed, before giving Bill the mandatory “I’m-not-gonna-kill-you-anymore-‘cause-we’re-buddies” hug.

 

To Be Continued 

Fine Dining With Bill and Dave (Fiction)

“Oh, you just wouldn’t believe it, Sibyl. It was so romantic! Steve’s ex had his kids for the weekend, my ex had mine, and we left Dylan with my parents. It was just the two of us, and the room in Aspen. There was even a gas log in the fireplace!”

“Hey, lady? Would you mind shuttin’ the fuck up?” asked Bill through a mouthful of veal cordon bleu, pointing his fork at her for emphasis. “We can barely hear ourselves think over here.”
“Well, I never!” she exclaimed, her face reddening.
“That’s total bullshit, lady,” said Bill. “You just admitted to havin’ no fewer than three rugrats. Unless you’re capable of parthenogenesis, you’ve far from ‘never.’ From the sound of it, you don’t do a whole hell of a lot else. That, by the way, is my way of sayin’ you ain’t exactly Mother Teresa, if you catch my drift.”

She began to say something, but Bill’s glower silenced her.

Well, it might have been the glower. It might also have been the human scalps sewn to the shoulders of his leather jacket.

One of Bill’s cousins was a medical examiner, owed him quite a bit of money, and had allowed him to procure them from a pair of toe-tagged “John Does,” when their autopsies had been completed. This broad, though, had no way of knowing that. For all she knew, he’d taken them himself – exactly the impression Bill preferred to convey.

“Well, Davey-O, I hope you’re hungry!” he said, returning his attention to me and talking with his mouth full.
“No, Bill. I rather suspect I’m the former Mordvinian A.S.S.R., dreaming I’m Finland,” says I, “but you’ve hit upon the right language family.”
“Gotta count for something,” says he, all bright-like. “But doesn’t the word ‘Uralic’ sound vaguely obscene, in a ‘bodily function’ kind of way?”
“Billy-O,” said I, “I’m feelin’ a wee smidgen self-conscious. I don’t think I fit in very well in this particular establishment, and I think that woman is runnin’ off at the yap because she wants to have sex with me. They all do, you know. Why, just the other day, I was ‘goosed’ by a department store mannequin! I’ve never hit a woman in my life, Billy-O, but believe me; I was sorely tempted!”

“Oh, pish tosh! And piss on that!” he said, clenching his fist before his chest and favoring me with an especially deranged grin, “Your state of mind is purely subjective. The mannequin was just bein’ ‘liberated’, and you should always remember: It takes, like, forty-something muscles to frown, and fewer than a dozen to punch the Maitre D’s fucking lights out if you don’t like your meal! Oh! And how do you find the fare?”
“I look under the couch cushions after parties. There’s usually a buck or two to be had,” I said, as wryly as I could.

Bill spat a mouthful of wine into the face of a wheelchair-bound patron and guffawed, slapping a passing waiter on the back and knocking him completely off balance.

“Man, that just had to hurt like a motherfucker!” I mused aloud, as the tureen of soup he’d been carrying landed, helmet-like, atop the head of a particularly obese diner. “And that cell phone of his is well and rightly ‘rurnt,’ I guaran-damn-tee you.”
“Well this cordon bleu is anything but ‘rurnt,’” said Bill. “Now back to the matter at hand: Was the walrus really Paul; and how do you find the place’s fare? The lives of thousands depend upon your answer, Your Majesty.”

“Oh, it’s anything but fair, Billy-O. It’s pretty damned good, actually. Now I’ll allow that my Daddy made better coquilles St. Jacques a la Parisienne, but this suits me fine.”
“So how come you picked those capers out of your salad and gave one o’them scallops li’l eyeballs?” he asked.
“Oh, I don’t know, Bubba. I think I was trying to make a statement – a commentary on the plight of the American working man.”
“Really?” he asked.
“Hell no. Don’t be a dumbass. But in so saying, I oughtta impress a few of these pretentious buttholes.”

“Zo tell me zomesink,” said Bill in a thick German accent, donning a pair of horn-rimmed reading glasses and pulling a pad and pen from his jacket pocket, “Do you vish to imprrrrresss zem?”
“Well, I wouldn’t mind bangin’ that one over there,” I replied. “She’s got that whole ‘sexy older broad’ thing goin’ on. I like the way the cameo pendant serves to focus one’s attention directly upon her cleavage. Nice gams, too. She oughtta return ‘em to the twenty-year-old from whom she stole ‘em.”

Suddenly, Bill’s eyes grew wide as saucers. He hummed a few lines from the soundtrack of 28 Days Later and leaped to his feet, growling and swatting at nothing in particular.

“Dammit, Brad!” he screamed, brandishing an empty wine bottle, “How the hell are we supposed to have a symposium without any fucking posis?”
“Sorry about that, Davey-O,” he said, as he took his seat. “The service leaves something to be desired, and the wine list is a mite lacking, to boot.”
“Bill, most people don’t order Chianti when eatin’ in French restaurants,” I reminded him. “The poor bastards probably had to send out for it.”
“Oh! Bust my balls about that, will you?” he screeched. “And who, pray tell, ordered Mexican beer – Corona, to be exact?”
“I was just funnin’ with ‘em, me bucko. You’re the one who pulled the 1911A1 and got all demandin’-like.”
“That’s right!” he said, beaming with pride. “And looky! It done got you a whole sixpack!”
“That it did,” I said, nodding. “And they even put ‘em in a champagne bucket, with ice-like! Nice work, Billy-O!”
“’Twas indeed, even if I do say so myself. Calls for a toast, don’t you think?”

He pulled a mason jar from his jacket, leered at the other patrons, and poured a snort of white lightnin’ into each of our finger bowls.

“Here’s ta’ chillin’ while others be illin’,” he said.
“Mitt Romney is a heathen baw’bag, and better dead than red, or even mauve or chartreuse, let alone screwed, blued and tattooed!” I said, raising mine. We clinked finger bowls, and downed their contents.

“What are you starin’ at, faggot?” roared Bill, fetching a patron with an obvious case of Down’s syndrome a vicious ridgehand strike to the groin.

Reeling and retching, the poor mongoloid staggered over to the snow bunnies’ table, whereupon he collapsed, noisily and messily emptying his gorge into their salade Nicoise.

“Bill,” I said, “I think now’s a good time to pay up and skedaddle. What say we get in a little ‘people-watching’?”
“Suits me fine,” he said, talking with his mouth full while chewing with it open.
Leaping to his feet and striking a series of Shaolin Five Animals poses, he made his way over to Brad, who, visibly unnerved, swallowed hard and braced himself for the worst.

“Here ye’ go, me bucko,” said Bill, shoving a c-note into his pocket, “Go git yerself a piece o’ ass.”

On the way out, he seized a baguette from a nearby table and flourished it with a series of Bruce Lee caterwauls, before shoving the entire loaf into his jacket.

“What do you think, Bubba?” I asked; pointing at the set of chattery teeth I’d placed atop a bowl of after-dinner mints near the door.
Bill scratched his chin.
“It’s missing something,” he said.

I fished around in my pocket and produced a wad of Red Man, which I then placed in the disembodied maw.

“Perfect!” crowed Bill. “Worthy of a Yoko Ono, or even an artistically gifted wino!”
“Hmm. Autistically gifted. Is that something like an idiot savant?”
“You bet your ass, me boyo. With or without Bauhaus approval, those bastards are unsafe at any speed.”
“Savant garde?”
“Gesundheit.”

“I can’t believe hoods like that are allowed in here!” said the snow-bunny, as we discussed the finer things in life.

Brad, the Maitre D’, popped open a bottle of Cognac and took a slug directly from the neck. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve, shrugged, and said, “Trust fund baby. He can buy and sell the place – literally. He’s part owner.”
“But – he acted like he’d never eaten here before.”
“Does that all the time, sweetheart. Bill would forget his pecker if it wasn’t attached to him. Still writes his name in the waistband of his Underoos, as a matter of fact – so he won’t forget it. The quiet one with the creepy eyes is the one you gotta watch out for. Near-photographic memory. Vindictive son of a bitch, too. Nasty combination. Hell, he decked one patron on the sidewalk for giving him a wedgie when he was in the fourth grade.”

“You’re upset now, and understandably so. But I can’t believe that an otherwise professional headwaiter like you would work for someone like that.”
“Lady, I was pumpin’ gas at my uncle’s station down to Hahira six months ago,” he said, seating himself at their table. “Then one day, Bill and Dave come inside to buy boiled peanuts -- all the boiled peanuts we had in stock. For some reason, Bill was callin’ Dave ‘Higgins,’ and Dave was callin’ Bill ‘Pickering’…”

“I think there’s a date with destiny in the Superior Court of Fulton County in Steve’s immediate future,” I said to Bill, as he donned his aviator’s goggles. “That yuppie bimbo is sending Brad some serious ‘I’m available’ vibes.”
“Outstanding. He’s a good kid. Whoever hired him is an excellent judge of character.”

I rolled my eyes and whistled tunelessly.

“Maybe,” he continued, “ol’ Bradley’ll fuck some sense into her.”
“I still wouldn’t have minded showing that older broad my ‘etchings,’” I said. “Those had to be 38 D’s, at the very least. I wonder if she collects baseball cards?”
“Is it true that Catfish Hunter lent John Hinckley the pistol with which he shot Reagan?” asked Bill.
“No, Bill. That was an abortive coup attempt, staged by the Vice President.”
“Ah! So who really killed Anwar Sadat?”

“A very cleverly disguised Blue Oyster Cult Roadie. You see, Bill, most people have no idea how powerful Richard Melzer and Sandy Pearlman (if, indeed, those are their real names – in some circles, the matter is still hotly debated) were, in their glory days. You know, I can’t get that older broad off my mind, damn the luck! She was way hotter than the snow bunny bimbo, don’t you think? I wonder if she’s single? I swear those were real silk stockings she was wearing -- the genuine article. Nothing I love more than stacked older broads in silk stockings. Grrr… I just might have to mosey on over to Ponce de Leon Avenue, if I can’t switch trains of thought. But anyway: Pearlman and Melzer were both Mossad double agents, and rescued Eric Bloom from Area 51.”
“Ahhh!” said Bill, raising his eyebrows as he lit a cigarette, “Now that explains a thing or two! I knew him for a weird fucker by his lyrics, but now all is crystal clear! He’s an alien!”
“Who cares?” I asked. “Did you know that I used to attend so-called ‘psychic fairs,’ just to have the chance to chat up this seriously leg-wettin’ blonde who was probably old enough to be my mother? Real looker, that one. Hotter than a two-dollar pistol, and intelligent, as well! Hooters the size of charentais, and actually somewhat familiar with Tibetan religious literature. She was, that is. Not her tits – at least I don’t think so. She never mentioned having literate mammaries, at any rate. I think she was a tad afraid of me, though. Fuck me dead if I know why. Mayhap nipping her earlobe and singing ‘No Chemise, Please’ was a wee bit much, by way of an introduction. I’m no judge of these matters, mind you, so I’m hardly qualified to comment. I did look down her blouse when she bent down to read her tarot cards, though. Had no choice in the matter. When I can see that ‘suspension bridge’ under-wiring all the way through a broad’s clothing, I’m a goner. I must have been a ‘bottle baby’ or something.”

“Let’s discuss it in the car,” said Bill, pulling a .45 from his waistband. “Want a pistol? I hear tell them’s good for the horny and melancholy soul.”

“I’m a die-hard wheelgunner, you cretin!” I snapped.

To be continued

Gibbous Moon Over Dreamland V (Fiction)

I followed Bill’s gaze and gestures to the property line.

If Walpole had approached us in the manner of a wraith, then Lewis Hansen could be said to have approached us in the manner of Frankenstein’s monster -- with bad cases of gout and steroid-induced acromegaly. Lumbering across Bill’s backyard like a Jutland slowly recovering from an overdose of thorazine, he wore corn-fed, Midwestern machismo as if it were a poorly fitted hospital gown.

“Embrouder’d was he as it were a mede, Billy-O,” said I, “al ful of the very freshest fleurs du mal, if I’m not too sorely mistaken. I guess it’s true that ‘there’s always trouble waitin’ when yer leave yer own backyard’ as one Taffy bard or another sang -- for all that we’ve done no such thing. Leavin’ our own backyard, that is – we’ve done plenty o’ singin’. It all portends ill for him it does, as I suppose. Nice pants, though. I see that the factory seconds outlet is still doing a brisk trade. Now gimme a snort of that ‘shine, if you’ll be so kind. I suspect that my spirits will need bolstering, if they're to endure the imminent ‘tilting match’ with ‘Louie, the knight perilous.’”

“Sure as shittin’,” said Bill, handing me the potent homebrew. “He is dumber’n a box o’ rocks, an’ that that’s the damned truth. D’ye reckon his wife ties his shoes for him?”
“Prob’ly not,” says I, “Otherwise she’d tell him that they was on the wrong feet.”
The tone of Walpole’s giggle wobbled and careened like a decelerating gyroscope.
“You drink much more, and you’re gonna need bolstering, man,” he said, as he slung his carbine over his right shoulder. “Right now, you look like you got two wrong feet.”
“Fuck you, Walpole,” said Bill and I, simultaneously.
I raised the Mason jar to my lips and took a hearty swallow, savoring the bourbon-like smoothness of the ‘mountain dew,’ and the warmth it left in my gut.
Whoever’d made this batch had been a master. He’d either shaken the final product with olive oil and then decanted it, or saponified the fusel oils in the mash before distilling it – and it showed. The whiskey was crystal-clear, ice-cold from sitting in the cooler and -- while anything but flavorless -- left its “burn” in the belly, not the mouth.

“Hey!” bellowed Hansen.
“Ooh!” squalled Bill, grabbing both ears of his wolfskin hood and jumping up and down, “I jes’ love them word-association games! Straw! Yer turn, Davey-O!”
“Alfalfa,” said I. “It’s that cowlick on his damn-fool head what reminds me of it,” I whispered – quite audibly, pointing at the interloper as I did so. His hand involuntarily darted to his scalp, setting Bill and me to snickering.
“Is it my turn now?” slurred Walpole. Not troubling himself to await a reply, he drawled, “Grass, man.”
“Have a beer, Walpole,” said Bill, offering him one of our few remaining tallboys. “Ye done earned it for confusin’ me. Now are you reassuringly consistent, or jes’ damn predictable? Is the glass half full, or half empty? That’s what I wanna know.”
“You know, man, I’ve been working on that one myself. Funny that you should bring it up, man. I mean, talk about déjà vu and serendipity and karma and whatnot, man…”

“Hey!” roared Hansen again, clearly angered by our failure to acknowledge his initial ‘greeting.’
“Oats, man!” shouted Walpole.
“Ain’t yer turn!” snapped Bill, making to grab him by the collar of his parka. “Iffen ye’ ain’t gonna play nice, ye’ can jes’ git yer ass home, ye’ ol’ hippie!”
“It was Bill’s turn,” I said, placing myself between them. “Now abide by the rules, Mr. Walpole, or we’ll have to send you home without a gold star – although you should win the silver star for having the balls to deal with Bill when he’s this shitfaced.”
“Yeah, an’ I’ll put horseradish in yer Blue Star ointment!” snarled Bill. “Just see if I don’t!”

“Mellow out, brother,” said Walpole. “I just got a little excited’s all. No need to have a conniption, man. Peace, you know? Oh, and my answer’s still ‘oats’,” he added, giggling.
“Mark my words, Walpole, I’ll be watching your every move! Nemo me impune lacessit, Fortunato!” Bill hissed. “Now whose turn is it?”

“Mine,” I replied. “Y’all are both penalized for being quarrelsome bastards. You’re sure to upset my digestion, give me toenail fungus, and make my nose run. I’ll bet y’all surreptitiously enter my kitchen an’ jump up an’ down, jes’ to make my cakes an’ soufflés fall, too, ye’ hell-spawned, pinheaded cretins. And my answer is ‘druids.’”

Bill and Walpole each spat out a mouthful of booze – directly onto the shoes of the irate Hansen, who had just reached our station on the patio.
“Where the hell do you get ‘druids’ from?” Bill asked, coughing and sputtering.
“Yeah, man,” slurred Walpole.
I rolled my eyes and cut loose with a boozy sigh of exasperation.
“Elementary, you simpletons. Walpole done said ‘oats.’ Mairzy doats and doezy doats and little lamsy divey. A kiddly divey, too, wouldn’t you?”
“Hell no!” snapped Bill. “The birds shit all over the ivy around here. And besides, ivy’s poisonous – even when it ain’t poison ivy. I might eat kudzu on a dare, or even escargot, but not ivy. Not on your life!”
“Ivy reminds me of holly,” I continued, ignoring the interruption “which, in turn, reminds me of mistletoe, which, in turn, reminds me of druids. And chicks with big knockers, of course. Now let’s see what this itinerant wants of us. Perhaps we can spare him a few shillings.”

“You scumbags got a problem?” snarled Hansen, moving to jab my chest with his index finger.
“Not at all,” I replied, deflecting his arm with contemptuous ease. “Aside from your halitosis and latent homosexuality, I find you rather an endearing sort – in a Life Goes On, ‘Corky’ kind of way.”
As I brushed his arm aside with my rear hand, I seized the soft tissue at the juncture of elbow and biceps between the thumb and middle finger of my forward hand, and dug in.

“That’s his way of sayin’ he thinks ye’re a dumbshit,” said Bill, nodding sagely and winking as I applied the nerve pinch.

With a startled yelp, Hansen leapt away from me. Uncertainty playing across his face, he looked at Bill and took a hesitant step towards him. Bill, who by now had gone back to ignoring him completely, was attempting to balance his half-empty beer on the flat of his cutlass, and thus utterly oblivious to his presence. Hansen, on the other hand, was hardly oblivious to the weapon’s.

“I always reckoned midgets would have teeny, li’l midget peckers, Dave,” said Bill. He took a long pull on his beer, and then turned in a shadow-sparring performance worthy of Errol Flynn or Douglas Fairbanks; thrusting and slashing at a host of imaginary foes.
“But I seen this porno t’ other day,” he continued, parrying some invisible enemy’s attack, “an’ this goofy li’l dwarf fucker was in it, right?”
I lit another cigarette and nodded. Walpole lit a joint and appeared deep in thought, as if he were composing a mental painting. Hansen rubbed his arm and looked very confused.

Bill continued as he rolled on the ground, slashing at phantom calves, hamstrings, and Achilles tendons: “An’ fuck me runnin’ iffen that li’l turd-burglar didn’t have a Johnson damn near as long as this here pigsticker! Looked to have three legs, he did! I figured all the blood was like to rush out of his head when it…”
“I get the picture, Bill,” I added, cutting him off. “Now please be a sport and fetch me a red hot poker for my mind’s eye. And a few diet pills. Hansen’s paunch isn’t getting any smaller, and a proper host should always see to his guests’ needs. Emily Post said so herself, right before her shade was crucified for violating the Patriot Act – and passing counterfeit food stamps.”

“Fuck George Bush, man,” said Walpole. “And hey; how come you don’t always talk like a hillbilly? I noticed that about both of you guys. Are you, like, secret agents or something?”
His eyes grew wide as a dog bowls and he asked, in a near whisper: “You’re not, you know, narcs or anything like that, are you?”
“Absolutely not!” I snapped, perhaps a touch too indignantly. “Why, I’ll have you know that I’ve read Dune six or seven times, and can bring even the most sensually jaded of coquettes to a state of carnal nirvana three or four times in a single sweving! Oh! And I’m ‘good to go’ three or so times a day! Now does that sound like any government employee -- local, state or federal – of whom you’ve ever heard? I think not!”
“Yeah! What he said! And him’s forty, even,” said Bill -- as if the fact were of profound import -- seizing me in a side headlock and pointing his cutlass at Walpole.
“No, but it sounds like you’re a total horndog, man. You probably oughtta lay off the oysters, you know? And you guys are like, violently uptight sometimes,” he said. “I was just saying, you know, that you guys have like, different accents and shit.”
“That’s because we’re code-switchers,” I replied. “Now turn loose o’ my neck, Bill. I’m fixin’ to bite the livin’ shit out’n ye’, iffen ye’ don’t.”

Releasing me, Bill assumed a fencing pose and waggled the cutlass menacingly.
“Him was born in Maryland!” he huffed. “Them folks turns all brown an’ dead-like when deprived of oysters an’ clams, an’ crabs, an’ stingrays an’ octopisces an’ harp seals, ye’ inhuman monster!”
“You’ve mistaken us for Newfoundlanders, Bill,” I said, as I straightened my wolfskin and smoothed my mantle. “Actually, we simply become cranky when deprived of seafood – although I have heard that some of us turn into pumpkins at the stroke of midnight. Iodine deficiency, as I suppose. Or maybe hepatitis. I once had a urinary tract infection, which I thought was the clap – but I was wrong. I do like pickled oysters, though.”
“You just know Jocelyne’s gonna kick your ass for that Newfoundlander crack, don’t you?” asked Bill.

“Speaking of pickled, man,” said Walpole, shaking his now-empty beer, “can I trouble you guys for another one, maybe?”
“We only got four left, ye’ moochin’ bastard!” squalled Bill. “That ain’t even enough to get Dave through a single canto of Dante’s Infirmary!”
“That’s Inferno, Bill” I corrected.
“Says you! The way them wops was always a-poisonin’ one another durin’ the Middle Ages? Ye’ know damn good and well he spent some time one infirmary or another!”
“He’s got a point, man,” said Walpole, scratching the back of his neck with his left hand and contemplating the fingertips of his right.
“Damn it, Walpole! Don’t encourage him! He’s bad enough without you eggin’ him on.”

“Fine,” he sighed. “But that still don’t explain why you guys got different accents all the time, man.”
“I already done told ye’ that we’re code-switchers, mo-tard.”
“Is that better or worse than a fucktard?” asked Bill. “I never could figger that one out.”
“Fuck you an’ the horse you rode up on, Bubba. I mean that affectionately, of course.”
“No offense taken, baw’bag.”
“Glad to hear it, butt-nugget.”
“Is a code switcher like a ‘windtalker’?” asked Walpole, stepping between us. His eyes narrowed in stoned suspicion.
“Maybe you guys are narcs after all,” he said, the light of false comprehension dawning in his rheumy orbs.

“No, Walpole,” I sighed. “A code-switcher is a person who consciously or subconsciously shifts from one dialect to another, as social circumstances dictate. Bill and I were exposed to numerous regional dialects when we were children. We learned them all, and tend to switch back and forth between ‘em – and unpredictably, at that. My own condition was, I suspect, exacerbated by a childhood trauma I suffered at Darlington Speedway, back in ’75. One of Richard Petty’s pit crew got blind drunk, staggered into the stands, and then barfed into my boiled peanuts. I was never the same afterwards.”

“I’m – warning -- you…” stammered the long-since forgotten Hansen, his voice plunging into a metaphoric oubliette of uncertainty and hesitancy.

“Far out, man!” said Walpole. “I, like, completely forgot that this uptight, fascist asshole was even here, man! Actually, I’m still not totally sure that he is, you know? He could be part of, like, a bad trip or something, right?”

At that moment, Lewis Hansen’s indecision evaporated like drizzle falling on a hot tractor. I’d already hurt and embarrassed him. Bill was waving (and adroitly, at that, his advanced state of inebriation notwithstanding) two and a half feet of razor-sharp, basket-hilted meat cleaver about as if were a child’s party favor, and was thus an unappealing target. That left only Walpole – all five-foot-nine, dope smoking, long-greasy-grey-haired, shabbily dressed, sixty-plus-year-old, Grateful-Dead-roadie-lookin’ eleven stone of him.

To “men” of Hansen’s ilk, life was a numbers game – and in his eyes, Walpole didn’t amount to much when the final tally was made. With a roar too bestial to be reckoned human, and yet too malevolent ever to have been voiced by one of the “lesser brethren,” he lunged at the old man.

Bill and I were both “crazy,” as folk are wont to reckon such things, but neither of us was stupid. We’d both “been around the block” often enough to be nodding acquaintances of Old Scratch, to know damned good and well that in this world, he was the landlord, and to give the devil his due, as it were. In short, we were, the both of us, far more sinner than saint – but neither of us entirely devoid of intellect, honor, or courage.

And thus did our “street smarts” fail us, leading us to underestimate a foolish, honor-less coward. Bill was still swashbuckling on some blood-slicked deck on the bounding main of his boundless imagination, and I was caught fast – if only momentarily -- in the iron grip of reverie when Hansen moved on Walpole. Cursing – the both of us, as I suppose – our own want of wit (and sobriety), we became a drunken “gripping beast” of sorts, staggering over one another as we moved to intercede.

To be continued

Gibbous Moon Over Dreamland IV (Fiction)

A sudden arctic blast rattled branches and rustled leaves in the nearby woods, made a roaring backslash of mottled orange, yellow and black of the patio fire, and nearly swept us off our feet.

“Just damn, Billy-O! Now there’s a chill an’ wicked wind! Sure an’ it blows nobody good – quite unlike Ashleigh Milner back in high school, who blew half the guys in the smoking area right good, the way I hear it. Why, look ye! It’s like to scatter the very stars, as if they were leaves, horrors, or poorly disciplined infantry! Now come on Bill: Hay foot, straw foot! Hay foot, straw foot!”
“If you’re so afeared of the wind, ye’ ought not have knocked it out’n me! An’ let ‘em scunner the stars and be damned!” he slurred drunkenly, gasping for air as I dragged him ‘round the patio. “They’ll bock up showers of star-stuff, and meteorites, and colors out of space and other eldritch horrors upon this whirling, air-sickness bag! And what of the leaves, Davy-O? Like a line I read in Richard Scarry’s Big Book o’ Shakespeare, they ‘had a dying fall.’ Ah! Leaves, leaves of grass – and how I could use a few o’ them suckers about now! All the leaves are brown, and the sky is a stately but ominous hue of blue-black, and as studded with cold, mad, indifferent twinkling silver medals as a Prussian general’s chest.”
“You’ll never rhyme that one,” I said. “And to hell with California, anyway. It’s one big Red Hook or Innsmouth. Besides, you must make a friend of horror, Bubba. Brando said so himself.”
“Consarn you an’ yer unimpeachable sources!” he huffed, regaining his breath -- if not his composure.

“What the hell is going on here?” shrieked a near-operatic female voice.
“Don’t look now, Billy-O, but the fat lady’s singin’,” said I, as we turned to the source of the disturbance.
“Does that mean it’s over?” asked Bill.
“Might as well be,” I replied.

It was Mrs. Sonowski, leaning out her kitchen window, and dividing her attention between us and Mrs. Alyn-Sjøquist’s prostrate form.
“That,” said Bill, “has gotta be the butt-ugliest fuckin’ bobblehad doll I ever seen.”
“We’re merely rehearsing, Madame,” hollered I. “There’s no cause for alarm or even alarum – as the bullfrog said. As for your not-so-elegantly coiffed crone of a crony: My guess is that she was simply overwhelmed by the power of our presentation, and swooned upon witnessing it. I have that effect upon certain women, you know: Especially when I haven’t showered in a few days. Now get thee to a nunnery – or to Jenny Craig, at least -- posthaste.”
“You know,” whispered Bill, “since she’s out like a light, we coulda moseyed on over there an’ had a look-see under that top – with no one the wiser.”
“That’s unethical, immoral, amoral an’ downright ungentlemanly, Bubba. Besides, I’ve already seen what was under it, when she was workin’ that titty bar all them years ago.”
“Yeah, but I ain’t seen ‘em!” he hissed.
“Don’t sweat it,” I said. “She sunbathes topless on her patio, behind that plank fence o’ hers. You can see every inch of it – and her -- from about three quarters of the way up that yellow oak over yonder; the one near the red house.”
“An, how, pray tell, would you know that?” he asked, his eyes narrowing into slits of glistening, black suspicion as the firelight danced across his face.
“I was retrieving a child’s lost kite,” I snapped defensively.
“Uh huh. Sure you was. Ain’t no end to the number o’ kids as flys their kites in the woods. I see ‘em ever’ day. Why they got a little school bus with tinted winders…”
“Nobody likes a smartass, Billy-O. Nobody likes a smartass.”

“Hey! Did you hear me?” wailed Mrs. Sonowski.
“Us an’ half the damn county!” yelled Bill. “How could we not? That hog-call o’ yours is like to wake the dead!”
“Oh! That reminds me,” I said. “The funeral for Skeeter’s Blue Tick is Wednesday. We dassen’t miss it. The entire jet set is sure to be there.” Turning to Mrs. Sonowski, I replied, “We’ve already explained ourselves, Madame. Now leave us to our rehearsal. And piss off, while you’re at it. Our material is undoubtedly over the head of a philistine like you. It’d serve only to confuse you – and no one can survive the combination of morbid obesity and confusion. It says so in the Bhagavad Gita, if I’m not mistaken.”
“Yeah!” roared Bill. “An’ he done read all that stuff! The Bhagavad Gita, an’ the Upanishads, an’ the Necronomicon, an’ the Kama Sutra, an’-- ”
I served his ankle a short, sharp kick.

“What rehearsal?” Her voice was a whine of contempt.
“Dave got him a mind to plough with somebody’s heifer, you ol’ heifer!” Bill shouted.
“Why, you insolent son of a bitch!”
“While we’re stir-frying this veritable chop-suey of animal metaphors,” I butted in, “I’ll assay to soothe you, O savage beast, by adding that Bill spoke somewhat intemperately. You are perhaps better compared to a mare than a heifer --”
“Yeah, a nightmare,” Bill muttered, interrupting me.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“’Cos I walk at the rear of the ‘orse, me dear, an’ seem to see your face,” I sang, in an affected English accent.
Bill bent double, slapped his thigh, and brayed like a donkey.
“That was a good ‘un, Bubba!”
We exchanged the secret handshake, then turned to face Mrs. Sonowski once again, assuming crane stances as we did so.
“Long live the revolution!” we bellowed in unison.

“We all wanna change the world, man,” slurred a voice to our left, startling us terribly.
“Who goes there?” screeched Bill, brandishing his cutlass. “Give the password or I’ll spit ye’ like a hare. Or split ye’ like a hair. It’s all the same to me, you know! Hah! And have at ye’!”
“Relax, Bill. It’s just the Ghost of Chris Kristofferson past,” I said, giggling at my own wit.
“Power to the people, man,” drawled the apparition.
It was Bill’s neighbor from across the street, an aging hippie who resembled nothing so much as a balding, bearded Peter Fonda. Tonight, he was wearing a mid-70s olive drab parka, fringed, buckskin trousers, and -- despite the evening chill -- a pair of Huaraches. To my slight distress and great amusement, he was also toting an M-1 carbine that, to all appearances, was at least as old as he himself.
“Why good evenin’, Mr. Walpole!” said I, with the straightest face I could maintain, “Them toenails been chewin’ betel nuts again, have they?”
“Speak, speak, thou fearful guest!” Bill admonished.
“Mellow out, guys,” said Walpole, slowly and dreamily, “ ‘S jus’ me, man. Like, I jus’ like…thought I heard somebody being…you know… oppressed, man. Oh, and hey, man, can I, like, borrow a cup of sugar cubes?”

I flicked a glance back at Mrs. Sonowski’s house. As I’d expected, a coven of shadows had congregated in front of the kitchen window, muttering among themselves. Alyn-Sjøquist remained unconscious, motionless and apparently forgotten on a bed of crushed periwinkles.
I grinned. Those hoity-toity pricks just had to be hating the living hell out of this. And once the lawsuits began flying thick and fast, they’d be hating the living hell out of each other, as well.
“Our dry voices, when we whisper together, are as quiet and meaningless as wind in dry grass, or rat’s feet over broken glass, in our dry cellar,” I chanted, my voice dripping sarcasm and venom in equal measure.
“Hey!” slurred Walpole, delightedly (and loudly enough to set the dogs of the place to barking again), “That’s Eliot, man!”
“Naw,” said Bill, “Elliott ain’t on the Homeowners’ Association. He’s just bangin’ ol’ ‘boiler boobs’ over yonder.” He jerked his head in Alyn-Sjøquist’s direction for emphasis.
“Wow, man,” said Walpole after a moment of squinting into the darkness, “She’s, like…fried. They must have some good shit over there.”
“Can’t say as I agree with the ‘good’ part none,” said I, lighting a cigarette, “but you’re otherwise half right – just between me an’ you-er.”

“Ye’ll have to pardon him,” said Bill. “He’s on a serious ‘oldies’ kick this evening.”
“Don’t it seem that kicks just keep gettin’ harder to find?” asked Walpole, favoring us with a gnomish, ruddy-cheeked wink and a grubby thumbs-up.
“Paul Revere and the Raiders,” I said, exhaling a jet of smoke into the crystalline, blue-black air. “Does that mean ye’ come to raid our liquor cabinet, Walpole?”
“Walpole. Wal – pole,” said Bill.
“Don’t you even git started on that ‘was the walrus Paul?’ shit tonight, me bucko,” I growled around my cigarette, pointing at him without looking at him. “This ol’ boy ain’t no Beatle. I’m jes’ tryin’ to figger: Did he come over here to play the tapeworm?”
“Ahhh, no way, bro,” Walpole replied in the drawn-out, molasses-thick, half-slur half-purr of the longtime stoner, “I came to stick it to the man, man!”

“Ye jes’ might git yer chance,” said Bill, indicating the property line with his pipe and a nod.

To be continued

Gibbous Moon Over Dreamland III

“Damn,” I said, as I took a sip of wine. “You know that just had to hurt like a motherfucker.”

Bill winced, cringed slightly and shook his head.

“Oooh!” he said. “Fell right out the wind’er, she did! And she’s still out like a light.”

For reasons I couldn’t – for the life of me -- divine, he actually seemed concerned.

“You reckon we oughtta go over there and make sure she’s OK?” he asked.

“Nah. She can kiss my ass and bark at the hole. Serves her right for leanin’ out that far and hollerin’ like a fishwife, anyway. Downright undignified, it was.”

“What if she’s really hurt, Davey-O?”

“Then I reckon Mrs. Sonowski’s insurance company will do the right thing, seein’ as the unfortunate incident occurred on her property.”

“Are you sure we shouldn’t --”

“Hell no. First thing they’ll do’s try to pin it on us somehow. Besides, we have much to accomplish tonight. There are tales to be told, songs to be sung, mysteries to be solved, and cows to be milked – although not necessarily in that order.”

“What tales?” he asked, his eyes lighting up.

“Tales of cows’ tails, ponytails, leapfrog tails, and tailors in tailspins, Billy-O. Why, just listen! You can hear them on the night wind, in the rustling of the leaves, and in the crackle of the fire! There! D’ye hear that? Two teenagers stealing a kiss beneath a solitary lamppost, well after both should be home for the evening—and the eyes that watch them from darkened windows. And there! That’s the weeping of a disconsolate widower beneath a willow, and the brook, babbling and bubbling in an attempt to comfort him. And those! The tales glow-worms would tell, if only we knew how to listen to them. And there are others, Bill. Millions of voices, some shouting, some whispering: jilted lovers, jealous husbands, and joyful newlyweds; the disenchanted, the disaffected, and the dissolute; insomniacs, maniacs, malcontents, agitators, aristocrats, fanatics, poets, tinkerers, heroes, anti-heroes, villains, schemers, dreamers, plotters, planners and even the odd, God-mad saint – although the sinners outnumber them, by far.

An’ that! D’ye hear that? A chorus of billions, the voices of multitudes of ordinary men, women and children, to whom it’s never occurred to be anything other than ordinary, except in their dreams; peeping and chirping like a cellar full of crickets.”

“She looks right peaceful, lying there like that.”

“Yep. If I didn’t know better, I could conceivably mistake her for a human being—with a soul, even.”

“Do you reckon she’s dreaming? And what about?”

“That’s just it, Billy-O. Her kind doesn’t dream very much at all, as far as I can figure. That’s what makes them what they are. They have so few dreams of their own – or have long since given up on them, at any rate – that all that’s left them is to try and destroy others'. Oh! I’ll allow that she may have the odd nightmare. It’s likewise possible that she wanders the periphery of dreamland from time to time, or inadvertently stumbles into someone else’s dreams every now and then; perhaps even tries to shape or dictate the content thereof (her kind are known for that, you see), but overall? I think not.

No, Bill. What you see lying there – once it comes to – will become the distilled essence of dreamlessness: A middle class, middlebrow, middle-aged broad. Frankly, I doubt even your silver key can unlock the gates for her kind. And speaking of the Silver Key, let’s have a look-see at ‘er.”

Hesitantly, he extended his hand.

“You’re not gonna -- do anything with it, are you?”

“Of course not,” I said, as gently as I could. “I simply want to have a gander at it.”

I extended my own, and he dropped the key into my palm. I leaned closer to the patio fireplace and examined it in the flickering light. It wasn’t at all large – perhaps two- and-a-half inches long – but it was clearly silver. A brilliant, untarnished silver, without a trace of wear or pitting, and entirely covered in ornate engraving. In form, it was of the old-fashioned variety, meant for opening warded locks. Strangely enough, I couldn’t quite focus my vision upon the cuts, which seemed to change and shift in both number and depth. On the whole, though, it impressed me as a passkey of sorts.

“I don’t know where you found this, Billy-O, but it seems you’ve stumbled across something extraordinary. It might actually be the Silver Key, me bucko.”

“Oh!” said he, “I found it in a li’l shop on Buford Highway! Owner was a Chinee, if I’m any judge of such things.”

“You ain’t,” says I. “And God forbid that ever ye’ fail to treat cautiously wi’ ‘the yellow peril,’ Billy-O. There is folks as thinks they all look alike, but they don’t. Nor do they think alike – except generally, and the devil is in the details – and television, I reckon. I hate TV, Bubba, and don’t care who knows it – especially them as watches TV. Did I ever tell you that, or was I too preoccupied wi’ mussel shells, Muscle Shoals, and flamenco to give the matter the attention it merited? And even that, only after I’d gotten a splinter from a poorly turned chopstick! Pfft! I reckon it ain’t here nor there, nohow – but who says Frodo Lives? I refute that ludicrous assertion! He’s deader than decency -- as moribund as modesty, says I! And my nuts itch. Oh, and I’m gettin’ sick o’ wine. It’s for Frogs, fags and people as gives a shit about their cholesterol, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised to discover that under its pernicious influence, we’ve both subconsciously adopted certain communist attitudes! Fuck that, says I! I’d rather pipe it all back to France than vote for McCain! Got any beer or hooch?”

”Sixpack o’ beer an’ a shitload o’ hooch!” he replied.

“Aha! As in ‘hooch girl!’ Thus is the riddle of the merchants’ origin solved, Billy-O! Serendipity, intuition and bottle of tolerable Riesling! Vietnamese, I trow – even as I drop trou, on occasion! Or…” I continued, stroking my Vandyke and regarding Bill through narrowed eyes, “they might have been Nungs or Mandarins – ethnic Chinee who lived amongst the Vietnamese for a time. Inscrutable, those Easterlings! And damned canny, too! Who knows what they’ve sold you?”

“Didn’t sell it to me,” said Bill, as he screwed the cap off a cigar tube, “they gave it to me when I bought that lacquer-work box. Seemed a mite anxious to be rid of it, too.”

“All the more reason to be suspicious,” I said as I handed it back to him. “But at least you knew well enough not to buy a puzzle box from them. And when, pray tell, did you begin smoking cigars?”

“Oh, this? This ain’t no cigar. This here’s a joint. An’ before even you give me that look, I’ll have you know that the Good Book don’t say nothin’ ‘bout weed. Not that I believe in none o’ that nohow, mind ye’.”

“Obviously,” says I. “’An I’m a piss-poor example of a believer, to be sure. But here now! What’s that o’er there? Looks a mite interestin’, an’ fuck me dead iffen it don’t!”

“What, Bubba?” says he.

“That there critter,” says I. “Nasty sumbitch, now ain’t he?”

“Ugh!” Sure an’ ye’ ain’t shittin’ bubba!” Bill sniffed. “He’d be ripe, even in a heap o’ bass left too long in the sun!”

“And that suit!” said I, as the doughy figure staggered through the woods along the property line. “My own Granddaddy would nor have worn it nor been buried in it! Hunnerd year out o’ date, if not more! And the goofy fucker does stink like death eatin’ shit, now don’t he?”

“Providence have mercy!” said Bill.

“Quit talkin’ like Hitler,” I snapped. “It irritates me and is all contrary to my spiritual convictions-like.”

“Your sad devotion to that ancient religion…” said he.

Feet, calves, thighs, hips, pectorals, shoulders, and arms delivered a message of sorts – to his gut, via my fist.

The better part of a minute later, I was walking him around his patio, his right arm slung over my right shoulder.

“Damn, Davey-O! No need to hit so hard like!”

“Go fuck yerself. My arm still hurts. And I find your lack of faith disturbing,” I said.
“And I find your refusal to tense your rectus abdominus muscles and to exhale upon impact doubly disturbing.”

“Leave it,” he coughed. “I been drinkin’.”

To be continued

Gibbous Moon Over Dreamland II (Fiction)

Part the Second: That Must Be Jelly, 'Cause Jam Don't Jiggle Like That

Mala soit qui mal ypense.

“Are you believin’ that?” I asked Bill. “Why, they’re scurryin’ around like ants, for Pete’s sake. And all over a little ‘root wine.’ Now the Kramers’ dog – just to name one -- shits like an elephant with amoebic dysentery, and all over the neighborhood, to boot. Do you ever see any of ‘em freakin’ out over that, though?”
Bill shook his head and scooted to the edge of his Adirondack chair. Placing his elbows upon his knees, he rested his chin in his hands and regarded the proceedings with an air of detached curiosity.
“Only one thing worries me,” he said. “They can’t use those paper towels to cast spells on us, can they?”
“Don’t be silly, me bucko. They’ll probably burn ‘em. Look! They’re actually wearing industrial rubber gloves and respirators.”

The members of the Homeowners’ Association finally repaired to the safety of Mrs. Sonowski’s kitchen, treating us to truly vicious looks as they fled. Mrs Alyn-Sjøqvist, in particular, favored us with a deliciously venomous glare. In response, I flashed her a peace sign. I then turned my palm towards my chin, placed my fingertips in the corners of my mouth, and stuck my tongue into the gap.

“Ho-lee shit!” squealed Bill, with childlike delight, “She just flipped you off! She actually done flipped you off!”
“Is that an insult or an invitation, ‘Jell-O Jugs’?” I hollered.
She stood arrow-stiff for a moment, fists clenched, trembling with fury. I could almost imagine steam whistling from her ears.
“You’re makin’ your fists all wrong-like,” I advised. “You’re sure to break your thumbs that way. Didn’t nobody never teach you how to fight?”
“Yeah,” said Bill. “What he said! And I’ll bet you throw like a girl, too!”
“If it’s any consolation, though, you have a nice ass. A tad chubby, perhaps, but appealingly shaped,” I said, in as conciliatory a tone as I could muster.

“Fuck you!” she screamed. Her voice echoed throughout the subdivision and set all the dogs of the place to barking, as bedroom and patio lights flickered to life like fireflies on a summer evening. Her hands immediately flew to her mouth, and her eyes widened in horror. As she looked quickly from side to side, she actually seemed to shrink, physically. She then ducked her head and scurried back into the house as quickly as her feet could carry her. Roaring with laughter, Bill and I “high fived” one another, and poured ourselves two more cups of mulled wine.

“Do you think there’s too much cinnamon in this batch?” I asked, smacking my lips.
Bill shrugged.
“I like it,” he said. “The vanilla bean was an especially interesting addition. How’d you dream that up?”
“Oh, I like to sprinkle cinnamon on vanilla ice cream, so I thought they might go well together as mulling spices, too.”
“Works for me. Uh-oh. Don’t look now -- It’s Mrs. Alyn-Sjøquist again.”

I certainly did look then, and noted that he spoke the truth. She was leaning out Mrs. Sonowski’s kitchen window, staring at us. I waved at her and Bill followed suit.
She pointed a trembling finger at us.
“You – you sick, disgusting – animals,” – she paused, trying to compose herself – “really think you’re funny, don’t you?” she said.
“I ain’t a’tall ‘funny,’” I replied, “and neither is Bill. We like girls! Let us prove it to ye’!”
“Are you actually propositioning me, you – you -- you -- scumbag? Who do you think you are?”
“They call me ‘mother’s blue-eyed angel,’ I said, grinning like a Cheshire cat. “And he,” -- I indicated Bill with my thumb -- “is none other than the man who squats behind the man who works the soft machine.”
Bill tipped his wolfskin as if it were a hat, and raised his cup to her.
“You’re both insane!” she shouted. “Completely insane!”

“ ‘They’re coming to take me away, ha, ha!’ But what’s that got to do with the price of ‘China white’ in Teaneck?” I asked. “You just implied that Billy and I were ‘light in the loafers,’ and I’m sayin’ we’re both willin’ to prove we ain’t. Our sanity or lack thereof has absolutely no bearin’ on the matter. Stick to the fookin’ subject at hand and quit goin’ off on tangents, ‘boiler boobs’. Your slur –none too cleverly disguised as a question though it was – had nothing to do with our mental states, but rather with the orientation of” – I tapped my crotch –“our ‘compass needles,’ as it were. You’ve not only insulted me by questioning my manhood, though. The homophobia implicit in your question offends me, as well.”

“What are you talking about?” she asked, an expression of genuine confusion on her face.
“Did you, or did you just not ask me if I thought I was ‘funny’? Don’t jerk me around, Madame. Just answer the fookin’ question. My father was a lawyer, and I’ve spent a bit of time in court, on my own, after all. If there’s one thing I know, it’s how to bullshit a jur – I mean; examine a witness, you gay-bashing, fascist harridan!”
“Yeah,” Bill shouted in a defiant tone, “and he used to watch Perry Mason reruns when he was a kid! So watch your ass, sweetheart! I sure as hell am.”
“Dave,” he then whispered, tugging at my sleeve, “Didn’t you flatten a ‘pirate’ for gettin’ frisky wi’ ye’ back in--”
“Dun do bheal, le do thoil, me bucko. She has no way of knowing that -- and I’m milking this for all it’s worth.”

“I’ll have you know that some of my best friends are gay!” she snapped.
“Ohhh… A fag hag!” said Bill and I in unison, nodding at each other and winking sagely.
“No wonder her marriage didn’t last,” I said to Bill, in a hoarse stage whisper. “She’s a wee bit conflicted!”
“What did you say?” she screeched.
I topped off my cup again and said, “Nothing in the least untoward, Madame. My august colleague and I were merely remarking upon your admitted preference for the company of male homosexuals.”
“I never said that!”
“Au contraire! Did you or did you not state that some of your best friends were gay? Consider your answer carefully, madame. I have little patience, and many witnesses.”
Reflexively, she began looking here and there, her eyes darting about, probing every shadow. While she was thus distracted, I leaned over and poked Bill in the ribs.
“Predictable as clockwork, now ain’t she, Bubba? I knew that’d get ‘er!”

“What did you say?” she snapped, leaning a little farther out the window.
“It’s rude to answer a question with a question,” I replied. “And I heard you say – quite unequivocally -- that some of your best friends were gay. Not some of your good friends, mind you. Not some of your better friends, but some of your best friends. So what do your kids think of you cavorting about town with half the supporting cast of Cabaret?”
“My children aren’t prejudiced! And I don’t cavort around town!”
“Well I am prejudiced and I do cavort about town, but some of my friends are gay, too. Perhaps we should all get together one day. We can sip lattes or frozen drinks, compare pinky rings, discuss interior decorating and hairstyling, and catch a Steve Reeves movie or two. We can also cut a line or two of ‘toot,’ if we’re feeling especially naughty, and I’m sure we’ll all have a fabulous time.”
“Don’t teathe!” lisped Bill, batting his eyes and raising a hand to his heart.

“I wouldn’t want to meet any of your friends!” Mrs. Alyn-Sjøqvist spat. “They’re probably as disgusting as you are!”
“No, they’re far less disgusting, actually. Bill and I are essentially the ‘black sheep’ of our extended family. We scratch at inopportune times and frequently mock turtles – when we’re not feeding them to Scooter or making soup of them, that is -- but we’re ever so fucking happy together; as happy as the walrus and the carpenter, as a matter of fact. That would be Karen Carpenter on bad days, though. I’m man enough to admit that.”
“Was the walrus really Paul?” asked Bill, his eyes as wide as manhole covers.
“No, the walrus was Bobby Sands, Billy-O. He and Karen Carpenter had similar dietary habits.”

Returning my attention to Mrs. Alyn-Sjøqvist, I said: “So why -- if I may be so bold as to inquire -- is it that I never see any of your cherished tinkerbells around the ol’ hyphenated homestead?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“You most certainly do. Every time you have a social over at that overpriced, gloriously trashy mock-villa of yours, the guests are as homogenous a bunch as store-bought milk. Total whitebread, nouveau riche yuppies and ‘BoBos,’ every man Jack of ‘em. So what’s up with that? I mean; Bill and I are two of the most prejudiced, bigoted, chauvinistic and reactionary bastards on the face of the earth, admittedly.”
“Pro aris et focis, Deo vindice, et sic semper tyrannis!” roared Bill, cutting me off and shaking his fist at the universe as a whole.
“Why, there are times at which we make the Covenanters look like freethinkers, by way of comparison,” I continued. “All the same, neither of us has ever claimed otherwise, and whereas we generally prefer the company of other emotionally unstable Celts (Oscar Wilde, of whose lifestyle you’d undoubtedly approve -- assuming that you’re sufficiently literate to have read him -- actually remarked upon the phenomenon) when we throw a party over here, the place looks like the fuckin’ U.N. General Assembly.”
“Smells like it, too,” said Bill, nodding furiously. “Ever been stuck in an elevator with a Brazilian diplomat with a gutful of overcooked feijoada?”

“You’re not making any sense at all!” she said, her voice whining, pleading and snarling all at once.
“Maybe not, but he can make a goddamn mean batch of pan-fried catfish!” barked Bill, punching my shoulder with force enough to knock a Clydesdale to its knees.
“Why thank you, me boyeen, and remind me to kick your ass for that,” I said. “That really hurt, you bastard.”
“Sorry. But are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Oh hell yeah. One of her demon-spawn whelps is having a birthday next month. She’ll undoubtedly throw a huge party, including a cookout, weather permitting. Well, we’re gonna have our own cookout on the very same day, but we’re gonna cruise around midtown beforehand and invite every twink, prancer and leatherboy who crosses our path. We’ll see how fuckin’ open minded she is then.”
I shook my head in disgust.
“If there’s anything I simply can’t abide, it’s sanctimoniousness and hypocrisy, especially when I’m not the one bein’ all sanctimonious and hypocritical-like.”
“That’s a whole shitload o’ things,” said Bill.
“Let it go, Bubba. I been drinkin’. Now check this out. She’s gonna change the subject again. She always changes the subject when she starts fiddling with her wristwatch. I, however, aim to throw her a curve ball by beating her to the punch.”
“Yeah, but that won’t leave her any choice in the matter. And what a mixed metaphor!”
“Wrong. It’ll leave her the option of fucking off and getting out of our faces.”
“You know she’s not gonna do that, Bubba. I actually think she takes some kind of perverse pleasure in these li’l pissin’ contests. Matter o’ fact, I think you do, too.”

I ignored him, drew my knife, and began cleaning beneath my fingernails. Without looking at Alyn-Sjøqvist, I said, “Why’d you cut your hair like that? Looks like somebody set a bowl upside your head and trimmed ‘round the edge.”
“I paid fifty dollars for this hairdo!” she shouted in an offended tone.
“What’s that they say about a fool and his money, Billy-O?” I asked, loudly enough for her to hear.
“Did you just call me a fool?” she screeched.
“Not in as many words. I do, however, suspect that your hairburner is blind, mentally retarded, and given to grand mal epileptic seizures.”
“Francisco is a consummate professional! He learned the business in some of the finest salons in Europe.”
“And I learned mine in some of the seediest pubs in Europe. What’s that got to do with anything?”
“You were questioning his competence!”
“So? You were questioning my sexual orientation. Speaking of that: Is Francisco – you know -- that way? You know, maybe he was takin’ one up the ol’ 'purge valve' whilst he was workin’ on your hair, and that’s why he fucked it up as badly as he did.”
“That’s disgusting!”
“I reckon that means you won’t be inviting him to your next social? Not that I’d blame you, for the record. I’d be a mite pissed off myself, if he’d butchered my hair that way.”
“Looking at you, I’m surprised that you even know what a haircut is.”
“Of course I know what one is. How could I avoid them as scrupulously as I do, did I not? Use your head for something besides a hat rack, woman. Oh, and speaking of hair, do you still have that little dark one growing on the edge of your right areola?”

“You—disgusting— filthy-- pig!” she sputtered, her eyes bugging from their sockets, “How dare you even ask me such a thing?”
“I’d think you’d be more interested in how I know.”
“I do not have a hair on -- in that" -- she took a lenghtly pause --" there.”
“Plucked it, did you?”
“I never---“
I sighed in exasperation.
“Yes you did,” I said. “Allow me to refresh your memory. This particular memory has to do with your method of financing your higher education. Think back, now. Little joint on Franklin Street? Does that ring any bells?”
She stood in silence, her mouth agape, her face as white as a sheet.
”You know,” said Bill, “If she was holdin’ a cup o’ coffee, she probably woulda dropped it about now. Just thought I’d mention that.”

“You don’t recognize me, do you?” I asked her. “Well, I suppose I did look a bit different in those days. Had a full beard, actually. Wore my hair a good bit longer, too, and in a ponytail. Remember the unfortunate ‘pasty incident’? Well, that’s how I know!”
Her eyes bulged and her face assumed an expression of recognition and rage.
“You!” she hissed, shaking like a leaf and pointing an accusing finger at me.
“Hope there’s no hard feelin’s. It was nothin’ personal on my part. I was just a tad drunk, I did it on a hundred-dollar bet – and I thought for sure those things would be a bit more firmly attached. That’s what the bet was about in the first place.”
“I sprained my ankle trying to get away from you, you bastard!”
I shrugged.
“If it’s any consolation, I sprained mine trying to get away from the bouncers. Ever try to sprint when you’ve got half a pint of white lightnin’ and two beers under your belt? Ain’t none too easy, let me tell you.”
“It’s too bad you didn’t break your goddamn neck!”
“Damn near did. But I won that hundred bucks,” I said, winking, grinning and giving her a thumbs-up.

“Now wait a minute,” said Bill. “Are you tellin’ me that the Queen o’ Cleavage here used to be a stripper?”
I nodded.
“Sure as shittin’, Bubba. Paid for college by shakin’ her money-maker onstage.”
“Hey, I got a hunnerd bucks,” murmered Bill. “You think maybe she’d…?”
“I sincerely doubt it, me bucko. An’ remember what I told you about them spider veins?”
“Oh yeah, that’s right. Well, you reckon maybe she’d just take her top off?”

“What are you two talking about?” demanded Mrs. Alyn-Sjøqvist.
“You,” we both replied.
“What about me?” she said, her eyes narrowing in suspicion.
“Well,” said Bill, “Davey-O here was just tellin’ me how you used to dance at a titty bar when you was in college.”
She didn’t answer.

“Way I heard, it,” I said, lighting another cigarette, “’twas the shitbag she was shacked up with at the time that talked her into it.”
“He wasn’t a shitbag!” she snapped. “And where did you hear that?”
“ ‘Member that biker as used to stomp the piss out of the fratboys and shove bills into that li’l thong-thingy you used to wear? He was a buddy of mine.”
“She used to wear a thong?” howled Bill, leaping up and down and pointing at her. “Ho-lee shit!”

Her brow furrowed as if she were trying to recall another life – or another universe.
“Big Earl?” she said. “Big Earl told you that?”
“He sure-as-shittin’ did, and say what you will about his sense of decorum, that ol’ boy was the most honest sumbitch ever to walk this earth.”
“I – what’s he doing these days?”
“Pushin’ up daisies. Caught a bullet in a parking lot in Fayetteville, nigh on ten years ago. D.O-fuckin’-A.”

“She’s gotten mighty quiet,” said Bill. “Mayhap you should piss her off again.”
“I’ve every intention of it,” I said.
Tilting my chin skyward, I slowly exhaled a jet of blue-white smoke. I then crossed my feet, placed my hands behind my head, stretched and yawned. I’d obviously hit upon a weakness, and wasn’t about to miss an opportunity to probe for more. Had she actually given a shit about Earl? It didn’t seem likely, but it was something with which to work. And why defend a sleazy ex-boyfriend? That was likewise interesting, and equally deserving of further inquiry.

“So tell me somethin,’ ‘Miss Mams’n’Gams,’” I said, “ is it true? Did ol’ what’s-his-face actually talk you into shakin’ your ass at the likes o’ me, by way o’ makin’ a bit o’ filthy lucre?”
“He thought it would be a quick way to make money, that’s all.”
“Well, to my mind, that would place him squarely in the ‘shitbag’ category, so I rest my case. Did he ever manage to talk you into sellin’ your ass? Just a time or two, of course. Quite a few tobacco boys in there as I recall, some of ‘em peelin’ off some mighty big bills. It’d be a quick way to make money…”
“No!” she snapped, in a genuinely indignant tone. “I never did that!”
“Yeah, but you did used to get nekkid on stage, right?” blurted Bill. “I got a hunnerd bucks right here, and it’s all yours if you’ll just take your top off. You can even keep insultin’ us! I just want you to do it topless!”
“Go to hell!” she bit out.
“What about for two hunnerd?”
“Look ye’ Bill! Now you’re the one gettin’ flipped off!” I said to him.
“But I ain’t got me no Mardi Gras beads!” he wailed. “What’s a body to do?”

“Now watch this, Bill,” I whispered. “I’m gonna make her bump her head on the sash.”
“How you gonna do that, Bubba?” he asked, a quizzical expression crossing his face.
“D’ye see how far out of the window she’s leaning?”
He nodded.
“Have you noticed that the top of her jogging suit has come ever so slightly unzipped?”
“Yup.”
“Optics time.”
Simultaneously, we raised our binoculars to our eyes.

“That must be jelly, ‘cause jam don’t jiggle like that!” we shouted in unison.
Mrs. Alyn-Sjøqvist looked down, caught sight of her own cleavage, and then jerked bolt upright, clawing at her zipper as she did so. As I’d anticipated, the back of her head impacted the sash with an audible thud. On the ghetto blaster, Bobby Bare’s voice mournfully crooned “Five Hundred Miles Away From Home.”
“Reckon he ain’t the only one,” I said, lighting a cigarette. Bill followed suit, and we sat there for a time, smoking in silence as Bobby Bare faded out, giving way to Ricky Skaggs’s “Cryin’ My Heart Out Over You.”

“Odd knee-jerk reaction for a stripper to have, don’t you think, Bubba?” I asked Bill, as we finished applauding.
“She’s not much fun when she’s unconscious,” he said, toying with his newfound silver key.
“Nope, but she’s a heap sight more personable that way.”

To be continued.

Gibbous Moon Over Dreamland (Fiction)

Being yet another of the continuing adventures of those two unstable scofflaws, Bill and Dave.

“I think I’ve found the Silver Key, Dave!” Bill exclaimed.
“Pfft!” I scoffed. “I’ll bet you dollars to doughnuts it’s plated –or German silver, at best.”
I drew my mantle more tightly about me and stared into the dancing flames in the patio fireplace.
“I’m serious, Dave,” said he, stepping in front of the grille and casting a long, wavering shadow across me. “I really think I’ve found the Silver Key.”
“That’s all well and good, Bill, but have you seen the Yellow Sign?” I asked jokingly, pouring myself a cup of mulled wine from my thermos bottle.

“Oh! I was gonna ask you about that!” he said, fishing through his pockets and producing a curiously inscribed piece of smooth, shiny black stone. As he did so, a shrieking, flapping flock of night birds immediately took to the wing, erupting from the tree line and nearly blotting out the horned, silver moon in their flight. In his heated swimming pool, Bill’s pet crocodile, Scooter, abruptly submerged himself. The flickering firelight danced across the surface of the stone, illuminating an ominous-looking, gold-inlaid glyph. The symbol appeared to throb and squirm, curling and coiling in on itself like an obscene mockery of a Norse gripping beast.

“Good Lord, Bill!” I screeched, leaping out of my chair, “That is the Yellow Sign! Get rid of the thrice-damned thing before it’s too late!”
“How? Where?” he asked, an expression of alarm on his face.
“I don’t know, Bill! Uhh… Oh! I’ve got it! Chuck it into our mortal foe, Mrs. Sonowski’s yard! The Homeowners’ Association is meeting at her house tonight! Hold it! Wait a moment, Billy-O! What’s this? Who’s that’s coming through the woods? ”
“I can’t tell,” he said, staring into the semidarkness.
A low-lying mist spread sinuously across the lawn, wafting from the forest’s edge like the breath of death itself. Twigs snapped and leaves crunched as some nameless thing made its way through the trees. Suddenly, a blob of stark white appeared among the bare trunks. Bill and I stood paralyzed, clinging to each other like terrified children. Whatever it was, it was moving towards us.

“Ahh… It’s Mrs. Alyn-Sjøquist!” I said, heaving a sigh of relief. “Not bad lookin’ for her age, to be sure. On her way to the meeting as I suppose, and takin’ a shortcut!”
“Little Red Riding Hood,” I sang, “I don’t think that a big girl should/ go walkin’ through these spooky ol’ woods alone…”
“Owooo,” Bill and I howled simultaneously.
She quickened her pace, stumbling over an exposed tree root in the process.
“Oh my!” said Bill. “Perhaps we should help her up!”
I grabbed his shoulder.
“Something tells me that’s inadvisable, Billy-O. Just call it a hunch on my part. Oh! And let’s be rid of that accursed stone, for the love of God!”
“Right!” he barked. Racing hell-for-leather to the property line, he drew back and hurled it with all his might. A fraction of a second later, I heard the muffled tinkle of shattering glass.
“I think you overdid it just a tad,” I said, as he returned to his seat by the fire.
“No biggie,” he said with a shrug. “It was only an attic window. I doubt they’ll even notice.”
“Perhaps not,” I said. “But those bats certainly have. And what’s this? Mrs. Sonowski is opening a kitchen window for some reason. Just look.”
“On such a chilly evening?” Bill asked. “I wonder why.”

I shrugged and took another sip of wine.
“I reckon we’ll find out soon enough. Maybe somebody farted or something. When you assemble that many assholes in a single room, it’s bound to happen, eventually.”
“My! They certainly are talking loudly,” said Bill, as the Rockin’ Berries sang “Harvest of Love” on the ghetto blaster.
“Turn it down a wee smidge,” I said, as the song ended, giving way to Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs. “Let’s see if we can catch what they’re saying.”
“I’ll bet they’re talkin’ about us!” said Bill, scowling.
“I’ll bet you’re right.”
“Oh, that’s bad!”
“No, that’s good.”
“How so, Davey-O?”
“Loose lips sink ships, Bubba. Loose lips sink ships, as you should have learned at Fort Huachaca.” I shook my head and took another sip of wine. “I still can’t believe how cheaply some people can be bought.”
“They are talkin’ about us!” Bill hissed indignantly. “And the things they’re sayin’! Now that ain’t very neighborly of ‘em! Don’t they know we can hear ‘em?”
“I think we’re supposed to hear ‘em,” I said. “Now hush up for moment. I’m gettin’ a mite curious.”

I reached into my mantle, withdrew my binoculars, and raised them to my eyes.
“I sincerely hope they accomplish whatever it is they mean to pull off,” I said. “ They’re certainly subjecting themselves to considerable discomfort in pursuit thereof. It’s getting as cold as a witch’s tit, after all. Oh! And speakin’ of that -- It appears that Mrs. Alyn-Sjøqvist has forgotten to wear a brassiere again. Have a look-see.”
I handed him the binoculars. He peered through them for a moment, twisting the focus knobs as he did so.
“Wow!” he said. “It really must be gettin’ chilly in there! I wonder if she hyphenates her last name with those?”
I laughed.
“Why is it that providence sees fit to bestow such a magnificent rack upon an uptight, humorless bitch like her?” I mused aloud. “It’s not like they’re doin’ anyone any good, after all.”
“Say, how hard do you reckon it’d be to get down her pants?” asked Bill.
“My guess is that it’d be like tryin’ to shove a wet noodle up a cat’s ass,” I said. “Five’ll get you ten; she’s either frigid or a closet bulldagger.”
“But she has kids!”
“Don’t mean shit nowadays, Bubba,” I said, lighting a cigarette. “Ever hear of artificial insemination? Or it could be something even more sinister, come to think of it. I understand that she vacations in New England. Place called Dunwich, or something like that.”
“That would explain her kids’ behavior!” said Bill. “Those little bastards could try the patience of Job. I got me half a mind to feed ‘em to Scooter.”
I pulled up the mantle’s wolfskin collar and hood, so that the animal’s muzzle drooped down over my forehead.
“That’d be animal cruelty, Bill. You can bet your bottom dollar; those li’l gobshites’ tissues are positively toxic with fast food and Ritalin. God only knows what eatin’ ‘em would do to a crocodile.”

“Hey, you look scary that way!” said Bill. “Go walk over to the fence and start starin’ through their window! That’ll freak those hoity-toity buttholes out something fierce, and legally, there ain’t a damn thing they can do about it!”
“All in good time, Billy-O. At present, I’m enjoying the view.”
“Oh, gawd! Not ‘She-of-the-Pencil-Eraser-Paps’?”
“The very same.”
“Why, Bubba? She’s built, to be sure, but she’s mean, nasty, and snooty.”
“Granted, her personality is every bit as appealing as regurgitated Jell-O salad, but she interests me, all the same.”
“Are you serious, me bucko?”
“Yep. When I speculated that she was frigid, I might have been mistaken. It’s entirely possible that she’s just sexually frustrated.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Bill, is it normal for a woman to attend a meeting of the Homeowner’s Association, wearing an almost – but not quite --imperceptibly over-tight, maroon jogging suit and no underwear?”
“Are we talkin’ about the kind of women who date you?” he asked, grinning wickedly.
“You just keep it up, ‘Bigtime,’” I said, my cigarette jiggling in the corner of my mouth as I pointed a warning finger at him, “I’m gon’ put a size-ten in your ass, mark my words.”
“Ok, Davey-O. No, it’s not a’tall normal.”
“No it ain’t. It is good that she’s wearin’ pants, though. She don’t look all that hot in a skirt. Spider veins, you see. Not that it matters for shit with the lights off, mind you.”
“Oh, right then, Casanova. Lemme see iffen I can guess: You’re jus’ gon’ sashay your ass over there, charm them joggin’ pants clean off her, and get yourself in between them spider-veiny legs?”
“Don’t be dense, you fuckwit. Just look at me! I’m wearin’ a friggin’ cloak lined with rabbit fur, an’ I got a damn wolfskin on my head! I could be a regular Rhett fuckin’ Butler, and I still wouldn’t stand a Chinaman’s chance dressed like this.”
“Good point,” said Bill. “So what’s Plan B? Drop a ‘rufie’ in her latte?”

I laughed.
“That’d defeat the entire purpose of shaggin’ ‘er,” I said. “I have a pet theory, you see. Well, it’s more of a hunch, actually.”
“What’s that?”
“Something,” I said, taking another sip of wine, “tells me that uptight, over-analytical, control-freak broads like her are absolute hellcats in the sack, if one manages to push the right buttons.”
“That almost makes sense, Davey-O. Care to elaborate?”
“Why certainly, me boyeen. Now Billy-O – and I’m serious as a heart attack here – I think we can both agree that I ain’t a bad lookin’ guy. No?”
He nodded, then burst into laughter.
“What’s so funny there, ‘Chuckles’?”
“I’m just rememberin’ when we planted them azaleas over in East Cobb,” he said, still laughing. “I never seen a White man run that fast, and while bucklin’ his belt, no less! You come out’n that wind’er faster’n shit through a Christmas goose! Good thing it was open…”
“Uhm, could we not discuss that just now?” I said. “Besides, I didn’t have my sixgun, and I had no earthly idea that she was married. Told me otherwise, she did. You heard her yourself.”
“It was still funnier than shit. You shoulda seen the look on your face. Oh! And how you was hollerin’ and carryin’ on! ‘Broken arrow! Broken arrow, Bubba! Start the truck! Start the truck!’ Oh! Oh! And the way you jumped into the bed -- like you was one o’ the Dukes o’ fuckin’ Hazzard or somethin’ -- and commenced to un-assin’ that pine bark mulch in the middle of Johnson’s Ferry Road, just so’s we could get us a little more speed! I tell you, I was like to piss myself from laughin’.”

“Bill,” I said, “one of these days, I’m gonna find me a way to repay you properly for makin’ me relive ‘adventures’ of that kind.”
“Aw, I’m jus’ funnin’ wi’ ye’,” said he. “An’ you gotta ‘mit, you was a reg’lar jolly fuckin’ tinker that day!”
“I know that,” I replied, with a dismissive wave of my hand. “I just can’t let a day go by without threatening at least one person. You know that. Oh, and if you ever even so much as imply that I’m even a thousandth part Tinker, I’ll gut you like a fish. I simply can’t abide them swindlin’, thievin’ Firbolg ‘Chesters’.”
‘Well, while you’re so full o’ piss’n’vinegar, why not threaten them li’l Alyn-Sjøqvist bastards? And the Homeowners’ Association complains about us? Them little shits is Gog and Magog with braces and ADD. Hell, compared to the likes of them, Chauncey an’ Mortimer is downright civilized, likewise Abelard and Fauntleroy.”

“Now, Bill,” said I, waving a reproving finger, “I am well and rightly fond of Chauncey. He’s a good kid, just a tad mixed up. Put yourself in his shoes before you judge him all harsh-like, if you’ll be so kind. He’s gettin’ of the age at which he notices things – things such as his Ma and fuckwit Steve makin’ the same nighttime noises she and his Daddy used to make. That ain’t easy on a wee li’l shaver of his tender years, as well you might imagine. We’ve been over this a hundred times or more.”
“You’re the worst code-switcher I’ve ever met, Davey-O. Did you know that?” he asked.
“Look who’s talkin’,” I said. “And stop changin’ the fookin’ subject. I like Chauncey. He’s good people. Now Mortimer, on the other hand…”

We both shook our heads.
“What’s up,” said Bill –
“With the whole nose-pickin’ bit?” I asked, finishing his question for him.
Bill nodded like a Jack-in-the-box.
“I mean, really!” said he, “What the hell does that kid think he’s gonna find up there? The Mother Lode?”
“ ‘Lode,’ my ass. I reckon that boy’s frontal lobe has fingerprints on it. Probably done gouged out his ‘third eye’ by the time he was three, as well, I’ll warrant. The less said of him, the better.”

“So what of the Alyn-Sjøqvist monsters?” Bill asked.
“Well,” said I, “Clark will probably end up snuffing it from Lassa, tularemia, or rabies before he reaches the legal age of majority – even if I have to obtain a few infected kangaroo rats, cottontails or squirrels myself. As for Brandon: God only knows. Did you ever see that movie, The Reflecting Skin?”
Bill nodded.
“Yep. What a waste of celluloid!”
“Agreed. But that li’l sociopath is almost certainly bound for the same kind of reality-shattering mindfuck that befell his cinematic counterpart.”
“So what kind of reality-shattering mindfuck do you have in mind for their mother, Bubba?” asked Bill, unscrewing the top from a mason jar of “shine” and pouring a few fingers into his own cup of mulled wine.

“I don’t have one in mind at all,” I admitted, meaning every word.
“What?” Bill squawked, “Nothing at all?”
I shook my head. “Nocht ava’,” said I, fishing for another cigarette.
“But you were saying that women of that ilk are hellcats in the sack, were you not?”
“Oh, to be sure, Billy-O. To be sure. And so they are. Poor Chauncey.”
“What the hell does this have to do with Chauncey?” asked Bill, slapping his forehead in exasperation.
“Everything,” I said. “Bear with me, if you’ll be so kind. Would you agree with me that -- rather like Alyn-Sjøqvist-Stiff-Nips – Chauncey and Mortimer’s mum is – Oh, hellfire and damnation! There’s no sense in being polite about it! – a wee bit of a self-serving slag?”
“Sure.”
“Good. Now let’s get back to ‘The Maroon Goat of the Woods With Two Dysfunctional Young.’ How long have we known her?”
“Hmmm,” said Bill, scratching his chin, “I reckon a few years. Ever since she became Vice Chair-Bitch of the Homeowner’s Association.”
“Exactly. And in that time, how many sets of balls has she busted?”
Well, when her ol’ man found out about her and that dipshit co-worker, he was all tore up. And the co-worker didn’t last long, either.”
“And would you characterize him as ‘all tore up’ at the sordid affair’s conclusion?”
“Sure as shittin’” said Bill, nodding.
“Now how long do you think this current asshole’s gonna last?”
“Not too long, I reckon.”
“Exactly. And do you suppose he’ll be 'all tore up' when it ends?”
Bill shrugged and lit another cigarette. I topped off my cup of wine and scooted my Adirondack chair closer to the fire. He followed suit.
“As you can see, Billy-O, she’s left quite a trail of broken hearts behind her. Would you agree?”
“Yep. Come to think of it, I would.”
“Now how similar is her behavior to Mortimer and Chauncey’s ma’s -- or Abelard and Fauntleroy’s?”
“Damn similar, now that you mention it. Hell, it’s so similar; it’s scary.”
“Hold up, Billy-O! I love this song,” I said, as Gary Lewis and the Playboys’ 'Searching' came over the speakers. We sat there without speaking for a few minutes, listening to the song and staring up at the twinkling stars. At length, I broke the silence.

“Yes, it is similar, me bucko. Now I’ve a question for you. Chauncey, as I’ve said before, is a bright, if troubled boy – even a tad sensitive when he’s not being a pint-sized whirlwind of property damage. Moreover, he isn’t growing up in a vacuum. Do you suppose ‘Mommy Dearest’s’ behavior may trouble him even more?”
“Yeah, I reckon it would,” said Bill.
“Do you find it reasonable to suppose that he might develop a case of mild – if subconscious – misogyny? Now throw in the theoretical Oedipal feelings the shrinks assure us we all harbor. Reckon he might come to resent ‘handsome Jake’ over there, all the more so ‘cause his Daddy ain’t in his life every day, like he used to be?”
“Wow. I never thought of that.”
“And what happens when ol’ Chaunce’ commences to noticing girls himself?”
“Ohhhhh…”
“Yep.”
“Now let’s take this a step further. What comes around goes around, right?”
“Yeah, I reckon so. Especially boomerangs, electric trains and VD.”

He scrunched down in his chair and pulled up his own wolfskin hood.
“Intermission time,” I said, and we both howled as loudly as we could. Multiple silhouettes appeared in Mrs. Sonowski’s kitchen window, and we snickered like nasty little boys.
“We now return to our feature presentation,” I said. “Now take a good, hard look at Chauncey’s ma, Abelard and Fauntleroy’s ma, and the Alyn-Sjøquist demoness. What do you think the chances are of any of them getting a bit of comeuppance?”
“Aha! Not very good, Dave-O!” he exclaimed, leaping to his feet. He smacked his fist into his palm, “None of ‘em cares enough about anyone else to experience that kind of heartbreak.”
“You’re ninety percent right, Billy, me bucko. But there’s one thing you’ve overlooked.”
“Oh?” he said, looking genuinely puzzled. “What’s that?”
“Chauncey.”
“Ye’ jes’ done lost me.”
“Karma, or Divine Retribution, or cosmic justice, or whatever you care to call it, may be slow, but it’s unerring. Payback is a medevac, Billy-O, ‘visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children.’ Do you follow me now? ”
His eyes widened.
“Now you’re getting it,” I said. “She’ll experience the joy of seeing a younger version of herself put dear li’l Chauncey through exactly the same thing someday.”
“What if that’s occurred to her, as well?”
“Ah, that’s the beauty of it, Bill. Given her control-freak, ‘type-A’ personality, she’ll probably make a complete nuisance of herself trying to prevent it – ‘over-mothering,’ picking his girlfriends for him, or subtly undermining any belle of his own choice who incurs her disapproval. ‘…For there is no duenna so rigidly prudent and inexorably decorous as a superannuated coquette,’ as Irving wrote.”
“The beauty of it, you say? Why, the poor kid’ll be driven batshit, either way.”
“Exactly, Bill. That means another potential recruit – the next generation of fedayeen for the Revolution.”
We both leapt to our feet and performed the secret handshake, which we had changed that very morning for security reasons.
“Long live the Revolution!” we said in unison.

“Hey,” said Bill, a few moments later, “I know why Clark and Brandon are such little monsters! Their old man was one of the Great Old Ones. He sure as hell started lookin’ like Yog-Sothoth during the last few months they was together, at any rate!”
“Aw, don’t scum the guy,” I said. “I actually had a bit of a soft spot for the Luvox-poppin’, bipolar, alky bastard. Remember how he used to mow his non-existent lawn every Saturday – kickin’ up those huge clouds of dust and goin’ through an entire twelvepack in a just a couple hours?”
“Yep, I sure do. At times, I thought the sumbitch was crazier than I am. Oh, and speakin’ of lawns, I find it might odd that Mrs. Sonowski’s Bermuda sod got all infested with army worms so soon after she had it put in.”
“That’s one of the attendant risks of laying Bermuda sod, me bucko. You know that very well. That’s why I insisted on seeding your lawn and using my own mix of grasses.”
“Well I just think it’s funny that I saw your ass down by the property line the day after they had it sodded – with a glass jar in your hand.”
“Why Bill!” I said, “I’m shocked that you’d even think such a thing! I’ll have you know that I was only collecting soil samples to send to the local extension service for testing!”

We both burst out laughing.
“Oh, and how’s the kudzu coming along?” I asked.
“Pretty damn nicely,” he said. “I planted it just far enough over the property line for ‘em not to notice it until it starts climbing that dumb-ass fence of theirs. By then, the place’ll look just like that Karl Edward Wagner story. So anyway, you were saying you figured ol’ Lilith Alyn-Sjøquist might be fun to have a roll in the hay with?”
“Oh, absolutely! Now if there’s one trait those types share, it’s that they always pick men they can dominate, right?”
“I guess so.”
“That’s because they can’t stand not being in charge. When they do find guys who won’t put up with their shit, the relationship goes ‘boom!’ in record time.”
“I think I’ve noticed that a time or two.”
“Of course you have. But get this: They have a ‘shadow side’ of sorts, Billy-O, and that ‘shadow side’ actually wants to be dominated. Bit of a quandary, eh?”
“Yeah, I reckon so,” he said, furrowing his brow as he scratched the back of his neck with his free hand.
“But one that’s easily solved. Flings, Bill. Flings and one-nighters. Moreover, once you manage to pull off the ‘Mr. Alpha’ bit, they’ll go in for some of the kinkiest stuff your fevered li’l brain can dream up.”
“Aha!” he said, an expression of comprehension spreading across his face.
“And that, me boyeen, is why I’ll wager you a case of beer I can pull ‘er.”

“I dunno, Dave,” he said, the tone of his voice betraying grave misgivings on his part, “she don’t like you for shit. I mean; she really hates your guts. Worse than mine, even. You shoulda heard what she was sayin’ about you at that cookout over to Cindy Hindley-Brady’s place. They threw a real big one when she got divorced, and they was talkin’ some real shit about you.”
“Pardon the digression, me boyo, but is there even one broad in this subdivision who isn’t divorced, in the process of being divorced, or contemplating divorce? Oh! And you mean to tell me that they actually have parties to celebrate these – ‘unweddings’?”
“Yep. Sure as shittin’.”
“Whew. That’s fucked up as a football bat, Bubba.”
“Wanna know what they said about you?”
“I already do know, me darlin’ boyo. I recorded ‘em. Seems I wasn’t the only person they were talkin’ shit about, either. For that reason, I crank it up on my car stereo whenever I’m stuck in gridlocked traffic. I also intend to play it over your speaker system – with your kind permission of course – when they have their Memorial Day cookout. Several members of the City Council are rumored to have been invited. Need I say more?”

We clinked cups and drank to the upcoming event, the both of us grinning from ear to ear.
“Bubba, you are definitely the ‘Un-repairer of Reputations,” said Bill.
“Damn skippy,” I replied. “Now let’s get back to Her Royal Bitchiness. If you listen to the tape – especially as the evening progresses, and she gets a few more banana daiquiris down her throat – it’s clear that she hates me. Not dislikes me, mind you, but fuckin’ well hates me. Now consider this: Except for the odd ‘Get bent, slug-trail!’ I’ve not said a dozen words to her. I usually communicate with her in gestures, after all.”
“Well, you did cut loose with a really loud fart one time when she was bellyachin’ at us.”
“True. Butt-sneezes, however, do not constitute speech, per se.”
“Has the Supreme Court ruled on that yet?”
“Bill, if ‘water boarding’ ain’t torture, farts ain’t even near to being speech.”
“Fair enough.”
“Would you agree that she don’t know me from Adam?”
“Well, yeah. Pretty much.”
“Good. Now reevaluate the depth of her hatred for me in that light. Bit odd, wouldn’t you say? I sure as hell would. And that’s why I think I just might be able to shag her.”
“Because she hates your guts?”
“Exactly. She’s investing emotion in me, me bucko. That’s all I need. Now turn on the rifle mike, and let’s have a listen to what they’re saying about us.”

The rifle mike was a contraption we’d spent days working on. By modern standards, it was hopelessly obsolete, but it worked like a charm. It consisted of a microphone element sealed into a funnel, which, in turn, was fitted to the base of a cluster of aluminum tubes, ranging from one inch to a yard in length. The mike was wired to an RF transmitter I’d cobbled together during the early ‘nineties. The device, like the two of us, was crude but effective. So effective, as a matter of fact; that we’d placed it in Bill’s attic and aimed it at Mrs. Sonowski’s kitchen window, to keep ourselves abreast of the Homeowners’ Association’s seemingly endless, Machiavellian plots against us.

Bill removed two remote control units from his pockets, and pressed a button on each. I plugged my scanner into a patio outlet and switched it on. We hunched over it and listened.
“This is useless,” he said, a few moments later. “They just talk about the same ol’ shit every other week.”
“To be sure,” I said, switching off the scanner. “That’s a good thing, though. It shows that their creativity is wearing thin.”
“I reckon that means they’ve been reading too much Machiavelli and too little Musashi,” said Bill.
“Yep,” I said with a nod. And now, if you don’t mind, I’m gonna make my combat walk my everyday walk, and mosey down the incline a bit. I’m due for an ‘oil change,’ as it were. Care to join me?”
“Don’t mind if I do,” said he, “I reckon I could stand to 'shake the weasel,' as well. Mulled wine on a cold evening just seems to go straight to the ol’ condenser, for some reason.”
We rose from our seats, and strolled down the incline, stopping two paces from the property line.
“Turn your back, Bill. That way they can’t photograph our ‘units’ and accuse us of indecent exposure.”
“Good thinkin’ Davey-O!”
“Look ye, Bill! It really does steam on a cold night!” exclaims I, as we answered the call of nature.
“Why so it does, me bucko!”

“What the hell are you doing?” screeched a voice I took for Mrs. Sonowski’s.
Turing my head slightly, I hollered: “Provin’ that shit ain’t the only thing that rolls downhill, lady!”
Behind us, a mad cacophony of indignant squalls and “Oh my Gods!” broke out. Momentarily turning around before returning to the patio, we were treated to the sight of the entire Homeowner’s Association sprinting hell for leather towards the property line, paper towels streaming behind them like knights’ pennons.

“I sure hope they splurged and bought the Jumbo rolls, Billy-O,” said I. “We been drinkin’ since just before sundown, after all…”

To be continued in Part Two: "That Must be Jelly, 'Cause Jam Don't Jiggle Like That."

© David Jefferson Bean, 2008

Old Tunes II (Fiction)

Night spread her fine, soft mantle – purple-black and silver-studded – over us, and I drew mine more tightly about me. As she folded nightfall over us, like a mother turning down the bedclothes, the subtle, musky woman-scent of her daughters -- whose work men call “destiny” -- perfumed the dark, chilly air. Before me, incomparable Achilles Peleidês, well versed in warcraft and woodcraft alike, the peerless student of Chiron, put flint to iron, and soon had a fire blazing. The sharp-scented wood smoke ascended the highest heavens of my own invention, and dancing firelight sparkled on my greaves, brazen and silver-trimmed.

Fearsome Peleion –no man, dead or living his equal in the arts of war – suspended a cauldron from a tripod, above the tongues of flame that licked about it, twisting as sinuously as a gorgon’s serpentine hair. Achilles’ own hair – long and red – was pulled back from his face and fastened in a queue at the base of his skull. In the flicker of the flames, it gleamed like polished bronze as he removed a few parcels from a leathern bag, and dropped them into the cauldron.

“What’s this, unconquerable son of undying Thetis?” I asked. “Wild game, to feed our ferocity, until we are like unto the fierce lions that roam the wild mountains, and fall upon careless kine unaware, to rend them and feast on raw, bloody flesh?”

“Not on your life, Dave,” said he. “You need that like you need a hole in the head. It’s mutton stew, and the only wild things in it are the onions. Besides, we aren’t having it. You are. I don’t need to eat, you know.”

“Point taken, I replied. “Guess it’s part and parcel of the whole bein’ dead thing and whatnot. I hope you don’t put yourself out on my account, though. I don’t want to be a bother to you, iron-thewed scion of Peleus.”

“It’s a bit late for that, don’t you think?” he said. “I’ve never, in three-and-a-half millennia of existence, heard anyone complain so often, or about so many things:

‘Lycians drive chariots like old people fuck. The sun’s too bright. It’s too chilly. This cuirass doesn’t fit; I’ll probably get blisters. Why can’t I have a Corinthian helmet? My face feels too exposed. I don’t like the color of this mantle. It stands out like a sore thumb. I’m cold as a witch’s teat in this armor. Slow down, will you? You’re driving too fast. What if we hit a tree stump or something? This wine is a bit off. I think it’s turning to vinegar. We should go back and slap that Thessalian merchant around a bit. He swindled us, I just know it.’”

“I’m a Virgo,” I said, somewhat testily. “Drawing attention to and correcting life’s nuisances is not only my purpose in life, but a divinely conferred right.”

“Has it ever occurred to you that at times, you’re one of life’s nuisances?” he asked, every bit as testily.

“I aim to please,” I replied, “and some folks are regular masochists – gluttons for punishment, to be sure. And speaking of gluttony and eating and such: Are you sure that mutton’s fresh? Oh! And are you going to soak it in milk, and perhaps cook it in at least one change of salted water? Mutton can be damnably gamy at times, after all. Here now! I’ve got a hell of an idea! Why don’t you let me do the cooking? I don’t suppose there’s any mint or oregano; is there? That wine’s almost certainly vinegar by now – damn this lack of refrigeration. I’ve been freezing my clackers off all day, but the food won’t keep. Ain’t that just the way of things? I’ll add some of that undoubtedly soured wine, to the broth, if you don’t mind. Helps cut the greasiness, don’t you know? Can’t abide greasy food, myself. Upsets my digestion and puts me in a right foul humor.”

“You’re hopeless,” he said, shoving me back to the ground with a sandaled foot. “I’ve no doubt that you can cook a meal fit for a king’s table, but you are my guest, after all. So sit down, shut up, and stop being such a thorn in my side. At times like these,” --here, he paused, sighed and cast his gaze heavenward – “I genuinely understand how long-suffering Prometheus must feel.”
“Besides,” he added with a sigh, “Slain Patroclos oft attended to these matters – cheerily, mind you – and as the way of man is to note slights above kindnesses, and hard words above gentle deeds – I never even so much as thanked him for his labors. Therefore, it seems only fitting that I honor his memory by extending the same courtesy to someone else.”

For a moment, I was quiet. I sat for a short time, wrapped in my cloak, listening to the crackling of the fire and the songs of night creatures and watching the tracer-bullet meteorites, as they left Mayfly scars of light on the blue-black sky. At length, I once again addressed ferocious Peleion:

“You’re an honorable one, Achilles Peleidês, and responsible, too. There’s no denying it, and that’s for damned sure. I know I can be” – I paused – “difficult at times, but I was only trying to help. I understand that it may not have come across that way, but--”

He raised a hand, by way of silencing me. Then he stood. Terrible and resplendent was bold Achilles, hot-blooded son of immortal Thetis! Mighty Achilles; iron-handed and iron-skinned, by dint of the waters of the Styx, upon which the Olympians themselves swear oaths! Thorny fruit of Peleus’s loins, fated before his birth – his destiny’s thread cunningly spun by artful, inscrutable Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos, whose dictates even storming Cronidês must needs enforce! -- to be greater than whomever sired him, and whom no man could best in single combat!

A terrible, towering man was he, bathed in ruddy firelight; a brazen blaze of brass, bronze and silvered tin! Head-taker, helmet-crusher, shield-piercer, render of corselets; a hero of whom even heroes sing – or speak in hushed, reverential tones! Tall as far-famed Talos stood he, and straight as the terrible spear -- its shaft shorn from distant Pelion’s slopes -- which he, and he alone, could wield! Reflected in the gleam of his harness – forged for him by artful Hephaistos -- the campfire’s sinuous, sensuously undulating daughter-tongues of heat and radiance not only danced like Dervish fireflies, but sang as if light itself had usurped the throne of sound, and proclaimed itself the ruler of its new domain in a voice – bright, yet unfamiliar – that flickered and flitted from staccato, flashbulb crackling to smooth, legato fugues of gently twisted, wrought blue-orange. Tawny as mid-flame was the lion skin that hung from his shoulders to his ankles; icy-hot as the spark of flint on rough iron, his silver-studded scabbard.

“Have you finished telling everyone what a Grade-A, accept-no-substitutes badass I am?” asked fierce Achilles, the slayer of vainglorious Hector.
“Just about,” I said. “Now cool your jets. I’m working in an unfamiliar medium.”
“Hack writing,” said he, “is called a ‘medium’ because it’s --”
“Yeah, yeah,” said I, stubbing out my cigarette and tossing the butt into the fire, “because it’s neither rare nor well done. That one’s as old as my Grammaw, and she --”
“Farts dust?”
I sighed.

“Yeah, I reckon that one’s as old as the hills, too.”
“There are things even older,” said the son of Peleus and Thetis. “Let’s see that dinner doesn’t become one of them, shall we? ‘Soup’s on,’ as you barbarians say. So ‘dig in.’
This I did, and with reckless abandon. Never did wicked Polyphemos attack a hapless castaway with greater fury than did I the vittles that night.

“You Keltoi really are a savage lot, did you know that?” asked Achilles. “I’ve seen hogs – fated, though they are, to fill the bellies of heroes with succulent white flesh and crackling fat – approach their meals (Slops and detritus!) with greater finesse than you approach yours.”

“Don’t blame me!” I exclaimed. “Achilles -- without whose might, proud Ilios might well have remained unconquered; its gates un-breached -- this stew is perfect! I couldn’t have done a better job myself! It’s damn near irresistible!
He shrugged, with uncharacteristic modesty.
“What are friends for?” he asked.

Bitter indeed was the half-laugh, half-snort I sent skittering and shivering into the darting shadows.
“Of late, I’ve been asking myself the same question,” I said, no longer hungry. “Women – even your Briseis, and I mean no offense by that – are as many as the stars in the sky…or, at least, as the reeds in a tidal swamp. Gold? Less common than women – unless, mind you, we’re speaking of the sort whose price is above rubies (I allow that the Hebrew stuff is all Greek to you, mind you), but far less common than diamonds. Diamonds? You were born long before paprika was introduced to the Balkans, and I haven’t the time to explain it. Paprika – and I mean the ‘real deal,’ not the glorified food coloring sold in supermarkets -? Rarer, by far, is a true and worthy friend.”

I paused for a moment, and lit another cigarette.

“Redoubtable Peleides,” I said, pointing with my stogie for emphasis, “Just as you had your Patroclos, I have my own best friend.”

He made to interrupt, and I held up my hand.

“Not that way, Bubba. My gal and my Ma would kill me. Besides, I’m a piss-poor Baptist, but a Baptist nonetheless. And right ‘hard-shelled,’ at that! The fact that I tolerate certain behavioral quirks sure as hell don’t mean I endorse them, so get yer mind out of the bath house, iffen ye’ll be so gracious. Melanoxenos and I may well, rightly, and honestly be reckoned brawlers, but neither of us is a ‘pirate,’ if you catch my drift.”

“I understand that your mores and sensibilities differ from mine,” said warlike Peleion. “I cannot, for the life (or ‘un-life,’ as it were) of me, though, fathom why you dedicate such inordinate time and energy to pissing off Melanoxenos Arctoïdês.”

“Ah, ‘pissing him off’ is, perhaps, too harsh a term,” I said. “I’m just trying to ‘get his goat,’ because it amuses me to do so, and because the sumbitch does the same thing, hisownself! Hear me out, pugnacious Peleiadês! I avow upon the waters of the very River Styx – upon which the immortal Olympians, deathless and nourished on nectar and ambrosia! – swear: I love no man better than Melanoxenos Arctoidês – known among the crude and pragmatic Latins as ‘Limex’ – but the guy really does his best to set me up, and all the time, even! It’s all self-defense on my part! Self-defense, I tell you! Did you, bright and shining Achilles, become the butt of one of his jests; I doubt that even you would put up with that shite! I had no choice – no choice, I tell you! I did what had to be done.”

Achilles shook his brazen locks, took eyes and temples ‘twixt thumb and forefinger, and searched his pouch for Pepto-Bismol and Advil.

Eventually, he spoke.

“Dave,” said he, has ever it occurred to you that Melanoxenos might be a pain in the ass?”

“Damn skippy!” I bellowed.

“Dave,” intoned the grim child of deep-diving Thetis, “has ever it occurred to you that you might be a pain in the ass, and that perhaps that wanker, Newton, was right?”
“I’ll have you know, sir,” said I, taking to my feet, “that I am an unyielding advocate of individual responsibility!”

“Put a sandal in it, barbarian!” snapped courageous Achilles. “I don’t give a shit how ticked off you become. I don’t give a clipping of Ouranous’s bloody pubes for what you think! Literary conventions are literary conventions! Your own, lawless thinking aside, they exist for several reasons. To put it in your own crude mode of expression: It wasn’t broke, but you done tried to fix it, anyway!”

“What the hell are you talking about?” I roared.
“Do I have to scribe it out? It’s fine to begin a tale in medias res, but it’s unforgivably vulgar to end one in such a manner!” roared fearsome Achilles.

“But I just did it in order to--”
I never finished my sentence.

“ ‘Do your thing,’ Hypnos,” he said.
"Why, you underhanded bastards! You set me--"

But subtle Night, in concert with fickle Hypnos, enfolded my mind as surely as she had the sky above me.

Old Tunes

I've heard it said (but never seen it written -- there being, after all, an ever-so-slight difference between "You have heard it said:___," and "It is written: ___" -- theologically speaking) that time heals all wounds. I've heard it said, with equal -- if well and rightly waggish -- authority that time wounds all heels.

The inversion (perversion?) of the better known of the two sentiments has, for various reasons, captured my attention and my imagination. One might interpret the witticism thus: " In time, a caddish fellow's deeds will catch up with him."

What can I say? It works.

Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately, depending upon one's "take" on the situation), I've been immersing myself in Homer's verse of late, and to a degree that may very well prove unhealthy. Not that I give a rat's ass, mind you...

Nietzsche's "That which does not well and rightly knock one's dick in the dirt," and suchlike, after all...

But the mind is inexorably drawn back to one's eleventh-grade Classical Lit course, and to being the only eleventh-grader in said class.

To vacuous, udder-titted, twelfth-grade girls.

To dividing one's attention between dog-eared copies of Guitar Player, Soldier of Fortune, Hamilton, Bulfinch, and Rouse.

But ultimately, to Blind Homer (The "Blind Harry" of his time? One wonders...) and the associations/parallels one can draw between his verse and a snarky, smartass inversion of a popular saying!

Rather than dicks in the dirt, one imagines Hector, ignominously dragged through the dirt behind the chariot of wrathful, red-haired Achilles Peleidês -- like so many beer cans behind the car of some nameless couple; newly wed, but soon to be divorced -- and not altogether undeservingly.

And this excess, for the sake of Patroclos!

"Absurd! Unthinkable! Get a grip!" shrieks the voice of the crippled muse we arrogant, "modern" eunuchs name "Reason."

"To hell with reason/for another season/a keg of whiskey lads/and beer go leor," sings yet another muse --more enticing, by far, than her maimed sister!

I'm too Southern -- by far! -- ever to strike a member of the fair sex, but neither of them is aware of it. With a snarl, a curse, and an upraised backhand, I send them packing and draw myself ever more deeply into my woolen mantle.

Hector as a bronze-age version of a bumper sticker. Quite a thought, that! And not one that bothers me overmuch, the more I consider the matter. I raise aloft the dart of scorn, to cast at the murderous son of Thetis, as a rebuke of sorts.

He laughs at me, bears his breast, and says: " Let him who is without sin cast the first stone -- like the jagged rocks that, having spent their spears of ash, my Argive compatriots cast at the sons of ill-fated Ilios. Let's talk turkey, shall we, you self-righteous little shit? When it comes to being a vindictive sumbitch, I got exactly dick on you, Bubba, and you damned-well know it. You would berate me for my ill treatment of noble Patroclos's slayer, and yet I ask -- and may Frightful Cronion smite you dead with his thunderbolts, dare you lie!: Did your own dear mentor, Melanoxenos Arctoidês, meet such a fate as Patroclos, would your rage burn less fiercely within you than does mine? Would your vengeance be less terrible?"

His words pierce the corselet I thought so finely wrought -- the best bronze, skillfully shaped by Scythian smiths -- pierce my heart-house, even as Saxon kenning pierces pentameter, hexameter --epic agsinst epic, the crushing weight of tripod tradition, that no sane man can bear without screaming.

Almighty God, however, has seen fit not to make me a sane man. Therefore, I simply weep, when others would scream.

With a bitter, sobbing groan, I grasp the dust, lain flat by Peleiadês's terrible thrust, expecting darkness to cloud my eyes.

As it happens, though, only translucent tears rise to the task.

And I rise to my feet, however painfully, tearfully, and translucently -- whatever "enlightenment" I might derive from this encounter is entirely lost upon me and shines through me, as through a glass, darkly.

"Achilles! Achilles!" I howl - No! No, indeed! "Howl?" What manner of word is that? Mealy-mouthed! Pathetic!
I roar! I damn-site roar, and right loudly, at that! -- "Where have ye' gotten off to? Come back an' fight like a man, an' I'll hand ye' yer ass fer yer trouble!"

I receive only silence, by way of a reply.

"Or t' hell wi' ye'. Git back t' hell, whar ye' belong," I sniffle. "Don't make no nevermind to me, nohow, it don't. No sir! Not hardly!"

A hand alights upon my shoudler. I move to slap it away, but to no avail.

"Just fuckin' wi' ye. Bubba. Don't mean nothin' by it," says incomparable Pelion. "And at least you're not quoting Eliot, Yeats or Shakespeare. That really pisses me off."

"I'll quote Spenser I will!" snaps I, all defiant-like. "Just see iffen I don't! That's sure to tie yer dingus in a knot, it is!"

"I'll level with you, Bean. I really don't keep track of the 'hip hop' shit," says he, with a sigh. "Milton had his merits -- for all that Dante was better. As for Spenser? I have no idea where the hell he was going, and really don't wanna know. I am, however, rather suspicious of a poem entitled 'The Fairy Quee... Don't even go there, Hillbilly! I know exactly what you're thinking!"

"Doesn't yer ma live in the ocean?" snaps I. "If so, go jump in a lake, you evasive bastard."

"Davidos Davi--" says he, but I cut him off.

"My name derives from the Hebrew," says I. "So stop Hellenizing it."

"As you wish," says redoubtable Achilles.

"Good," says I. "Hold that thought. It's certain to piss Melanoxenos off something fierce."