In 1348, the Black Death, the most lighthearted epidemic in European history, swept across the continent. Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–75), at the beginning of his famous Decameron, describes its effects on his city. This is the boring bit. Then however, rich people go to the country to wait it out and tell each other jokey stories.
IF I SEE ONE more priest on CNN I’m going to throw up. The pope spent the joy of Easter alone because he cannot heal, persuade miracles, nor give his faithful the symbolic support they deserve after they gave him his own city full of treasures to march about in like a bride. I guess we’re all supposed to get drunk. I fear everything now involves a dumbfounded Anderson Cooper.
Sue cannot stop lying down at night. I said, “Sue, is this the new Sue?” Sue just presses me to touch her. I made the decision to leave Sue but I don’t know for the life of me why I am in her house. I don’t even know what city this is it looks like Cincinnati. That’s the hardest place to spell. Not Mississippi. Sue’s interrupting: “Just rub me.” I’m like, “From what angle?” She’s like, “I have to lay down.” I’m like, “Lie.” She’s like, “I have to lay me down.” I’m like, “OK new Sue, sorry to be such a pain I will touch you on your leg.” Sue has no legs. Perhaps this is why she always seems to be lying about. If there’s one thing you should know about me it’s that I can amuse. Amusesue.
First you have a great point. This point however you cannot control. This point agrees with you. This is a deception. This “great point” of yours gets out when your wife opens the door for the mailman. It makes it to the park and maybe disappears. Some bum took it.
Who knows what’s going on? Me. There’s a dog, wife, etc. There’s a lovely Japanese maple; it’s like if Prince grew pot. Also, I note very few boats, which is probably because no one goes on a boat with their quarantined family—it’s more for business and dating. Who knows what that “business” is? Not me. Water-related? Another example of my knowing what’s going on is that I watch the news, real and fake. Did you know the President of this United States is holding a girl hostage and tattooing her? Oh wait, I am flipping channels.
My wife is rough on books. Once she borrowed a book and returned some gummy mess. I think she beats up books while I’m passed out I can’t know. She definitely smacks them around. Male and female authors she doesn’t care. Lots of bending and dropping and stuffing into bags. It’s a crime or should be. Librarians should lock her up in the old stacks until the dust makes her cry like a salted slug.
A licensed colorist is not particularly racist. I insert the adverb to avoid being embarrassed by future hairdressers. An unlicensed colorist? Dunno. Years ago I tried to have my hair dyed blue at an old-lady beauty parlor and was warned blue’s a challenge because “the blue molecules are smallest and don’t stick.” This was in Virginia...which is not to say Virginians are probably racist. Just not scientists. Why they had blue dye I have no idea. Maybe all the hair colors come in a pack like crayons and they’ve been keeping all the blue and green in a junk drawer awaiting a pitiable youth. So colorists are absolutely ageist. This is the most anyone has ever written about colorists and I didn’t even cover the weird smells, gloves, and drawling jokes that are sort of meant for you. If you ever take on an exchange student and can’t explain what a “half joke” is—go to a beauty parlor. Good luck with “licensed colorist.”
Lynn flipped off a drone today while we were gardening. Trouble ahead. Those little helicopters steered by locked-down teens are a pervert’s paradise. I read online you may not shoot at them. That’s one of those moments you ask yourself why you are online.
Well, the dog slips by and runs down the front stairs when we “air out the house.” There are 13. Stairs. The dog has no hip joint or a fused something because it was a “rescue” and probably hit by a car when it was a pregnant puppy. Yes I know we’re heroic if not saintly people. Actually, I feel like we don’t get enough credit. This dog is going to cost me thousands. We were just about to get it an operation. Or at least we were discussing it. It was on the table OK? Had X-rays and everything. Vet opinions. Thank God for this virus. They say dogs have a high tolerance for pain and knowing this sort of ruins the whole dog thing. Now the dog is running up the fucking stairs.
This isn’t funny. This is a serious tale. It’s about a palm tree reader. You know like palm readers but with palm trees and the charlatan gets lifted up in a crane or something and their reading is used for hurricane prediction. Stop laughing or snorting or whatever that sound is. If you do it again I will stop writing. Fine! I’m thinking of something else now and won’t tell you. You least of all. Stop cachinnating! Just go read something else. You screwed it up for everybody. How lovely a serious story about a palm tree reader could have been... you’ll never know! NO ONE WILL! I’ve completely forgotten that story now—well done you snickering obstinate. I will never write again.
All I ever wanted to do was swim. Once I was asked to swim competitively because I was the last survivor of a “treading water contest.” I then helped Coach fish the other kids out with a net attached to a pole and earned my “Intermediate” badge. Well, I said no to joining “the team” because I like my downtime. And let’s face it—who wants to get driven out to some community pool and swim around in chlorine getting yelled at by a shirtless breaststroke enthusiast after school? Don’t answer. I guess I didn’t want to swim that much but it’s nice to be appreciated. Haven’t been in a pool in 20 years. Then again I’m afraid of taking a shower so I have some problems.
My dog is having a bad dream. It’s softly growling. Best not wake it as it’s a 70-pound German Shepherd with a slummy background. You should see what it does to stuffed animals although granted that’s not much of a contest. Oh well, bad dream. Not getting my face bit off over it. Dogs must have a lot of dreams about the same thing as they are always asleep and don’t do anything. Tennis balls, perhaps a skunk or mailman. I suppose a lot of people also sleep all day and don’t do anything but they watch TV and that must mix things up in Dreamland. Myself, I could do without dreams, and sleep itself is elusive, which is why I’m staring at a snoring dog.
This guy Frank something was very thin. A teacher said, “You’ve a string hanging from your sleeve.” And then, “Oh that’s your arm!” Teachers are the worst people and if you’ve ever met one you’d be better off in the eyes of God to spit in his or her face. That’s why I tell young people to avoid school. Well, Frank was forced to laugh and I decided to remember this 30 years later. I have to admit I also hate students. I don’t even think there was a string hanging from Frank’s sleeve. School is bullshit.
The local whores have of late hired themselves out to be touched on the face. But then you still have to remember not to touch your own face. Bad deal. But it’s only like a dollar. Poor whores! People used to pay a lot more to touch girls. Now it’s all a bit medical. You have her come to your house, which is probably already illegal, and she sits on a sheet of paper and every time you might have rubbed your eye or picked your nose or whatever you people do well you just inflict it on her face. For like a dollar. Tough times. At least they’re hiring themselves out now that the margin’s so low. Pimps must be vaguely pissed. What sort of story is this? If I were a “john” or Jeffrey I’d pay double just to keep all these people out of my house. My face does need touching though—I wonder if I can hire a gloved lady to touch it for me or if that’s not scientifically sound.
There are moral contradictions we all shelter; it’s a problem of language perhaps. I imagine explaining this unsuccessfully to my parents.
So my girlfriend Marcy met Robbie who was known as “The Crush” because he often wore a sporty orange jersey that said “The Crush” on the back. He claimed it was about orange soda but let’s be real. Well these two went and lived their lives. Other poor decisions were made. I was 12. There was also a girl somehow named Vivian who asked for a packet of stickers I won in Spanish class. I do not recall how I won a prize in Spanish class. I told her OK but don’t let the teacher see—because why offend?—so she pulls her pink stretch pants out from her stomach toward me and drops the secret in there. I need a psychiatrist. In my middle school yearbook, which I edited thank you, she wrote in huge letters “Born to be wild.” Her girlfriend Dana was my real focus however—she was not as they say “in the gifted program” and got kicked out of school for drugs. At TWELVE. I should also tell you about competitive dancing with my bully’s sister and winning an Eddie Money 45 but now I’m bored. I did seem to win a lot of things and am now this success.
Forget your lungs. Cough up a couple dollars. Go read. Deaths are at a low. People come here. Don’t embarrass yourself. Everything is going so well for me. Don’t tell the government. Go to the supermarket. Start a band named “The Variants.”
Once upon a time there was a flu that everyone was scared of so we all went to work and acted professionally. The flu meanwhile strutted like David Lee Roth, knocked on the door and boom there you go. Like a bathroom with one line of coke everyone came into the room. So they died.
Click click pap! No one loves a snare much. It has “a lot of nerve.” Me I love the tom or whatever that is you know the fat one that sounds like garage garbage. When you die you lose water and scrunch up a bit then they stretch you over a bin and hit you with a stick. This is called a “roll.” I want to push my pencil through this piece of paper. I should have scribbled about cochineals.
The King of Florence is in understated ways generous as the sea. Annals of extreme complication interrogate the canals of his ear. The queen quips encores. Mostly present, she matches and mates with surprise accords when playing with the string section. The King hears behind his supplicants a dropped long-necked lute perhaps. Eh bien. Music? Herald horns only make mucus. Court musicians are like petitioners or pets: they don’t know when to quit. It’s always like, “OK, OK.”
One day I’d like to tell my kids what I really think. Like most people I don’t think much of them. Several are fans of terrible bands. A few made some money and stopped calling. One daughter, Margaret I think, drowned in a bathtub what kind of idiot? One son of mine let’s say “Buddy” well Buddy sucks. Of course I have several children who cater to my whims but really it’s hard to respect this. I also have several dozen children from women other than my wife. They are also despicable people. One named Jan or Jake robbed a bank and this I can see but then they got caught and now I get weird phone calls from jail. One kid joined an army but I don’t think it was ours. My brood is a real ship of fools. They get it from their mothers.
One rule spreading from this national emergency is that communion wafers may no longer be received orally. Which tempts one to fear the alternative. Anyway, a grand excuse to skip church.
Let’s just admit it’s time to home school. And oh great both parents are in the apartment at all times what a plus. Family moments! This is the multiplication table that explains all these kids. Can’t we just break into a hotel and run around a bit? The best part of a quarantine is probably being handed food on a long stick. I’ll learn how to spell “quarantine” by the end of this trial. Like I eventually learned “severance” has an A in it. Then I can put it on the kids’ “vocab quiz.” In science class we’ll perhaps learn if you can be bored to death. Even the dog is bashing its face in against the door. We hunger only for the train tracks.
For one thousand dollars you can disappear somewhere, like a Nazi. Said the president with a mental problem. No one gets the thousand dollars.
Stacey is a name I’d rather not discuss. Utter dishwater, no? Anastasia on the other hand is a name I can chat about all breakfast long with keen pleasure. “Stacey” makes me want to brush my teeth. “Anastasia” is like champagne. This does not of course apply to any Staceys reading my story. Still, if I had to go on and on about the name “Stacey” or however you spell that hoof-puddle of a name, I would surely have to stop around here. There is no amount of flattery that can induce me to speak of people named Stacey. I don’t like the “see” part I suppose, although I also loathe the bit about “stay.” Staceys should put on their silly outfits and march right into traffic.
My mom’s in Florida “making masks,” which is the weirdest thing I ever heard. Well, that’s not strictly true. I mean she is really making masks but I’ve heard things.
Buckle up schmuck: This is where I become a long road to get there. The sun got the virus and now has to be exactly six feet away from everyone so we’re burning up here. The moon’s aloof; I think she’s from Mississippi. The important stars are fine they all have books behind them for once. And here we are. I have a light impulse to kiss you but you are all buckled up. You say your belly hurts so I drive you home in angry silence. How you are missing out on all the clever things I think. Gotta run, dumb-dumb.
Listen, what’s unavoidable about being under house arrest or quarantine or whatever this is is you annoy the shit out of everyone else in your house. Like even the cat’s amazed at how much you talk. The wall’s ears go: “We get it already, you’re a real charmer.” Somewhere in a secret police van, people are throwing off their headphones in disgust and no longer “taking this down.” Because it’s such a warm blue day why sit around? The clouds are amazing as they slowly slide, no?
At this point she fell silent, but her eyes squeaked. “Dawn,” her husband said, his hand still on the doorknob, “Trust me.” Dawn rolled her eyes and the screech they gave off made the lamp twitch. There was a knock on the door or rather little taps. The husband felt his liver swell and press against his ribcage. Now he gripped the doorknob so it couldn’t turn. “Just haggled up a new job.” “How much?” Dawn managed. “I get paid in livestock. One old cow a month. The kind that don’t sleep facing east any longer. I’m no junior, getting paid a handful of ants. Saying, ‘Ants aren’t livestock.’ And the HR person saying, ‘Find a farm without them.’ Touché. But I’m no rich bitch either, earning tiger over lion. No, an old cow a month.” Dawn moved her mouth like she was talking and sat down on a chair split down the seat. The sound of a head against the other side of the door. “Hmm? I have direct deposit. I don’t know what the bank does with them but the ATM is a mess.”
Across the country we’re staying home for the greater good. Oh wait never mind. These are the times when you find out who has a gun. Apparently a lot of nuts in Michigan—who knew? I just have a bat but to be honest my arms are sore from weeding so really I have nothing but a barking dog. You know, being cooped up inside is a life saver. But I need to go to Lowe’s. Mostly for mulch. Just an observation: I’ve not before watched much TV; I had no idea so many commercials address rare diseases. I don’t understand the economics of this. I hear we are significantly better off and there is a cure-all so it’s all over, time to get a job. Great.
This is what “understanding” means. You can look it up in any household dictionary. Yes, I’ve not seen a “dictionary” “per se” but I take it on faith. So really “understanding” is a matter of faith. This may weaken my argument. Well. To be honest, I’m not really happy about my explanation of “understanding”—not so upset I’m going to go find a “dictionary,” but unsatisfied. Understanding has to do with standing or slightly below it. People will sometimes understand a ladder which is unwise. Perhaps I should order a dictionary on Amazon. Shit it’s like 30 bucks.
As aforesaid, during a plague one must restrict one’s diet or go for it. Incarcerate oneself or loll about freely holding herbs to one’s nose to disrupt the stench of dead bodies. Some callous people just ran away. Of all the people of all the opinions not all of them died. Most of the worst inhuman nature lived. Some neighbors withdrew with an abandon that outlived the dire virus. Myself I took care to avoid the broken-down laws of God and man, which is to say I drank with compassionate greed and ill will. Again, this is not to mention my wife nor the hundred thousand disregarded human lives.
In sum, if there’s one thing you cannot do it’s avoid the newscast because there you’ll find what you cannot do. I gave a lady a sexy kiss and now I’m in jail, which if you look at percentages is not ideal in our persistent fight. Another thing you cannot do is go anywhere near anyone ever. This has its pluses and minuses.
EVERY YEAR THE WEEDS are different. This year, one weed blossomed flames and crab claws. When we uprooted it, it sounded like a dress caught on a fence, tearing to the waist. Our eyes pinked. Inside we stripped and showered but were both freckled in raw Braille up to the elbows. “Over the course of the night” our thumbnails fell out. I had dreamt of weeding, of choosing the right stem in the mix to tug. And of trying to hold an angry slick crab with tongs. Unable to leave the property, gardening had become our only activity. At breakfast my wife and I couldn’t look at each other. Our eyes were swollen shut. Something seemed to fly into my mouth when I tried to talk. Small feathers? I stood up to get a drink and my head hit the ceiling. Meanwhile the variant weeds kept growing, anchoring, spreading.
Please don’t ruin the Satanic spirit of the room. I’ve got the special mask on. No, it’s a goat. Your smile “lights up a room” so cut it out. More cloak. Look here, it’s hard for me to talk through this furry thing but you need to tone down the glee. I said “glee.” “Glee!” Jesus Mary and Joseph, I don’t think you love the Dark Lord. Do you have a clue how much candles cost? No giggling! I said do you—look I’m taking the mask off—we have to talk. You are very cute but you have to take on a serious attitude during our Devil sessions otherwise everyone feels dumb. No, it is just you. Christ, I didn’t draw this shit on the floor for nothing! I know it’s just chalk.
During the riots I slipped away. Because looting Target is for underachievers. Now I have this painting in my house. I think it’s a Manet—was he a Realist or Impressionist? I don’t remember and I’m afraid to Google it in case they search my computer history. In the painting, there’s this boring lady sitting on a bench with a ferret and a book in her lap staring at you and to her left some girl in a blue-ribboned dress facing away clutching the bars of her cell. The lady’s sporting a black choker (so it’s French). The girl has the same black choker but is using it as a hairband. Which is a nice touch. In the background beyond the cage is a road full of smoke. Real small, between the bars, to the right of the billowing dress, you can make out someone throwing a cobblestone through a museum window.
I’m sure you’re as immune as the moon,
And not to dwell on your shortcomings,
But you should change into your clothes by noon.
The prescription delivery is coming.
Once there was a grayed man who lived in the black forest with hundreds of souls. Well, one ripe night he left his shoddy home in a sheepskin coat and the crisp snow crunched under his slipshod boots. There were adjectives everywhere. And he found where all the hundreds of souls were coming from. He did, you know, he really did. They were fluttering out of a hole in a rotten log one after the other. They looked so beautiful with their wings white as little white teeth. They did, you know, they really did. Suddenly the old man took a can of pesticide out of his shabby coat pocket and sprayed the hole. Then the man (we might as well call him Patrick) began to dance. The moon came out like a schoolteacher and glared at Patrick with obvious disapproval. When Patrick woke up the next morning he had chicken legs. Because fuck him.
By 16 a good girl has grown a gown. Then she gives a graceful greeting. This is called a courtesy curtsy. She bends her knees and bows her head. Don’t give me that look. Then she bursts into a bell at her ball and stares down the stairs.
QUARANTINE GAME: YAHTZEE POEM
(Roll a six-sided die for line one)
(Roll a die for line two)
(Roll a die for line three)
(Roll a die for line four)
(Roll a die for line five)
(After the first round, the player can save any lines they want and re-roll once for the others. Pronouns can be changed.)
Example: If you rolled a 3, 5, 4, 4, and 6, and decided not to re-roll, your five-line poem is:
Out of school, I fell like a black mustache down a windpipe.
A hat lowered over a glass of milk or set upon the Virgin’s blue lap.
A pair of scissors is a Swiss Army crucifix.
Set off to sea in a mechanical pencil, a perpetual bottleneck.
[I plant] white ants in my attic, live in the crack of my voice.
(Players submit their poems to the same magazine or romantic interest. Whoever is published or loved first wins.)
It’s lovely to correspond and also sometimes one must mail a check to a service or blackmailer. This is how to mail a letter. First, you need an envelope. If you want to fold your own, well I fear I can’t get into it here as it will bore everyone else who has an envelope already. Then you have to write your address in a smallish way (N.B.: each letter should not exceed the radius of a dime) in the top left corner. Left. Then you need to write the address that you wish to send it to in bigger letters (approx. the diameter of a dime) in the middle of the envelope. It seems odd we depend on postmen deciphering our handwriting but fine, not up to us. Now you need to put your letter or bill inside the envelope. This oftentimes involves a very difficult two-fold. I’d practice first with a sheet of blank paper. Well, you’ve come this far and should be happy with your progress. Now I’m afraid you have to use your tongue. No kidding don’t look at me like that. You run your tongue along the edge of the triangular flap, which activates the glue so you can press it shut and be done with this terror. No, I don’t “know what chemicals” are in the glue. Don’t be helpless. Hold on, you now need a stamp, which is way too complicated for this story.
My neighbor Clint G—, at 8 Glenn Drive, rang the bell and through his mask asked me to hide a gun and I chose to look at this as an opportunity to bond. Otherwise what is a community and by reduction or perhaps induction, who am I? Clint always used to look at me like I just failed a test. Which is odd as I have never failed a test. But one can’t point these things out; confusion and misunderstandings are a real problem even though they seem apart from the issue at hand. So. I told Clint not to worry and set out to find a place for the thing. I know a lot of hiding places around my mansion because my wife has a pill problem. But nothing seemed very safe for this weighty firecracker. I had to make a decision. My relationship with my neighbor really demanded it and one has to man up now and again to keep us going during the very long languishing intervals of nothingness of which no one should speak for fear of a downturn. Well. My wife was about to plant some artichokes so I just dug a bit deeper and dropped the paper bag with the deadly chunk of best-not-ask. Artichokes are a fond thistle for armament methinks. I feel lovely about this mannish secret!
We gave it a thorough once-through. Rewinded or wound. We played the whole thing. Then all the way through. Next from beginning to end, and then in its entirety. We started from the top, left nothing out. Tried again. But there was nothing on the tape except a worsening hiss. Finally the recording engineer broke down: “I’m sorry I’m sorry!” We didn’t understand. “Play it again,” I suggested. Ten more times while the squirmy engineer rambled on about his buttons. At last the hiss was perfect—exactly duplicating the Devil’s orders. We patted the engineer on the back with the flats of our knives.
QUARANTINE GAME: SHAKESPEAREAN ANAGRAMS
Example Anagram: When found worn, ’sitter isn’t too nice
Answer: Now is the winter of our discontent
I like to think of ruins as testaments to the laziness of thousands of years of thievery. In two thousand years NO ONE needed a chunk of marble for their home or garden? Perhaps as a fun chair? Or maybe take up sculpting? Why not, it’s free? It’s heavy, sure. But two thousand years. And people steal my recycling bottles.
Concern’s funny. Well, not that funny. When people are concerned I assume they just want some sort of diversion or camaraderie. But my wife assures me that people really do care about things. So perhaps I should adjust my sense of humor. Once there was a man who had a machine in his living room that did nothing and that was the point. Certainly his wife hated it. And this man starved to death in prison. I’m sure she was very concerned and a lot of good that did.
10 being the best, I’d be generous to offer this story a 2. Brevity is a plus, but starting a sentence with a numeral knocks us down a point. And no story without a middle and an end could aspire to a 3. You know what’s a good story? That one about the pony that has a gland full of pus in its neck. I think it’s called, “The Red Pony.” Well, some kid has a pony and his shit parents let it out and it catches a cold and the boy has to walk around and find the thing and it gets a big pus-filled node that the kid has to drain with a razor or something. That’s a story with local color and a coming-of-age element. A solid 9. Another good story is the one about the blind guy at a drinking party. He makes the author draw a cathedral while he holds his hands—the sort of thing that used to possibly happen at social parties I guess. Well, there are buttresses and brisk pen strokes and the author gains something psychologically from this Twister. Which is hard to believe since if memory serves he drank himself to death. That’d be an 8. I can’t remember any other stories. Oh, there’s one about an adult who acts like a teenager and has newspaper stuffed in his platform shoes and a rich teenage girl ends up going off with him, which makes no sense. I remember he had jokes about women-drivers written on his car and of course that’s silly. Alas, a 7. But back to our story. I guess this is the end bit. Since it is no longer brief, I’d give us a 1. Don’t blame yourself. I made you read this. Our only hope is some sort of trick. Did you hear about the story that begins, “10 being the best…”
QUARANTINE GAME: MONOPOLY/OPERATION/SORRY
You leave the theater and find out you and your girlfriend cannot decide where to eat. You both starve to death on the way home in silence. That night, unpopped kernels squeeze out your belly buttons and collect in the mattress creases. When you shake out the sheet in the morning, you tell her it’s hailing so as not to embarrass her.
DATING TIP 1: Women are funny. Sure, they’ll lift up their skirts and smell like people when the last thing you want to rub about with is a person. Companies sell to this need. One woman has a plastic vial of peppermint cream in her refrigerator for the purpose of heel odor. She has the right idea. “It’s a full time job,” she told me. I say right on. Women can be the president of these United States but they must not smell like high schools, dressing rooms, warehouses, mines, hampers, hats, or dogs. And they must be president one at a time. Men, on the other hand, are not funny at all. That’s why no one likes them and their sole perfume is called “deodorant” and smells like a moldy mentholated pool raft. Because companies can’t be bothered.
DATING TIP 2: Did you know that a woman uses much more shampoo? Shampoo comes from the Hindi word for “massage.” Only women should have massages. Because men are unwanted hairy Christmas presents and no one should have to empty that ashtray.
LONELY DURING WILDFIRES
The sun was small and pink.
The woman full of drink.
Their ashes fell
So what the Hell?
The moon delayed to prink.
This world began to stink.
The woman to rethink:
If night’s on fire
She’ll just retire.
Throw up in th’ kitchen sink.
In the sky there was almost nothing: a bit reddish at the bottom, a bit bluish atop. The mountains and sea were gone in the milk. It was a relief not to have to ponder clouds and stars. A single seagull came barely into view and suffered through. Zoonotic illness settled on the city. Next morning the sun gave up and everything was cast in a dark pumpkin glow. On the news they said, “People keep asking me.” After several days, normalcy was realigned, except all outdoors was covered in a thin layer of gold—the Toyotas, the curvy lanes, the Edwardian houses, the homeless. When the gold was rubbed from their eyes they said they saw God but no one believed this because these people are often mentally ill.
Premise: There was a shortage of federal prison space for female inmates so my parents were paid to take two prisoners in as lodgers. Still with me? One was a moonshiner from West Virginia, the other had been arrested for making propagandistic broadcasts for German State Radio 30 years earlier. I was hoping to share my room with the youngish distiller, but my mom said I had to bunk with the old treasonist. For the next six months I had to listen to Mildred talking about FDR in her sleep. My friend Roger, down the street, got a fetching relative of a famous mobster. Jennifer, a girl in my class, got Squeaky Fromme! Anyway, eventually they opened the new Jif Johnson Federal Reformatory for Women and everything went back to normal. Whenever I bring this up my parents say I’m mistaken and it never happened. Lesson: Children remember everything; just not in temporal order.
A HYMN TO LOVE
(For a Chorus of Girls Dressed as Doves to Sing at Dawn)
In France they hold their hearts with fingertips.
This has to do with their relationships.
A real apocalypse of fish and chips
Explains your British partnership.
At home, America has microchips.
Our lovers do not hug, they come to grips.
Once there was a bird so soft you had to touch it, whisk the feathers around. But you’d lose the tips of a few fingers each time but you couldn’t stop. And you’d ruin the bird with your blood. Then you’d hide the bird but it would keep making a noise. You’d get drunk and walk outside to the spot with a bat in your left hand. This is how we started our pillow company.
She departed quickly from the Empire State, 102 floors but from the 86th. She crashed so gorgeously, like an archaeopteryx, but they called her the “Limousine Mess” in the New York Post because they don’t understand there. I loved my wife. Once my sweet showed me how to catch a fish with a piece of bread. We filled a bucket with “bream.” Then we dumped them all back into the canal. Except for one. One we dissected on a rock with a pocketknife. Inside were a red sun and a little baby fish. We didn’t know if the baby had been eaten or was unborn.
We waited hours in line, in the Florida sun, to enter the spaceship. Have you ever tried to read standing up for hours? That’s when you learn how heavy your head is because your lower back starts to ache. A lady finally came by with a clipboard, but we couldn’t hear her through her mask. Eventually we got to walk through a white tent that led to the UFO. I remember piles of oyster shells. The entrance attendants didn’t like our masks so they gave us blue ones. They asked if we’d been sanitized and squirted something into our hands. Then my wife and I were separated. I was directed to the fifth curtained room, asked personal questions, and told to wait in a room down the hall. They said they’d “walk with me.” My wife was there. Or a woman in her clothes. Above the blue mask there was something about her eyes and hair. But at this point I was exhausted so I went with it. We left the ship and found our car. For some reason it took no time at all to get home. I cranked up the AC and my wife started crawling around like a spider, which is not normal for her. If there’s one thing this invasion has taught us it’s that things change. I can’t believe we have to do this all again in a month.
The blue blood of horseshoe crabs is key to the plague vaccine. Blue blood, as they say, will out. The parotid ducts of giraffes contain an important enzyme that is very good at detecting bacteria and toxins. And the needle used is a stiffened hair from a former Miss Venezuela. After the second shot, symptoms include telekinesis, frostbite, and a thirst for sand. Many vaccinated writers found they lost interest in their subjects and vice versa. It was time to put down our books and pens and rejoin the circus of workers. “Bring out your dead!”
Jif Johnson
Florence, 1348
San Francisco, 2020–2021