*While running on empty.
Artie Blend’s Worst Drunken Ramble, which must End Soon
We’ll you KNOW, after Gabe, Workers of the World, IND. But, before Gabe, there was, anyway, so who CARES? Even if only the Mouth is working…
All that going to jail? It doesn’t MEAN! There’s always the SITTING! Martian Columbus! You’ve gotta, walk more! Lose that diet! Oh, THAT easy way oudt.
And yet, nobody ever gets the hidden secret message buried inside every box of Crackers. Dan NUTS. Nuts’r nuts, peanuts ‘r a guy who’s nuts.
But, strike up the poignant music? Workers of the World, Inc., began originally as a relief of the SIGHS. Of the Angelos. Ooooops. Well. It WAS the pig net, and at LAST they found one. There were these bums, see, and they started a business through the water that they made. On the STREETS!!! Get it? Yeah!!!!!!!!!!!!
And it WAS during WWII. Andy they named it after WWII. Preach Zeus. All Asia is left alone, on that. Yep. No Europa!
You know how it's hard to write a store, anyway? Crack that safe. Anyway? Anyway is anyway, anyway. They crashed this STOREFRONT, and everyone who asked Questions WERE told that those bums were STARTING A BUSINESS.
And, when, when the politics NEVER, NEVER EVER arrived, they what? Well, they wha-HAT? K? Is that, K? Or, is that I? And, they really, really, really did start, THIS business? ALL good is even. I’m Odd, but not a freak show. NOT YET!
Anyway, it became a MISSHUN. Miss SHUN. Okay? Is that okay? Yet?
Yet? FOREVER? But WHY? And, drugs were in the well, Burt not for long, and, finally, we-all figured out WHAT EVIL PEOPLE ARE. YEAH. And, there.
Anyway, HOW to be a drunk. Well, anyway. And, they got funding through calling EVERYONE in the UNIVERSE on the sacred, the absolutely (yeah, but you’re TRAPPED by the idea of a drunk) SACRED Crashin; Get Don Adams shoe phone, and got MOANEY, MOANEY I SAID, and THESE TYPOS are INCREDIBLE! But, they quit drankin’ and anyway, they are just alike, but somehow men and WOMEN are not the SAME! In our WWII. And afterworlds!
Maul the time! And, they put the first BACKWARDS CLOCK (which runs counter-clockwise) in there just to give the DAY OF TIME to people.
Is that OKAY? IS IT, BIG MOUTH ME? IS IT?
Or, is THAT okay? Better? Artie, are you still alive?
Batman is a registered Twat. Izzat OKAY?
Why the red paint on girls after Lucille Ball? Comics, I’ll tell you.
“I DON’T WANNA move to LA, you know, my roomies are getting married. What else can I do? I’m a nurse at Ridgeview Hospital, I pinch gold fillings, subway tokens, bus tickets. I could stay in town. Parents here. But, why? Rents are phenomenal, well, they’re not good. Too high for me.”
One would think this was not the Case. Don’t nurses make good money?
“So you’re moving to LA?”
This last was blurted by Gabe as he leaned way forward (maybe about three inches way forward) and breathed himself vicariously into the unassuming (and always vicariously) skinny vessel made from the expanded eyes of…and that she was, Sharone Bitters. “You aren’t going to hurt about that too much, are you?” she whispered.
As usual, there was nothing further to say or do, nowhere to go with…anything. Gabe stammered, as if his own soul had fled for Poughkipsky.
“You’re right, I GUESS, LA is good, but I think, uh, we’re all going to miss you.” Long, serious, lingering silence. But nothing was wrong. Nothing. Ever.
“I like being a nurse, I’ll be a nurse in LA, no sweat. None. Soft Job.” She heavily emphasized that last word. Life is. Funner’n Blue Blazes. there is the absolutely mitigatable presence of an earthquake
Sharone teasingly smiled, drawing her windeglass over to just under her long, thin brown fingers. Gabe’s ‘r short ‘n stubby. Take them out. Her ruby fingernails clicked faintly against the glass. She didn’t drink from it, instead facing Gabe one-on-one, glowing on a tip softly and incandescently. She was chain-smoking, which was rare for her.
“Get this, sweetheart. I make $45,000 a year. Hone, that’s a bunch.” She smiled, obviously in condescension, but without any rancor or hostility. She had a ghostly manner, being an ephemerally thin woman. Bar smoke circled around her, producing a night-time campfire haze, entangling both darkling people in brief opaque clouds. “It’s a real moneymaker, being a nurse. You should try it sometime. Two years of school can get you in; four is better. Want to know how much I’ll make in LA?”
The angels, some part of Gabe’s brain stuttered, city of the angels…that would be swell, to stubbornly become one. “Where does it come from, all that thar money?” Little tree toads in the forest generate it. No, it comes from private sources, insurance, Medicare, Oregon, and Medicaid. Come join ussss, you won’t be a tree toad anyone, hey?” Sharone playfully gave “Beau” her best come-hither look, then turned her face to her Windeglass. Gabe once again sensed the enormous wall of …bottled booze shining nearby him, to his right as he sat with Sharone. So decorative, so expensive. He gazed at the pool tables lovingly layed out in the volcano-lit room, before him like so many offerings of commercial affection, love mixed with hatred, a were-party meant mostly for men.
Much smoke was coming from the other couple, seated throughout the Bar. They were white ones generally, busily blowing tobacco wafts as they kibboitzed, dressed as country hicks in blue jeans, workers. They made tiny fiery glows, miles of feet away, dancing spot romantic lights like candles, in the dark. Gabe relaxed more than he had ever in his life, that night; he gave himself over to a sleepy joy of living.
Sharone was sipping her red wine and, reflecting, both in the bar mirror and inwardly. "I'll make at least $70,000 in the Los Angeles area. I don't even have to live in-city to do it. The commute is pretty wicked, but I have a good car. That's what I’ll have, yeah. Car, career, and someday near. But what, Babe, are you fixin’ to do with your Standing Life?”
“Beau” didn't exactly get green around the gills at the prospect of telling Shar what, but on the other hand there was that sinking stomach feeling. Why WAS she hinting around? Do I have to out-and-out admit it? Me?
“I’m going to hang out with Artie and wait for what Saragina wants to do to emerge. Then I'm going to play it from there." Sharone idly swallowed her wine, looked across at the bar mirror, and then smiled, tightly, absurdly appreciating Gabe’s impasse. But she didn't feel sorry for him. "I'm sure you'll work it out in the end. You don't need a car for your job now, do you?"
“Nah, they drive us out. I can get a clunker. My gramma offered to buy me one, but I didn't feel like it. Job’s okay as it is. Oh, I have to meet Artie down at the laundromat, we’re going to check of the stereo system he's wanting to sell for some people, I guess."
“Huh. I’m going to dunk this town and get on home and study manuals. Then I'm going for run, the hospital sponsors a day run. Five miles, every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Mostly us ladyfolks. You're welcome in if you want."
Gabe shook his shaggy head, feeling a bit like there were hidden bugs in it. He hadn't bathed yet, that day. Also he hadn’t gone running for over a year now.
“No, but thanks, dear lady, thanks.”
The slanting October daylight hit him, as he walked out of the bar, like a full blast of surprised power, straight in his Eyes…
Dave and Cloadia were married in broadest daylight, no shotguns, on the church (I did not have the pleasure of seeing you) lawn on Magnolia Avenue. There was a droopy white awning for the couple to waltz and schmaltz under. Harmin, the Dame, Caza and Thom threw rice, an Asiatic fertility symbol of love…in massive cascading handfuls, mixes white, wild, and brown. Forthwith, the Dame took pictures of the happy couple fastidiously brushing each other off.
There was considerable Happiness until unexpectedly, the middle of the ceremony, Zeus or whoever ‘twas began splatteringly to speckle some rain. Those giant drops. Said downpour was sufficient to drive everybody into the church. Harmin, adamant as usual, refused to go in. “You
…people planned this?"
“It’s against my principles. I cain’t stand nothin’ to do with no church nor th’ cross. You-all kin have yer blessed fun.” Harmin crossed, anyway, his skimpy skin-flapped arms against his shrunken chest, and he glowered with vinegar at the wedding party. The flower girl tossed him her posies. Harmin decided to wait, uncertain where to go, what…to do. Perhaps he'd catch his death. He began to hum an ancient Gaelic ditty, stamping the ground, drawing his coat’s collar under his ears.
He had a felt hat pulled down over them, but it was swiftly becoming soaked. He passed around the stucco side to the ivy-covered back of the one-room church. There was a rock garden, containing foot-high statues of the major saints (the old man glowered at them, especially poor St. Francis) and a small white gravel path leading to a tiny open cemetery, where elder parishioners were buried.
I can’t seem to escape death, mused Harmin, it’s all over. Wherever I turn. He felt an old familiar chill, cutting deeper than the wind and the blowsy rain, and it arrested him inside; it drew his vital organs together, but not protectively squelching out all hope of life to come. I can take it, he thought, I’ve got guts, I’m an old man now, there’s the kids, and Juney’s dead many moons. I miss her so much…what’s this?
There was something greener than usual covering a headstone and blanketing two of the old-fashioned graves in back of the church. A glowing halo effect, almost nausea-producing, attracted the old man's cloudy eyes, which were slowly proceeding towards cataracts. He wasn’t sure if it was him or what he saw. He moved over towards it, and sure enough, it was moving. It slipped off the headstone and began slithering, gooily and insanely, in his direction.
Mr. Boole couldn’t grasp what was happening. This was too new and strange for him. What memories did it reach? The bunching thing was touching his shoes before he could react. He nervously stepped back, seeing in the rain, a slimy wet mass of variance sluggishly gathering itself to launch at him. While the sight was too fascinating for words, watching the thing impossibly motilate as the rain lashed threateningly around, Harmin was certainly not game for his shoes to be consumed…not at this church!
“I bought these leather shoes last November and you ain’t gonna ruin ‘em that easy, Billy Joe Bobbers.” He walked away, slowly, keeping a gimlet eye on the thing to see if it followed him. Nope! It hesitantly explored forward, found nothing but grass, and then inched itself back over the graves. It jiggled. Was it protecting something? Harmin Boole almost returned, to look for his wife. It wanted to stay where it was. Harmin lost sight of it as he walked away.
Voices came through the rain, called out from the church: “Hey, ol’ man Boole! C’mon in! It’s stupid to stand around in the rain, you jerk! We got a blanket and some coffee for you! C’mon!” Mabel and Thom and Dave Velasquez were standing in the doorway. “Oh, hokay, no good company outside alone, talkin’ to meself!” shouted Harmin, shaking the rain off his coat as he pranced into the church, grabbing the proffered cup of coffee. “You people don’t know how to get prop’ly married…” Right, satin sheets. Too expensive. Why not wear a cowboy hat?
The Rainbow Horizon - A Tale of Goofy Chaos Page 20