PROFILES IN CONFUSION 7

Best of Volume Two

2006-2007

 

It is amusing to us that you Earthlings do not have the color, Zunt, in your visible spectrum. It is the most delightful of colors, being contrarily bold and subtle. On my planet, it is popular as a gang color among the youth. Designers use it to convey a sense of space in interiors. It turns up frequently in relaxation therapies, though it is considered unlucky for military spacecraft to be any shade of Zunt. If one’s skin turns Zunt, it is owing to a vitamin X-12 deficiency. A world without Zunt, in our estimation, is like a diet without Mardlard. Or, more humorously, a Verblog without a Gleebzurm.

 

Even allowing for massive head trauma, I’m still the most interesting person I know. Now what kind of a pathetic commentary is that about the world we live in?

 

You must allow fur dis pencil not being very sharp, so nuttin’ is true scale. But—yep—dis here’s wore da spaceship plopped down. Deez little puffy thangs is hedges, and deez dots, mulch. Dis puffy thang rat-cheer (and I do wish I had a sharper pencil), it were da alien. I didn’t draw naw arms or legs on’em, given da pencil and all, but he had ‘em. He even had hands. And in one of them I would wager to guess a wad of twenties. ‘merican money. Not Canadian. I thunk he were lookin’ fur a cathouse. Asked wore about could he find big women—big friendly women with straight teeth.

 

What are you complaining about? I’m so damn ugly I have to tape money to my forehead to make friends.

 

Pale face came from Asswupmonytook tribe. Drove Pinto with exploding gas tank. Snake skin like briefcase. Blew unfiltered smoke signals up our skirts. Threw in complimentary coasters with firewater. Pictures snapped. Souls stolen. Check bounced. Phone disconnected. That’s all she wrote.

 

I scrounged for grubs and lived off my good looks on the tooth-and-claw savannah. Without college, I was making my way into an uncertain future with only a scant understanding of gender identity in Eighteenth Century French literature. But I would manage. Everyday I rose in the high grass and faced east. Like a lizard basking on a rock, my battle-hardened nipple softened on being kissed by the Sun. I ate microwaved burritos and drank beer the color of jaundiced bruises, and when a postal carrier inquired as to where next I would encamp, I replied,“Upwind of destiny, good man. Upwind of destiny.”

 

There’s always light in my refrigerator when I open the door, and half a bottle of flat pop. I can explain the soda. (Never finish soda.) But the light—that keeps me up at night. Now, you’d think there would always be light when you open a basement door, but you would be wrong if you thought that. You can trip over stuff in a dark basement—get hurt. Ain’t no one ever goin’ to get hurt reaching into a dark fridge, though. Don’t make sense—none of it. There are three words for “raised skin” in the English language: wheal, welt, and whelk. But there is only one word for door: door. We’ve got our priorities all messed-up in this country. No wonder God has turned His Back on this nation.

 

They don’t just keep milk-fed veal in a dark room, they make them add up columns of numbers just for the sheer meanness of it. And fill in all the “o’s” in The New York Time with an ink pen! If the little fellers get sleepy, someone like clockwork comes around banging pots and pans. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg! They not only test cosmetics on bunny rabbits—they make them wear it in some sick, twisted sexual fantasy! Gaudy blue eye shadow and eyeliner like barbed wire. Then they put them on the Internet with names like Sissy and Marguerite!

 

I love clowns, and raindrops on kittens. I would walk a hundred miles over broken glass to see a parade. I cry at weddings, too. (I’m just funny that way.) I even have milk in my chest. Ain’t that funny for a man? Doctors don’t know why. No more than they know why the Sun shines on Sunday. Or why puppy dogs steal your heart.

 

I will be the shakers of babies. The shaker of devils’ hands. Come soon the day I will eat orange mayonnaise without ill effects. I will be free then to make it up as I go along—make up right and wrong as I see fit! That girl there: the one with the white legs, the one with the cell phone practically bolted to her empty head. She will be my bride. She will warn me of approaching adversaries out of an utter and simple devotion that is her destiny. She will serve me well with towheaded children and white legs. When the planets align, and innocent blood is shed, I will laugh at the world. Swallows will impale themselves on my witticisms, for thorns shall adorn my beautiful roses.

 

I keep all my nickels in a wheelbarrow, now. I got a tarp over it in case of rain. And bricks over the tarp in case of wind. Used to keep all my nickels in a bank, but then an earthquake hit. Some of my nickels spilled into another guy’s pile of nickels back in the vault, but the dirty rotten no-good bank never gave me back all my nickels. Argued with some guy on the phone about it for an hour, but I was just talking to someone paid to give me the runaround. That’s how the bank makes their money, you see. A nickel here. A nickel there. They figure folks ain’t keeping close count of nickels.

 

I’ve known you for eighty-five years. Eighty-five years, gall dang it! I think I’ve earned the right to stare at your cleavage.

 

Fire’s comin’ to town, boys, and she’s ornerier than a mule cat. Doesn’t go in fur pastel colors or trendy baby names off the web. When fire comes to visit this time, she won’t take a cotton to sleepin’ on no sofa bed. Won’t sit around while you leaf thru the family photo albums without care in the world. No, sir. When fire shows up on the stoop—dinner’s going to be a little overcooked. Alert hearing-impaired neighbors. Throw things at the winder if you have to: small dogs, ornamental shrubs, other hearing-impaired neighbors. Give ‘em a heads-up, coz fire’s playin’ fur keeps this time. Ain’t goin’ to be no garden party with Ricky Nelson on the eight-track. No pee breaks on the bucket brigade. Yank out the caution tape, boys, coz we’re going to be wrapping up this town like a Christmas present tonight!

 

Developers are moving in. They’re going to change everything and mess up this little town. That apple orchard over there—that’s where me and my kid brother used to steal apples. And that pond down on old Delaney Road—that’s where me and my Gramps used to go fishing. Caught a swordfish there once. Damn thing had arms like a man. Even wrestled Gramps out of the boat. Whacked it with a boat oar in a battle of wills. Managed to get Gramps back to shallow water, and then back to the station wagon. It followed us for a couple miles, swooping from tree to tree with dripping fangs and talons. Damnedest thing.

 

“What is the sound of one hand clapping?” you ask. It's when the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. You know the story. The one about the store that’s open twenty-four hours a day, and when calamity strikes, the manager can’t find the key to lock the door. It’s like when you need an eight-foot extension cord, but all they’ve got at the hardware store are six-footers and twenty-footers. So you buy the twenty-footer, coz six feet don’t cut it, but then you have his unsightly wad of cord sticking from behind the end table. That’s what life is, folks: a day late, a dollar short, and fourteen extra feet of cord to trip over every day coz you need a wall clock in the den. Poop happens. Not only baby poop, but mommy poop and, yes, even sometimes daddy poop. In this world, the only things set in concrete are mob bosses.
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Copyright © 2007 Michael Teague. All rights reserved.