The "Rapture": 21 May 2011

It was the last day of life on earth and I had made the fatal error of forgetting to pick up my favorite three-button blazer from the cleaner's. A ravenous appetite last Thursday, combined with ranch dressing and chicken gravy at the dinner buffet had rendered my grey tweed temporarily unserviceable, and now I was paying the price for my short-sightedness.

I had always figured that when the end of the world came, I would be ready. I had intended to meet the day armed with not only my unflappable faith in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, but also a good dose of panache and, as regards my personal attire, a certain 'je ne sais quoi'. Hence, the angst over not having my blazer ready to hand. I would be forced to see the Second Coming clad in houndstooth, rather than the herring-bone that I had planned on, and I was fretting over my tie and pocket-square combination when my friend Jack called.

“Tom, what are you wearing for the second coming, old boy?”

I confessed that I was behind the eight-ball on this one.

“Well, I'm opting for a casual approach this time – I have a pair of chinos and a button-down Argyle sweater-vest ready to go,” he shared with me, effervescently. “I'm agonizing over my tie, however. Why don't you come over and help me pick one out.”

I saddled up and headed over to Jack's place – a pristine brownstone with awesome window treatments. Once there, Jack shook up a couple of Beefeater Martinis and proceeded to show me his tie rack. I immediately pointed out a splendid blue silk number.

“Naaah...too conservative, Andrews, old boy. If I am going to be judged, I want to stand on the merits of my pizazz. How about this one?” He held aloft a true relic – a “fish tie.”

I thought a moment. “Perhaps you are on to something, Jack. I like the cut of your jib...go with the fish tie.”

Jack had his own moment of reflection, and apparently reconsidered his selection. “No...Yes...OK...I think it's this one. Definitely this one,” he said, of a Italian specimen dappled with emerald polygons. “If this isn't good enough for the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, I don't know what is.”

“Best of luck to you, brother,” I said to Jack, hugging him and slapping him on the back.

When he turned to go back to his bedroom, I quietly and deftly pocketed the fish tie. A trout would look splendid with the houndstooth, I figured, and a fish looks a lot like a lion.

As Promised...

'Lov'ed, focus gaze

on wormwood - freshly clouded.

Silent, green fairy.

Floor Covering Mishaps 101

Ever so lightly tanned were the woman's retinas.  The linoleum blast had left scars on her face and forearms, but the tanning of the retinas was what she prized most.  "Look at my nicely-tanned retinas," she would say to her friends in the days following.

The woman would walk down 54th Street and bat her formerly-luxurious eyelashes at passers-by.  One might say she would "flap her eyelids" rather than "bat her eyelashes,"  but that would just be splitting hairs, as it were.  Men would glance and then glance again.  "Do you find yourself drawn to my nicely-tanned retinas?" she would ask them.  The men would avert their eyes and walk by quickly.  The woman would beam a self-satisfied smile and flap her eyelids once more.

All the way down 54th the woman walked and flapped.  Approaching 5th Avenue, she reached into her purse and pulled out a candy bar of the same name.  She opened it, discarded the wrapper, and sank her teeth into the chocolately, peanutty-crispy goodness.  A young police officer drew near, and the woman could not resist.  She flapped her eyelids at the handsome young man.  "Good afternoon officer.  Do you notice anything?"  Her eyelids flapped wildly.

"Indeed I do," replied the policeman, "I am afraid I will have to ticket you for littering."

Today at Weirdyear...

Please have a read of this rather different piece by yours truly.  Thank you.

Crestabula

Tristan was an asshole, let's be honest about it.  A womanizing, cheating asshole.  I hate to use foul language like that, but I realized after trying to edit it several times that there were very few words that could convey the weight of the eloquent and poignant "asshole."  The hole of an ass.  OK.  We are clear on that.

Tristan used to look at the dock workers and say stupid things.  He would chide them for their hairy forearms.  He would ridicule their lunches.  Worst of all, he would imitate their underbites - he would walk around with his jaw jutted out and saying things like "heck yeah," and "ayup."  What an ass.  The veritable hole of an ass, at that.

When Tristan was struck down by the moving van, there was not a single one of us who was inclined to shed a tear, I can assure you.  His bloodied shirt notwithstanding, we were not moved to emotion.  We were more likely to use words such as "relief" and "justice" than we were were "tragedy" and "sorrow."

The thin, blond-haired girl at the convenience store, though...the one with the stud through her lip...she cried a single tear and shouted at the heavens.  At the top of her lungs she shouted at the heavens when she heard the news about Tristan and the moving van.

"Patience is a lie!!"

Sweet Apple Wood (as told by Sonny)

"'Sucker never could dance - he just hopped around until everyone was tired of seein' him sweat, and then he'd sing outta' key and I'd be none too surprised if he pissed himself."  Damon and Daryl would say things like that when they got to drinking, you know.

Sure, you know it, you damned fool.  But you know that they only said it to explain why that black-haired muffin designer from the big city always wore navy blue trousers.  When someone urinates all over himself while wearing dark blue trousers, you can hardly tell.  It is made especially difficult if the trousers are polyester, and you knew that was what every last pair of his trousers was made of.

That raven-tressed sculptor of muffins would stand there at the urinal sometimes, so relaxed...so relaxed.  He got to thinking that he was dreaming, and that the restroom he was in was just a figment of his dream.  He would be so relaxed, and the urine would flow, and then something deep inside his brain would prod him with the question "am I thinking about dreaming while urinating, or am I urinating in a dream?"  He would snap out of it with a start, and shake his head as though he were trying to make sure he was awake.  Damned fool.  That was just how he was.

And you knew it, and Damon and Daryl would say things like that when they got to drinking - they would laugh, and their big, saliva covered lips would jiggle like fatty, greasy slabs of hog flesh - straight from the cutting floor.  My old neighbor (growing up) was a "belly grader," did I ever tell you that?  Yeah, he worked at the packing plant and he graded bellies.  Not nearly as bad as my friend Chris who worked there part-time and was issued a small, sawn-off baseball bat to keep the hogs in line when they unloaded them from the trucks.  Chris had to give 'em a good smack between the eyes to settle 'em down when they got all riled up.  Damn.  You can hardly do that very long and not develop some kind of problem.  So shake those fatty lips, you fools.

The pieces of flesh looked a helluva' lot like they came from hogs, but when the police put that tape up we all knew better.  The greasy, fatty lips cut from a face and left on the rim of that urinal were bad, but that bloody, sawn-off baseball bat on the urine-covered floor of the restroom was worse.

A lot worse.

Please Patronize Red Fez #34

A very fine issue, indeed.  Amongst the many fine pieces there is this interesting offering from Mr. Andrews.  I would also highly recommend this poem by Mr. Nathan Savin Scott, partly because it is good, and partly because I was raised in the deep south and can relate.

Toodles,
Mr. Linus G. Janikowski
Business Manager

Arrrrrrr...

There you have it, as I often say...a Wednesday afternoon and not a single pirate ship in sight.  The roads of your village are strangely quiet, and pirate attacks have been rare in recent weeks.  There was that time that poor old Mrs. Deerbush was hauled off after a particularly fierce raid a couple of weeks back, but when I think back on it, it was actually Danes (and not pirates) who took her.  The last we heard, dear, sweet old Mrs. Deerbush had been sold into slavery, and was assembling athletic shoes in a sweatshop near Kuala Lumpur.  At least it was a bit of a break from the monotony of her life as a cultivator of broad beans and gooseberries.

The last time the pirates landed on your street, they came looking for chutney, as far as you could tell.  Did you have any chutney for them?  If we are to believe Mr. Hargrove, the chemist, the answer would be an emphatic "NO."  He seems to think that you held out on the pirates and the chutney they sought.  Mr. Hargrove claims that you had a few spare pots in the larder and were just unwilling to give them up.  As it turned out, Mr. Hargrove himself ended up forking over a batch of gooseberry chutney, made from fruit cultivated by none other than dear, sweet old Mrs. Deerbush, late of our village.  How is that for irony?

Well, I suppose that you are probably thinking that the pirates are gone for good and that attacks will be nonexistent from now on.  Ha!  What  premature hope!  I have it on good authority that Black Sam Rackham, the fierce pirate captain from Barbados is prowling these waters in his man o' war, seeking out lemon curd and suet puddings.  You had best be on your guard.

Author, Author

“Wherefore art thou, Violet?” Precious Martin had a habit of asking this every time she walked into the nursing home. She would ask it even before the urine and fecal matter bouquet assaulted her nostrils. She would ask it even before the sight of that bent and crooked frame made the color empty out of her face. She would ask it and care not the least if anyone heard.

On a very typical day on that very typical street in that very typical Midwestern city, Precious walked once again into the residential care facility that had been her daily destination since her sister was admitted to the Alzheimer's unit some three years ago. “Wherefore are thou, Violet?” she called out, almost audibly. She smelled the onion and fish-stick melange from the kitchen even before the urine and fecal matter. “Wherefore art thou, Violet?”

It was a small thing, to be sure, the brief visits, but maybe they meant something to Violet. They sure as hell meant something to Precious – they meant a dread fear that she would end up in the same place in a few years. Precious was the baby of the family, and she watched the onset of her oldest sister's disease for years. And Precious tried so hard...so very, very hard to keep the wolf of that disease at bay. That bastard wolf that took the mind and left the body – the neutron bomb of diseases. Take your fish oil capsules. Eat the leafy greens. Plenty of water and exercise. Best of luck, Precious.

“Wherefore art thou, Violet?” Her voice was just a little sing-songy today. She knew this visit would be different, though, and it seemed right to sing a little bit. The onions and fish sticks were less noticeable now, she thought. Other aromas had crowded them out as she neared Violet's room.

It is amazing, Precious thought as she looked at her sister, how similar the teeth look to the fingernails. Not so much in color as in composition. A little washcloth had been rolled up and tucked under her sister's chin to keep it from curling tightly against her chest, and her mouth was open a little bit, allowing Precious to make this observation about her teeth.

It had been several hours and already the effects were evident. Death comes quickly and keeps on working, she thought. Efficient. Thorough. Violet's skin was already appearing kind of waxy and foreign – nothing like the skin of the sister with whom she had grown up and laughed and lived and cried and joked and grown up and grown old. The skin on this corpse was just that – skin on a corpse. A husk. A rind, more or less. Precious would wonder about this over a big glass of gin four days from now after the family had gathered to say goodbye. She would swallow a chewed up olive and want to vomit it all over the floor of that banquet hall. Rind. Skin. Husk. Violet. All that was good mingled with all that was bad and all that was scary and all that would never again be and she would just want to vomit all that right up onto the floor.

“Would you like her eyeglasses in the bag or do you want to just take them with you?” The nursing assistant broke the silence and Precious lifted her eyes away from her sister.

“Thank you. You've been so good to her. I'll take them with me. Thank you.” Precious hardly knew what else to say. The eyes on the face above the chin that was propped up on the rolled-up washcloth were not fully closed, and even though they no longer needed the eyeglasses, Precious could almost feel them looking at her. The nursing assistant obliged and closed the door behind her as she left. No hint at all of onion or fish stick was in the room.

“Wherefore art thou, Violet?” Precious sang out in a tiny, tiny voice.

What To Do Next

Well, there you are.  You have safely navigated your way to A Martini and a Pen.  Mr. Andrews and I thank you for coming and I congratulate you on your interesting taste in literature (and I use that term loosely).  You might be wondering what you should do now, and with that in mind we have developed this handy little checklist for you to use:

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As always, Mr. Andrews takes no responsibility for any injuries incurred while browsing his site, and he washes his hands of any suggestion that he is guilty of slander or any of that rubbish, blah, blah, blah.  Any similarity to persons living or dead is, of course, absolutely intentional.  You think he could make this stuff up?

On behalf of Mr. Andrews, I thank you for visiting A Martini and a Pen, and we hope you come back soon.  Please keep the shiny side up.  I think I need a nap now.

Mr. Linus G. Janikowski,

Business Manager, "A Martini and a Pen"

Personal Secretary to Mr. Andrews

At the Talent Show (Alabama Luncheonette)

When your knife comes across some membrane that's really tough and rubbery, well, the only thing there is to do is to press a whole lot harder. My daddy told me that a long time ago, and he ought to know, seein' as he came across a whole lotta' really tough, rubbery membrane in his day. Shit – he didn't even go a day, I bet, without cuttin' into some really good, rubbery membrane.

There was fellas back home who didn't care much for the cut of my jib, as my friend Spleeny used to say. Spleeny was called Spleeny on account o' his spleen, I heard told, but I was never too sure. I think it really mighta' had somethin' to do with his likin' that Beaudry girl from over the next town – down there in that dirty little shack – she was the girl from Pine Bluff, and that was the girl that I think Spleeny got in trouble with. She had real dark eyes and no one ever did trust her, 'ceptin' Spleeny of course, 'cause I think he prob'ly did things he shouldn't have and no one ever knew until everyone found out. Damn fool Spleeny.

Anyhow.

So the membrane cuts real tough when you don't want it to, and when you least expect it you prob'ly just poke the tip of your knife right through and stick yourself in the hand. Damn. I did that when I was cuttin' out a tongue once, and I stuck that knife halfway through my hand and I screamed bloody murder until my uncle Shiloh came and said it was gonna' be OK. Uncle Shiloh wrapped my hand in a dirty old sock, 'cause that was all there was around, and he told me a story of a kid cuttin' offa' piece of a chocolate Easter bunny and he set that kitchen knife right on that bunny's neck and whanged down on it real hard with his other hand. Only he had the damn knife turned the wrong way and his hand came down on the blade. The kid cut hisself' good, I mean to tell you. It's true. So he wrapped it in a dirty sock just like my uncle Shiloh just did with my hand with all the blood from that tongue and my hand all bleedin' together and I was gettin' sick and Uncle Shiloh just was sayin' it's gonna' be OK.

But Spleeny, he got that Beaudry girl pregnant and no one knew until everyone knew. That Beaudry girl up and left and I think she went back to Pine Bluff, maybe. Spleeny didn't care where she went to, but he let himself go crazy. Out of his mind crazy, I mean it. He went and took his pants off in the post office and when they tried to come and get him, he started makin' a mess. You know what I mean. Yeah, that's what I mean. Eventually the sherriff came and wrapped an old oilcloth around him and one of the deputies hit him with a little leather bag on the back of the head until he didn't fight no more. He just went all limp and fell down in the mess he made. It was bad, I mean to tell you. They took Spleeny away and I never did hear of him no more. Neither did I ever hear of that Beaudry girl, but then, I never really get over to Pine Bluff.

Spleeny had it bad, but I s'pose that Beaudry girl had it worse. Everybody kinda' thought everything got worse anyway after the whole mess. But as my daddy used to say, when your knife comes across some membrane that's really tough and rubbery, well, the only thing there is to do is to press a whole lot harder.

Waiter, There's a Fly in my Soup.

(Mr. Andrews places pen in inkwell...draws it out. Sighs)

V.  I don't think I'm going to post this on the blog.

R.  Awww...c'mon.  There must be SOMEBODY who will want to read it.

V.  Well, that's just the point.  I think I'll hang on to it and if anyone wants to read it, he or she can read it somewhere else.  I'll just post a link to it.

R.  Bloody killjoy.

V.  Watch your mouth.

The Queens of Putnam County

Most people 'round these parts remember the Crackhouse sisters - Lulubelle, Yolanda and Desdemona.  There was a time, in fact, when I believe the whole of Putnam County knew the daily dress of those three queens.  Lulubelle would always dress in a shade complementary to the vesture of Desdemona but contrasting most starkly to that of Yolanda.  Never did the three stand still at the same time.  If Yolanda and Desdemona were standing still and Lulubelle happened on the scene, one of the others would begin moving the moment that Lulubelle ceased to display forward movement.

Lulubelle practiced the fine art of phrenology.  Yolanda was taking a correspondence course in locksmithing.  Desdemona was a druid priestess.  In Putnam county there are only so many phrenologists, locksmiths and druid priestesses, so the three Crackhouse sisters stood out for reasons aside from their manner of dress.  Work was hard to come by during the great recession of 2009, though, and before long the three sisters found themselves destitute and seeking news methods of making their way in the world.  In the early twenty-first century there was a profession known as "telemarketing," and it was here that the Crackhouse sisters attempted to lay down some roots.  "Telemarketing" consisted of attempting to sell  items or services or some combination of the two in exchange for something that used to be known as "money," which formed the basis of something called "credit".  The catch was that the transaction took place over what we used to call "telephones."  These "telephones" allowed people to speak with one another over great distances, but it required both parties to speak into a small plastic device of which people grew quite fond.  Yes, I know it sounds ridiculous, but that was the way we did things back then.  People would even type messages into these things back then, and send them to one another.  You would see all sorts of people being ever so rude and "texting" one another in wholly inappropriate settings - restaurants, libraries, swimming pools and in the midst of proctological exams.  How rich!

But I digress.

The Crackhouse sisters all took positions with a septic-system manufacturer, and began to spend their days extolling the virtues of a delightful product known as the "Hoopertank BM-2000."  It really was the finest of septic system components and Lulubelle in particular found it quite easy to sell.  "It practically sells itself," Lulubelle would exclaim when she returned home in the evenings, flushed with delight over the day's successes, "and to think that I frittered away so many years in phrenological research and practice!" Yolanda was equally as pleased with the new line of work, and her sales bonuses she repeatedly invested in subscriptions to septic-system trade journals - journals that had become a great comfort to her.

Desdemona alone felt somehow unfulfilled.

"I don't know what it is, my dear sisters," she confessed over a glass of absinthe one evening after work. "I seem to find my mind wandering when I attempt to sell toilet parts over the 'phone.'

"Desi," said Lulubelle, in an attempt to comfort her sister, "don't think of them as toilet parts - remember that we are purveyors of the finest septic-system components in Putnam County!"

"I know, Lu', but when one has drawn down the spirit of the sun at the summer solstice and flown through the ether planes with a badger goddess, a septic tank seems a little tame in comparison."

"I know what you mean," offered Yolanda, "I found it hard at first, too...goin' from wafer-tumblers to regenerative blowers, but you'll get used to it."

Quechee (I s'pose you might look it up)

“On that long drive outta' town I s'pose there was only one thing that poor bastard Devlin was thinkin', and I don't s'pose he was wantin' to think very much of it, if truth be known. Earlier in the day he prob'ly wanted to just pull that old Crown Vic over on the side of the road and have himself a good long cry, but as it was he just kept driving until he found himself a Tim Horton's in Portland. Look at that, will you, that kind of rhymes. Horton's in Portland.

Well anyhow he just kept driving that big old Crown Vic down the road and long on before he ever got to Portland he picked himself up a hitchhiker who looked none too dangerous – just a thin, watery lookin' man who walked like he had a club foot and whose face was set off by a big ol' mole o'er his right eye. Damned thing had a tuft o' black hairs growin' right out of the center, too. Wicked filthy, it looked. The whole of the club-footed, mole-faced hitchhiker looked a good bit wicked filthy, in fact. Didn't matter no how, as Devlin picked him up anyway and told him he was headed to Portland for business or some such lie.

Devlin thought he was gonna' take 89 down to Manchester and then across to catch 95 to take it on up to Portland, but he decided right around Lebanon to just keep goin' east, and the next thing you know he was stoppin' for gas just outside of Meredith. That club-footed hitchhiker got out to stretch his legs a bit while Devlin filled up the tank. Bastard of a man that he was, he went and got himself a coffee and never thought to ask the hitchhiker if he wanted anything. I think it's only the right and decent thing to do when you got a club-footed, mole-faced hitchhiker in your car...you really should offer a coffee to the poor guy, don't you think? Anyhow, Devlin never thought to do that, no how, and he just went and got himself a coffee with an extra cream thrown in, seein' as how he didn't get any real lunch that day, outside of a hahd'-boiled egg.

When he stepped out of that gas station convenience store, sippin' that coffee with the extra cream, I tell you, old Devlin, he got the scare of his life. There was that club-footed fool leanin' up against the Crown Vic, smokin' a cigarette while the fellah' next to him was gassin' up. Good God but Devlin turned pale. He rushed at the hitchhiker and hit him like a professional tackle, I tell you. Knocked that fool for a loop and popped what he thought was a cigarette right out of his mouth. He gave that club-footed, mole-faced fool the thrashin' of his life. 'Beat him near half dead, and the gas station attendant had to come out and pull old Devlin offa' him. The hitchhiker was bloody, all right. It looked as though Devlin had broken his nose and popped out a right couple of the poor bastard's teeth. Devlin had just gotten' to takin out his frustrations of that lousy day on the poor cripple, and before anyone could call the cops, Devlin was back in the Crown Vic, spillin' coffee all over himself and speeding on down the road, this time not stoppin' till he made that Tim Horton's I was tellin' you about.

He sat there and tried to eat a cruller, but it was no use. That damned cruller just kept getting' caught in his throat and the coffee didn't do any good about washin' it down. He cried, all right. Cried more about the stick of chewing gum he had realized aftah' it was too late that the club-footed, mole-faced hitchhiker was puttin' into his mouth and poor Devlin thought was a smoke. Damn fool. Damn fool bastard. I guess sometimes you end up cryin' over things you don't expect to be cryin' about.

Prisoners Ate Here

Living under the overpass in that old refrigerator box in the way you did, I know you found hope.

It smelled like split pea soup when I thought of you and that refrigerator box.  Every time I thought of you I smelled it.

And then I looked up the word "scalene" just the other day and realized that it spoke more of you and me and those caissons (as they went rolling along) than I could have imagined.  "No two sides equal."  Truth does not come in degrees, you always said, but this was more true than the truth of a good coffee.

So that man in the straw shirt bought two coffees and waited for his lover.  "Random" she said to him when she arrived, "you are always so random."  Why?  Where was he supposed to be? I'll show you random.

But as the sleep fell upon me I could not smell the split pea soup anymore and so the memory of that old refrigerator box went the way of the memory of the man in the straw shirt, and I chose not to care.

I closed my eyes and the night became as bright as the day.