Make me the Pride of Frankenstein and I will not complain
Just strap me down and let me have a transplant of the brain: I need it
Please Dr. Frankenstein, won't you try and raise me from the dead?
My heart is barely beatin since I caught the woman cheatin in our bed
My entire world's a coffin and it doesn't get me off an like I said
Please Dr. Frankenstein, won't you try and raise me from the dead?
Come to My Bedside
by
Zaccur Bishop
Come to my bedside and let there be sharing
Uncounterfeitable sign of your caring
Take off the clothes of your body and mind
Bring me your nakedness; help me in mine…
Help me believe that I’m worthy of trust
Bring me a love that includes honest lust
Warmth is for fire; fire is for burning
Love is for bringing an ending to yearning…
For I love you in a hundred ways, and not for this alone
But your lovin’ is the sweetest lovin’ I have ever known
Come to my bedside and let there be giving
Licking and laughing and loving and living
Sing me a song that has never been sung
Dance at the end of my fingers and tongue
Take me inside you and bring up your knees
Wrap me up tight in your thighs and then squeeze
Or if you feel like it, you get on top
Love me however you please, but please…don’t stop
For I love you in a hundred ways, and not for this alone
But your lovin’ is the sweetest lovin’ I have ever known
I know just what you’re thinking of
There’s more to love than making love
There’s much more to the flower than the bloom
But every time we meet in bed
I find myself inside your head
Even as I’m entering your womb
So come to my bedside and let there be loving
Twisting and moaning and thrusting and shoving
I will be gentle; you know that I can
For you I’ll endeavor to be quite a singular man…
Here’s my identity, stamped on my genes
Take this my offering: know what it means
Let us become what we started to be
On that long-ago night when you first came with me…
O, lady! I love you in a hundred ways, and not for this alone
But your lovin’ is the sweetest lovin’ I have ever known
Out of Your Way
You went out of your way to make sure I’d love you
And now you say be patient for awhile
You went out of your way to be just as nice as you could be
Until I fell, and then you modified your style
You say you’re somebody else’s slave…I suppose we all got our crosses
But I ain’t nobody’s slave and I figure it’s time I cut my losses
You could end up mine some way, but baby until that day
I’m goin’ out of your way by a country mile
You went out of your way to make sure that I’d need you
You taught me the significance of need
And I went out of my way to show you who I am and how I fell
Which is for me a think remarkable indeed
You got a lotta laughs inside, but I’m afraid that’s where they’re keepin’
You got a lotta tears there too, and I reckon you’re much more fond of weepin’
You could end up mine, it’s so—but baby, until I know
I’m goin’ out of your way with all due speed
You went out of your way to make sure that I’d want you
With your eyes as much as with your knowing hands
But you’ll never be happy at all until you want to
And till I don’t want to be makin’ long-term plans
They’ve already dealt the hand: I’ll either win it or else I won’t
You understand how I feel and you either want me or else you don’t
Take as long as you need to decide—but baby, I got my pride
And I’m goin’ out of your way while I still can
—oh, can’t you see?
You ain’t no use to me like this: there ain’t enough of you left to miss
Why don’t you come out of your way, just one more time, with me?
Hardon You
I know my constant horniness gets hardon you
Sometimes it seems I’m always in the mood
If that is so I truly beg your pardon, too
It wasn’t my intention to be rude
My love is like my horniness, in that it never quits
But I’d love you if you didn’t have those tits
Men have only got the one thing on their mind
It gets so repetitious it’s a crime
Somebody said a hard man is good to find
As long as you don’t find him every goddam time
You are not only something that I lust for, that I hunt
I would love you if you didn’t have a cunt
I’m neurotically erotic, with a taste for the exotic
And your body is hypnotic when it’s next to me
I’m dementedly attentive, and in need of no incentive
But you know you represent much more than sex to me…
You know that I was horny for you from the start
And that’s the way it’s always gonna be
But you ought to know your sexiness is just a part
Of the value you will always have for me
It may have been what caught my eye: it isn’t why I stick
I would love you if I didn’t have a dick
Mountain Lady
(Jeanne’s Song)
Mountain Lady, sing for me: your singing makes me glad to be alive
Mountain Lady, give to me your lovin’, for it helps me to survive
Mountain Lady, stay with me, and let me drink your beauty with my eyes
I want you to lay with me, and be there in the morning when I rise
You give me what I need, and you need what I can give
Like you I live for loving, and like me you love to live
I swear I’ll make you happy if there’s any way I can
And if you will be my Mountain Lady, I will be your man…
Mountain Lady, smile for me: your smile is like the rising of the sun
Wait a little while for me—I’m coming back as fast as I can run
Mountain Lady, talk with me, for talking is essential to our growth
I want you to walk with me through all the days remaining to us both
You give me what I need, and you need what I can give
Like you I live for loving, and like me you love to live
I swear I’ll make you happy if there’s any way I can
And if you will be my Mountain Lady, I will be your man…
Mountain Lady, dance for me
Your dancing takes my breath away, you know…
Save that loving glance for me—I love it when you let your loving show
Mountain Lady, give to me a kind of love I’ve never had before
I want you to live with me: I cannot live without you any more…
You give me what I need, and you need what I can give
Like you I live for loving, and like me you love to live
My love is deep and stronger than a river running wild
I want to be your lover, and the father of your child…
Dramatis Personae:
I believe in my heart of hearts—and in my brain of brains, for that matter—that an epigram should be like a good son-in-law: completely self-supporting. If it needs footnotes, it’s not an epigram. My old friend and esteemed editor Jim Frenkel, however (like clams, he’s better esteemed than eschewed), is certain you will find the epigrams in this bo
ok more enjoyable if you know a little something about their speakers. And he is quite keen that you enjoy yourself, since he has overpaid me so outrageously for this volume and wants to be sure you’ll give copies to all your friends for Christmas. Who could argue with that? Well…me, for one.
It’s not just that I’m lazy, though I’m proud to say I am. It’s not even that he’s getting extra work out of me for free, which offends my religion. My feeling is that if you finish this book curious to know more about the people whose wit and wisdom hold its covers apart, the sensible thing for me to do would be to just refer you to the six available volumes in which they appear at much greater length, and hope you take the bait.
But in all fairness, I have to admit that might not be the most sensible thing for Jim to do, as none of those six books is published by this house just now. (Although Jim was the editor who bought the first Callahan book…and was working for Tom Doherty at the time! Life is strange.) Therefore I bow to his editorial insight, marketing savvy, and phenomenal endurance in argument.
Here, then, are as few words as I can get away with concerning all the wonderful people you’re about to hear: [The descriptions in italics are quoted, and sometimes misquoted, from Chris McCubbin’s excellent text for the CALLAHAN'S CROSSTIME SALOON role-playing game, available from Steve Jackson Games, Inc. of Austin, Texas.)
Mike Callahan: He built his bar in Suffolk County, in the image of countless other roadside Irish taverns in the New York area…a serene and reassuring presence, he always kept his place merry. He looked like a big dumb Irishman, but it was impossible to talk to Callahan for more than a few minutes without realizing that he was a man of unusual depth, wisdom and sensitivity…from Big Beef McCaffrey, who tried to shortchange him, to the Mafia flunky who tried to scare him into renting a jukebox, anybody who tried to put the muscle on Callahan got the same treatment—a free trip to the parking lot, and probably a broken bone to remember it by. He smoked big cheap cigars that he lit with non-safety matches. His reverence for human dignity, privacy and liberty verged on the religious. He never mentioned his subjective age. It is assumed that he’s about the same age as his wife, who is well into her third century. Mike was born centuries from now, in a place (possibly a planet) called Harmony. Since it has taken me several books to even outline his mission in this ficton (a technical term for a space-time locus), I won’t attempt it here. CALLAHAN'S SECRET has the best summary, I think. Suffice it to say he is a good guy.
Lady Sally McGee: Lady Sally was Callahan’s spouse and counterpart in a battle across time. She opened her famous brothel, Lady Sally’s House, in Brooklyn at the height of WWII, when such enterprises were tolerated…by the time the war was over, she had so many influential friends that there was no question of closing her place down. A tiny, trim redhead who spoke in a patently phony British accent, Lady Sally was not an incredible beauty. It was not her features, but her manner that accounted for her astonishing sexual appeal. She considered sex an art, and studied it extensively. Her employees were called “artists” (not prostitutes, and never “whores” or “hookers”). Her artists were paid a regular salary plus room and board and allowed to keep any (optional) tips. Her clients paid according to their means. Her artists were of all seven sexes, and she catered to all sexual preferences except the dangerously violent. Her Ladyship is much tougher than she looks, and has fewer scruples than her husband about killing evil people.
Mary Callahan (now Mary Callahan-Finn): The only (known) child of Mike Callahan and Lady Sally, Mary was born and raised on Harmony. When she reached adulthood, she began working for her mother, and despite what some would call a weight problem, soon established a reputation as one of the most professional and popular artists at Lady Sally’s House. After a few years, she transferred to working literally behind the scenes, as her mother’s chief of security. Where she got her training as a blacksmith is unknown. She is a cheerful woman with a tremendous capacity for fun and no tolerance for evasions or self-delusions. I do not think Mary has a weight problem (I think very few women have a weight problem—although a lot of them have a big jerk problem), and neither does Jake Stonebender. She had a (very) brief affair with him, once, but is now married to:
Mickey Finn: Alien cyborg, 6’ 11 1/2”, 600 lbs; apparent age 40… Finn is the only survivor of a race exterminated centuries ago and far away by star-traveling monsters. They filled him with enslaving machinery and made him a scout. The very first Callahan story, “The Guy With The Eyes” (reprinted in CALLAHAN'S CROSSTIME SALOON) concerns the night he walked into Mike’s Place and announced that his job required him to sterilize Earth, and he felt just terrible about it. The response of Callahan’s patrons was to sympathize: they got him drunk. Which, happily, shorted out the machinery that made him a slave. He spent the next decade or so learning how to be human (he spent some years as a farmer), but has since left Earth with his new bride, Mary.
Jake Stonebender: Narrator of the Callahan’s Place and Mary’s Place stories. (And my financial arrangement with him is our business, okay?) A likable, lanky man with shoulder-length hair and a beard. If he doesn’t watch himself, he can get a bit strident about his liberal politics. A gifted folksinger, he loves his guitar Lady Macbeth like family. While Jake doesn’t have the most brilliant mind at Callahan’s, he may well have the quickest. He certainly saved everyone there, and likely the whole planet as well, through his quick actions on the Night of the Cockroach… Jake used to have a wife and daughter, once, until he decided he could fix his own brakes. After their deaths, he tried suicide twice, and was fortunate enough to have his stomach pumped the second time by:
Doc Webster: who prescribed for Jake a trip to Callahan’s Place, and not incidentally spared me a life of honest work. In many ways Sam ‘Doc’ Webster is the leader of the gang, even more than Callahan himself. While Mike is the unmoving center around which the bar orbits, Doc Webster is usually the one out there pushing the other patrons to do things, have fun and keep the Place merry. An immense man, he is Callahan’s most profound drinker. He’s also an excellent physician, who once removed Shorty Steinitz’s appendix on Callahan’s bar-top. What most people remember about the Doc, though, is his immense, almost mythic joyousness. He could break up the Sphinx with a one-liner that was old when it was built. He is the all-time Punday Night champion.
Long-Drink McGonnigle: The toughest and least charismatic of Callahan’s regulars, Long-Drink (he’s “one long drink of water,” 6 foot seven) is an indolent and independent man with a razor-sharp tongue and no time for nonsense—unless it’s amusing nonsense. In spite of his attitude problem, Long-Drink isn’t as shallow as he likes to pretend. He genuinely cares about people who are hurting—and not just his friends, either. He cried openly when Jake broke Lady Macbeth. I would have to say that Long-Drink’s sense of humor is the most primitive in the group. And I’m going to get him back some day…
Fast Eddie Costigan: Callahan’s bouncer and piano player. Born in Brooklyn, he met Callahan after the war, at Lady Sally’s, and accepted the piano chair in the bar Mike was just building out on Long Island. He resembles a badly-shaven chimpanzee. As a bouncer, his technique is subtle and effective. He knows he’s not as clever as the other guys at the bar, and he’s comfortable with that. Still, he often surprises his friends with an unexpected insight or brings down the house with a quietly hilarious pun or wisecrack. It was he who found a way to make the broken Lady Macbeth well again. Eddie is the best damn piano man I ever hoid…uh, heard.
Les Glueham & Merry Moore (A.K.A. The Cheerful Charlies): In the early ’70s, Les Moore and Merry Glueham were not happy people. As if their names weren’t bad enough, they were also each out of work. With nothing to lose, each called a guy named Flannery who cheered people up for a living—satisfaction guaranteed or your money back. It worked. Tom Flannery not only cheered Les and Merry up, but when he introduced them, they fell in love. Then he gave them jobs as his assistants. When they got married, Les and Merry swap
ped last names—it seemed to work better that way. Tom died a few months later, as he’d been expecting to, and Les and Merry kept the business going. Their business card reads, “Have Fun—Will Travel.”
Noah Gonzalez, Shorty Steinitz, Slippery Joe, Susie and Suzie Maser: regular patrons of Callahan’s Place. Noah used to work on the county bomb squad; Shorty is the worst driver alive; the Masers have been a triune marriage ever since Joe’s wives found out about each other. (It seems to serve him right.)
Jim/Paul MacDonald: telepathic half-brothers with a fused identity, who appear first in CALLAHAN'S CROSSTIME SALOON, and last in CALLAHAN'S SECRET. They sacrificed themselves to save the world from a cockroach.
Arethusa Quigley: surviving incarnation of a pair of telepathic twins. In contrast to the MacDonald brothers, these identical blonde sisters, raised by religious fanatics who denied the concept of twinhood, grew up with only a single public identity, which they took turns investing. The story of how they moved into a single skull together is told in lady slings the booze.
Joe Quigley: former private dick from New York; now gone public. He’s married to Arethusa, and they worked together at Lady Sally’s House in its final year. I’ve always thought he’s a dead ringer for Dan Rather, myself, but he says he can’t see it.
Josie Bauer: one of Callahan’s best-loved regulars. A humor groupie, her unvarying custom was to offer to sleep with whoever won the Punday Night competition. Few winners, male or female, ever turned her down, or reported regret afterwards. Further deponent sayeth not.
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