News at 5

 

News at 5

Announcer: And now, WNYC Evening News at 5:  A body was found in the East River earlier today, with gunshot and stab wounds, bound with zip-ties and gagged with duct tape, sealed in a fifty-gallon oil drum, weighted with cinderblocks and anchored to the river bottom.  Police suspect foul play.  Details at 7.

Anchor: WNYC News at 7.  The coroner’s office announced that the body’s blood contained lethal levels of arsenic, strychnine, and cyanide.  No motive is known, but authorities speculate that the killing may have been an intentional poisoning and not just some random accident.     

News at 11.  The prosecutor’s office announced just moments ago that a search of the deceased victim’s home found child pornography.  As a result, they’ve dropped the investigation, called off the manhunt, declared the death natural, and offered a reward to the killer.   

What a Clown

 

What a Clown

Clowns are forbidden to date trapeze artists.  It’s a class thing.  If you’re a clown like me, your dating pool is limited to other clowns and sideshow freaks.  I once dated Linda the Legless Lady until I kept flying off the bed because she had no legs to hold me in.  She left me for the Armless Man, a perfect match for her, so I started seeing Faceless Fiona.  She and I had to go doggy style so I wouldn’t have to stare at the empty space where her face used to be. But my mind was always elsewhere, on the forbidden fruit, Trapeze Tanya.  

            I was mesmerized by the way Tanya swung and hung so high in the sky in her skin-tight sparkly outfit that was always riding up in back.  Her grace in flight gave me goosebumps and pants tents. She ignored me because I was so far beneath her, so I took night courses in trapeze arts, hoping to move up one day and earn her love and the minimum wage. 

            One day I caught a break when the lion tamer got bitten where it counts and the ringmaster asked me to fill in.  I had no experience, but said yes.  Maybe it would make Tanya notice me.  I knew nothing about lion-taming, but how hard could it be?  Crack a whip, wield a chair, bow and smile.  This was my big break.  

            It wasn’t as easy as I thought.  On my first night I slipped up and the lions turned me into the Crotchless Man.  I was demoted to the freak show tent and had to get the Man with a Million Scars to help change my diapers.  Now Trapeze Tanya would never notice me.

            One night I got into a poker game with the other freaks.  We drank and laughed until the wee hours, then told stories about how we became freaks in the first place.  As it turned out, we had a lot in common. The legless lady, the armless man, man with a million scars, faceless lady, and me, the crotchless wonder, had each earned our new jobs after one-night tryouts as lion tamers.        

Bull Moose

 

Bull Moose

I slammed on the brakes and skidded to within inches of the beast.  There he stood, big, black and beautiful, calmly sizing me up through the windshield.  His apathetic stare froze me in place.  I gripped the wheel tightly and wet my pants, just a little, which was understandable under the circumstances. 

He strolled around to my driver side window and sniffed my rearview mirror to see if it might be edible.  Then he stared at me through the glass, just a foot away, as if he sensed my fear but chose to let me live.   Suddenly he snorted a blast that fogged up my side window, which gave me occasion to wet my pants a bit more and worry momentarily about my leather seats. 

I knew he was bull because as he sauntered around to the rear of my car I caught a glimpse of the massive equipment hung on his undercarriage.  Magnificent.  Towering above my car, he came nearer, stopping to lick my rooftop antenna, hoping it might be a snack. 

At glacial speed he completed circling my car, then stalked away into the forest, his six-foot rack thrashing the branches. 

That traumatic moment changed my life forever, in three specific ways:

1.      1.  I no longer eat meat.

2.     2.   I donate to a wildlife fund.

3.     3.   I drive in diapers. 

After the War

 

After The War

They came home from war to find things changed.  Some had missed their children’s first steps, first words, and first days of school.  Others had missed their teens’ games and graduation.  Their spouses had formed new friendships and joined new groups.  The ones who came home from war had changed more, but in ways they didn’t share.  None of them bragged about what they’d done to earn medals. 

When they came home from war, these warriors no longer felt needed.  Their husbands had learned to do everything without them.  Changing diapers and driving to soccer were not so difficult after all.  Husbands found they could even console their teenage daughters after breakups.  Men could handle it, they were good at it, and they were proud of it.  But those who returned from war had lost it. 

Life was simpler overseas.  Home was simple, small and mobile.  Meals were pre-packaged.  Companionship was fragile, though.  You could lose your best buddy in a flash, right there beside you, so stay close but hold onto your heart.

They came home from war to find everyone else changed for the better except them.  Lacking the life skills they’d once had, unable to keep up with new culture and technology, they did what came natural.  They went where they were needed and understood.  They went back to war. 

The Mail Delivery Person

 

The Mail Delivery Person

Every day, catalogs fill my mailbox.  Hundreds of glossy pages of trendy women’s wear, reams of suggestive lingerie.  I even receive a magazine full of pleasurable devices for working women with limited time for interpersonal relationships.  I don’t know how to unsubscribe in the physical world so they go straight from the mailbox to my recycling container.  I hope all those supermodels don’t realize their beautiful faces end up crumpled and soggy under my old beer bottles and soda cans.   

Long ago I regularly received birthday and holiday greeting cards by snail-mail, but now I only get such greetings via social media.  There was a time when I corresponded with faraway friends and family in longhand on colored note paper in matching envelopes licked shut. with stamps licked on.  But no more.  Now I get instant texts and emails for everything.

You’d think that all this digital communication and the death of snail mail would mean a lighter load for my mail carrier.  Not so.  Now she packs her little white jeep so full of bulk rate advertising that it sags on its shocks. 

Yesterday, by chance, I was wandering about in my driveway trying to get good cell reception when the mail person pulled up and handed me my daily pound of catalogs by hand.  When our eyes met, our faces grinned, because this was a rare occasion, being face to face with another human being in the real world.  We were so unaccustomed to seeing people in real life that this was a special moment.  My heart fluttered.

She was my age.  We reminisced about our mutual analog history.  We had read the same hard-covers and paperbacks.  We both still had leatherbound photo albums with yellowing photos of swim teams and summer camp.  We’d both had checkbooks, typewriters, and phones attached to the wall by long curly cords.  I prayed she was real and not some gamer’s avatar. 

Her route awaited.  She had to move on because the postal service monitored her route and location by GPS.  If she spent too long in one place she might be forming a personal attachment instead of maximizing productivity.  As she pulled away, I impulsively asked for her phone number.  Her red, white and blue government vehicle paused, she stuck her head out the window, and she yelled out to me her home address, just the number and street, no name, zip code, or town.  Just the number and street.  It sounded very familiar.  I memorized it, turning it over in my head, ran inside, and searched it on the internet.  There it was, digitally projected on my screen from some faraway data center full of the all the personal data of everyone on earth.  I felt lucky then to have internet resources and computer skills.  Maybe I’d found the woman of my dreams after all these years of connecting solely with others by zoom and chat.  Where did she live?  Was she within a single charge driving distance?  Yes, there she was, dropped like a pin on the map I’d quested.  She lived right next door to me.

The Treehouse

 

The Treehouse

I was never gay.  As children, in our treehouse, I touched Tommy and he touched me, but it was just for a second, we didn’t like it, and we never did it again.  All the other boys were doing it.  It meant nothing.  I wasn’t gay. 

Growing up, I did the straightest things I could think of, like football and wood shop.  Tommy did sissy things like playing clarinet.  I told him that clarinet was almost as gay as flute.  He said I was more gay because I showered with jocks.  After games, I went to school dances with pretty girls while Tommy met up with his drama club pals. 

After graduation, I was a construction foreman and Tommy was a florist.  We grew apart and lost track of each other.

At our tenth reunion, Tommy told me about his wife Lola and their two sons.  I told him about my partner Chad and our plans to adopt.  I asked him if he had any advice about raising boys.  He said one thing: No treehouses.      

Twin Towns

 

Twin Towns



In the valley were two towns, one white and one black. Local history buffs could find no trace of past slavery or segregation. Even so, an uneasy guilt kept the white mayor awake at night. He asked the black mayor for a meeting.

“How can we bring our people together?” asked the white mayor.

The black mayor said “Let’s not. Just let it be.”

The black town had good schools, good jobs, low crime, and no hard feelings. The white town was the same, except for a vague sense of guilt. Then county board, which also had an uneasy sense of guilt, arranged a conference call to the two mayors.

“All the other towns in our county are diverse except yours. What are you going to do about it?”

The white mayor said “We’re fleshing out some ideas.”

The black mayor said “Leave my town alone. Hands off.”

Having made no headway, the county seat passed the buck upward and set up a zoom meeting with the state’s governor.

“Governor, we have a problem.” said the white mayor.

“I know. You look segregated. I’m getting pressure from social media. We must manage their perception.”

The black mayor said “No. Stop this nonsense. We moved here from a worse state to be left alone.”

The buck passed ever upward. The white governor got a call from Washington. It was getting serious. The mayors, governor and white house met - in person.

The white mayor said “Mr. President, we’ve done all we can, but the black town won’t budge.”

The black mayor said “We don’t want to be absorbed into white culture and lose our cultural identity.”

The black president said “It’s a tricky situation. My parents came from your black town and they’ll disown me if I mess with it.”

The brown vice president said “This is not just a black and white issue.”

The president said “What we need here is a symbolic gesture.” All agreed. The two towns would hold a joint town fair to project a public display of unity

The white mayor suggested “Let’s call it Diversity Day.”

The black mayor said “Let’s not.  Let's call it Pride Day.”

The brown VP said "How about Cinco Day."  

So they called it Twin Town Day.

There were international food stands, safe carnival rides, square dancing, break dancing, and salsa. For the finale, there were three concerts on the main stage: bluegrass, rap, and mariachi. That’s what started the riots.

We Don't Care

 

We Don’t Care

The year: 2099. The question everyone’s asking: Are men necessary? Our national reserve sperm stockpile has enough seed to populate the entire solar system, so we don’t need men to make love to plastic cups in fertility clinics anymore. Soldiers no longer need to be big strong men who can carry bazookas and stingers, because war is waged by reformed teen hackers with joysticks at digital consoles in secure coffee shops. Men are no longer needed to raise children while their wives are at work since universal daycare re-education centers are mandated on every street corner. Men are unnecessary, and they don’t care.

We haven’t had a white president since BLM News defeated Fox in the ratings wars of 2050. Books by white authors are banned now, as are re-runs of Mayberry and Friends. Some white people went back to Europe where they came from. Other whites are hiding in the mountains of Tennessee and Kentucky. They home-school their kids in particle physics and banjo. They’re all brilliant, but can’t get into Harvard, where most students now major in 8th grade English. White people are endangered, and they don’t care.

Yesterday the NSA dropped by our home to inspect our laptops, look at our streaming history, and recharge our ankle bracelets. They asked our five-year-old if we’d ever abused him verbally, owned any firearms, or in any way discouraged him from becoming a girl. He said no. That was a close call. We understand that people who looked like us ruined the world with imperialism, colonialism, slavery, and professional football. We agree - it’s all true. But in private, when the agents are gone, after we disable all their microphones and cameras, we huddle together and whisper - we don’t care.   

Press Zero

 

Press Zero

My annual physical was overdue by three years, so I called the doctor’s office.  Instead of a real person, a familiar digital voice offered me prompts.

“If you are a new patient, press 1.  If you are a doctor, press 2.  If you’d like to schedule or cancel an appointment, press 3, then enter the last 4 digits of your mother’s childhood address, then hit pound sign, and follow the prompts around in circles until you get back to this menu and start over. Or, if you’re a senior, press 0 and a representative will be with you shortly.”

So I pressed 0 because I had been tricked by the robo-voice before and gotten lost in a prompt maze trickier than the one at Halloween Pumpkin Farm.  Then I was forced to listen to an easy-jazz version of the Jeopardy them song.  I stayed on the line for so long that my age and weight had gone up a notch, so my forms were no longer accurate.

A voice returned.  My heart raced.  Finally, a real person.  Instead robo-chick said “We are experiencing a high volume of calls, because you called at mid-morning on Monday when everyone and his mother call.  Your expected wait time is 2 days.”

I put the phone on speaker and built a deck while I was waiting.  Later, just as I sat down on the toilet with a good book, a real-live representative answered. 

“Hello, this is Primayanda.  How can I help you?”

I said “I’d like an appointment to see Dr. Nandani.”

She said “The doctor’s schedule is full until next Spring.  But you can see our nurse practitioner Karen.”

I asked “What’s the difference between a doctor and a nurse practitioner?”

She replied “A nurse practitioner cares.”

The nurse practitioner’s schedule was full for the day.  She couldn’t see me until she got off hold with her malpractice attorney’s office, had lunch, vaped out back by the dumpster, and rinsed her hands briefly in cold water. 

“How is Thursday at 8AM?  Does that work for you?”

“Do you have anything sooner?”  Thursday morning was my Bloody Mary and nine holes day.

“Not with Karen.  But we have an opening in thirty minutes if you don’t mind seeing the nurse practitioner’s first-year, med-school intern Tiffany instead.”

I said “I’ll take it.  I’ll be there in a jiff.”

When I arrived, reception gave me a stack of fifty forms and a pen that was out of ink, even though I’d filled out the same forms on their user-unfriendly portal. The forms required my family medical history all the way back to the Renaissance.  I checked yes to every box except three: mental illness, gender, and race – things I’m no longer sure of.         

The nurse practitioner took my temperature and blood pressure and asked “How is your diet?”

I said “Pizza and burgers.”

“I want you to eat more salads, vegetables, and fruits.”

I said “Okay.  Starting tomorrow.”  Tomorrow is when I do everything. 

She pulled my chart and saw I hadn’t had any vaccinations in my entire life because my parents were Presbyterian survivalists.  I’d first have to go to Speedy-Lab and sit in their waiting room all day reading the last twelve issues of People’s Sexiest Trans Magazine.  The lab lady pretended not to understand English, but I spoke a little Spanish, so I asked her “Como esta usted?”  She glared at me, the way everyone from Ghana does. 

The labs were sent to the doctor’s office and “processed” for three weeks. Then I got an urgent secure message from their portal saying my cholesterol, tryglicerides, thyroid, and attitude were all off the charts.  Could I return immediately in five weeks?  I pressed yes and filled out their online credit report authorization form.

Finally, the day arrived.  I sat in the waiting room and read the last twelve issues of Sailboat, Horse and Quilt Magazine.  The nurse practitioner’s high school intern and her bff assistant finally saw me. 

She took one look at me and said “I’m referring you to a proctologist.”

“Why?”

“You have an enlarged prostate.”

“How do you know that without even looking at me?”

“I’m just playing the odds. 80% of middle-aged white men have enlarged prostates. Stop at reception on the way out to set up a payment plan for your copay, and don’t overlook the tip jar.”

I was not going to a proctologist. All they do is put on a rubber glove and bend you over, like a veterinarian horse-breeder or a kinky escort.  And they all have an XXL glove size.  I decided I better bite the bullet and do it because all the men in my family had problems starting and stopping urination.  I called the procto-uro-alien-probe group and asked for an appointment.

A procto-receptionist said “We have an opening tomorrow.”

I said “Opening is a poor choice of words.”

Dr. Ben Dover was available to see me first thing in the morning.  While he was lubricating his glove, he spoke in low, smooth tones to calm me, like I was a debutante in the backseat of daddy’s car.   

It all happened so quickly.  It took only three seconds and four inches, but it felt like the first day in prison with a lonely cell mate.  The earth moved for a moment, then it was over and he left without saying goodbye. Men. 

Dr. Dover returned after a hot shower in a hazmat tent and said “I felt a little bump.  I’m referring you to a phrenologist.”

“Phrenologist?  Isn’t that a brain doctor?”

“Yes. It was an unusually large bump.  Your head appears to have been stuck up there for quite a while.”

 

 

 

 

 

Mom's Money

 

Mom’s Money

My wife and I always wanted to travel, but never had the time or money. Then, lucky for us, Mom died. She and I were never close because she travelled a lot, leaving me behind with a nanny. Loved that nanny, hated that mom. But now, for some reason, Mom left me her entire fortune, with the stipulation that I take care of her dog for the rest of its life. No problem, if it has a short life. When the funds arrived, we quit our thankless jobs and decided to travel.

“Where should we go first?”

“How about the Grand Canyon. We’ve always wanted to see the Grand Canyon.”

So that’s what we did, at the drop of a hat. The kids went to camp, crying the whole way. The dog went to a pet hotel, whining the whole way. We raced to the airport, laughing all the way. We flew to Las Vegas, lost $50,000 in the airport casino, rented a chauffer-driven stretch Corvette, checked in to the new Wynn World mile-high penthouse, caught a stretch Hummer to the South Rim’s new skybox, and prepared to take selfies on our iphone 20 using the Grand Canyon as a mere backdrop to our fabulous selves. But hard rain and low visibility made it all just a gray and fuzzy image to be stowed away in our cloud storage forever. No matter, we could still watch the Grand Canyon episode on the travel channel in our penthouse’s iMax theatre..

“Where to next?”

“I’ve always wanted to walk the beaches of Hawaii.
“All of them?”

“I don’t know. How many are there?”

There are more beaches in Hawaii than you can shake a stick at. Or palm frond. So we booked a helicopter, hoping to see them all in one day and get it over with. By then, summer camp was over, so we had to stick the kids in boarding school for the fall semester. We had to move the dog out of the pet hotel and put it in a kennel because the hotel expelled all whiners.

We chartered a private jet to Oahu and rode in a rock star bus with a full bar to stay in a fifty-star hotel overlooking a millionaires-only nude beach. Unfortunately, it was hurricane, volcano, and labor strike season, so the helicopters were going nowhere. So instead we spent the week dining at gold-plated restaurants, drinking 2000-year-old scotch from goblets once owned by Captain Cook, and sipping endangered sea turtle bisque. Ultimately, it didn’t matter that we didn’t get a chance to see all the Hawaiian beaches, because we got to see all of them on video on the flight home on the Nature Channel Plus on the jet’s iMax Jumbotron.

After all that stress, we needed a vacation.

“We should go on an around-the-world tour.”

“Great Idea. I’ve always wanted to see Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa and the poles.” It was now winter. The kids were paroled from boarding school for setting a cop car on fire at a mostly peaceful rally in the quad, so we sent them to a luxurious, exclusive, celebrity drug rehab facility in the hills overlooking Malibu. The dog had chewed all the fur off its back half so we moved him from the kennel to a shelter. Then we signed up for an all-inclusive, adults only, bottomless around-the-world-twice tour. Just before take-off, all air travel around the world was grounded by a pandemic, terrorism, mechanical difficulties, and a baggage handler strike.

“What do we do now?”

“What’s left? How about another planet?”

A conglomerate of several twenty-something billionaire social media influencers were booking trips to Mars for a hundred million per head. We paid the deposit and got ourselves on the two-year waiting list. By then our kids had gone off the grid and were living in an anarchist tent village occupying Bel Aire, and the dog had been sent out to the proverbial farm for eating a cat. When the Mars trip was cancelled by a TikTok hacker squatting in a Seattle Starbucks, we had to return to our humble homes in the Hamptons and Seychelles while our own private island was still being built by Epstein’s former child slave laborers in the West Indies. But, despite the space voyage cancellation, we did enjoy seeing Mars in a Mark Burnes Hubble Telescope Netflix documentary special produced by Michelle Obama and Tim Burton.

“Where should we go next?”

“I’m tired of travel.”

“Maybe there’s more to life than riches and luxury.”

“I’ve heard that the most important thing in life is family.”

“We should probably text the kids.”

The kids couldn’t return out texts because they’d destroyed all their devices and joined Snoop Dog’s organic wholistic atheist CBD farm and spa commune retreat in a newly gentrified South Central over-55 community. Kids will be kids.

Burnt out by the high life, it was time for us to downsize and simplify, so we sold off the yacht fleet and built a log cabin homestead in Stephen King’s brand-new Maine survivalist’s compound.

“What do we do with all this extra money?”

“Maybe we should we leave it to the kids.”

“But they hate capitalism and material possessions.”

“That’s the whole point. If we can’t win them back, at least we can ruin their lives.”

“That’s what Mom would do.”

“Yep. Pay it forward.”

The Haircut Club

 

The Haircut Club

The two of them were sitting on a fence, spitting tobacco, passing a flask, bored.  Out of nowhere, Jed said “I think I’ll get me a buzz cut.”  Barney came back with “With your ugly skull?”

“Or I could go all handsome bald, like Bruce Willis.”

“For that, you’ll need a facelift, too.”

Jed already had short hair, like any self-respecting redneck, but he wanted it shorter; like Vin Diesel or Lex Luthor.  Barney had short hair too, like all the other farmers in town.  In the lulls between planting and harvesting, they all came to town for haircuts.  It all started out of necessity during the head lice epidemic of 2014.  Short hair was here to stay in Podunk county. 

“Even women got short, short hair these days.  Just look at Ellie May down at the feed store.”

“She got that from radiation, dummy.”

“What about that Thelma Lou seamstress gal?”

“She got Chemo, you moron.”

Jed and Barney preferred crewcuts, a tad longer than buzzcuts.  Flat tops were too jarhead, mohawks too punk, long hair too hippy, flips too Elvis, and Mullets too rock n’ roll.  But, cut or no cut, what they really wanted was to just sit in Lloyd’s barber shop, shoot the bull, smell the Mennen, watch the glide of a stainless blade on skin, and listen to Merle Haggard on the RCA.

“You know what I like best about getting a haircut?  The way Loyd handles a man’s head.”

“You got that right pal.  Like he’s cradlin’ a baby.”

“My wife ain’t no good at it.”

“No woman is.  It’s a man thing.”

“I’m gettin’ excited.”

“Enough talk, let’s go.”

So Jed and Barney drove on down to Lloyd’s shop with its spinning striped pole out front, and moseyed in like it was no big deal, just another chore.  Arnold was in the chair, Jethro up next, then Otis, then Forrest. 

“Howdy boys,” said Jed to the whole room, and four howdies came right back at him.  Then Jed sat and grabbed last month’s Tire & Tractor Times, swim suit edition. In the other chairs sat all the short-haired country boys he’d grown up with, and dropped out with.  None of those boys really needed haircuts, they just wanted comforting.  They’d chewed and spat and cursed congress all day, and were ready for some fun.   One by one, their heads got cut and massaged.  Finally, it was Jed’s turn.

Lloyd asked “How do you want it this time, Jed?”

Jed said “Short,” Lloyd commenced snipping and clipping up in the air over Jeb’s head, pretending there was something worth cutting.  Then came the good part: the un-snugging of the collar, the hot lather on the neck, the whisk brush all about the ears, and a slap of aftershave on the cheeks.  Then, the climax; Lloyd’s magical finger massage from the top of the scalp down to the blades of the shoulders.  It only lasted a few minutes, but it sent tingles all through the body of any man whose only physical contact with living creatures all day was squeezing udders and chopping chickens.

When Jed was done, he collapsed in a waiting chair and swooned.  Barney was next. But when Barney commenced to moaning, Lloyd cut him off and pointed at a sign on the wall over the mirrors that said “No Moaning.”  Lloyd waved his straight razor overhead, threateningly, and shooed them all out, then turned off the spinning pole and locked the door.   

The fresh smelling, clean cut, good ol’ boys had dutifully stood up and marched out in unison on Lloyd's command, like always.  Out front they spit Skol a bit, slugged a shot or two, damned congress, and went their different ways to start up their identical F-150s.  They drove home east, west, north and south out of town on the only four roads in Podunk. 

Lloyd hollered behind them “See you tomorrow,” and they hollered back through their open rifle back windows “Yep,” they would.

The boys drove home to their country hovels.  Lloyd drove home to his suburban estate.

 

 

 

Handsome Stranger, Just Passin' Through

 

Handsome Stranger, Just Passin' Through

Handsome Stranger rolled into town, a rootless tumbleweed of a man, covered in thirty days dust, with nary a drop of drink left in his gullet.  He had no name nor kin, just a mighty thirst.    

Old Parson seen him first and feared him for the devil.  Loners ain’t nothin’ but trouble, and strangers even worse, an’ both them types oughta stay away from proper folk.  Parson had shot enough strangers to fill a hill o’ crosses, but would not shoot this one, not yet, on accounta Stranger looked a smidge too young and handsome to be laid low in the dirt fer now.   

“Where you from and where you goin’?” asked Parson, slidin’ his long carbine in and out of its holster. 

“I ain’t neither from nowhere nor goin’ nowhere.  Just passin’ through.” said Stranger, fingerin’ the six-shooter hung down between his chapped thighs.  Parson gave him the stink-eye, so Handsome Stranger shot him straight through that very eye.  Parson fell off his horse and hit the ground, whispered Dang, and withered up in the sun, getting’ uglier all day.

Stranger rode his ole’ nag up the rutted main street of that mangy town and tied her to the dryrotted hitchin’ post in front of the only saloon in a hunnert mile.  Off he jumped and down he dunked his head in the warm slimy water of the slobbery horse trough.  Then into the saloon he swaggered all cocky, right through them creaky café doors; doors so outta place in a town without no café. 

“Barkeep!  Whiskey me!” hollered the young Stranger.  The ugly old Barkeep said “Who’s askin?” so Stranger took offense and shot a .45 through that Barkeep’s mouth before the words finished comin’ out, just to make a point.  Any other stranger what killed their barkeep woulda been shot dead ten times over by the ornery pack of drunks in that establishment, but this stranger was different from others before.  This one was young and handsome as that Jesus painting with them eyes that seemed to follow you around the chapel at the edge of town.  So that pack of horny old gamblers didn’t shoot him, just bought him a dirty glass of rot-gut whiskey instead, while two town goons plundered that dead ol’ barkeep’s boots, buckles and pockets.

“How long you in town?” asked an ugly ol’ one-eyed scar of a drunk.

“Not long.  Just passin’ through.”

Hearin’ that, all them ugly old whores on the second floor, lookin’ down from the balcony, swooned and raised them skirts, showin’ off their torn and dirty bloomers.  Nothin’ they loved more than a man who was just passin’ through. Handsome Stranger reminded them of their own worthless poppas, who also just passed through and never came back.

“Come on up, Stranger,” said the big-as-a-barrel madam in charge.

Stranger shot her straight up the ass for temptin’ him to stray from the Lord that way. Whorin’ was a sin and God surely was aimin’ a blunderbuss down on them all.  The buttshot madam’s ass, along with the rest of her fouled carcass, fell off the balcony onto the poker table, interruptin’ bad hands and bad bluffs.  Any other gamblers woulda shot Stranger dead right then and there for ruinin’ a lousy game.  But this Stranger was different.  He had the best dimples and squint of any young man in the Western territories.  They bought him another whiskey and watched his chaps a-chafin’ on his slender thighs as he sashayed’ up to the bar.

Stranger drank his fill, paid his tab, snugged his leathers, and swaggered back out through them swingin’ café doors, doors which served no purpose at all, then mounted his nag with a giddy-up cluck, and spurred her on down that God-forsaken ol’ mudhole of a street toward the dusty, fallin’ sun.

The saloon emptied into the street. The townfolk, all God-fearin’ drunks and bible-totin’ whores and their bastard young’uns, gathered in the street to gawk at that young Handsome Stranger go, a-leavin’ that town a tad uglier just by turnin’ his back on it. He coulda raped and robbed every one of them and still got their honor and respect, on accounta his square jaw an’ steely eyes an’ tight chaps.  He reminded them of themselves when they was still young and handsome, ridin’ into that snakebit town,  back when they themselves planned on just passin’ through.

Spiraling Downward into Madness

 

Spiraling Downward Into Madness

Vincent Van Gogh spiraled down into madness and poverty.  Only after he died did his painting “Sunflowers” sell for thirty-eight million dollars.  Edgar Allen Poe spiraled down into drink and drugs and died penniless.  Centuries later, his story, “The Pit and the Pendulum,” became a movie that would have made him rich, if only he were alive.  Jimi Hendrix spiraled down and now gets royalties to his estate.  Maybe I could spiral down and get rich off my writing a century from now. 

               Spiraling down doesn’t always lead to poverty.  Elvis spiraled down in mansions and sequins.  Charlie Sheen spiraled down at a million dollars an episode.  Elton John spiraled down in expensive designer gown. Maybe I had a chance at success before death.

To learn how to spiral down into madness, I saw a psychotherapist, hoping for a grim diagnosis.  She asked what I wanted to talk about. 

“Doctor, I may be crazy.  How do I know for sure?

“John, we don’t use that word, crazy, anymore.”

I said “I need to be diagnosed as crazy, because I want to be a writer.”

She said “I'm a writer, too.  My books don't sell either.  Get a real job like I did."

Maybe psychotherapy was not for me.  I went to the admissions desk at a psychiatric hospital and asked the receptionist what forms I should fill out to get a room. 

He smirked and said “What makes you think you’re crazy?“

I said “I want to be a writer.”

He said “I’m sorry, but we already have our quota of writers.”

I gave up.  Being crazy is not something you can just switch on and off.  It takes years of irrational thoughts chewing you up inside.  Your life has to go off the rails; isolation and delusion are required.  You can’t fake it.  Unable to go mad, I kept writing books that no one would ever buy, not even in the distant future.

I volunteered to help out at the local homeless shelter, hoping I could learn lunacy directly from real lunatics.  On my first day, I helped a crazy old man feed and dress himself.    

He asked ”Why are you helping me?"

I said, “I want to learn to be crazy, to help my career.”

He said, “But why did you choose me?"

I said "You look crazy."

He said “I’m not crazy.  I’m a writer.”

The Promotion

 

The Promotion

 

“Haley, you’re a good worker, you show up on time, and your co-workers respect you.  It’s about time I gave you a promotion.”

            “I can’t accept, Ms. Taylor.  I’m so good at my job that no one else here could replace me.”

            “But this is a great opportunity, Haley.  You’ll have your own office instead of that little cubicle.”

            “I’ve decorated my cubicle just right. It’s so cute. It’s perfect for  me.”

            “Haley, there’s more.  You’ll travel all over the country to meetings and conferences. You’ll meet interesting people.”

            “Sorry, but I hate to fly, and I don’t make friends easily.”

            “Haley, our firm needs you to move up.  I need you, too.  This could be the big turning point in your career. Think about your future.”

            “My answer is still No.  I’m perfectly happy where I am.”

            Ms. Taylor said “Haley please.  I’ll give you a twenty-five percent raise.”

            Haley said “Fifty.”   

The Cute LIttle Old Couple Across The Street

 

The Cute Little Old Couple Across the Street

When we moved into our first home many years ago, the cute little old couple across the street was there to greet us at our door before the first packing box was unloaded from our moving van.  They gave us a bottle of wine and sneaked a peek inside our door to see if our house was as nice as theirs. 

            Years passed.  The cute little old couple across the street sent us old-fashioned greeting cards on all of our birthdays and holidays.

            More time passed.  We crept from our twenties to thirties, then forties.  Some neighbors moved away to bigger houses when they got better jobs.  But the cute little old couple across the street stayed put. They were lifers.

            Everyone on the block invited the cute little old couple across the street to our parties and barbeques, but the reply was always “No thank you,” because they had this ailment or that injury, but they watched us from their porch, waving and joining us vicariously from a distance. 

             When we hit middle age, the cute little old couple entered their eighties.  Their grass grew long and their hedges lost their shape, so we helped them with their chores when we could.  One by one, our other neighbors retired and moved to warmer weather.   

            When we got older, the cute little old couple across the street was near one hundred.  They slipped away quietly, one to nursing care and the other to hospice.  Lucky for us, a new young couple bought the old house and moved in.  We rushed over the moment their moving van arrived, gave them a bottle of wine, and managed to get a glimpse inside.  The old house had been painted and carpeted over. The cute little old couple across the street was gone, along with all their memories. 

            The young new couple that moved in was so grateful for our warm welcome that they sent us a thank-you card addressed “To the cute little old couple across the street.”