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| | Lucille's Head, Part I | | | | Saturday, October 24, 2009 (3:12 PM) | | Lucille achieved her dreams by the age of 28. It took several years more before she realized that tragedy. By all appearances, she was content. Well employed, well dressed, well housed. She was an exceptionally good nodder; naturally she was resoundingly well liked. Everyone loves a good nod.
Inside Lucille's head, she knew she was one ticket away from the crazy bus. If the special set of circumstances occurred, she would snatch that ticket and hop that bus and all hell would break loose. Occasionally, she envisioned that scene, and sometimes she longed for it. (When the special circumstances occurred, the sheer simplicity of it was unexpected, though).
A short slide over an ice patch did the trick. She had exited the train at her usual stop at the usual time; made her usual purchase of a small, black coffee and began her usual short trek along the city sidewalk toward her office. The walkway had been cleared of snow and salted, but her right foot set upon an unsalted patch and she slid forward about two feet. She did not fall; she wobbled a bit until she regained her footing. The coffee slipped from her hand and hit the ground, her shoulder bag dropped heavily onto her crooked elbow. Even before her eyes moved upward from gazing down at the shattered coffee cup, Lucille snapped. She sat down, dumped the contents of her bag between her extended legs and smashed the shit out of her cell phone using her Blackberry. Then she hacked the Blackberry to pieces using a large key. She opened her wallet and flung every photo and plastic card onto the snow bank. (She jammed the cash into her coat pocket: she wasn't completely psychotic). She flung the wallet aside. When she stood, she stomped the bag a few times before heading to her new destination. | | | 27 Views | 8  Thumbs Up | 5 Comments |  |
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| | Sonnet 116 | | | | Tuesday, October 20, 2009 (6:08 PM) | |
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alterations finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
~ William Shakespeare | | | | 26 Views | 6 Thumbs Up | 3 Comments | |
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| | OH My President, I Love Him So | | | Sunday, October 11, 2009 (10:19 AM)
(I'm feeling hopeful) | | I will not waiver in my commitment to ending discrimination in all its forms. ~ President Barack Obama, HRC Speech, October 10, 2009
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| | Huge Kate | | | | Sunday, October 4, 2009 (2:18 PM) | | Kate was enormous to my six year old eyes. She towered above me. I thought she was six feet tall and six feet wide. She had short dark hair and wild eyes. None of the other kids would go anywhere near her. The little assholes made fun of her because they feared her. I was intrigued as I passed by each day going to and from school. I wondered why she did not go to school.
Her mother hovered nearby, always. Kate was allowed to play near her patio; her mother stepped out to check on her every quarter hour. The day I approached that patio, Kate was sitting cross-legged, playing jacks. I sat down to play (I kicked her ass). Kate was smiling when her mother rushed out with a surprised expression.
You're playing jacks with Kate? she said. Her mother surveyed me, and I saw that distinct look of utter joy cross her face. What's your name? she asked. I'm Deborah, Kate's friend. Kate continued to pick up jacks. Her mother leaned over, placed her hands on her knees, she said Do you like kool-aide, Deborah? Would you like some grape kool-aide?
Grape kool-aide is the best! I answered. Huge Kate grinned. Her mother rushed inside to get our refreshments.
Kate continued to play jacks. Her mother beamed as I gathered my things to leave.
Kate's mother asked if I would stop by again, and I told her I would come by each day after school. | | | | 48 Views | 6 Thumbs Up | 5 Comments | |
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| | The Night Julie Freaked Out | | | | Sunday, September 20, 2009 (1:16 PM) | | I've never lived alone. I rented a small apartment for three months once, but my job kept me out of town so much I was hardly there, and when I was there, my friend Julie was there, too.
Julie and I hit it off from the moment we met. We spent our first couple of days together doing illicit activities, then we crashed at my little apartment. Before I met Jessica, Julie and I were together every weekend and she often stayed with me during the week.
Julie is one of those people who is extremely noticeable; she is beyond gorgeous. She's about 5'9", built like the proverbial brick house, hair and eyes so dark they appear almost black. When I knew her, she was funny and kind and wild-ass crazy. We were quite unhealthy together; common maladies tend to mutually feed.
Julie came of age in the mean streets of Detroit, driving into the city from the polished suburb where she was reared by her adoptive parents. She told me she thought she was more intensely queer than most queers, because she had a severe mommy complex. She said that was why she liked older women. She always dated women 10 or 15 years older than we were. She laughed about her complex a lot. It was funny because of the way she described it. And because it had the ring of unpleasant truth to it for her. Occasionally, she would tell me about the latest news in her decade-long, unsuccessful search for her biological mother.
Julie dropped out of the Fashion Institute and art school. Structure was not her thing. Her parents gave her money to start a vending machine business, so Julie was rolling in quarters. She bought a house, and tons of powder. She started to get nose bleeds, but she ignored the causes.
Julie had extravagantly unique taste. She decorated her living room walls with clothing she had designed. Her dining room lacked table or chairs; it was home to a beautiful upright piano plopped at an angle in its center. She hosted weekend parties at her house. Everyone said Julie gave the best parties, until the night Julie freaked out.
I arrived early to help prepare party foods and I noticed Julie's eyes were already glazed. She had started cocktailing-it. Every half hour or so, she trotted into her bedroom, closed the door, and emerged rubbing her nose. By the time the other guests arrived, Julie was fucked-up to the nines.
I partook of less contraband than usual that night; I had a feeling I should keep an eye on Julie. She was behaving strangely. She was less animated than usual; she wasn't talking much. She visited her bedroom frequently throughout the night.
The party progressed as usual until around midnight, when Julie suddenly turned off the music and announced she was going to play piano. Normally, she played for me after everyone else departed, but this night she said, "I'm gonna play. Everyone sit down and shut up for a change." Her guests found seats and sat quietly. Julie improvised at her piano, which she normally did quite well, but that night the sound was horrible. She banged the keys like some mad monkey. Her guests exchanged looks of surprise, but they continued to sit quietly listening as she banged, and banged.
Eventually, a guest stood and walked over to Julie. She said "Julie, why don't we put music back on and get this party back into high gear?" Julie stopped banging on the piano, she rose, she grabbed her glass and threw it at the dining room wall. She screamed "Everyone out! All of you! Get the fuck out of my house!" People reacted with stunned silence for several seconds, while Julie continued to yell "Get out! Get the fuck out!" Guests began gathering purses and coats and shuffling out the front door. Some were muttering, most were silent as they exited.
I sat quietly on Julie's living room couch watching people leave as Julie freaked out. Julie turned her attention to me, she yelled "You, too! Get the fuck out of my house." "Julie, me too?," I asked. She began yelling at me "Get out! Get out! Get out!" "Julie, let me stay with you. Will you play for me?" I said.
"NO!! Get the fuck out! Get out! Get out!" As I exited, she was still screaming. I stepped onto the porch, she slammed the front door behind me. I stood listening at her door for quite awhile. I could not hear any movement inside. Eventually, I went home.
Two days later, Julie called. She asked, "How was the party?" and she laughed. I answered, "It had an exciting finale. How are you?" "Did I throw you out, too?" Julie asked. "Yes, but I hung out on the porch until I thought you were okay. Are you okay?" "I'm fine," she said... "You think anyone will come to my next party?" She laughed again.
"I will, Julie. Being tossed out by you is better than being invited in by most people."
Postscript: Julie told me much later that she had received another notice from the Catholic adoption service the day of that party, letting her know that her biological mother had declined to make her birth records available to her, again. | | | | 48 Views | 2 Thumbs Up | 2 Comments | |
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| | The Freak | | | | Monday, August 10, 2009 (11:11 AM) | | Ulysses
His mother howled as he was placed upon her belly. (Not quite a howl, but more like a howl than a shriek). She did not shed a mother’s tears of joy when the pain finally stops and her baby is breathing. The sound came out of her at first sight of him. She did not love him, instantly.
His arms were far too short. He did not have hands. Where little elbows should be, small thumbs protruded. He had one blue eye. He had a small hole on each side of his earless head. He was hairless. He resembled some bad sculpture done on acid.
Ulysses quickly became the most popular freak in the traveling freak show, because he could bend his double-jointed body backward and place his thumb-elbows into his ear-holes while singing “Sunny Side of the Street.” Ulysses’ girlfriend, Claire (billed as the “crab lady”), loved his voice.
Claire wasn’t a conversationalist, but Ulysses didn’t desire nor require much by way of a companion. He was content.
Ulysses did not mind the gawking carnival-goers pointing at him with gaping mouths. He knew he was much happier than they, by far.
The Cartwheeling Girl
His mother looked after him in a motherly way, though she was void of love for him. She possessed an immense sense of duty. His father was a weak man, but pleasant enough.
"Plan for the worst, and hope for the best!," his father would say. Ulysses found comfort in those words each time he heard them, which was often.
Ulysses had remarkable vision and hearing for a one-eyed, earless boy. His elbow-thumbs were sufficient for most tasks. Anything he could not accomplish lacking hands, he had learned to do with his feet. He practiced tying his shoestrings with his toes, and he became adept at raising a fork to his mouth with his right foot. Still, his mother insisted on cutting his food and feeding him. She could not bear to see his foot raised at her dinner table.
His mother home-schooled him, ostensibly to spare him the cruelty of others. She had to save herself from the embarrassment of revealing such an offspring.
Ulysses was allowed to play in the backyard bordering the forest, where he could not be seen. Saturday afternoons he wandered through the trees, once arriving at an open field just before dusk. He sat atop a small hill and watched a single child playing. A girl of about eight years old was running around with a long stick. She stopped suddenly when she noticed the figure on the hill. For a moment, Ulysses thought to run back into the forest, but he saw the girl was smiling, so he remained still. She raised a hand and waved. He held one short arm up, and moved it slowly. The girl yelled, "Watch this!" and she began cartwheeling. She managed four cartwheels before falling on her back giggling. She jumped up quickly. "I have to go home now. Bye!"
Ulysses watched as she ran off. Though he visited the hilltop many times more, he did not see his only childhood friend again.
He was seventeen when he found the carnival flyer beneath his father's newspaper. Freaks of Nature! Bearded Lady. Giant 9 foot Man. See the Amazing Crab Lady!. He waited until his parents were asleep to pack a small suitcase and pen a note for his father using his agile right foot.
"Dear Dad, I am going to find work with the carnival. Do not worry. I will always plan for the worst and hope for the best. Your son, Ulysses."
The Crab Lady
Claire never knew who her father was; she barely recalled her mother by the time she spent fifteen minutes with the first Perv on her eighteenth birthday. The Perv paid five dollars for fifteen minutes with her. She got to keep two dollars, which was the amount she formerly earned for a week's work cleaning kitchens, scrubbing floors and making beds. Her extra appendages came in handy when she was a maid. Now they brought good money from Perv customers at the brothel. Not so bad for fifteen minutes work. A person can do anything for fifteen minutes, she thought.
After a year's time, she no longer thought that a person could do anything for fifteen minutes. She found her escape when the traveling carnival came to town. She immediately felt at home among the carnies and other freaks. Her extra appendages assured her top billing at the freak show. Claire, the Amazing Crab Lady, was born perfectly formed except for two additional arms and two additional legs. Her extra arms were somewhat smaller and shorter, sitting about six inches beneath her normally sized arms. Her legs would have been quite nice, but for the smaller leg extending from each upper thigh. Her smaller legs ended in little feet, size three. Her other feet were a perfect size six. She painted all forty nails (fingers and toes) dark red. She wore her curly, dark brunette hair long, which accentuated her dark brown eyes.
Claire's act began with her sauntering onto a small stage holding a large beach umbrella in front of her body as she moved to the beat of You're The Top. Carnival goers never failed to collectively gasp when the umbrella closed, revealing her smaller arms and legs. She would slowly bend forward until her shorter appendages touched the stage floor so she could walk on all eights. She scampered to the left end of the stage, then to the right, crab-dancing to the music. Claire didn't think it was much of an act, but it was a crowd pleaser.
Claire was usually reticent, having the rare and enviable quality of talking only when she had something to say. She did not speak when Ulysses was introduced to her by the bearded lady, she merely gave him a nod and a smile. She watched his act standing behind the small stage curtain. From the moment she heard him sing, it was love at first sound.
BigHead
Ulysses didn't care for loud people. He would not intentionally go out of his way to avoid them, since they were everywhere, but he would not seek them out either. So it was, with Bighead Thom.
Thomas' head was three sizes larger than the norm. Notwithstanding his height and girth (he was a large man), his huge head was the single unique thing about him. He was dumb, but not so dumb that he did not keenly feel his less than average existence. He drank rank gin and warm beer daily, which gave him the ever present stench of old cigars, stale beer and gin. He was the most pitiable of freaks, so he talked and laughed the loudest.
His act consisted of lifting heavy objects, which didn't draw nor retain the attention of paying freak-peepers. Until he added the chickens. Adorned in a large red leotard and garish make-up, he stood growling as the caged chickens were ceremoniously placed on the stage. One by one, he killed them with his hands and ate their bloody heads and feet. He was moved to top of the bill within a week.
There were few things Ulyssess didn't understand, the appeal of chicken-killing-blood-spurting-eating-of-heads-and-feet was one of them. Two days before Bighead Thom passed-out and choked to death on gin vomit, Ulysses and Claire packed it up.
Ulysses' natural gift for exceptionally good timing was proven a few months later when the traveling carnival went belly-up.
Waves of Clarity
Both Ulysses' fluency in reading Latin and his friendship with the doctor paid off. The good doctor, having relocated to Jacksonville, Florida, provided work in medical transcription. It was the perfect form of employment for a one-eyed, elbow-thumbed, Latin-reading, toe-typing freak.
As the good doctor's practice expanded to several partners, so grew Ulysses work, and it paid well enough. The sound of typewriter toe-pecking eminated from within the trailer as Claire tended to her small garden, holding four trowels. She was quite the multi-tasker. The trailer, situated on a remote spot between Jacksonville and St. Augustine Beach, suited the couple nicely. The companionship of dogs and one another was enough for Ulysses and Claire.
Ulysses read about the nearby ocean, and he longed to see it for himself. He mentioned the notion of making the long trek to the beach to Claire, who nodded in agreement. They departed at dusk, walking several miles before smelling salt air for the first time. Claire held Ulysses' thumb with her smaller left hand as they walked. As they neared the beach, Ulysses asked, "Can you smell that Claire? That must be the scent of the ocean!" Claire replied, "Yes. I smell it. It's wonderful."
Reaching the top of a large dune, they stood and looked at the sea in silence for more than an hour. Claire, uncharacteristically talkative in her excitement, spoke again, "Let's go down. I want to touch it."
At the waters edge, they kicked off their shoes. Claire rolled Ulysses' trouser legs up, and they walked forward until their feet were covered in waves. The sound of the waves crashing caused Ulysses to raise his voice; he yelled at the sea "Plan for the the worst and hope for the best! Hope for the best!" He laughed and kicked at the water. Claire's smiling face was wet with spray when Ulysses looked at her. He noticed she had perfect skin in the moonlight.
He was more than content.
(c) 2009 by SillyLeslie All Rights Reserved. Posted for commentary,only. Does not constitute publishing. | | | | 125 Views | 14 Thumbs Up | 8 Comments | |
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| | Autumn Daze | | | Wednesday, October 1, 2008 (3:36 PM)
(I'm feeling absolutely fabulous) | | Independence Day is my favorite holiday, not because I am particularly patriotic about it, I just love fireworks. Next, of course, is Halloween. I grew up in the northeast, where it is celebrated with fervor. In New England, people decorate their yards and houses throughout the fall, even more than you see during the winter holidays. New Englander’s take great pride in scaring the crap out of their children on October 31st. By November, stories will abound about the latest stunt that caused children to run away screaming and giggling. Autumnal colors and All Hallows Eve; I like this season.
Edina & Patsy Absolutely Fabulous
Deborah & Jessica in character
When I was a kid, I always wanted to dress as a bum, a precursor to a vagabond youth, maybe. I've worn lots of costumes over the years, sometimes smurfy or fabulous outfits, even. Jessica and I won a costume contest when we dressed as Ab Fab's Patsy and Edina; people thought we were drag queens, which we took as complimentary. We had blue pores for days after covering ourselves in blue face paint to become Smurfs.
Brainy Smurf
October is almost as good as fireworks.
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| | MSNBC Scores | | | Wednesday, August 20, 2008 (10:50 AM)
(I'm feeling like I love tivo) | | Rachel Maddow is a Rhode's scholar, political science Ph'd, exceptionally clever without one drop of pretentiousness. She hails from New England and she has that personality trait common to this area: what you see is what you get. I listen to her radio show on Air America all the time and I like it when she fills-in for Keith Olbermann on Countdown, because she is majorly cute to watch, too. Now she has her own show and I'm so happy that I have tivo! It debuts at 9 EST, September 9th on MSNBC.
RACHEL MADDOW
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