Surrender Your Bull Meat
New Scene
Desc:
The Saint of Pejugildo is strong and loves simple food like lettuce and flour. He can be hired, or he will work of his own accord. Do not tempt him to do so, however brief you imagine his assignment may be. He may strike up a labor that can never be repaid. And then what do you have? Holy debt! You better start praying for some vouchers.
But where can we get vouchers for holy work? You can’t! You had better think things through next time, except there won’t be a next time. There will only be this time and possibly one more time after what would be considered a "next time." Except in that case, some slight variation will come along and knock the technical fruit out of the situation. And you will say, "This time does not quite count as a time." So based on that, you will skip the next time and move straight into whatever the time after that is called. I am not shopping here. I am trying to inform you about your situation with the dreaded Saint of Pejugildo. He hearkens to the bitter end. There is no slack in his attention span, and he comes when there is only a flicker of you thinking about him in the voice you use to describe something entirely different. "What a fine sweater," you say to your neighbor. BAM! Pejugildo appears. You swear up and down that this is some terrible mistake but the dark look in his eyes says no clemency will be granted. You will be billed. Check your mail regularly. And then he sets to work, straightening your chairs, folding your towels, nursing your infant children... sweet Jesus, does he ever stop? No! He is only obsessed with not stopping. His pace is jazz-like, a couple of nut swings here and there as he tangos with your landlord, a couple of beats of hateful silence interspersed among his escalating feats of unrequested labor. And you will find at the end of the day that you are the one who is sweating, not him. He is only laughing. And he whips his frock and whisks away into the pedigree simplicity of a Charleston night. "Hidalgo, Prego, Videlicet! Mason, Dixon, Samoset! Cheeng, Choch, Offensive Tet! Go onward, ye slathering snails!" That is how he calls to his wheels, the wheels on his big rig, as he drives toward the damn ugly moon hanging there unseen.
Enter the professor with the turtleneck, the bonnet, the cigarette holder, and the excessively fake moustache: "The glory of Saint Pejugildo is that he is so sensitive to a summons. He works beyond the wishes of those who invoke his name... indeed, they hardly need invoke him at all for him to appear, work miracles, complete tasks of a menial sounding nature, and then view the recipient of his largesse with not blessing but animus. He is the only Holy Saint who writes you a bill. It does not take a lot of imagination to think what he does to those who do not pay. Bad mouth you from the cherubs to the seraphs, spread that word up to God and get you a pretty big wafer on your shoulder. Ouch. Maimonides. The Christ pain in excelsus! The beauty of the duality is its continuous dissolution, in which we see Foucault’s sense of space laid into what has hitherto been an impregnable orthodoxy. I would like to see what Harriet Beecher Stowe would say about Saint Pejugildo."
A hit man who has secretly had a lobotomy comes in and strangles the professor, throwing down his body the second the profound gagging stops. He leaves away to the Italian restaurant where he expects his instructions. It goes without saying he is indifferent to the food.
"God! Thank you Saint Pejugildo! How can I ever repay you?"
"You can pay me." A stern stare beams out of those bearded eyes.
Man fumbles in pockets, shakes jowls with exposed lower teeth. "I-I," he grunts, overdosing on St. Pejugildo’s straight dope, knowing that if this ghost disappears, he will spend every moment of the rest of his life wondering what the hell is in store for him. Until senility, when Pejugildo is depicted with a spiked paddle, climbing through the bedroom window at the stroke of midnight to scar the faces and chests of his sleeping senile betrayers. All he has to do is exhale one lavender breath on a sleeping face and the body will never wake as he pummels and spanks and sweats and curses. Then he exits through the doors, leaving each one wide open for burglars, murderers, and stray animals that might come and shit on the floor. His laughter as he disappears down the road sounds like the sweetest bell, but people are only used to hearing sweet bells in the context of good, friendly things. This sweet bell laugh over a babbling, disfigured invalid is enough to make a man quit praying altogether.
A speech writer with a lobotomy says, "Stop. You used the word bell twice, but you did not use the word window twice. Bell... window... now is the time."
"Shut up, Jackson," an old man wearing a leather hat and full-on pajamas instructs. "I am not a goddamn idiot, and when I use a word a couple of times, it isn’t some kind of counting game. Jesus how I wish the art of speechwriting had nothing to do with all these meaningless savant tactics." Then he shook his head: "But you get the votes, so you can stay."
Jackson nodded and returned to his yellow construction paper, on which he wrote the most important addresses of the twenty-first century in white colored pencil. The old man stepped up behind him thumbing his hat, and a terrible look of pity came on his face: "Goddamn, Jackson. How can you even read that shit? Is this the method you were using when you wrote, ‘There is no U.S.-there is only US?’" Jackson bit his lower lip and restrained some animal instinct while the old man padded over to the next room and poured himself a tall glass of Dayquil.
"Ahhhhhh," he groaned. "This will beat the shit out of my life." He commenced to drink the syrup in one draught punctuated with the mortal drum beat of human swallowing. Then he went home and yelled at his wife for throwing away the newspaper.
* * *
New Scene
Desc:
I just want to do something new with the family line. I believe in all the things I say. I do not have to work at being likable. It is something which comes natural to me, and it creates a natural sensation of friendliness in others.
I remember spending large portions of my boyhood on the small farm of my grandparents, although I am not sure I remember what town or even what state it was in. My parents would leave me on the doorstep, turning on their heels and jumping back into the car. Then whisk! Snap! Va-va-va-voom! They were gone in a hail of mean-spirited laughter. My grandparents were always glad to see me, but as they opened the door my eyes would still be studying the dusty driveway with a look of sincere puzzlement. Did they ever speak to each other? I would wonder.
Inside the house there were wooden floors that provided hours of wheeled amusement for me. It was often too hard to keep the saliva in my mouth, and I would sweep the glowing puddles smooth on the rich, wooden floorboards of the hallway. My laughter consumed me in those days. It was the ringing out of my simple nature. If nobody was around and I laughed, believe me it made a sound. Nowadays nothing is funny. Nothing amuses me very much anymore. I have become somber and wear a mandatory look of consternation upon my face. It was not always this way.
How I climbed the ranks of the political process is anyone's guess. I just happened to have the arm that got grabbed, as I handed a bag of tacos out the drive-thru window, and the voice of Fate, dressed up like a man wearing pajamas, said to me: "You are it." I was "it." Tagged right into being a formidable character in the rich history of this industrious nation. At the time however I had no idea what I was in for. I just smiled and waved farewell as this old man stared at me and laughed. My eyes got wide because I was scared, and he shook his head and reiterated: "Oh, you are it. You are exactly it, all right." Then he told me to leave the building this instant and get in his car. I did, and it was the best decision I ever made.
As we drove across the beltway the old man lit a cigarette and the smell of tacos disappeared from my nostrils. It was the end of that smell forever. Now I smelled like cigarettes. And I was "it."
* * *
New Scene
Desc:
Hope is stuff like car keys, a cell phone: some excuse to leave the scene fast. "Well, as you can see, I have my keys. Therefore I have to go." "My phone just buzzed. Could be Griggs needing an update on the draft." Usually I can run out the door with my hands over my ears, feeling the soft fluff of potpourri hailing against my back; but tonight, for some goddamn reason, for whatever cursed disease is curdling in my brain, I just don't care whether I have an excuse to jump out of her claws. I surrender myself to whatever goddamn crazy kind of mood she is in. I accept it, like a Native American getting on a bus for the first time.
New Scene
Desc:
The Saint of Pejugildo is strong and loves simple food like lettuce and flour. He can be hired, or he will work of his own accord. Do not tempt him to do so, however brief you imagine his assignment may be. He may strike up a labor that can never be repaid. And then what do you have? Holy debt! You better start praying for some vouchers.
But where can we get vouchers for holy work? You can’t! You had better think things through next time, except there won’t be a next time. There will only be this time and possibly one more time after what would be considered a "next time." Except in that case, some slight variation will come along and knock the technical fruit out of the situation. And you will say, "This time does not quite count as a time." So based on that, you will skip the next time and move straight into whatever the time after that is called. I am not shopping here. I am trying to inform you about your situation with the dreaded Saint of Pejugildo. He hearkens to the bitter end. There is no slack in his attention span, and he comes when there is only a flicker of you thinking about him in the voice you use to describe something entirely different. "What a fine sweater," you say to your neighbor. BAM! Pejugildo appears. You swear up and down that this is some terrible mistake but the dark look in his eyes says no clemency will be granted. You will be billed. Check your mail regularly. And then he sets to work, straightening your chairs, folding your towels, nursing your infant children... sweet Jesus, does he ever stop? No! He is only obsessed with not stopping. His pace is jazz-like, a couple of nut swings here and there as he tangos with your landlord, a couple of beats of hateful silence interspersed among his escalating feats of unrequested labor. And you will find at the end of the day that you are the one who is sweating, not him. He is only laughing. And he whips his frock and whisks away into the pedigree simplicity of a Charleston night. "Hidalgo, Prego, Videlicet! Mason, Dixon, Samoset! Cheeng, Choch, Offensive Tet! Go onward, ye slathering snails!" That is how he calls to his wheels, the wheels on his big rig, as he drives toward the damn ugly moon hanging there unseen.
Enter the professor with the turtleneck, the bonnet, the cigarette holder, and the excessively fake moustache: "The glory of Saint Pejugildo is that he is so sensitive to a summons. He works beyond the wishes of those who invoke his name... indeed, they hardly need invoke him at all for him to appear, work miracles, complete tasks of a menial sounding nature, and then view the recipient of his largesse with not blessing but animus. He is the only Holy Saint who writes you a bill. It does not take a lot of imagination to think what he does to those who do not pay. Bad mouth you from the cherubs to the seraphs, spread that word up to God and get you a pretty big wafer on your shoulder. Ouch. Maimonides. The Christ pain in excelsus! The beauty of the duality is its continuous dissolution, in which we see Foucault’s sense of space laid into what has hitherto been an impregnable orthodoxy. I would like to see what Harriet Beecher Stowe would say about Saint Pejugildo."
A hit man who has secretly had a lobotomy comes in and strangles the professor, throwing down his body the second the profound gagging stops. He leaves away to the Italian restaurant where he expects his instructions. It goes without saying he is indifferent to the food.
"God! Thank you Saint Pejugildo! How can I ever repay you?"
"You can pay me." A stern stare beams out of those bearded eyes.
Man fumbles in pockets, shakes jowls with exposed lower teeth. "I-I," he grunts, overdosing on St. Pejugildo’s straight dope, knowing that if this ghost disappears, he will spend every moment of the rest of his life wondering what the hell is in store for him. Until senility, when Pejugildo is depicted with a spiked paddle, climbing through the bedroom window at the stroke of midnight to scar the faces and chests of his sleeping senile betrayers. All he has to do is exhale one lavender breath on a sleeping face and the body will never wake as he pummels and spanks and sweats and curses. Then he exits through the doors, leaving each one wide open for burglars, murderers, and stray animals that might come and shit on the floor. His laughter as he disappears down the road sounds like the sweetest bell, but people are only used to hearing sweet bells in the context of good, friendly things. This sweet bell laugh over a babbling, disfigured invalid is enough to make a man quit praying altogether.
A speech writer with a lobotomy says, "Stop. You used the word bell twice, but you did not use the word window twice. Bell... window... now is the time."
"Shut up, Jackson," an old man wearing a leather hat and full-on pajamas instructs. "I am not a goddamn idiot, and when I use a word a couple of times, it isn’t some kind of counting game. Jesus how I wish the art of speechwriting had nothing to do with all these meaningless savant tactics." Then he shook his head: "But you get the votes, so you can stay."
Jackson nodded and returned to his yellow construction paper, on which he wrote the most important addresses of the twenty-first century in white colored pencil. The old man stepped up behind him thumbing his hat, and a terrible look of pity came on his face: "Goddamn, Jackson. How can you even read that shit? Is this the method you were using when you wrote, ‘There is no U.S.-there is only US?’" Jackson bit his lower lip and restrained some animal instinct while the old man padded over to the next room and poured himself a tall glass of Dayquil.
"Ahhhhhh," he groaned. "This will beat the shit out of my life." He commenced to drink the syrup in one draught punctuated with the mortal drum beat of human swallowing. Then he went home and yelled at his wife for throwing away the newspaper.
* * *
New Scene
Desc:
I just want to do something new with the family line. I believe in all the things I say. I do not have to work at being likable. It is something which comes natural to me, and it creates a natural sensation of friendliness in others.
I remember spending large portions of my boyhood on the small farm of my grandparents, although I am not sure I remember what town or even what state it was in. My parents would leave me on the doorstep, turning on their heels and jumping back into the car. Then whisk! Snap! Va-va-va-voom! They were gone in a hail of mean-spirited laughter. My grandparents were always glad to see me, but as they opened the door my eyes would still be studying the dusty driveway with a look of sincere puzzlement. Did they ever speak to each other? I would wonder.
Inside the house there were wooden floors that provided hours of wheeled amusement for me. It was often too hard to keep the saliva in my mouth, and I would sweep the glowing puddles smooth on the rich, wooden floorboards of the hallway. My laughter consumed me in those days. It was the ringing out of my simple nature. If nobody was around and I laughed, believe me it made a sound. Nowadays nothing is funny. Nothing amuses me very much anymore. I have become somber and wear a mandatory look of consternation upon my face. It was not always this way.
How I climbed the ranks of the political process is anyone's guess. I just happened to have the arm that got grabbed, as I handed a bag of tacos out the drive-thru window, and the voice of Fate, dressed up like a man wearing pajamas, said to me: "You are it." I was "it." Tagged right into being a formidable character in the rich history of this industrious nation. At the time however I had no idea what I was in for. I just smiled and waved farewell as this old man stared at me and laughed. My eyes got wide because I was scared, and he shook his head and reiterated: "Oh, you are it. You are exactly it, all right." Then he told me to leave the building this instant and get in his car. I did, and it was the best decision I ever made.
As we drove across the beltway the old man lit a cigarette and the smell of tacos disappeared from my nostrils. It was the end of that smell forever. Now I smelled like cigarettes. And I was "it."
* * *
New Scene
Desc:
Hope is stuff like car keys, a cell phone: some excuse to leave the scene fast. "Well, as you can see, I have my keys. Therefore I have to go." "My phone just buzzed. Could be Griggs needing an update on the draft." Usually I can run out the door with my hands over my ears, feeling the soft fluff of potpourri hailing against my back; but tonight, for some goddamn reason, for whatever cursed disease is curdling in my brain, I just don't care whether I have an excuse to jump out of her claws. I surrender myself to whatever goddamn crazy kind of mood she is in. I accept it, like a Native American getting on a bus for the first time.