skit #96: what counts

The oldest woman in Burbank remembered how things were before. She tried to explain to me and my sister.

She showed us a slender twig and a tin can. She told us these are two things. Then she counted everything else she could find: melted tires, another brittler twig, a palmful of fine silt, a sign dimpled by stray rocks, the frayed canvas tents of our camp, her, my sister, me, the other survivors.

We asked what counts as a thing. We asked if those count as one twig and another twig, or if they are two twigs. We asked if the berries still count, even if they're inedible and dessicated. We asked if the tires need wheels and if the wheels need a truck and if the truck needs a freeway to count. We asked if the letters each get their own number, and if the letters count, does the word. We asked how many grains are in her pile of silt, and how many people survived outside of the San Fernando Valley. We asked if we're people counting as one, or peoples as a few ones, or persons counting as a bunch ones.

She said she didn't know about our sorts of questions and continued her explanation.

She told us of plastic flora that required no water, of low-calorie strawberry ice cream, of love ballads played over radio waves, of plastic toy farm animals. She told us supermarket coupons, of traffic jams and speeding tickets, of public libraries, of prenuptial agreements, of streak-free dish washing detergents, of cell phone reception and inescapable service contracts, of breaking news alerts, of frequent flyer miles and cash-back rewards.

She repeated the legends we'd heard before.

She told us about how the fluorescent bulbs in every household generated a color that was indistinguishable from how they imagined pure white light to appear. The human eye just couldn't tell a difference. She told us how close they thought they were to perfection.

We were confused, but she said she didn't know about our sorts of questions.

After parted with the oldest woman in Burbank, me and my sister sat quietly on the duneside for a while, considering the beige color of the only landscape we had ever known.

skit #95: destination

As he waits, he futilely cycles through decorative variations like a colorblind florist. Per usual, no more preparations are necessary. Everything suffices. But when it comes to the reception of his guests, anxious Mike Williamson strives to exceed unremarkable sufficiency. Everything must be perfect, even if the guests are too crass to sense perfection. The floors are mopped. Steel surfaces are polished doubly. The setting is serene and dignified. The aimless endeavor of his guests' lives will culminate in the coming moments.

He smiles to himself, recognizing he is fidgeting in his pop's manner. When he was Little Mike, he would perch upon on Big Mike Williamson's knee up in the projection booth. Before screenings, Big Mike would sweep the aisles, air out the theater, pop the kernels, dust the organ pipes; then he would shuffle about the hallways, fidgeting incessantly. Not until the neighborhood kids poured into the aisles, mottled with smeared candy and bruises, unbridled by the school year's end, did Big Mike calm. Giddy, they waited in Big Mike's theater to be delivered from the burden of juvenile responsibilities to some fantastic island paradise or to some kingdom in the skies. That was the moment the kids and Big Mike and Little Mike awaited all year.

Just as Big Mike's name never graced the film credits, when Little Mike's guests soon arrive he will seek no recognition, only transparency. This moment belongs to them alone. All extraneous beings, experiences, and phenomena form the vehicle that transports his guests to this moment. Little Mike is only one such apparatus. His duty to his guests to usher them to their destination, as though this moment will come to be with no intervention.

The promenade begins. The cattle clatter and moo. Little Mike ceremoniously welcomes his guests with a pneumatically actuated bolt, introducing cranial apertures so their souls may find levity when their bodies fail. Cleavers grant the favor of mechanically separating their impermanent flesh. Strong men clear the dais for newcomers. Runnels of blood ferry giblets away through the sluice grates until nothing remains. The earthy smell of unbounded life fills the room.  

Little Mike will forever remain unknown to his patronage.

skit #94: the fastest man alive

Here they come. Whoop, there they go. They're gone. These circular tracks are just clever as heck. With the finish line slapped down on the loop just any old where, like it matters a damn.

These races got it all, don't they? Got it all. The winners and the losers, a little wreckage, adoring fans, all these sponsorships with big-time corporations, the trophies, some birdies in bikinis paid-in-full. Yeh, got it all. Ain't quite entirely life itself, but wouldn't be wiser to elsewhere if you never been outside the racetrack.

Those other racers out there, they're racing this race. And after this, maybe they stay in some hotel, but then they're racing them other races on other tracks just like it. This race, that race. Not Astolfo Febretti. He doesn't compete with other men. He's motivated unlikely.

My cousin-in-law Tad is in the know. He sells the beers at the races and gets all the stories. He says he heard Febretti made a pact with the Devil. Febretti gave it all up to be the fastest man alive. But that fool Febretti don't know you can't never be the fastest man alive. You ain't never the man you just was.

Maybe the Devil was being all devious and mischiefy, interpreting Febretti real literally. But I don't think Febretti knew for a damn what he wanted before he put it in words.

Didn't give Febretti what he wanted, exactly, of course. Told him how to get it. The Devil says the secret was to get rid of all that extra weight. And the Devil said he could help Febretti rightly. Just advice, he promises, You're in control, Astolfo.

So it all can stand a change. Starts exercising good, off come sixty-five pounds of lethargy and pork. Gives up wearing denims and leathers, races nude. Shaved his golden hair, all off his head, his lip, his forearms, his -- well, right. Got some engineer types, built himself something real aerodynamic, looks like a black swan getting sucked into a blacker hole. 

Starts fasting before races, two pounds lesser. Gives him a little clarity of minds, meditation. Weight and drag exist everywhere, he thinks. Gives up the wife, gives up the mistress, gives up the kids, gives up the parents and grandparents, gives up the fans. Gives up his belief in winning or losing. Gives up his belief in laws of physics and the speed of light. Gives up on being the fastest man alive.

What if he ever caught the speed record, I wonder to myself. What's he going to do with all that nothing he's been racing around with? His life is gone. He cannot win it all back, he can only replace it.

Not a thing in the world stopping him. Febretti's just the thought of winning these days. Fast as all heck. He don't even race any more. Wins every time in none of the races.

Here they come again. Whoop, there they go. Circular tracks, clever as heck.

skit #93: stewed tomatoes

Freda prefers fresh produce, avoiding the canned vegetables altogether. Her cart sails without friction atop the waxed floors, but Freda falters and slows upon Aisle 9. A grocer diligently stacks tiers of dull tin cylinders containing stewed tomatoes. Half-way through her shopping list, this ominous ziggurat suddenly and privately reminds Freda of her past torment:

The post-war rations were tolerable. Stale bread, suspiciously nondescript meatcakes, preserved foods without expiry dates like orphans are without guardians, dull tin cans harboring salty and sweaty possibilities -- cans of chicken stock, green beans, stewed tomatoes.

Sometimes I would have to steal. Everyone had to steal. To be alive meant to be fed meant to be a thief. On these grounds, any citizen was reasonably suspected of crime. And under a brutal interrogation, all crimes inevitably became public.

Many boys enlisted as soldiers from an early age to avoid being bullied. These boys caught me stealing butter. Under Soviet disorganization, their bayonets imbued them with the wisdom to serve as judges and jury. They took down a concrete alleyway for my nominal trial. Subject to their leverage, I confessed. I confessed it all. After all was said, my butter had melted.

Before my punishment, they recited my confessions as itemized evidence at her improvised trial. They snickered and hooted between the descriptions of each perpetrated act 'gross moral indecency'. The list of my sordid crimes suddenly and privately reminded me of my past pleasure:

I presented that stolen key which allowed our clandestine nightly rendezvouses to the cellar. It was cold, but Gretchin was warm. The salty and sweaty possibilities Gretchin presented to my lips. She was well-fed, allowing her muscles to harden more powerfully than any woman I'd known. How she flexed until her vitality was drained and she laid lifelessly. How no other woman could ever compare to you.

And suddenly, privately reminded me of my past sorrow:

I discovered her in the cellar, her beautiful crown savaged by a rifle butt. My last kiss upon her tasted of her fatal wound, salty and sweaty. She laid disheveled, probably intruded upon. Someone must have discovered her sins. Had she been caught with me, I too should be dead. Or had she been caught with another woman, my weak heart should prefer death. I buried these conjectures. Gretchin evaporated with her vital fluids. How no woman could ever compare to you.

I remained in a state of moral and emotional fatigue. I no longer questioned why I, of all thieves, had been caught. I no longer questioned if what I had done was wrong. I no longer questioned who held the right to judge me, my livelihood. The oldest soldier executed my sentence, while the others snickered and hooted most dutifully.

She recalls her distaste for stewed tomatoes. Freda casually passes Aisle 9 and crosses the final items off her shopping list.