Life: The Musical

Mr. Dunwoody’s hands started to move so Paige knew he was about to talk. He always talked with his hands, even while holding a large mug of hot coffee.

“You see, Paige, we are a public relations firm”

She did see. Oh, not that though. She saw the grandeur of Central Park through the high rise plate glass behind him, the prefect backdrop for a scene, almost any scene……the arrival, the discovery, even the breakup scene. It was perfect, especially in autumn, as it was.

“’Public relations’ Do you know what that means?”
Mr. Dunwoody spoke in a gentle, grandfatherly voice.

He answered before she could, even though she was not going to because she was thinking about the layout of his office. It was functional enough, she sighed, for a commercial endeavor, making money and all of that, but was definitely lacking for a musical number.

There was too much stuff on the desk, making it almost impossible to jump on and dance or slide across in a playful fashion. Flinging everything off was an eye-catching option often used but could distract from the music or dance.

“It means people are depending on this firm to take care of things so they don’t have to worry about messing up. We are there to say the right thing the right way”

“Yes, sir,” Paige adlibbed, wondering how he would feel about wearing a bow tie for this scene. She feared he’d say it wasn’t his style but somehow it just seemed to fit.

“And that means not just when we speak on behalf of them. It includes any form of written communication. We are a public relations firm. The ‘l’ is very important”

“The ‘l’, sir?”

“The ‘l’. We are not a pubic relations firm”
The audience would love that line, Paige thought. Defintely keep it.

“Pubic?”

“Yes, even though we have macros that will print our firm name and all contact information with the touch of a button, you insist on trying to type it manually and labeling us a pubic relations firm”

“Oh,” said Paige, “that’s not good”

“No, indeed” Mr. Dunwoody took off his glasses, leaned back in his chair and folded his hands in his lap. He sighed again and it didn’t sound like a good one.

A piece of paper to his left he picked up and began reading from it.

“When Brooke Danforth was arrested for drunk driving, you told the media her plans were to drink more at home”

“Well I wanted to say she was gong to rehab, but she refused to go so I really didn’t have much choice…..”

“Lie, Paige, lie. It’s what we do. Brad Garaway, our biggest client by the way, had his regularly scheduled tirade of intolerance on the set of his new movie, this time against gays, you reassured America by telling them ‘Brad has nothing personal against homosexuals. He hates a lot of other groups as well’”

“Should I have…….”

“Lied?. Yes. Our job is to make our clients look good even when we know they don’t and especially when we know they can’t”

Public relations, Paige thought. It was an odd kind of business but it was still business, and there was so much you could do with an office in a musical context. An office was just so much of everyday life, something everyone could relate to.

The keyboards, almost musical by their very nature.

The uptight boss with disdain for all things theatrical in the hallowed environment of the office who almost unwittingly ends up singing and doing a little soft shoe himself.

The young idealistic woman, new to the office, whose dream is to change the world or set it on fire. Most likely both.

The friend, experienced, almost jaded, who takes her under her wing, seeing everything in her that she once was herself.

“I see,” said Paige.

“You see what?” Dunwoody answered.

Was it that obvious she had been working out blocking in her mind? After all they both couldn’t just stay seated during the entire scene.

She said nothing this time. She would just let him speak.

He sighed, just like the uptight boss, but Mr. Dunwoody did not fit the profile. He had high expectations but a gentle spirit. When she looked at him, she could almost literally see numbers swirling around in his head, a definite plus for believability in the role.

“You can go now,” he said.

“Oh, okay”

Paige looked behind her when she opened the door to leave his office.

“Do you want the door open or closed?”

“Closed”
They always wanted it closed, Paige thought, but that questions always seemed to be in the script so…..

Eyes looked up at her as they always did when someone left Dunwoody’s office, searching for signs on her face of what might have transpired behind closed doors.

She flashed them a grin, leaving them disappointed. What was the point of having no cubicle walls if there was never anything juicy to see.

They all went back to their work, their press releases, their phone calls, their lies.

Paige looked at the configuration of desks, row after row, in perfect alignment, in perfect symmetry. Suddenly, all her co-workers looked the same. The women, all with their hair pulled back, wearing a a red blazer with navy skirt of length that pushed itself just beyond the line of professionalism. The men, all wearing pin-striped blue suits and black glasses. How had she never noticed that before?

Stopping at her desk, Paige looked at herself in the mirror on the wall, which she had also never noticed. She was the only one dressed uniquely. Had the firm gone to some kind of standardized dress without her realizing it? Maybe that was the reason Mr. Dunwoody had called her into his office.

The sound of live music suddenly filled the air, a fast paced piano rhythm coming from a baby grand in the corner. The piano player gave her a wink. All of her co-workers got up from their desks and began moving about the room, their steps in time with the music.

Before she could blink, they were paired off in man-woman couples….though how was that even possible since there were four times as many women in the office as men…..and they began to dance the same tightly choreographed routine.

Perhaps they had brought in temps…..but temp dancers?
Paige couldn’t understand the lyrics they sang but they seemed particularly upbeat as did the entire number. She watched in fascination as the couples danced both together and separately. Top hats and canes flew through the air toward the men, each catching them in the middle of a well calculated spin.

They danced briefly around the women who stayed stationary and then, flinging the hats and canes away, twirled then flipped their female partners in the air. Even Rosalie….who was…..well…..had a thyroid condition and was a bit…..overweight. It was all done so precisely not a single skirt, not even Rosalie’s, was besieged by gravity.

Just as words were about to find her tongue, she felt her feet rise off the floor. Herb the maintenance man and the new guy
from marketing raised her by her arms to the top of her desk.

She stood there a moment then felt herself fall back into the arms of more dancers, then found herself in a rolling chair being pushed beneath an archway of raised arms, moving into place just seconds ahead of her….all the time, the music growing faster and louder.

The mixture of male and female voices sang out….”She’s down but she’s not out…..and she will rise again”

Caught up in the moment, Paige rose from the chair and,was immediately hoisted onto the shoulders of the two interns from accounting as she belted out the final line herself.

“Yes, I…..will…..rise…..aaaaa-ggggainnnnnnnn”

The big ending came in a fury of light and sound.

She tumbled from atop their shoulders yet knew they would catch her as the music reached its dramatic end and suddenly found a cardboard box in her hands.

She glanced down at it but the lingering quiet brought her head back up to see everyone sitting at their desks in their regular office attire., all of them staring at her.

“What’s up with her,” she heard one of them.

“She just got fired,” came the whispered response.
Paige looked at the box in her hands.

“I did?”

The college set up date...

by Kevin Collins

“You want a date, I can getchew a date,” he said with full confidence, a sure sign he did not know who he was dealing with.

“Whachew want….blonde?…..redhead?……female body builder?”

You mean I could actually choose?

“…….cat-woman?…..flower child?……. debutante?…… trucker chick?……wiley wench?”

“Wiley wench,” Dudley answered, then looked at me and gave a nod as if it was the obvious choice for me.
Mr. Willie, the only name I knew him as since he was an acquaintance of Dudley’s, not mine, took off his purple hat and pulled a small notebook out of it.

He flipped through the pages before coming to rest on the page that read ‘Wiley Wenches’ at the top. Despite the studious nature with which he examined the page, he did not blend in well with the crowd in the library….at least not on this night. Maybe it was his five gold chains or his black shirt, which had more buttons unbuttoned than buttoned, or his six inch heel shoes or the jambox he had on his shoulder pumping out ‘Ladies Night’ by Kool & the Gang..

It finally hit me that there were like twenty names on the ‘Wiley Wench’ page alone. Imagine, this guy knew twenty Wiley Wenches!! I didn’t know a single one much less one that would go out with me. Of course, I didn’t even know what a ‘wiley wench’ was.

He examined each name carefully, stopping occasionally to look up at me, sometimes more than once on a given name.

“Excuse me, sir, but you are going to have to either turn that off or leave the library immediately,” the librarian known as By-The-Book Brashear laid down the law, reaching over to turn the jambox off.

“Now, now, now, sweet thang……you can’t turn down Aretha….she’s da Queen of Soul,” he said.

“I’m sorry, sir, but this is a place of learning and knowledge…..not a discotheque,” she apologized half-heartedly.

“Well, you know, some things you can’t learn……like soul…..you either gots it or you donts,” he said putting his hand on hers which was still on the volume knob.

He smiled, the brightness of his teeth and the contrast with his dark skin downing small planes flying nearby.
She stared at him, but did not move her hand.

“Like you, I can tell you gots it…….you be a very soulful lady.”

“Well, I like to think I am,” she laughed self-consciously.

“You be the kind of woman that make da world rotate ‘round her……dat make the stars peek out from behind da clouds on a rainy night……..da kind of woman that make a big man cry like a baby,”

By The Book Brashear, the librarian that freaked out if you didn’t push the card catalog drawer all the way back in, touched her hair with her hand in awkward embarrassment.

“A woman with soul be very hard to find……a woman like chew and Aretha”

With his hand still on hers he turned the jambox back up to a volume that was even louder than before.

“Oh, I’m nothing like her,” she insisted, smiling and hoping he would say otherwise.

“You is but you ain’t….you both gots soul but you gots you own thang going, you own vibe,” his voice got quieter and he made a movement with his hands that looked like something whitie would see on ‘Soul Train’ and try to imitate.

Seconds later, to our amazement, she floated back to the check-out desk humming ‘Respect’ as he turned up the bass-boost. He was the quintessential smooth operator. He was silk….just like the white scarf draped around his neck.

He went back to looking at the list.

“You into bitin’?” he asked rubbing his thin mustache.

“Sure,” came back the excited answer.

We both looked at Dudley.

“Well, I’m assuming you are, I mean who wouldn’t?” Dudley tried to recover.

Mr. Willie redirected the question to me with a tilt of his eyebrow.

“Me biting or someone biting me?” for some odd reason I sought clarification.

It was a safe bet though that it was a bad omen if you had to ask.

“Maybe a Wiley Wench is not for me,” I conceded, fighting off

Dudley’s ‘shut up’ arm wave, “what else do you have?”

“You wanna hoochie mama…..I can getchew a hoochie mama.”
Somehow it didn’t sound like someone who should be sitting at the same table with my mother.

“Carny?……..vixen?……coal miner?..…mime?……I can getchew a mime.”

Dudley shouted out ‘yes’ after each one, including the mime.

Somehow being able to pick out a girl to go out with you made it too complex. Finally I just had to ask.

“Mr. Willie, what makes you so these girls will want to go on a date with me?”

“Name’s Hocat Willie, but you can call me Hocat,” he took off his hat and flashed a big smile, “well, now Hocat knows da ladies and da ladies knows Hocat.”

Sounded somewhat plausible, but…..

“Now I know it gots to be hod for you to decides…..hell, I got two pages of jungle women alone in heah……Hocat can step aside a minute and letchew discuss it with yo’ friend….dat’s cool.”

He went over to one of the tables and started talking to a guy reading The Iliad, though most of his energy seemed to be used up in just trying to stay awake.

“Whatchew readiin’ dair…..Homer?” Hocat Wille asked, then started showing him pages from his book of women.

“How long have you known this guy, Dudley?” I whispered even though the jambox guaranteed we would not be heard.

“A while”

“Well, why is he so willing to help me find a date?”

“He’s just a nice guy, I guess……and the finder’s fee,” replied Dudley.

“Finder’s fee?”
“Yeah, it’s a fifty dollar finder’s fee”

Suddenly, it hit me, like a slap from Hocat Willie’s pearl-handled cane. This guy was a pimp.

Dudley finding my theory laughable, I laid it all out for him…..the clothes….the huge list of women….the name.

“That’s just his name…..Hocat…..a lot of African Americans have unusual names,” protested the Dud, “it’s no big deal.”

“Hocat?…Dudley, who has the name ‘Ho-cat’?” I asked.

“I think I saw a guy one time on the news named Hocat,” he said as if that were strong enough to end the debate.

"Look at the way he’s dressed,” I subtly pointed toward him with my eyes.

"Yeah, it’s cool,” he sparkled, wondering if there was some department in Sears he had somehow missed.

I was getting nowhere with that so I asked Dudley where he had met him.

“Here in the library, I guess he comes here a lot to study”

He didn’t have a backpack as most pimps do not and he probably studied as much while at the library as Dudley himself.

“What’s his major?” I asked.

“I think he said ‘Sensuality’,”

Dudley noticed the look on my face and had to add….”that’s legitimate, I’ve heard of that, I think its medical related.”

We both looked back behind us where Hocat Willie was now talking to a poor guy struggling to find some modern-day relevance within the pages of The Old Man and the Sea…..and failing miserably at it.

Meanwhile, Iliad Guy was leaving with a blonde who appeared from nowhere from the periodicals section.

Hocat soon had Iliad guy on his way as well, being escorted out by a girl in the shortest dress I had ever seen.

Perhaps, she was listed on the ‘brainiac’ page and just happened to be lingering around the Encyclopedia of Literary Review.

Hocat closed the Old Man and the Sea and put it back on the shelf, exactly where it belonged, so it could easily be found by the next student coming along.

Hemingway would have been impressed. Hocat Willie walked back toward us with a smile and an explanation.

“I likes my customers to be able to find Hemingway, he brings in a lot of business,” he said.

Hemingway would have been ticked.

“So, what’s it gonna be, my man? You wanna female rodeo star. I can getchew dat. Ain’t no thang,” and he cocked his head in a way that told you he could getchew dat without you even having to leave the library.

“Now, my man Marvin says dat you needs a girl to go out wicha on a double date with yo’ parents”

Great, even Marvin (whoever that was) knew all about it.

“I can take car of dat for you like dat….”

He snapped his fingers and a girl in half of a cranberry dress appeared as if by magic. No wonder grades at Trudeau were so low….it was sort of hard to do a paper on Jean Paul Sarte when there was a girl lurking in the S’s wearing fish-net stockings.

Sarte was furious. I could just see him trying to shoo her over to the H’s while Hawthorne was driving a girl who was dressed like she just got out of the shower into the D’s. He always hated Dickens, anyway..

“This is Chanice”

I had seen enough “Baretta” to know that that was not her real name.

She put her hand under my chin and spoke to me with only inches separating our lips.

“I would love to go out with you,” she whispered.

I lost feeling in most of my body. Fog rolled in around our feet and I could feel time slowing to a crawl. She smiled in slow motion.

Meanwhile, Sarte tried to lure me back to the S’s with frantic arm waving and quotations he believed to be really impressive….no doubt, his own.

In my dream-like state, words bounced all around me like thousands of ping pong balls. I reached for them here and there, dropping one with each one I grabbed.

It was all surreal. Suddenly nothing mattered. Sarte’s claim that he invented the word ‘surreal’. The ‘finder’s fee’.
The fact that this girl’s name appeared on the ‘Political Career Wrecker’ page.

I garbled out something about a double date with my parents…..and for some reason included the words ‘illicit’ and ‘walrus’…..hopefully not very close together.

Her gaze burrowing deep into my eyes, she said without even moving her lips, “Whatever gets you through the night.”

Her long eyelashes rubbed against my face while I danced dangerously close to pulling out my wallet and then borrowing forty-seven dollars from Dudley.

Though it was a quick and easy fix, I guess I knew deep down it would never work. So in the end, I had to say, ‘No’…..although it may have sounded sort of like ‘breast’……but she knew what I was trying to say.

Though I turned down his help, Hocat Willie wasn’t mad at all and even told me if I ever had a big research paper to do, to look him up.

Across the way, a guy picked up Hamlet and started reading.

Appearing suddenly near the technical journals, Shakespeare was glowing, no doubt thinking, “After all these years, I still got it”. He turned to give someone a high-five but the only one standing there was Chaucer….and neither one of them really knew what one was.

His enthusiasm was quickly sucked out of him. He saw someone even more excited at the sight of someone reading Hamlet than he was.

Chanice.

Another Shakespearean tragedy.

The fourth one of the night.

He tried to accept it bravely, like one of his characters. But he couldn’t. He wouldn’t. Not this time.

He ran over and tried to make a convincing argument, elucidating on Hamlet’s use of symbolism, and its themes of human frailty and the evil that lurks within.

He tried to speak in terms that young people today would understand.

“It has been a cinematic production many, many times”

"It is a cornerstone of fine literature….”

He pronounced it ‘litera-tour’. He was losing the guy.
He shouted at the two of them as they went through the revolving door…..”It has sold more than eighty million Clff Notes!!!”

That had to meet the definition of success in anyone’s book.

“Looks like eighty million and one,” chuckled Chacuer.

Until he heard a voice seeping through from another row…..

“Whachew readin’ dair?.....Chaucer?”

Men and the complexities of the proverbial one to ten scale....

by Kevin Collins

"So what number do you think I am?” asked Turner.

“Well, it wouldn’t be for me to say”

“No, I want to know”

“I’m a man so any number I come up with would be purely arbitrary and subject to ridicule to the nth degree,” said Miles, sounding like something he would write in one of his columns, which was just fine with him.

Miles laughed and motioned for the waitress to come by.

“No, no, no, none of that crap you put in the newspaper. This is me you’re talking to. CJ Turner”

“Coleman Jarrett Turner, I do believe”

“I can see why you go by CJ,” the waitress smiled and said.

“This is not helping your chances for a big tip,” Turner said.
She realized she probably shouldn’t have said anything.

“It is with me,” Miles came back with. “Would you mind bringing me another glass of wine and another whatever that is for my friend here, Mr. Turner”
She took the empty glasses and left.

“You’re being evasive. Now you’re the one that brought it up so I want to know how you think I rate on a scale of one to ten”
Miles tried not to sound like a therapist and relationship expert of growing media popularity but that’s what he was, so why fight it? Still it was somehow different when it was a friend rather than a client or a TV reporter.

“Maybe you should consider your expectations of what my answer might be before you insist that I answer”

“Maybe you should answer the question” The waitress arrived with the glasses. “Permission to treat this man as a hostile witness?” he asked the waitress.

“He’s the only shot I have at a good tip, so….denied” She smiled and walked away.

“My point was simply this. If I give you a high score, will that please your ego or make you wonder why you are seemingly so attractive to the same sex?”

Turner raised his glass as if to say, “Touche”.

“Likewise, if I give you a low score, will you feel wronged or simply find some rationalization such as me being controlled by my jealousy over your devilish good looks”

“Touche’ again”

“Two touches in close proximity should be enough to retire any subject” Miles raised his glass

“Apt reasoning. Unfortunately, you still have not answered the question”

“Seemingly,” said Miles, enjoying the dance around a question he really didn’t want to answer.

“Need I remind you that I am an attorney?”

“By all means”

“Well, I am, you know…..an attorney”

“Excellent. If I ever need one, I will look you up”

They each were sidetracked momentarily by the sudden influx in women floating about Chadwick’s on a Friday evening.

These were the corporate types streaming out of the nearby offices of the high-rise buildings, wearing their conservative professional suits suitable for anyone wanting to pay ten dollars for a drink.

“As you were saying” said Turner.

“I wasn’t saying, and I believe that was the sum of it”

“Oh, yes. You were about to tell me how I rank on the scale of one to ten”

“Knowing myself well as I do, I can assure you I was about to tell you anything but,” asserted Miles, punctuating it with a smile.

“What if I were one of your patients? Would you answer?”
Turner pulled out his checkbook. “What if I write you out a check right now for two-hundred fifty dollars….”

“Three hundred fifty”

“Three hundred fifty? Why that’s highway robbery”

“Indeed, but if you were one of my patents, you would pay it happily” All the doubt in the universe had gathered together in one place and that place was Turner’s face.

“Okay, if not happily, then willingly”
Turner was still dubious but began to write out a check.

“Would it bother you for me to tell you that in all the clients I have ever had, no male (nor female for that matter) has ever felt compelled to ask me how I rated them on a scale of one to ten?”

“And I have never attended a rodeo and yet they exist”

“Very well,” Miles said, though he was totally distracted by the
woman in the blue business suit and ‘very well’ was what he always said when his mind was occupied and a response of some sort was appropriate.

Actually she was the third woman from the left in a blue business suit. Wasn’t there another color available, he thought. It was always a blue business suit.

“Don’t give me your generic ‘very well’ while you leer at the third woman from the left in a blue business suit” It was more obvious than Miles had thought.

“Did I interrupt your leer?” asked Miles.

“Not at all. I was busy writing out this universally accepted financial instrument which can be converted to cash at over three thousand locations of Citi, Incorporated in exchange for which I expect services worthy of such an amount”

“Right here? In Chadwick’s while we dally with alcohol”

“Why not?” asked Turner.

“Let me ask you this”

Turner started to interrupt, but Miles stopped him.

”I know you are going to say that you are asking the questions. But I commonly ask my patients questions, though I prefer the term ‘client’”

“Certainly”

“And the question is this. If I gave you an eight, would you be content or would you wonder what were the shortcomings I perceived that had prevented you from getting a ten? “

“So you are saying I’m an eight”

“Not at all”

Turner thought a minute and then slid the check over to him and put away his checkbook.

“So you are saying I’m an eight?” he repeated.

“Not at all, but I do have another question. If I gave you a three, would you be happy since I’m a man and if I find you unappealing then the third lady in the blue business suit would most certainly find you to be a three squared since she is my gender opposite? Which by the way would still leave you short of a ten”

“How convenient. And to think that people seek advice from you on their relationships”

“By the droves,” Miles said, toasting what turned out to be himself.

“And what makes you qualified to answer such weighty matters?”

“I haven’t the foggiest, but back to your question”

“I thought you were evading the question”

“I am but I would like to dance around it a bit more”

“Than by all means, go ahead”

“The more important question is….how does Turner rate himself on a scale of one to ten”

This was going to take a while. Turner motioned for the waitress to bring a bottle then said, “Well, it would seem to me that my opinion is totally irrelevant. I couldn’t possibly be objective, though, even that said, I would think that I would rate quite well”

“Do you?” asked Miles. It was a great tool for those in his business to be used when a response was needed but there was really nothing of note to say. “Do you really” also came in handy.

“Oh, certainly. Let’s look at the facts. Successful attorney. Well educated yet easy-going. Handsome….”

“Is ‘handsome’ a statement of fact or opinion?” Miles posed the question.

“Opinion generally, but when so glaringly obvious, fact”
Miles looked up. The waitress had been standing there a while opening the bottle of wine. She tried to suppress a grin.

“What’s wrong,” asked Miles.

“Oh, nothing,” she said unconvincingly, “just trying to protect my eyes from all the glare” She then scurried away as her composure wavered.

“Is there anyway I can tip her less than zero?”

“I really don’t see how,” said Miles, “So then what would be the final number you would give yourself?”

“A nine I would guess”

“Why not a ten?”

“Why not indeed? But I’m going to remain open-minded. Make your case and then I’ll decide if I have underestimated myself”

“Oh, I haven’t a case” Miles poured them both some wine “I was simply asking you why you did not give yourself a ten.”

“Is this some sort of exercise that you use on your whack job patients…..or clients? Will I be seeing this on the ‘soft news’ report tonight?”

“You wanted me to rate you. The best chance I have is for you to rate yourself first”

“Nine and ten are very close together. Percentage wise they are the closest on the one to ten scale. So perhaps I am a ten”

“A ten it is then?” asked Miles.

“According to the looks I’m getting from the third lady in the business suit, I would have to say ‘yes’”

“Very well. Then based on that I believe I can now rate you as you requested”
Miles pulled a small notebook from his jacket pocket and wrote a number on it.

“A nine”

“No”

“A six? You must be joking”

“Not at all”

“I think you were right. You number is purely arbitrary and worthy of ridicule”

“Actually it’s based on statistical fact. You see, the average person rates himself or herself three to four numerals higher than they actually are. So since you rate yourself a ten, you must really be a six”

“Absurd. Are you going to tell that to Oprah?”

“I’ve never been on Oprah, but yes I would tell her that because it has been shown to be true”

“So you’re saying that if I think I’m a ten, I’m really a six”

“For an average man, yes”

“Aha, but I am not ‘an average man’. I am a ten. A strong nine, at least, that could easily be raised to a ten, with little effort”
Miles saw it coming. It was the classic client rationalization: I am the exception. The commonly held wisdom does not apply to me. I am an enigma. I am the walrus. I can fly.

The waitress, whose name Miles noticed was Jenna, appeared from nowhere. She whispered to Turner but allowed Miles to listen.

“If you keep talking crazy like that we’re going to have to ‘cut you off’ so to speak”

“Cut me off?”

“You know. Stop serving you alcohol”

“You don’t find me to be a strong nine?”
Jenna was put on the spot.

“Who am I to judge? I’m just a woman” She made a quick exit.

Caught up in the high stakes world of college dating....

“That’s nice, you know my rear reeks of utter manliness,” I proclaimed, disappointing my good side while making a smooth transition into the topic. My assertion was drowned out by her quiet eeriness.
“The human body is nothing more than a rotting shell that hides man’s putrid inner self while it is being slowly eaten away as if by a worm floating in its own fetid excretions”
It seemed likely she was not into the rear thing.
How could it be?….after all I had The Book……perhaps it did not apply to girls whose height of ecstasy was to devour your soul.
Any adjectives I could come up with to describe my rear were totally worthless……glitzy with a touch of savoir faire……unassuming but paying homage to the grand tradition of pure Las Vegas style entertainment…..scintillating yet holding to a strong sense of family ….none of them would help.
Oh certainly my rear was none of those things but in the dark who could really tell.
I was losing her…..all of my newly acquired knowledge was of use only on women, not manifestations of the macabre, which had historically paid little attention to the booty region.
Rendered helpless, my thoughts were tossed about like a white satin curtain by an evil wind blowing into a child’s room. Holding on for dear life, I made the ultimate reach…
“Have you ever made out in a coffin?
A strange sensation swept over me, one foreign possibly to those like myself who had spent little time inside the nether regions of death obsession. A suddenly impassioned Luna was kissing my neck in a way that felt more like a crude biopsy.
If I survived it I would definitely have a hickie tomorrow.
YES!
Her breathy comments made between bites revealed, however, that her instant arousal largely rested on her belief that I actually had a coffin that we could make out in. The occasional tap on the back windshield was the sound of one of my buttons bouncing off the glass as she bit each one off my shirt. Without a coffin to my name, I had dug myself into a hole….so to speak….but someone French kissing the palm of your hand can lead you to optimistic thoughts that have no basis in fact.
This town was big enough…it was bound to have an all-night coffin place, I thought. But my blind optimism faded as she purposely shot the last button into my eye, a subtle but definite sign that it was time for me to produce a coffin.
“I think my roommate may be using it tonight,” I scrambled for something to say.
She instructed me to go to the drug store across the street and call him to see. I got out of the car. She followed, eliminating the only plan I had. I fended off incessant questions the entire way.
“Does it have claw marks……on the inside?”
“No,” I said, knowing had I said yes, she would have dragged me behind the dumpster that very second……only worsening her eventual reaction when she found out I was coffin-less.
“Thank you, God,” I whispered under my breath as I saw a guy using the pay phone outside the drug store. Luna just went and stood next to him….staring at him. Though she didn’t say a word, he quickly hung up, got in his car and sped away in horror. I pretended to need change and walked into the drug store. She followed but was physically expelled by invisible forces that could only be traced to the sound of Boy George being played on the store audio system.
Her face pressed up against the glass, she watched me intently, occasionally bringing her hand up to touch the door then pulling it away and looking at it for burn marks. I could have done the same thing from where her scalding eyes fell upon me.
With such a dark visage blocking the door, those wanting to enter figured out alternatives for the night. Those wanting to leave decided to check out the sale on break-up greeting cards.
With no idea what I would try next, I clung wildly to the excuse I had, having to get change to call my roommate.
Rolling a package of mints back and forth with my fingers, I fell in line behind three other people.
Another guy fell in line behind me, a younger guy. He looked like a high school student. Little did he know I had the secrets of the enemy…..ALL OF THEM…..in my coat pocket. I reached to see if the book was still there
It was.
I looked to see if anyone had seen me checking.
He sized me up, determined quickly that I was a loser and gave me a look worthy of my stature. The usual scenario.
Oddly, however, ho looked more nervous than me. Peeking out from beneath his fingers, strategically placed but not quite well enough to cover, was a box of condoms.
While he had condoms, I had mints. For him, it was enough said.
“Watch out for the under-wires,” I said ignoring the fact that I was risking detection just to prove to this one guy I was not a loser. I had the knowledge and having it and being expected not to use it was as realistic as telling Ronald Reagan, “Here’s how to build a nuclear missile but don’t build one and point it at Russia”
“What?” he said with an annoyed sneer. I whispered this time, “The under-wires, watch out for them”.
The intersection of glances between me and the gloomy girl waiting at the door must have registered with him, giving me a smidge of credibility as his voice took on a more receptive tone…
“These things have wires in them?” he echoed my whisper, pointing at the condoms.
“No, not those,” I said, although they could have an on-board computer for all I knew about them, “the under-wires in the bra”
“Why?”
“They’re used to rig explosives”.
“Yeah, right,” he laughed in disbelief.
I said nothing but tapped the cover of the book buried within my coat and looked around suspiciously, true mannerisms of espionage that were beyond reproach.
The box of condoms hit the floor. He scrambled for it but now held it as if it were a tarantula, his mind churning away over dangers he had not anticipated. His bulging eyes posed the question, “Why would they put explosives in the bra?”
“To maintain the secret of how their underwear works,” I said as softly as I could, still drawing the attention of a lady passing nearby.
Suddenly he had the uncertain look of a kamikaze pilot. Somehow losing a limb or more took all the excitement out of the evening ahead.
“How do you get past it, the explosives, I mean?” he asked me anxiously, the end of his statement being drowned out by a low gravely voice.
“Ex-Lax, huh?….I guess we know what you’re going to be doing the rest of the night,” the voice crackled, then added with a grumble, “You know if you wouldn’t eat all that junk food you wouldn’t have that problem….BUT NOOOOO!!…..well someday, you’re going to have an aneurism and you’re going to be laying on the floor with a pecan log in your hand screaming…..”a vein in my head exploded”…..well, when it does don’t come crying to me……$3.47”
With the sound of the register closing, the line slowly, almost reluctantly, moved forward.
“Prell shampoo,” began the check-out lady, whom I still could not see, everybody in line around me .standing frozen in suspense, “gotta make our hair look just right, don’t we, yes we do…..gotta look good for our boyfriend, all nice and shiny….the whole world’s crumbling around us but that’s okay as long as our hair does that special little wavy curl….well someday when bands of gays and lesbians marauding through the streets smash their way into Mommy and Daddy’s house and pull you into the front yard screaming then maybe you’ll be thinking….”maybe my hair’s not the most important thing in the world”…$1.94”
The guy ahead of me with the condoms was visibly shaken, but not nearly as much as the next guy in line…..a rather large guy with a box of brownies and a can of Ultra Slim Fast…..he made a break for it, trying to fight his way back through the line, slowed down by his own immensity and the unwillingness of the others to be moved up in line.
“Where do you think you’re going?” the Check-Out Lady from Hell grabbed him by the belt loop.
“Well, well, well…..brownies…..can of Ultra Slim Fast…..” she wasted no time in letting it fly.
Where I had heard that voice before, I couldn’t tell, but I was certain I had.
“…..and that’s why you can’t get a date because the lady would be scared that if you went to the movies and you ran out of popcorn instead of getting up to go get some more, you might just chomp off a hunk of her arm….”
I was two back in the line and started looking behind me for someone to trade items with. I eyed a woman with a box of paper clips and a protractor two people behind me. As she saw the mints in my hand, she tried to scream but nothing came out. I leaned toward her to propose an exchange but felt a pull from behind. In no position to bargain, the high school guy ahead of me who was next in line was trying to forcibly take my mints in exchange for his condoms. Everyone in line behind me gasped as they saw his item and pulled away, avoiding the gaze of his wild, maniacal eyes.
He had the super-human strength of a man with nothing to lose, attacking my grip on the mints, unconcerned about taking flesh along with them. Soon he was trying to bludgeon me with the box of condoms, stabbing and jabbing it into my neck and face, until the box came open and one went flying through the air, landing who knows where. Of all the people in line, he had the item that would draw the worst fire from the checkout lady and he knew it….we all knew it.
The onlookers in line rooted him on, knowing that if he couldn’t impose a trade upon me, they might be next. With so much at stake, he went unconventional on me, using a wire National Enquirer holder in ways the publishers of that fine magazine could have never foreseen. Somehow I held on. Then with the ringing out of ‘Have a nice day’ to departing Slim Fast Guy, everyone in line, including us, froze in place.
“Next”
I stood there afraid to take inventory of myself but happy in my success.
“Tattered box of condoms….” she almost sounded giddy, the voice again ringing a familiar tone.
I would hate to be that guy, I thought to myself as I saw the box on the counter, making my victory all the sweeter.
They lay there in front of me……in front of me…..I was now at the beginning of the line…..I was being checked out. A madman’s smirk came drifting across from the guy behind me. I opened my hand in disbelief….the mints were no longer in my hand. Now behind me in line, the high school kid held them up triumphantly.
“…..well, well, well…..I’m Mr. Joe Stud……I’m God’s gift to women…..I’m gonna score with that little bimbo with the paper clips…..we’re gonna get it on, do the dirty deed, do the wild thing, ram jam, makin’ bacon, rock the house….”
There was no getting around it. This was no time to discover that Grandma has a new part-time job.
“Grandma?” I said, recognition somehow seeping into my oxygen deprived brain as the paper clips lady wrapped her hands around my throat in seeming disapproval at being linked romantically with me. I couldn’t muster the air to say anything else….besides Grandma was on a roll…..
“Staining the sheets….purging the urge…….taking a roll in the hay…..laying some flim flam on the jim jam……scronking….”
Luna remained locked into a slow orbit just outside the door, unaware of the unfathomable forces unleashed within the store.
“…….doing the wet willie…….cruising the boulevard……squeegying the floor………..”
Man, she knew more expressions for it than I had ever heard, that was for sure.
“Yeah, we’ve known each other twenty or thirty minutes….might as well slip into a back alley and rip each other’s clothes off and perform various ungodly acts on each other….and wake up in the morning with our privates on fire….”
For the first time I could see why Grandpa had taken off…..
“Well, someday, you’re both gonna wake up used up, dried up and hagged out wretches with dangling facial skin like a porno star running in here asking if I got anything for oozing pustules that smell like cat vomit covering 90% of your body and I’m gonna say, “why don’t the two of you go back to the back room and have a quickie while I sell this little five year old pimp some cigarettes and some crack cocaine to his dog since there ain’t nothing going on except the crumbling of society……..$5.23”
The guy behind me, the REAL condom guy, couldn’t just let me pay, and get out of there.
“I think those were on sale,” he said to her.
A condom sale?…..it didn’t seem too likely……but now more than ever I WAS WILLING TO PAY FULL PRICE!!!…. …..FOR AN ITEM I DIDN’T EVEN WANT!!!…..I WOULD PAY RUSSIAN BLACK MARKET CONDOM PRICE JUST TO BE ABLE TO GET OUT OF THERE!!!
“Gotta save our money, don’t we, in case we have to buy some liquor to make her forget we’re ugly…..or pay for an abortion in the back row of the movie theater”
I threw down a ten-dollar bill and told her to keep the change. She ignored it.
“Just can’t wait to jump her bones, can we?…..price check on SuperMan condoms……and make it snappy so Joe Stud up here doesn’t start hunching my leg,” she yelled out over the loud speaker.
I stood there incessantly, withstanding the onslaught like a palm tree in the eye of the storm.
She began reading the side of the package…..”’Made with space-age polymers engineered for maximum pleasure’……well, Praise God for that”
“4.98?…..regular price, that’s what I thought…..well sorry, Hugh Hefner……guess you’ll have to slip something into her Slurpee”
Sensing impending trouble in the way that Grandma picked up a peanut patty and gripped it like a Chinese star, I took my bag and got out of there.
“Mints…..just can’t wait to ram our tongue down her throat can we……or is it his throat?” Grandma fixed on the new target.
Heads turned as I boldly entered the black cloud of gloom which was my date lurking just outside the door Luna moved to let me out. Several minutes would pass before other customers, trapped within the store, would gain enough courage to pass through even with her gone.
She looked at me longingly with what could only be described as ‘casket eyes’. Our relationship hung in the balance, but I was essentially casketless.
I debated whether to even make a pretend phone call to my non-existent roommate….or to just tell her the truth, never realizing that the truth was oozing out.
She seemed to take it okay, considering I led her on, however unintentional it may have been. Although bleak, she was not noticeably bleaker than before.
She wrote down her number. I readied myself for the traditional line ‘give me a call some time if you ever do come up with a casket’….you know the one you see in all the romantic movies.
“There is a threshold of pain beyond which the human brain will actually explode” she said instead and handed me her number.