Seven Shorts

Homesick

Shooting pains in my stomach as soon as I entered the room. This was supposed to be my home, but it was making me sick. I started feeling it just walking up the driveway, passing under the basketball hoop. Even turning the friendly family doorknob I felt woozy and somehow un-right. But not until plunging my feet in the deep pile shag living room carpet did I feel those fiendish fingers of

fire start to prickle down there in my gut. I knew something was wrong. I would have to do the dishes. I would have to rake the leaves. Shovel the snow off the roof so it wouldn't fall in. Maybe that was the cure. There was always a way out. Struck dumb, I stood there in the living room. There was an amoeba shaped coffee table with a decorative fan of popular magazines like Daily Living and Automotive Style for guests to look at if any came over. Often people had to wait as I concluded another of my "private consultations" in the antechamber. Sound of muffled voices. Muffled laughter. Chairs scraping. 'Til at last I emerged, with a secretive smile. Many people wondered what was going on. Who or what was I talking to back there? What were we talking about? To what end? But I never let on, often serving guacamole dip or my specialty, pico de gallo, to provide my guests with the ultimate in modern hospitality, even a lime julep alcohol fizz on ice if the guests became thirsty. They would never know the difference.

The dog track

Johnny Jackson was a long thin grinning dog with a worn gray hide. Standing out in the Southwestern desert staring up at the moon surrounded by adobe structures, round corners, brown walls and deep shadows. Took a wrong turn somewhere in his life and ended up down at the dog track, as many a worn out old hound will do after a carefree life of running around sowing your oats down in Old MeXico or the old ghost towns of the Western prairie. Johnny Jackson knew how to hit the perfect pitch while howling at the moon and make all the neighborhood wineglasses vibrate and hum, a real crooner that mutt. After running a scam with a coot named Old Blackeye, some kind of Weimaraner Schnauzer mix, an old pal of his from the kennel (so when they got out they batched together in the world as daring rescue dogs and outlaws). After three or four shotgun blasts ricocheted off the gray hide, too weary now to leap up into people's arms unbidden with his long gray ribs extended or lick all the furniture, and shit on everything as in his wild long-eared youth. Johnny loped on down to the old dog track and presented himself to the trainer. He knew he could still run pretty fast, and before long he was running around and around in a circle, his hide stretched thin, for old drunks to bet on and fool themselves with and steal money from themselves and each other like they wanted. Johnny Jackson had a place to stay, water, food and the joyful fun of running, even as an old dog. He wished he could turn on the TV, he wanted to read the newspaper. But it was not for him.

Describe the old woman

This old woman had a nervous tic of fluttering her fingers while telling her jokes, and punctuating her caustic commentary with eruptive blasts of falsetto laughter, a mysterious bustling in her undergarments. Old Nanny's dry wit was the toast of six counties. All through the dry country, her re-fried hillbilly flapjack corn-stack humor wore the tallest boots, drove the biggest truck (in the backstreet TX truck driver lingo, so often imitated by pedestrians and drivers of the regular car or truck but seldom, if ever, replicated). Indeed, many eighteen wheelers paid regular calls to the Gristle Stop Cafe, meanwhile tugging their ponderous loads through the blackened US, just to sit at Granny's feet and listen to her spin a yarn. The best one she told was about Freaky Friday, when all the cow rustlers got lucky and three banks were robbed, six or seven trains shot down, all this by Blackout Bob, the shortest wild outlaw ever. Bob would rather shoot a gun than shave. He never looked at himself in the mirror. All these and other details made him the "thinking man's outlaw", which, of course, contributed to the hunters and truckers' enjoyment, always slow to work their jaws around a mouthful. WHAT?!! (But these weren't jokes, this was just her natural commentary).

Up against it

"It feels funny and sunny, like waking through a field of money. All these dollar bills waving at you!" said Dandelion Dave. He was some kind of bouncing baddy in a sports suit who came from the farbegotten ends of town. "Everything feels like that to you!" screamed an old Nobody. "We are up against the wall here!" They couldn't find any common ground. "Hey there fellas," bumbled up an old Pipsqueak or Squirt. "What's the problem?" "Here we are up against the wall!" screamed the same old Nobody, spreading what looked like old bat's wings while drinking a saucer of punch. "There is no more room for us!" "We are skipping through a field of dandelions," cheered on Sunset Dave. "While swinging a picnic basket from one arm, la la la ♫ let's play tag!"

On the treadmill

I hope you never find yourself at the treadmill with a mouth full of mush from the Country Cheese store. It's made with little scraps of bacon and sprigs of thyme, also other small bits of meat and cheese in the general mush. And they sure do make a good mouthful of mush at the Country Cheese store, but a good farmer knows: coupled with the constant trudging forward at different speeds for exercise provided by the treadmill, it can get to be a bit much, and little bits of meat may easily sputter forth and get spattered all over the furniture. Always wash out your whole mouth and proboscis with crystal clear water before climbing aboard. This is no ordinary treadmill, it represents the apparently pointless trudging onward forever continually endured by our fellows and ancestors, that's why it never shows mercy to a mouth stuffed full of ground bits like a lot of you kids carry around in your cheeks nowadays, so be careful. Other forms of exercise are also provided at the spa, including heavy lifting, jumping or running around with hand weights.

 

Centerfold

Not so fast, Bucky. What do you mean, "a good cause"? No cause is good enough for that. Sweet little Bucky, your mother and I had to forfeit our food stamps and give up our rations to get you through college, now the first thing you do when you come through the door is you fall down face-first on the floor, flat, then start launching into the most ridiculous story I, for one, have ever heard, being such a respectable bank manager or the like. Here, I'll get you a blanket. Cover your nakedness, Bucky! Oh Dear Bucky, we never imagined this future for you. Posing in some strange nude calendar, exhibiting yourself in the altogether for some strange charity "cause". Not even wearing a bathing suit!

You and me and the jokes

You are: standing over there, twisting your neck to turn your brain away from the unwanted thought. You are: a few buildings down, three floors up, sitting there eating a cold pizza, with the thought of what never was and greasy spots on your napkin. It's you: the faithful trusted, one good arm, and yes, it will take a little more good footwork to get through this smear of sand, and I thank you for helping me clutter some parts of this land, very sorry to clutter the path with my untutored helpings from the heap, sorry bout that, and we'll get through it's just a little sand, after all anyway, only a little sand. Don't your ghosts tell you that?