by KUBOA
Flying Pony
The xylophone may not have been the most appropriate instrument for scoring mass; indeed, it was not the most unconservative church on Minnehaha Ave; still though, it was a nice funeral and the tortillas were fresh. Horatio lamented, as was his custom, while I blessed myself and played many secular honorarios on behalf of Tony, our friend, Tony, an amigo among few standing out chiefly in memory for his affable truculence, docile menace, and clitoral lisp. We had assembled because Tony choked to death on a gordita at the Bloomington miniature pony chunking contest. None of us expected it. The xylophone sang like an exercising Jesus falling against the railroad with his ribs. Tony's mother blessed herself and many women watched and patted their own thighs, and the world sighed because it didn't care.
Exclusive Or
They again marveled at the trees after moments spent dancing…
Your clapping makes me like your father even less, Margie.
Puberty has touched you upon the forehead, Anthony, and heavy handed though she may be, she hasn’t overdone it.
Look, a brassiere caught in a zephyr! Is it yours?
Yes, and would you look at that mother dance!
(Nobody says anything about trees).
Your hands strike each other and the sound reminds me of the sound of your father’s oar striking me in the head during our first fishing trip.
It was an accident, you fool.
…And during the second trip?
Bad luck.
(more clapping).
Anyway, which method of getting a person into a tree has been deployed on my father…Hoist and harness…Trebuchet?
Kites and liquor.
Embassy Suites
on a Tuesday Afternoon
Bitch in a fur coat eats crackers and sits at the bar and bares teeth and an ignominious triad of lightning-bolt stretch marks that must at some point within her light cone been a crackling herald, the celebratory onset of a great Viking childbirth.
The sun burns through the window and makes a Mongol of me.
She hammer fists a bowl of lutefisk, stares at my erection.
I check the time and note that it is a Tuesday.
Arbor Day
Go with your brother, Mom says.
(Going)
Mom calls him a genius and Dad calls him an idiot; Roscoe only nods and produces from his overcoat a revolver wrapped in butcher paper. It smells like meat, the gun, and that is half the battle with dog-shooting, Roscoe says.
(Build trust, allow him a smell or two, maybe throw it into a bush and allow him to retrieve it)
We see Emily sitting in a basket clutching an anvil in a field and whether she was whispering or yelling at it we cannot say. We think nothing.
( )
Arbor Day is big in our family, worthy of sacrifice, so Roscoe takes lead, whistles for the dog.
(Praise Pan! he says. Praise him! Here, Mr. Pete, come over here.)
That's a good boy. Yes, you are! Who’s a good Mr. Pete? Mr. Pete is!
(Rapport is an epiphenomenon of cogent priming and stable movement, a ruse of habituation)
...don't pull the gun from his mouth, no, allow him to drop it. Repeat maybe twice.
Fire
(Fires gun at Mr. Pete)
Afterwards father hands me a pizza box with a knife in it and nods sideways to where Roscoe is standing; Mom hands Roscoe a hoagie and jerks her thumb towards Erik's wheelchair, moves her hand up and down near her hips to Dad, like slow down or something.
(Erik has on headphones and continues coloring the margins in his book of saints)
Where is Emily, I ask?
Ballooning with Quincy, says Dad, somewhere, doubtless blighting the clouds.
Lamont replaces Dad's electronic voice modulator with a stick of dynamite and begins cooking bacon: grease snaps into the air and nips at his chest. Lamont has on a helmet.
(Lamont looks like a dare-devil. I tell him this.)
Dad speaks.
I can't hear you, Dad, Lamont says, I hear, as my footfalls dampen the sounds of country brunch.
I continue and when I reach the woods I stop running and begin admiring, just this once taking in the meaning of it all—colors, limbs, silence.
( { } )
Traversal
When negotiating a staircase you would be ill advised to not begin at either the summit, if starting from a top-mounted position or, if the landscape has permitted access from the ground, the base; rarely expect anything different. Break a young branch from a nearby tree and grip it loosely in the air or scatter a fist of dirt up the staircase; either will aid you in orienting your body in a manner most amenable to the prevailing weather. Vortices and waterspouts should be avoided, as should other familiar dangers such as fog or Apaches or a misplaced and stupefied Earnest Borgnine. Tuck your trouser legs into your boot; however, in the absence of tolerable boots, remove the laces from your shoes and tie them around the cuffs, pulling tightly, cinching them off like snakebites. If circumstances have found you in the company of a comic foil, then send him up first; often the path charted by careless tumble or the tone and timbre of last words provide vital information about de facto traction issues or booby-traps, and aside from being informative, it is also very funny. If still clad, take his boots, maybe, and be circumspect in removing of any letters or smokeables from his vest pockets. Oh how he joked! Then back to the stairs. Children doubtless are obstacles to success: don’t have any. There is nothing worse than being assailed by thoughts of one’s children at times of great danger, or being interrupted by their braying during ruck-a-muck preludes to triumph; present to the staircase a single-minded visage, striking as an alabaster totem. Remember the revolving door, how you defiled it’s pretension of being both entrance and egress? Well this is no different, philosophically, and cockiness will only mitigate success in favor of the inanimate should you strike up the band and begin whistling pompous cavatinas or other misguided hubrics. Consider one step at a time; i.e., left foot onto step 1 followed by right foot onto step 1. Repeat on step 2, etcetera. Don’t worry if that style cuts rotten across your vanity; yes, you will from a distance appear to be mildly retarded, but even moving at a clip that team-agnostic primer gray helmet you wear evokes vituperation and mild vexation from even the most staid and common-law enthusiast. Left foot, right foot: yes, you are moving now, sure-footed as an Andean tap-dancer, up into the sky where the ladies and the bassoonists play.
There you go, you are going, see?
Your friends are all waiting, urging you along, and midwifing you into an oblivion of praise.
You go.
You are gone.
Death
Six men enter a room; they look at each other and then scramble for a seat in one of the room’s five chairs.
Roy, Gary, Trey, Gladys , & Cal all find seats; Lamont does not.
Well, what do I do now? says Lamont.
We don't know, says Trey, this has never happened before.
Some time passes.
I must sit down, says Lamont, my legs are burning.
Let them burn, says Roy.
Let them swell, says Gary.
They are swelling, cries Lamont, like drowned dogs!
What would happen if I sit on the floor, says Lamont.
The furies would set upon you, says Cal, who is part Greek; abstain from the floor, he continues.
The table! shouts Lamont.
No, no, no, they all say at once; we need room for our folios and other important things, things like wrist watches, soda cans, pill bottles --- and our maps!
Godammit, says Lamont, I forgot about the maps!
It is getting dark out.
Trey asks Roy what he thinks about Lamont not getting a seat and Roy shakes his head; Roy tells it like it is.
Stop that, Lamont, they yell to Lamont after he tries pulling himself up onto a shelf: Get off of that.
Lamont gets down
and works his hand over a sore shin.
What about we maybe go through the next door? says Lamont.
Cal bites his thumb and says, no, we will stay put; Gary and Trey point to Cal and nod in a manner that expresses agreement.
You go, says Roy, these chairs are quite comfortable and we are loath to give them up in support of folly.
Gladys looks down at her map, draws a circle around the door, and begins to hand it to Lamont.
Lamont nods to Gladys.
After several minutes of staring out the window Lamont consults the map. He writes things on it. He looks up at the door. He holds it sideways.
He decides to approach the door from the right, far less vitriol on the right, yes.
Lamont approaches the door.
Gary and Roy trace Lamont’s path on their own maps with their fingers as he walks; they look at each other. Everyone nods --- Ahh, the right!
Lamont opens the door.
Gladys looks at Trey and Trey, Gary, Roy, & Cal look at Lamont.
Lamont looks at the door.
Lamont steps through the door.
Lamont is gone.