Confusion 6

PROFILES IN CONFUSION 6

Comics by Michael Lowell Teague

Best of Volume Two

2006-2007

The Volkswagen was Hitler’s gift to the world, even though he has never been given his just due on account of a few trifling technicalities. This forehead tattoo is meant to redress that unfortunate oversight. “The moustache?” you ask. I have no idea to what you allude, sir. Anything on or near my mouth is likely re-strained spinach my mommy fed me at lunch.

I never know’d how to spell nor write before they started writin’ words on women’s sweat pants. I like lookin’ at women’s butts, as it is. I’m all about the women’s butts. Then when I started seein’ words written there—where’d I never before know’d in my life to saw words written—it got me curious. Anyhow, I’m up to two words now: juicy and pink. I can write them with a pencil on a piece of paper, though not too steady. If they write more words on women’s butts, then I will learnt dem too. (I’m anxious to learnt verbs, mostly.) I can maybe get a better job if I learnt more words. Juicy and pink don’t cut it—unless I get a job workin’ in the meat department at Krogers.

I been war-shing my hore wid bar soap fur pert near seventy-five years! And I been eattin’ un-iodized salt fur just as long—and by the fistful, by God! What were good nuf fur ma kinfolk is good nuf fur me! Take your iPods and gas-powered computers and clear off my yard! And take all yore children born outta wedlock wid ya! Dag burn ya!

It was unnerving—to say the least. A grown man pushing an empty baby stroller around the mall for hours and hours. “Where was the baby?” you might well ask. Was there even a baby to begin with? Every time he would pass, he would smile at me, but it was like he was looking past me—like he was looking past the whole damn world! I came as close as I thought was prudent, and gazed with trepidation into his dark eyes. What I saw in those vacant eyes made my hair go white—as white as you see today! It was the reflection of a trash receptacle! I tore through the mall in a mad dash, checking each trashcan in turn with unspeakable fear. Alas, I found no baby. But I did find a pizza. A whole pizza, mind you, still in the box and hot. I picked off the jalapeños. Not a big fan of jalapeños.

You’re going to die in dirty underwear.

I used to sleep with a loaded gun under my pillow, but the Tooth Fairy kept stealing them and leaving quarters behind. Pistols cost more than a quarter, and they don’t even faintly resemble molars or bicuspids. If I had the Tooth Fairy’s phone number, I would call him up and ask him what is he doing with all my handguns. I would be reasonable about it. I know he’s only doing his job, but I’ve got a drunkard for a brother-in-law and he’s always stealing money from my sock drawer for liquor. This guy’s a piece-of-work, and has had a few run-ins with the law. It’s only a matter of time before he bashes my head in with a lamp while I’m sleeping, or strangles me with the cord. And what for? Six bucks in my wallet? If I had the Tooth Fairy’s phone number, this is how I would explain my situation.

It was like shooting fish in a barrel. First off, I found the skeletal remains of Jimmy Hoffa, and then—not twelve feet away—the remains of the Lindbergh baby. Throw in the thighbone of a stegosaurus, and I called it a day! I had the whole bone yard in a box, mind you. My meal ticket to a better life. But then I went and bought this dog. I heard dogs were a good way to meet chicks. Dogs are a real chick magnet, I heard. This dog one night takes it into his head to rebury all my bones—the whole damn lot! So I follow this dog around all day. Like a Jehovah Witness, I follow this dog. No bones so far, but I got three chicks phone numbers. One’s an ex-Miss America. Fine legs. Smooth like good bourbon.

With this fashioned stick, I shall hypnotize you. And with this hand—this bare hand given to me by God and my tribal people, the Triglycerides—I shall rip out your heart and eat it with a tossed salad of croutons and cherry tomatoes!

John Denver, of “Rocky Mountain High” fame, was born in Roswell, New Mexico in Nineteen Forty-four, some three years before the aliens crashed out there. (But let’s not quibble about dates.) His "dad" was in the Air Force at Roswell. (The very folks who covered it all up.) John Denver died in Nineteen Ninety-seven while flying an “experimental” aircraft. It’s as plain as the nose on your face: This "dad" took him in as the only surviving member of that doomed alien flight, then faked a birth certificate before raising the kid as his son. John Denver was killed only because, after acquiring this alleged “experimental” aircraft, he tried to high-tail it back to his home planet in order to skip out on a DWI charge. Think E.T., only with a traffic citation. His so-called “dad” was the skunk that shot him down from a stealth fighter! It all makes perfect sense when you think about it: him not being a local boy and all. Especially if you consider that high-pitched, unnatural singing voice he had. Only dolphins understood all those trebly encrypted overtones—like marching orders they understood! And those beady eyes and bangs of his…? What grown terrestrial male has bangs, for the love of God! “Leaving on a Jet Plane…?” Not bloody likely, space boy!

Cupcake doesn’t want a table near the bathroom. Cupcake says that every time the door opens, she can smell the urinal cakes and cheap pink hand soap. Cupcake says she wants a table up front, with candles and a bottle of Chianti. Cupcake says the Mayor sends her a Christmas card every year. Cupcake says let the women who don’t get personal Christmas cards from the Mayor sit by the smelly bathroom with the noisy exhaust fan.

You are funny, Earthman. Funny like one-dollar suit. I shall let you live another day because it pleasures me. As long as you make me laugh, you shall live. Now away with you—you hairless bipedal absurdity—before I change my mind!

I say this unto you: It is better to teach a horse to fish and feed him for a lifetime than it is to lead a horse to water and cannot make him drink. It is written: close only counts in horseshoes. But I say unto you that it also counts in deodorant. Was not the horse lost for want of a shoe? And did not the rider drown in midstream because he forgot to put on deodorant before leaving the house? If life hands you lemons, make lemonade. But if a man hands you a fishing reel, you must fish. For it is better to enter Heaven with a stomach full of perch than it is to perish into Hell with a pocket full of bait worms.

I once had a pony named Pony. He ran free like the air and ate sugar cubes from my hand. He was the bestest pony ever had. You could not look into his eyes and lie, not without dying a horrible death involving farm equipment. He talked telepathically to Santa everyday in pony waves, keeping that resident of the North Pole updated on the enemies’ list. You see—there’s naughty and nice, and then there are children who just don’t wake up on Christmas morning. Autopsies turn up nothing. There are no marks on the body. No point of forced entry into the bedroom. No substances turn up in the coroner’s pharmacological report. Pony waves are like that. They can even knock out the hydraulics on an airliner at thirty thousand feet and send a whole planeload of wicked children screaming to their deaths.

We have a rewarding career for you in the food service industry. I could entice you with our nice clean aprons and working toilets, but I have something much better than that. In the back on the shelf, we have an unassuming box with a hole poked in it. Through this hole you will be privy (should you join our team) to view the miniaturized world of the only known silicon-based life form in the Solar System. These creatures will haunt your dreams, but what beautiful dreams they’ll be. They will win your heart. (And break it, if you let them.) There is adventure in what you’ll witness, and yes, even possible madness. Should you join us, you will quickly understand why some of our employees say they should pay us minimum wage just for the privilege of working here.

I follow my dog around all day with the mirror. My arms will fall off before he acknowledges his reflection. He always sniffs at the glass and plays dumb. What does he see in there that elicits such an unswerving non-reaction? What seduces him to turn in such an Oscar-winning performance of dogged blankness? He sees something in there, all right. Whatever it is that is stealing away my youth and making one of my ears look lower than the other. But what does he see in the mirror that bribes him to silence? An alternate world where Frisbees rotate counter-clockwise? A promised land where Purina Dog Chow comes in cat flavor?

NEXT

HOME