Perverted Proverbs

by Marsh Cassady

  "Well, yeah," Avery said, a little bit insulted that Axton knew what he was doing, but he wasn't able to find out anything about his lover's plans. He simply couldn't believe what Axton had told him.

  Yet, it turned out to be true. On the day that Avery's exhibition opened in Nevada at the cost of billions of dollars, Axton began to stage parades—like circus parades, but without the jugglers and clowns. They consisted simply of a herd of elephants surrounded by marching musicians—and not very good ones at that.

  He staged parades in all the major cities of the world; in county seats across the land, in isolated hamlets. And people flocked to see them. Dozens, hundreds, millions of people. And, of course, being an entrepreneur Axton charged for this—ten cents a head for kids under twelve; twenty-five cents for adults. And the money poured in by the bushel, the barrel, the carload.

  At the same time Avery's exhibit opened in Nevada, much more exotic than Axton's parades. Here were strange colored animals, polka-dotted trees, platinum-colored flowers and leaves.

  At first, it looked like Avery might make a lot of money on the scheme. But he didn't. Oh, he did recoup what he'd spent. But people quickly tired of traveling to see his exhibit. Day by day it recovered expenses but made little profit, actually only about half of what Axton made with his stupid parades. So Avery knew he was doomed, doomed to a life of cooking.

  But out of curiosity he asked Axton how he'd known what would happen. "It's pretty apparent," Avery said. "Something you should have known. And here is what Axton said:

  Moral: A herd in the band is worth two in the bush.

  UNDERCOVER JUDGE

  Once in the far-off kingdom of Big Apple lived a very compassionate judge named Keene Foote. Endowed with the wisdom of a Solomon, the compassion of a Gandhi, the patience of a saint, he nevertheless had one peculiarity. He liked to dress in the type of clothing more appropriate for little girls and skip through the streets of Big Apple.

  Now you might think he had ulterior motives in mind, but he didn't. He lived happily in Uptown Big Apple with a lover of many years. In fact, it was only when his lover was out of town on business that Keene indulged in his strange behavior. It greatly excited him to go undercover this way, dressing in pinafores, curly wigs, patent leather shoes and white socks.

  Although he and his partner Tedmond loved each other dearly, Keene was sometimes glad to see him leave for a few days, so he could don his strange clothing.

  For years he had been engaging in this sort of behavior, and no one had ever discerned who he was. In fact, since the Big Apple is such a large kingdom, he seldom saw friends, relatives or acquaintances. When he did, they averted their gazes, apparently not wanting to become involved, and, of course, not recognizing who he was. Yet, he was always careful, covering most of his face with the wig, his body with the clothing so that little of the real Judge Foote showed.

  So he went on his merry way, night after night, year after year without mishap or interference. Until one time he was skipping along, humming a song from Mary Poppins, when he felt someone grab his arm. A mugger, he thought. But when he turned, he saw it was a policeman. And not just any policeman but one he'd had as a witness many times in his courtroom.

  Clancy, for that was his name—Clancy Bukowski—looked as if he couldn't believe his eyes. "Judge Foote!" he said. "What in the world are you doing dressed in this getup? Going to a costume party?"

  "No," Keene freely admitted, actually feeling relief that his worst nightmare had come true, that indeed he had been recognized. "No, I just like to dress up this way."

  "Judge Foote," Clancy said, shaking his head, "I'm afraid I'll have to take you in."

  The judge held out his wrists.

  "That won't be necessary," Clancy said. "I'm sure I can trust you."

  Keene often had wondered what it felt like to be on the opposite end of the law. Now he knew. Stuck in the back of a cruiser, a grill between him and Clancy, he felt ashamed. And worse. What if this got into the papers? What if his colleagues found out? His family and friends? His lover?

  They pulled up in front of the precinct house. Clancy got out, opened the back door and helped the judge from the car. With a pitying look on his face, he led Keene inside the building.

  "What is this?" the sergeant asked.

  Clancy hesitated. He was embarrassed and didn't know what to say. "It's the judge. Judge Foote. I found him dressed like this, skipping through the streets of the Big Apple."

  "You'll have to let him go," the sergeant said. "Immediately. You've made a terrible mistake. We simply can't charge him for this. We absolutely can't. Now, get him out of here this minute."

  "But why?" Clancy asked.

  "Out, out, right now!" the sergeant screamed.

  Clancy shrugged and steered Keene out the door. Of course, Keene was relieved. And so was Clancy, because when he thought about it, he knew he'd been wrong in bringing Judge Foote in. The reason he was wrong?

  Moral: You can't book a judge by his cover.

  A PAINFUL EXPERIENCE

  Once upon a time there was a sadist who lived in the kingdom of Toledo, Ohio. He liked nothing better than to tie up other men and whip them. He didn't do this viciously; for he was rather a kind sort of sadist. He didn't want to cause real pain, only to pretend to do so. For when he saw real pain reflected in anyone's eyes, he went all to pieces and wept in empathy.

  One day, sitting on a stool in the leather bar, looking at the local gay paper, he saw an ad under "Personals." "GWM, 32, good looking, smooth body ..." The more Quentin read, the more intrigued he became. The man said he was a bottom looking for a top. But more than that he liked nothing better than to be controlled, to submit totally to another man.

  Before he lost his nerve, Quentin rushed to the pay phone and called the listed number.

  "Hello, this is Stephen speaking," a voice answered.

  "Stephen," Quentin said, "I saw your ad, and I hoped we could get together."

  "Yeah, well, I mean what I said, sir. I need to be trained, dominated, shown who's boss."

  Stephen went on to list all the things he liked. The longer he talked, the more excited Quentin became. They set up a time for Stephen to come to Quentin's apartment.

  As far as Quentin was concerned, it was love at first sight. Stephen was absolutely gorgeous with a boyish face and piercing green eyes. Their first session went wonderfully well, or so Quentin thought. As usual, so far as he was concerned, it was all fantasy, with no pain. He only pretended to inflict pain on Stephen, to whip him, to torture him.

  Stephen seemed to like Quentin. At least he said he did. He told him right off that he fulfilled his deepest fantasies of the type of man he knew was good for him. An older man, in his early forties with a hairy body and black beard.

  ***

  Two days later Quentin called Stephen again. "Hello, this is Stephen speaking," the voice said.

  "Stephen," Quentin gushed, "it's me."

  "Who?"

  "Quentin."

  "I don't know any Quentin. I think you must have made a mistake."

  "But you were at my apartment just the day before yesterday."

  "Hey, man," Stephen said, "what sort of scam are you trying to pull?"

  "Surely, you remember— Your ad in the paper?"

  "My ad. You've got to be kidding. I've had no response to that." He sounded angry. "It was wasted time and effort."

  "You're pulling my leg, aren't you?" Quentin asked. "You're putting me on."

  "Hey, buddy, I'm going to hang up, and I suggest you don't bother me again. I have a brother-in-law who's in the police department—"

  Quentin was terribly disappointed. He thought he'd found the light of his life, and now the light had gone out. "Hey, Stephen, if you don't want to see me again, just say so. Okay? I mean, I care about you. I care a lot. But if that's the way—"

  "What are you, man, some kind of nut?" Stephen replied. "I don't know you and that's that. Now I'm telling you, bug off." H
e slammed down the receiver.

  Quentin didn't give up. He phoned again and again. Usually, there was simply no answer. Or else Stephen hung up.

  For days Quentin was depressed. Finally, he talked to his buddy Sheldon about it.

  "I'm not surprised," Sheldon said.

  "What do you mean?" Quentin asked. They were at the leather bar, drinking Bud.

  "I know how you are, pal," Sheldon said. "With you it's all pretend, right?"

  "Well ... yeah."

  "Okay, there's your answer. Stephen wasn't lying. So far as he was concerned the two of you had never met."

  "I'm afraid I don't understand."

  "It's simple," Sheldon said. "I'll try to explain."

  And so he did. And here is what he said:

  Moral: What you don't hurt won't know you.

  PENNY WISE

  Once upon a time there was a man named Benny Penny, a terribly unhappy young chap who lived in a posh apartment in Scarsdale. With one exception he had everything a young man could ask for—scads of money (left to him to a doting great aunt), intelligence (no tests had yet been devised to figure out how high it was) and manly good looks (a handsome face, a muscular body, white even teeth, ebon hair).

  The only thing Benny had that he didn't like was 550 pounds of extra weight. At 6'2" he weighed nearly 750 pounds. More than anything in the world he wanted to lose weight and find a young man with whom to spend the rest of his life.

  Yet because of the way he looked—like a gargantuan hunk of sausage ready to burst its casing—he despaired ever of finding someone to love. In fact, so despondent was he that he rarely left his posh apartment. On those rare occasions when he did leave, he made sure there was no moon.

  He'd wander the darkest areas, trying to stay as far away as he could from the merest slice of light, pretending he was cruising so he could find a fair young man to carry him off to a magic kingdom where sorcery could melt away his excess poundage. Still, he knew if such a man arrived and tried to carry him off, most likely the only result would be a sprained back.

  Benny Penny realized that his fantasy had no chance of coming true; it was simply a dream. But to give up dreams is to give in to despair. Watching cars speed past on distant streets, he wished with all his being to have someone to care for, a man who would care for him in return.

  On one of Benny's late night excursions, he stumbled into a pothole and fell, badly spraining his ankle. He tried to rise but couldn't. Then he wondered why he should even bother? Nobody cared what happened to him, least of all himself. Why not just give in to the pain and end a lifetime of suffering? He'd simply roll over on his back, facing the cloudless heavens, his head on a rock and wait for the end.

  It was a good plan, he thought, except the rock was too uncomfortable, and the rumbling of his gut couldn't be ignored. He was in pain and he was hungry. And so he began to crawl, glancing toward the faraway street. The distance seemed more than twice infinity. Pieces of gravel imprinted themselves in his palms and knees. Tears came to Benny's eyes, squeezed out of the corners, ran down his cheeks and dripped off his chin. At last he reached an embankment and tried to scratch his way to the top. He was winded; he was in pain. And so he stopped, laid his head in a nest of nettles and closed his eyes to garner his strength.

  Suddenly, a car pulled to the side of the road, a door slammed, and someone scrambled down the bank. Benny looked up to behold the most gorgeous creature he'd ever seen, more handsome than Michelangelo's David, more beautiful than a deep cherry pie with whipped cream.

  Benny judged the man to be in his early thirties, with cotton candy hair that framed a perfect face—lips like dripping honey, cheeks the color of cinnamon buns, a moustache like shredded wheat. Benny realized it had been more than an hour since his last snack—two large pizzas with double cheese and sixteen toppings.

  "Are you all right?" the young god asked.

  "I sprained my ankle," Benny answered. He felt ashamed of how he must look.

  "We'll have to get you to a doctor," the man said scrambling, down the bank.

  How could that be accomplished? Benny wondered. He weighed too much for the man to try to help him to his feet, far too much to lean on him for support.

  "It was lucky I saw you down there." The man pointed to the direction from which he'd come. "Just at the curve," he said, "there's a view down the embankment, and at first I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw what I knew to be a young man with everything—brains, looks and intelligence—stretched out halfway to the top."

  "Me?" Benny said. "Moi?"

  "Who else but you?" the man answered.

  "But I'm so— So— So—"

  "What?"

  "So awfully ... fat." Benny turned his head away, tears again flooding his cheeks.

  "Come on," the man said, bending over, tugging on Benny's arms. He was surprisingly strong as he raised him to his feet.

  "Oh," Benny exclaimed. "So manly, so handsome, so strong."

  The man laughed. "Vitamins." he said, "and pure thoughts." He threw Benny's arm across his shoulder and helped him up the bank. "Say, what is your name anyway?" the man asked.

  "Benjamin Penny," Benny told him. "But everyone calls me Benny. Or they used to, before I got so fat. Now they don't call me anything, because I don't let anyone see me."

  "Just as I suspected. Ben Penny. My name's Nigel, and I want to take you home, care for your needs till your injuries are healed, and love you the rest of my life."

  "Oh, my goodness," Benny said, "oh, my goodness. That's wonderful, marvelous. For at first sight of you, I fell madly, totally, irrevocably in love. You truly are my knight in shining armor."

  "Hardly," Benny's rescuer said. "I'm just a simple man with simple feelings."

  "Oh, bliss," Benny answered, "yet—"

  "What is it, my pet?"

  "I'm so fat; how can anyone love me?"

  The man chuckled. "It makes no difference to me. I'd love you the same, no matter what you weighed. Yet, if you come with me and we live our lives henceforth together, you'll find that all your excess poundage will simply melt away."

  Benny didn't believe him at first but later found it was true. On their tenth anniversary as a couple, both lithe and handsome, one dark and the other fair, Benny Penny asked his lover Nigel how he knew what he'd known.

  "I suspected it from the beginning," his lover said. "Then when you told me your name, I was absolutely certain."

  "How?" Benny asked. "Why?"

  "Elementary, my dear," Nigel answered. "Isn't your name Benny Penny?"

  "Of course, it is. You know that, my love."

  "Well then ..." And here is what his lover told him, which he certainly should have known himself.

  Moral: Take care of Benny Penny, and the pounds will take care of themselves.

  A TIMELY DECISION

  Once upon a—strike that! Once upon many times a quantum physicist named Bert Stein discovered a way to travel to alternate worlds and different times. Now Dr. Bert was a cautious man who believed in being prepared—his shrink had actually referred to him as obsessive/compulsive. So he didn't simply take off in all directions at once. Rather, he gathered together a team of eight other scientists, realizing that other worlds and other times would differ greatly from his own and so would require much investigation and study. He assembled all the necessary equipment and supplies, duplicating everything in case one set was lost or unusable.

  Finally, he and his team purchased a large bus in which to travel. Then they began their adventure, rolling from world to world, from past to future, gathering data, writing reports, meeting with the natives, some quite similar to themselves, others vastly different.

  All went well until they came to a world called Eros, a wonderful world, a world of fantasy. Here the eight members of Dr. Bert's team and Dr. Bert himself found the objects of their deepest desires.

  Now this particular world on which Dr. Bert and the eight team members dallied was rather primitive; no one had
yet invented the steam engine, or even the wheel. But who needed them when the days could be passed in dallying with the object of fantasies?

  The team wished to linger forever, Bert included. For his new lover Reginald was of the stuff of dreams—tall, tanned, perfectly formed, and without blemish.

  Yet the scientists knew they had a mission, an obligation to share their knowledge with their own world, and so they were torn. "Perhaps," Bill the biologist said, "we can take these people back to our own world. For the bus is big enough, to be sure."

  "What a wonderful idea," Bert said.

  Yet the natives refused to go. In fact, they were incensed by the suggestion; they were enraged. As Bert's lover exclaimed, "Leave our perfect world for one of overpopulation, pollution, and silly sitcoms. You must be out of your mind. And besides," Reginald added, "we want you here with us. We refuse to allow your return."

  "What?" Bert asked.

  "What?" Gloria, the entomologist asked.

  "What?" Bill the biologist asked.

  "What?" Ruth the anthropologist asked.

  "What?"—well, you get the idea.

  All the lovers of the team members had gathered, along with scores of others, then hundreds, then thousands. They surrounded Dr. Bert and his team of eight.

  "What is the meaning of this?" Bert demanded.

  "You come here, toy with our emotions and then simply want to leave?" Reginald said. "It shall not be."

  "No way," the crowd shouted. "Never."

  Dr. Bert realized they'd gotten themselves into a pickle. "We are leaving!" Bert said. "It's difficult; we love you, we surely do. Yet our own world has need to know the results of our explorations."

  "Nay," Reginald shouted. "Nay. You are confined to your bus until you begin to see the light." He held out his hand. "The keys, please," he said.