Nothing Eternal (Whiskey by shoestring dialogue)

And oh when that ounce creeps in! The mood will change, households will crumble, and governments will explode from the inside out. Happiness is not forever, just like sadness can not defeat everyone. Love is conditional, and hate is foolish, but even a fool is capable of compassion. Even a fool has a mother.

The Billboards penetrate so that there is no escaping these advertisements. My television is gone, and my radio is broken. I do not look at magazines, and I gave away my car. The billboards still penetrate. But oh when that ounce creeps in!

The emotion is no matter, nor the argument. The action, nor the counter action. The dog, nor the cat, nor the mouse. The church, nor the heathen. The drug, nor the disease, nor the cure. Nothing is impenetrable, especially those guilty of penetrating. And oh when that ounce creeps in!

Will I grow a beard, or shave it?

Never Missed One (Champagne by Orlo Newbould)

And, oh, when that last ounce creeps in I am edified. The tailored tuxedo, the rented dame, the sure-thing night-cap all culminate into a postcard I’d send to my father the third Sunday in June. He always opens his mail in hopes of vicarious documentation. He thinks himself the sire of a champion champagne thoroughbred. My only doubt is if I bought enough mirrors to see for myself. Sal, my tailor, stitched me three-hundred-sixty degrees of good sides. He’s eating steak tonight and Dad gets a card, but I’m missing it.

I’ve missed a lot lately but only in the night. Daytime I don’t miss a thing. My rooster crows the sports scores and the stock ticker, and my secretary calls in at 10 AM to tell me who was late to work. I don’t, work that is, so I am never late but always early to reviews, and promotions come my way like headaches to a lush. Never missed one and my life’s gone to the moon – but only in the daytime.

It’s the nighttime when my secretary let’s her hair down and the nighttime when the flower delivery girl sings karaoke. It’s the nighttime when I am in the office drinking gin, and squeezing limes into my eyes to stay awake. It’s the strangers that walk into the pool hall that keep them awake, opening their eyes to a world outside their own and giving another excuse to belly up for a gin and juice. I may be on the moon, but they blissfully dance under my barren moon rock tower.

I breathe filtered air but can’t move, can’t dance, can’t screw in my specialized, pressurized, tailorized suit - and for what?

Tone Deaf Plumbing (Champagne by Orlo Newbould)

I was sitting on the front porch whistling. I remembered something my father said about the beeps on kitchen equipment, the chimes of door ajar warnings, and the back-up alarm on the back-ho digging up the sewage system in my back yard. I whistled trying to match the tone. Whoo, whoo, whoo. Should be in the key of B. I think my father said B. I was tone deaf, however, and glad to be alone on the porch butchering even the sound of an earth mover.

Tone deaf but a hell of a speechwriter. I gave a toast two nights ago at Georgie’s wedding. The reception was held in my house. Madness it was, bridesmaids danced naked amongst my irrigation and used their dresses likes whips lashing each other’s big behinds. The cracks of derriere welts echoed off my neighbors garages. The cops came out once. I gave them a toast that silenced their sirens. I wondered if the sirens were some B arpeggio.

The groomsmen, sans myself, were worn out from the bachelor party. I had laid down for a two-hour nap before the wedding and hid my dark circles under a pair of gleaming blue eyes. Not my words: Hers. Oh and she, can’t remember her name. You think bridesmaids are indistinguishable in the same dress and hair do, just wait until they are dancing naked in your yard with dripping hair and crying mascara. But she said it.

Her compliment was better than any speech I had ever written. Effective, charismatic, and a call to action. And a call to the plumber who told me to call the back-ho to dig out the rubber I flushed down the toilet before she and I fell asleep together in a hot bath.

Salmon Fudge (Whiskey by Shoestring Dialogue)

I was sittin on the porch whistlin.  No tune in particular, but a mish-mash of partial tunes that I could remember.  An annoying way to whistle really.  I remember seeing a few other people out on their patios, talking loudly, drinkin, and I was jealous that I had no such bash to attend on a Friday night.  Then I caught some of their conversation, and I was glad that I was alone.  That was the night I met Salmon Fudge.  What parents that guy must've had huh? That is his real name. 

Salmon was absolutely crazy, and decided that he liked me, so we went drinkin.  I'd never been drinkin like that before.  We started with a brown bag just to get us to the bar.  Then we got free drinks there because Salmon knew everybody, and they closed so we went to some girl's house, and all these people were hangin out.  The kind of people I'd always wanted to meet, and was beginning to think didn't exist.  It was like when you talk to someone you really admire, mostly you're just scared.  Scared they're gonna be assholes, scared you won't be accepted, scared you might not like them as much as you thought.  It's almost better that heroes stay in books.  That's what we like about them anyway, that they're heroes.  These people were real, and Salmon was certifiably crazy, and I was drunk.