Riley mopes about the grandstand, burdened by the inverted levity of having nothing. Congruent with the bookie's odds, for every ebullient face unlike his, he finds ten dismal twins. In name and notion, the Downs makes no pretense of how Riley shall collapse. His uniform buries him beneath denims and dungarees. Only does the Downs provide a slit through which he may peep upon his dream.
The stadium sets him far away from the spectacle. In the center of the racetrack, wee mammals run useless circles, saddled with even weer mammals. Over the chatter of his fellow losers, he can not hear the giddiups or whinnies of jockeys or ponies; At this distance, the racers seem to move at such a lazy pace that even he could outtrot them, though Riley forgoes this feat.
His fingers grope for change in the abyss of is pocket. The few coins he retrieves are rigid in form and petty in value. He reverses and re-reverses his nickel from no to yes to no. Far too predictable for gambling, so instead he invests the coin in the predictable sort of dream. Riley clicks the coin against the bar to buy a golden draught, not caring which face shows.
The plight of the racehorse inspires Riley to ask no one, 'Gawd. Who's on my back.'
'That's why you're here, isn't it? For a little freedom? Let them go, let them all go,' replies the clean-shaven man to his right.
'Ha, can't go nowhere without a ticket.'
'A ticket doesn't win money, it buys a fantasy. Might as well imagine yourself a ticket.'
'Hell, spent all my imagination on this beer.'
The clean-shaven man chuckles wisely, “Don't get down on yourself, brother. Money means nothing, what does – '
...
AND HURTLING FIRST THROUGH THE GATE IS BLUE COLLAR BOBBY
FOLLOWED BY STRANGE BOON
WITH INEVITABLE ALLEGORY PLACING THIRD
FOR THE NEXT RACE FRESH FROM THE HAYSTACK WE HAVE
...
' – yaaaaahooooooo!'
The clean-shaven man returns with generosity to match his mirth. He does not mind when his full billfold molts a few notes onto Riley's lap. After the clean-shaven man bids farewell and departs the Downs, Riley bets his spoils on Entry #56. Riley sits in the bleachers besides the thousands else, each with their own wishes and their own betting slips. Riley's slip reads:
MONEY TALKS
Louis Bragnan
Over the loudspeaker, an announcer's tongue frantically speeds in league with the horses' legs.
...
THERES THE PISTOL MARK
AND THEYRE OFF OUT OF THE GATE
HOME SWEET HOME SEIZES THE LEAD
TRAILING COME MY FAIR LADY AND A LITTLE SUGAR ON THE SIDE
YAHWEHS FAVE CLOSES THE GAP AND CUTS INTO THIRD
PUTTING CORNUCOPIA OUT OF THE TOP RUNNERS
A LITTLE SUGAR ON THE SIDE DRIVES THE INSIDE
PASSES HOME SWEET HOME IN A WIDE SWEEP
AND THE QUARTER MARK
HARMLESS FUN AND MONEY TALKS MAKE THEIR WAY
THUNDERING PAST YAHWEHS FAVE AND MY FAIR LADY
A LITTLE SUGAR ON THE SIDE STILL UNSHAKABLE
MONEY TALKS AND YOU OBEY
YOUR HEART BEATS TO THEIR HOOVES ON THE TRACK
THIS IS WHERE YOU SPENT THE WEEK
THIS IS WHERE YOU BELONG
UP TO THE HALF MARK
SHE LEFT YOU ALL OVER SOME HARMLESS FUN
BUT SHELL COME BACK ONE DAY
THEN YOU CAN TELL HER SHE HAD HER CHANCE
SOON YOULL BE TANNING IN THE SUN
DRINKING TOP SHELF MAI TAIS WITH NUBILE TAHITIANS
YOU DREAM HARD ENOUGH AND ITLL COME TRUE RILEY
THREE QUARTERS
MONEY TALKS USURPS FIRST PLACE
UPSETTING A LITTLE SUGAR ON THE SIDE
FOLLOWED BY HOME SWEET HOME AND CORNUCOPIA
MONEY TALKS SETS A STRONG LEAD
SHES FLYING LIKE SHE BUSTED OUT OF A GLUE FACTORY
LOUIS BRAGNAN TAKES MONEY TALKS TWO LENGTHS AHEAD
FIVE LENGTHS AHEAD
SIX LENGTHS AHEAD
THIS IS UNBELIEVABLE
NINE LENGTHS AHEAD
OH NO
WHAT IN THE HECK IS LOUIS BRAGNAN
NOW FIFTEEN LENGTHS AHEAD
OH LORDY
OH MY
THIS AINT GOOD
SIXTEEN LENGTHS AHEAD
MONEY TALKS SETS THE FIRST LAP
...
Louis Bragnan stands as tall as he can stand. So does Riley. His arms rise to the sky victoriously. So do Riley's. The rest of the crowd remains seated; Riley scoffs at those who dared not vote for the underdog, #56. Money Talks slows from gallop to canter to walk. The remaining racers thunder past the mistaken champions, considering them competitors no longer, only irrelevant obstacles. As Riley sprints to collect on #56, the race continues without his attention.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Thursday, May 21, 2009
skit #78: MAKING YOU DESIRABLE
Her badge read:
MS. LARA F.
MAKING YOU DESIRABLE
BEAUTICIAN
Perfunctorily, she smiled. Fissures cracked around her mouth and eyelids; a make-up mask caked with desperate thickness betrayed her appearance of natural beauty. Mrs Hampson did not judge, for she knew she was far older and far uglier. She noticed Ms Lara F's lipstick perfectly matched the stain's shade.
'Good morning, miss. How may I help you?' chirped Ms Lara F.
'I want to look young,' admitted Mrs Hampson.
'Gosh, maybe we can knock off a year or two. How does nineteen sound?' Ms Lara F laughed a facetious laugh.
Mrs Hampson brushed off the vapid compliment. 'Your lipstick. What kind is it?'
Ms Lara F shuffled for the applicator, 'Furtive Flirt. Here, try.'
Mrs Hampson painted sloppy and sensuous colors around her lips. 'What do you think? How does it work on husbands?'
'Well, I've never been married. One day!' She knocked on wood with an naive eagerness that irritated Mrs Hampson. It reminded her of herself before marrying Arthur. 'You look beautiful!'
Mrs Hampson inspected herself in the mirror. She pouted her lips, imagining staining her husband's dress shirt with a pigment of her own.
Ms Lara F regurgitated the slogan, 'Making you desirable!'
Mrs Hampson paid the balance with her husband's credit card. Ms Lara F's inexperience prolonged the transaction, granting Mrs Hampson ample time to admire the familiar faces on the cosmetics magazines. The receipt printed. Mrs Hampson left, her echoing heels incising through the hollows of the cosmetics department, her lips a predatory pink under the fluorescent lighting, a new woman.
MS. LARA F.
MAKING YOU DESIRABLE
BEAUTICIAN
Perfunctorily, she smiled. Fissures cracked around her mouth and eyelids; a make-up mask caked with desperate thickness betrayed her appearance of natural beauty. Mrs Hampson did not judge, for she knew she was far older and far uglier. She noticed Ms Lara F's lipstick perfectly matched the stain's shade.
'Good morning, miss. How may I help you?' chirped Ms Lara F.
'I want to look young,' admitted Mrs Hampson.
'Gosh, maybe we can knock off a year or two. How does nineteen sound?' Ms Lara F laughed a facetious laugh.
Mrs Hampson brushed off the vapid compliment. 'Your lipstick. What kind is it?'
Ms Lara F shuffled for the applicator, 'Furtive Flirt. Here, try.'
Mrs Hampson painted sloppy and sensuous colors around her lips. 'What do you think? How does it work on husbands?'
'Well, I've never been married. One day!' She knocked on wood with an naive eagerness that irritated Mrs Hampson. It reminded her of herself before marrying Arthur. 'You look beautiful!'
Mrs Hampson inspected herself in the mirror. She pouted her lips, imagining staining her husband's dress shirt with a pigment of her own.
Ms Lara F regurgitated the slogan, 'Making you desirable!'
Mrs Hampson paid the balance with her husband's credit card. Ms Lara F's inexperience prolonged the transaction, granting Mrs Hampson ample time to admire the familiar faces on the cosmetics magazines. The receipt printed. Mrs Hampson left, her echoing heels incising through the hollows of the cosmetics department, her lips a predatory pink under the fluorescent lighting, a new woman.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
skit #77: Calamity Jane
Neither of us have left her room for some days. Pneumonia incapacitates her. Worry immobilizes me. My breath trails hers warily, as her last leads my last.
Calamity Jane coughs violently, and though she never liked pretty things, she inadvertantly decorates her bedsheets with the floral pattern of a portentous funerary bouquet: verdurous phlegm flecked with crimson buds. The brutess does not notice, continues to cough until empty, then spits. To her violence, I flinch and squeal and wail, just as her ongoing regimens of daily abuse had conditioned me to react. My histrionics, which normally elicits her boastful guffaw, fail to fruit even a smirk. She slips into a defeated sleep, and I contemplate the brief life that may await me without her protection.
Nervously, I watch through the window slats. Her illness advertises an opportunity to all the prairie's marauders: the coyotes and the desperados. Now Calamity Jane cannot protect Deadwood or, more selfishly, me. With its heroine fallen, they come to exact retribution upon all which abides by that very society which shuns them. Man and beast alike run Main Street amok, gobbling the vittles off still-clucking chickens, urinating to claim property like conquistadors, nipping up skirts at feminine softnesses, howling with the seductive madness that makes one join in; But I resist their call. How they meet my eyes through the window slats, I know they know I am a gentleman, and so I too shall bear retribution.
Two years ago, Marsh & Coe, Co. declared their intent to establish the first and only bank in Deadwood, South Dakota. As an apprentice, the firm paid me a meager stipend, affording me scarcely enough to rent the lowliest flat in all Dorchester. Like a peacock among pigeons, I failed to blend in with Dorchester's denizens. No one likes an outsider. Daily, I drudged through the mires of Dorchester's worst. And every day I arrived, my suit disheveled, my complexion bruised blue, my pockets picked. So every day Marsh & Coe, Co. found the degraded gentleman that remained of me. Of their staff, the executive management estimated me to be their rowdiest employee. They shuttled me off to orchestrate the construction of their bank, the First Deadwood Bank.
I arrived and Deadwood knew. One posse procured my luggage set; another posse procured Marsh & Coe Co.'s realty payment; a third posse procured my accouterments momentarily; Calamity Jane procured me as her chattel, clobbered the thieves, reclaimed the clothing that was now hers (by extension of me), left me undressed and sinful, and checked us into a single room with a matrimonial bed at the Loose Dove's Roost.
No one disturbed Calamity Jane or her belongings. Though she slew many men during our courtship, she remained a sensitive lover. But as a partner, she lacked the eloquence needed to garner my respect, so she domesticated me by whip. Once I thought I might grow old with Calamity Jane, forever: she, my man, and I, her dude. But our romance best suited brevity. All her sweet nothings smell of sour mash. She wears other men's blood like mascara and other men's sweat like perfume; She does not disclose how she becomes stained so. She has reprimanded the impudence of my mouth so many times my words wear the swollen drawl of one who fears speech.
Now I see the First Deadwood Bank, its scaffolded skeleton, half-built, without a blueprint or plan, unsound.
Now I see my beloved Calamity Jane, half-dead, half-loved, her eyes on her bottle and her gun.
I step outside to renounce my life as a gentleman, to become one of the Calamity Johns, to ravage the Dakotas from south to north. But they shoot me. I think hear her muster the strength to guffaw.
Calamity Jane coughs violently, and though she never liked pretty things, she inadvertantly decorates her bedsheets with the floral pattern of a portentous funerary bouquet: verdurous phlegm flecked with crimson buds. The brutess does not notice, continues to cough until empty, then spits. To her violence, I flinch and squeal and wail, just as her ongoing regimens of daily abuse had conditioned me to react. My histrionics, which normally elicits her boastful guffaw, fail to fruit even a smirk. She slips into a defeated sleep, and I contemplate the brief life that may await me without her protection.
Nervously, I watch through the window slats. Her illness advertises an opportunity to all the prairie's marauders: the coyotes and the desperados. Now Calamity Jane cannot protect Deadwood or, more selfishly, me. With its heroine fallen, they come to exact retribution upon all which abides by that very society which shuns them. Man and beast alike run Main Street amok, gobbling the vittles off still-clucking chickens, urinating to claim property like conquistadors, nipping up skirts at feminine softnesses, howling with the seductive madness that makes one join in; But I resist their call. How they meet my eyes through the window slats, I know they know I am a gentleman, and so I too shall bear retribution.
Two years ago, Marsh & Coe, Co. declared their intent to establish the first and only bank in Deadwood, South Dakota. As an apprentice, the firm paid me a meager stipend, affording me scarcely enough to rent the lowliest flat in all Dorchester. Like a peacock among pigeons, I failed to blend in with Dorchester's denizens. No one likes an outsider. Daily, I drudged through the mires of Dorchester's worst. And every day I arrived, my suit disheveled, my complexion bruised blue, my pockets picked. So every day Marsh & Coe, Co. found the degraded gentleman that remained of me. Of their staff, the executive management estimated me to be their rowdiest employee. They shuttled me off to orchestrate the construction of their bank, the First Deadwood Bank.
I arrived and Deadwood knew. One posse procured my luggage set; another posse procured Marsh & Coe Co.'s realty payment; a third posse procured my accouterments momentarily; Calamity Jane procured me as her chattel, clobbered the thieves, reclaimed the clothing that was now hers (by extension of me), left me undressed and sinful, and checked us into a single room with a matrimonial bed at the Loose Dove's Roost.
No one disturbed Calamity Jane or her belongings. Though she slew many men during our courtship, she remained a sensitive lover. But as a partner, she lacked the eloquence needed to garner my respect, so she domesticated me by whip. Once I thought I might grow old with Calamity Jane, forever: she, my man, and I, her dude. But our romance best suited brevity. All her sweet nothings smell of sour mash. She wears other men's blood like mascara and other men's sweat like perfume; She does not disclose how she becomes stained so. She has reprimanded the impudence of my mouth so many times my words wear the swollen drawl of one who fears speech.
Now I see the First Deadwood Bank, its scaffolded skeleton, half-built, without a blueprint or plan, unsound.
Now I see my beloved Calamity Jane, half-dead, half-loved, her eyes on her bottle and her gun.
I step outside to renounce my life as a gentleman, to become one of the Calamity Johns, to ravage the Dakotas from south to north. But they shoot me. I think hear her muster the strength to guffaw.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
skit #76: nothing unnatural
Reeds waft and mosquitoes croon, ripening us. Many broadcast their midnight sentiments in the lagoon. The barrage of trilling frogsongs sets every amphibian gonad aquiver, either to activity or to anticipation. Their slick vocal sacs balloon and unballoon, seducing us volumetrically. We all wade eye-deep in the very same soup, wanting nothing more than to relieve our bodies of impatient eggs. I find a song for me.
You and I grope one another pheromonally at pond-length through porous skins; Skin has no stomach so we are never sated. As I paddle coyly towards you, my webbing unavoidably swats the jellied eggs and pollywogs that already fill the basin underwater. I may crush some, but we will soon make more. We care not of who, but how.
A carnal mantra truncates all my thoughts. Hormones manage my marionette strings, conducting me masterfully. I am out of control. You, my tiny suitor, clamber atop me like a fertile island. I find an archipelago of conquistador-newfoundlands shuddering about me. The innumerable babies below indent my belly, and I cannot help but expel my eggs into the pond.
We all do. Eggs are everywhere. A reproductive diagram somewhere outlines our life cycle, and we fulfill its prophecy.
As foreign as icebergs in our Mississippi bayou, quality-rejected pills quietly buoy from the pharmaceutical company upstream: anti-depressants, contraceptives, fertility meds. They mandate my exhausted body must copulate again, so I do. Again, so I do, so do we all. Nothing unnatural makes us suspicious. Our amplified hormones bring only clarity. If anything, according to the diagram, we are too alive.
A pickup truck parks at the muddy shore. We cannot and shall not disentangle. Compulsion paralyzes us all. Again, so do we all.
brrrrEEEEEEEEEEP.
Trudy's back depresses the car horn as Micky fumbles unhooking her bra. The highbeams of her pickup truck illuminate the eyes of the mating frogs. Their nictations twinkle cosmically among the black bog-formed firmament. Her FM radio drones love ballads, setting the mood. Trudy finds a song for her.
Things with Micky were going well. They had been going steady for three weeks. Micky had a job and bought her ice cream after school. They neck ineptly, like teething vampires. Her gynecologist had taught her the responsibilities of womanhood. She had showed Trudy pictures of a female ovum and of a male sperm, the latter seeming nothing more than little parasitic tadpoles. The gynecologist then gave Trudy the Pill.
But Trudy still didn't feel ready. Micky's hand got only as far as her breast despite his exaggerated claims. Trudy kept him at bay until week six. Then she ran the first leg through the reproductive cycle, perhaps limping, perhaps sprinting, not yet knowing if it felt natural.
You and I grope one another pheromonally at pond-length through porous skins; Skin has no stomach so we are never sated. As I paddle coyly towards you, my webbing unavoidably swats the jellied eggs and pollywogs that already fill the basin underwater. I may crush some, but we will soon make more. We care not of who, but how.
A carnal mantra truncates all my thoughts. Hormones manage my marionette strings, conducting me masterfully. I am out of control. You, my tiny suitor, clamber atop me like a fertile island. I find an archipelago of conquistador-newfoundlands shuddering about me. The innumerable babies below indent my belly, and I cannot help but expel my eggs into the pond.
We all do. Eggs are everywhere. A reproductive diagram somewhere outlines our life cycle, and we fulfill its prophecy.
As foreign as icebergs in our Mississippi bayou, quality-rejected pills quietly buoy from the pharmaceutical company upstream: anti-depressants, contraceptives, fertility meds. They mandate my exhausted body must copulate again, so I do. Again, so I do, so do we all. Nothing unnatural makes us suspicious. Our amplified hormones bring only clarity. If anything, according to the diagram, we are too alive.
A pickup truck parks at the muddy shore. We cannot and shall not disentangle. Compulsion paralyzes us all. Again, so do we all.
brrrrEEEEEEEEEEP.
Trudy's back depresses the car horn as Micky fumbles unhooking her bra. The highbeams of her pickup truck illuminate the eyes of the mating frogs. Their nictations twinkle cosmically among the black bog-formed firmament. Her FM radio drones love ballads, setting the mood. Trudy finds a song for her.
Things with Micky were going well. They had been going steady for three weeks. Micky had a job and bought her ice cream after school. They neck ineptly, like teething vampires. Her gynecologist had taught her the responsibilities of womanhood. She had showed Trudy pictures of a female ovum and of a male sperm, the latter seeming nothing more than little parasitic tadpoles. The gynecologist then gave Trudy the Pill.
But Trudy still didn't feel ready. Micky's hand got only as far as her breast despite his exaggerated claims. Trudy kept him at bay until week six. Then she ran the first leg through the reproductive cycle, perhaps limping, perhaps sprinting, not yet knowing if it felt natural.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
skit #75: whatever he respired
Percy's personal moon wasted no time on the in-betweens: always full, a shoulder-width aperture to uncontained skies; or new, the covered manhole; or eclipsed, the downtown traffic racing over his subterranean kingdom. The Sanitation Department did not doubt Percy's self-proclaimed passion for sewage treatment, nor did they refuse his volunteered time. At the end of some workdays, he would return above ground and wait for public transit to deliver him to the discomfort of his apartment where he spent the evening resenting the moon's regular faces under which continent men slept.
But most nights he slept in the sewers, swaddled in his municipally-provided uniform. He could leave whenever he wanted to -- the sewer or the job or Manhattan or anything else. He was free from everything except his bowels. He thought these thoughts as he delayed dreaming, his head heavy against the concrete precipice. The fetid stench of sewer muck wafted from the river, burbling with what New York's stomachs could not use; The handkerchief he held to his nose was doused with his auntie's perfume, a scent so dense nothing noisome could penetrate it.
Percy peeked over his handkerchief. He held the tincture of his auntie's perfume against the utility lights. He rotated it between his forefinger and thumb and in each facet it appeared equally pale, where his history remained imprisoned behind a millimeter of brittle glass. Deeper he looked into the perfume and deeper he huffed his handkerchief. Olfactory memories whisked him away.
His mother and her sister clucked as they made way through garden, trimming hedges into pleasing geometries and weeding anything ugly. They gossiped and sipped beers. He was old enough, maybe twelve years, and he had accidentally shat himself again. But he knew this time wasn't his fault. The rose thorns hooked his overalls. He bleated for help for hours, but the adults had left for indoors long ago. A little one slipped out as he wept -- just one little one. But his mother's pittance of patience had been spent. She walloped him. Then she sent him to a behaviorist. Then she sent him to disciplinary school. His auntie was the one who wept as she saw him off.
His mother wore the same scent as his auntie. Or maybe his auntie wore the same scent as his mother. Yet they smelled differently: sometimes the perfume smelled like composting soil, like bleach, like suffocating shame; and sometimes it smelled like baby wipes, like bubble baths, like bedtime stories; but always like roses.
Remembrance left Percy too bleary to see the tincture any longer. He watched the sewage come only to go inconsequentially. It drifted freely throughout the labyrinths of the sewer. He goes where ever he likes and his mother will never know. Between the velvety must of the rose perfume and the blighted tunnel air, whatever he respired sickened him.
The Central Office transmitted Percy's orders over the walkie-talkie: SEPTIC BLOCKAGE, ROUTE 44-7JW-B. But they weren't paying him so Percy ignored them. It was six in the morning. He stood beneath his mother's apartmental facilities, listening. He can hear her squeak meekly and moments later the plumbing produced her stool. He smiled forgivingly like a good son could.
His personal moon reflected on the sewage. Though his mother does not watch the same moon, she may witness the same reflection.
But most nights he slept in the sewers, swaddled in his municipally-provided uniform. He could leave whenever he wanted to -- the sewer or the job or Manhattan or anything else. He was free from everything except his bowels. He thought these thoughts as he delayed dreaming, his head heavy against the concrete precipice. The fetid stench of sewer muck wafted from the river, burbling with what New York's stomachs could not use; The handkerchief he held to his nose was doused with his auntie's perfume, a scent so dense nothing noisome could penetrate it.
Percy peeked over his handkerchief. He held the tincture of his auntie's perfume against the utility lights. He rotated it between his forefinger and thumb and in each facet it appeared equally pale, where his history remained imprisoned behind a millimeter of brittle glass. Deeper he looked into the perfume and deeper he huffed his handkerchief. Olfactory memories whisked him away.
His mother and her sister clucked as they made way through garden, trimming hedges into pleasing geometries and weeding anything ugly. They gossiped and sipped beers. He was old enough, maybe twelve years, and he had accidentally shat himself again. But he knew this time wasn't his fault. The rose thorns hooked his overalls. He bleated for help for hours, but the adults had left for indoors long ago. A little one slipped out as he wept -- just one little one. But his mother's pittance of patience had been spent. She walloped him. Then she sent him to a behaviorist. Then she sent him to disciplinary school. His auntie was the one who wept as she saw him off.
His mother wore the same scent as his auntie. Or maybe his auntie wore the same scent as his mother. Yet they smelled differently: sometimes the perfume smelled like composting soil, like bleach, like suffocating shame; and sometimes it smelled like baby wipes, like bubble baths, like bedtime stories; but always like roses.
Remembrance left Percy too bleary to see the tincture any longer. He watched the sewage come only to go inconsequentially. It drifted freely throughout the labyrinths of the sewer. He goes where ever he likes and his mother will never know. Between the velvety must of the rose perfume and the blighted tunnel air, whatever he respired sickened him.
The Central Office transmitted Percy's orders over the walkie-talkie: SEPTIC BLOCKAGE, ROUTE 44-7JW-B. But they weren't paying him so Percy ignored them. It was six in the morning. He stood beneath his mother's apartmental facilities, listening. He can hear her squeak meekly and moments later the plumbing produced her stool. He smiled forgivingly like a good son could.
His personal moon reflected on the sewage. Though his mother does not watch the same moon, she may witness the same reflection.
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