Tuesday, February 28, 2017
Ducky Wucky
Incredibly balmy morning
for February in Philly, so I
drove to the Wissahickon Trail
for a walk.
An extraordinary public park.
Urban, though parts of it
would put you in mind of
Montana or someplace.
With the beautiful weather
I pushed a bit hard, especially
since I was coming off a cold.
At any rate, had to rest just
a bit, and found myself sharing
a bench in a dank hollow with
a large fellow and his rubber duck.
"Beautiful Morning" I exhaled.
He smiled and lifted the duck
as if it would reply. Put it down
between us.
Anyway, we sat there, this odd trio.
For some reason I felt no strangeness
or danger.
But when I eventually rose to leave
he put a gentle hand on my arm.
Anyway, we were to walk together then.
He pantomimed the duck splashing
and then floating. So, we had to
settle the duck.
And I was needed for the task. Took all
of ten minutes to find the right pond, really
not more than a puddle.
At that point, I got firm but still friendly.
I laughed "Goodbye. Thank you for our
little walk. And goodbye Ducky Wucky also!"
With that he brightened a thousand watts!
Spoke his first words. "How...NAME?"
Through some serendipitous...something,
I had guessed its actual name.
He embraced me. Kissed me on the forehead.
All the while Ducky Wucky circled in a breezy
current of muddy water.
Well, I finally did extract from the pair.
Walked faster than I thought I could.
Scared?
Somewhat. In the cautious city-way,
but excited too.
The weather had been a one-day
phenomenon, thus a couple of weeks before
I got back to the trail.
There I got chatting with a retired engineer
from GE. Wiry one. Glasses. Finally got round to
the large guy and his duck.
“Oh yeah, Jepp, his name. He stopped coming
because the duck died. Don’t ask me how
this happens. Just does.”
“There were days not that bad, where I could
have gotten back here?” I wondered.
"Don't worry about it. You and I will chip in
and I'll buy another. I’ll leave it on a bench,
and the word will get around through a network
of such people."
And sure enough it did! I met the large fellow
a score of odd-spaced times for the same ritual.
So so foolish, and yet I couldn't stop somehow.
Well, where’s the harm?
Lifts my day at any rate.
Maybe I’m the simple one after all.
By the way, my first time back, he held
up two fingers. So, Ducky Wucky Two!–-
the engineer’s input methinks.
Labels: characters, eccentricity, engineer, odd couple, rubber duck
Monday, July 13, 2015
An Old Smoothie
Melody wouldn't leave without Smoothie, the cat.
So she sat in blue bra and panties and beige
cowgirl hat, such outfit purpling equally in the
diving light.
Hetts took the dress from atop the Lego Italian
Villa, and handed her the ukelele after she finished
putting it on.
Her resolve about Smoothie vanished. She went
down to the cab.
The Frenchman showed up and Hetts gave him
the key.
Hetts could hear him enticing Smoothie in the dark
as he cautiously descended the grimy stairs with villa.
Some odd buzzes filtered down, and "I give you
Half and Half!"
That night he dreams of Smoothie as a one-eyed Calico.
Asking Benjamin at breakfast.
"Could be."
"I must establish that Smoothie is corporeal!"
"You've never established anything!"
"I...had Half and Half with cornflakes once."
"No one has ever questioned your daring."
“We should buy some.”
“Or virility!”
Labels: cat, characters, eccentric, friends, Half and Half, imagination, Lego, moving, vision
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
