Thursday, November 03, 2016
Defining Drama Queen
-We're more than a bit nervous,
but not Drama Queens.
-I don't like to be called anything
with Queen in it!
-Noted. Well then, let's coin a term:
Dramatics. Suitable for our sex,
and the fair one also.
-I feel like a Dramatic sometimes.
-All about you?
-I guess one likes to add color and
zip to the proceedings upon occasion.
-With a super dash of ego?
-That, too, of course.
-Life can get gray without Dramatics.
-So, let the worst of us overdraw it? Bully us
that way?
-In measure.
-It's...mostly gray now.
-Get more friends! Go to ballgames.
We live near Philly. Phillies,
Eagles, Sixers, Flyers form the
regional bellyache. Sports Radio
will extinguish your spare, lonely hours.
-Should...I marry again?
-Sixty-two percent. She'll bring problems,
but compensations.
-Must make sure she's not a Drama Queen!
-Dramatic.
-Oh, right. I'm glad we had this little chat.
It brought me absolutely nothing.
-What I'm here for.
Labels: Drama Queen, dramatic, Eagles, fair sex, Flyers, marriage, nervous, nervous males, Philadelphia, Phillies, Sixers, Sports, sports radio
Sunday, May 22, 2016
Matters of Privacy
Denham kept to himself. Fact known in the small
apartment house.
But the twin sisters brought him a rice pudding, a
custom, they explained, on this day of St Ambrose,
the Grocer.
Much girlish amusement as to nothing ever done
for St Ambrose the Good!
In that relatively warm, if ecclesiastical, atmosphere,
Denham made tea.
When you got the twins on your hands, this the
quickest way to get rid of them.
He promised to return the bowl, but they said
no hurry. So he washed and polished it over a
week, to give the gossips no ammunition.
Then, stored it a bit, next to his Giants mugs.
For Deirdre, the twin with the shooting eye, had died.
He made his way to her viewing in their apartment,
hoping to be the last.
He was, and at the end mentioned the bowl to Destiny,
who blinked and blinked claiming it wasn't important
for now.
Denham took a deep breath, in preparation for his
escape, but when he got his hand on the doorknob,
it just tuned and turned in a lumpy circle.
No use calling Arthur, who was resting his bad back
and wouldn't come anyway.
She closed Deirdre's coffin and put on popcorn.
Announcing both that they were two adults, and that
there would be no silly mourning prohibitions either,
including not watching the Giants and Eagles in the
Thursday night game just starting.
Labels: apartment house, death, Eagles, eccentrics, football, funeral, funeral customs, Giants, gossip, loneliness, saints, sex, twins
Saturday, April 25, 2015
His Bell
You couldn't report yourself as missing.
Someone had to miss you, and wonder where
you've gotten to, and, of course, seek the help
of the police.
He went about, expecting a cruiser's stopping,
its blue light spinning down to still.
He had dropped his wallet, probably watching
Omar and Celeste in the new ape enclosure.
Had climbed an old fretwork that the apes had
formerly used, but now outside their fancy one.
Nobody turned it in to Lost and Found.
Just as well, since he forgot his name, and someone
would surely have asked, thence checking driver's license.
Ricky and Elinor, God's New Gifts absolutely, took him
home and fed him, tried questions to jog his memory.
No go.
That night they went to Lefty's Paradise to watch
Giants-Eagle on TV.
There the Professor guessed he had graduated Harvard,
and his fresh companion, the ex chorus boy, opined he
had the quickness of an athlete or dancer.
“Good and healthy and strong!” remarked Sudsy, who
hired him on the spot to unload trucks, flu having swept
his small firm.
Strictly under the table, since no Social Security number.
So he had found friends, a neighborhood, a hangout,
and a job!...and a name, Chauncey, bestowed by the Professor.
Not bad for his first disconcerting day.
That late night on the daybed gracing the sun porch,
he tried to fit some things together.
No use, but he replayed the football game in acutest detail.
Maybe that was kind of key?
Beatrice got interested in his story. She despatched trucks,
and started bringing him lunch. They dated, and eventually
he left his cozy daybed for her cramped studio apartment.
“Believe me, Chaunce fills it up without yours truly!”
Beats had season tickets for the Jets, but had promised them
to others in her family, but not for any playoff games.
The Bengals coming in for the first round got Chauncey so
excited he could hardly speak.
The old man checking the ticket with some sort of wand cried,
"Buzz Ackley! and they couldn’t find YOU better seats than THESE?"
Ripper Collins later sought him out with his mike for the Jumbotron.
..."But I'm not sure I'm he."
"Well, I'm sure! That ‘he’ gives it away: Pure Yalie!"
He took him down to the field and the young players, of course,
couldn't recognize him, but the twin gray-bearded trainers,
Hip and Bix, hugged him together, and massaged his shoulders.
She worked her laptop that evening. "You live in Nutley," she
told him, "18 Appletree Lane, wife Cindy, girl at Trenton State,
boy in Air Force."
They drove there next day, and Cindy fainted.
Detectives Markham and Pesticci were present, making sure that
Beats’ cautious phone call to Cindy wasn’t a con, and knew how to
revive her. Too, they swabbed his mouth for DNA. They explained
that they kept his case from the media since they believed it
involved the Mafia taking over sports memorabilia.
“We expected you were wearing a cement overcoat at the bottom
of a polluted pond in The Meadowlands somewhere.”
Cindy proved completely sure, and needed no DNA, so Beats left.
In a couple of weeks, Buzz recalled almost everything, and the
couple invited Beats back. Cindy told her she'd love her forever!
She became Aunt Beats at Christmas etc. to the youngsters
back from college and the Air Force.
Cindy, strangely, never had a jealous bone.
All the characters in this story of forgetting are pretty
unusual.
Buzz has more than his share of where did I put my...?
but functions appropriately enough for his age.
The League is kicking in to a fund to help those like him.
“I do remember every SINGLE time on the field that my bell
was truly rung!”
Labels: Bengals, characters, DNA, Eagles, football, forgetting, friends, Giants, Jets, Meadowlands, NFL, relationship, wife
Thursday, November 13, 2014
The Harrowing Quartet
or Four Days To Wedding
Ruck’s grandmother is coming and not, has
checked all the entrees. Gramps not around
to help, having gone to Heaven for the quiet.
Stephanie can't handle one more thing,
and is lying down.
A secret network works to get him to the
Eagles game tonight, but even supine, Steph's
radar clanks away.
"Don't you even THINK about...!"
"A linguistic pattern I'm getting used to,"
Ruck informs Clancy, the Irish Setter.
"Verb smashed hard, and the thought thus
can be left unfinished.”
Clancy's soupy eyes sympathize.
(Not to get too rhymey-dimey within the
whole hysterical smear.)
Ruck’s breaths keep snagging. “What’s a
Panic Attack?” he asks Clancy.
Labels: Eagles, last minute glitches, plans, radar, wedding, wedding hysteria
Thursday, April 10, 2014
Varieties of Discourse
in Philadelphia
Mark being articulate, too much, we went crazy with
his repetitions.
Whatever the subject, and they, too, proved limitless.
Lizzy, our garage sale maniac, hit one of Eagles memorabilia,
the old dude having kicked his last football. Evidently a true
idiot, his compressed air horn was thrown in by the grinning
widow when Liz bought all the jerseys at full price.
So, we dressed in them, and blasted the horn when Mark
spouted on and on.
Worked for a while: he clammed after a normal time!
But one night, he kept going anyway, so we adjourned
outside for some weed.
There we just caught his murmurs, not unbearable. Anyway,
the subject was mothers, specifically his.
When we got back, Liz gave him one extraordinarily sustained
blast and he exploded into tears.
Trembling wetly, explained that talking was like breathing
to him!
So we compromised. He sped on, seemingly with infinity in
mind, and we simply turned off.
Yeah? Don’t worry about it! We ARE becoming adults.
Taking our own routes.
Labels: air horn, Eagles, football, Philadelphia, voluble
Friday, February 28, 2014
Friends at Life and Football
On Cell
-Twenty birds outside my window on a wire. One turns around
to face the other way.
-That’s you.
-That’s me.
-What did it get you?
-Not!
a!
fuckin!
thing!
-So? Why persist?
-Endless loop. If I blow the circuit, I destroy the entire world!
-What a responsibility!
-Thus, I’m odd bird for everybody.
-I’ll never again accuse you of being a selfish, egotistical,
totally scattered son of a bitch!
-Amen amen I say to you that if a man repenteth of judging
his friend...
-Then both will pig out on beer and pizza. Kickoff at Eight!
-...and farteth! there will be Giants in the earth at this time!
-And playing the Eagles! And, I definitely wouldn’t leave
the artisan farting out.
-Our trademark.
-True...but we’ve lost women thereby.
-One thing and another.
Labels: Eagles, female, football, friends, Giants, male, sports bar, young men
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
Syndrome and its Tragic Stomachers
Rocco and Opera Lamont
ROCCO
Thought you were touring Europe in Porgy and Bess.
LAMONT
Bess, you somebody else's woman now!
ROCCO
That why you're whispering?
LAMONT
Voice went in Milan. Doctors at Penn say take a year off.
ROCCO
Like ballplayer without the millions.
LAMONT
Something like. But I want to ask you of a much more
serious malady: “Obama Derangement Syndrome.”
The newspapers in Italy think it mostly springs from the
way he walks
ROCCO
Lil strut sometimes? Uppity?
LAMONT
Race in there of course.
ROCCO
I used to think that, but we're speaking of Realms of Righty
Gold now. They've transcended Race and sped to pure,
gnashing insanity!
LAMONT
They should declare some saints when this harrowing era is over.
ROCCO
Already entering stages of lachrymose martyrdom.
LAMONT
Can't use a word like lachrymose in Italian South Philadelphia.
Even with its Latin root, that's a Bryn Mawr word.
ROCCO
The suburbs instruct! But let's try to forget that they do
with an Eagles game! Much to cheer about presently,
though of course you can't.
LAMONT
And thus, blessedly, can't be accused of being uppity in
outbellowing Caucasians!
-----
Anything about opera finds an honored niche
in South Philadelphia.
Labels: Bryn Mawr, Eagles, Italian, martyrdom, Obama Derangement Syndrome, opera, Rocco, South Philadelphia
