22

…being minus a plus ain’t quite as bad as being plus a minus but you still don’t got much to write home about…

Monroe D. Underwood

Smiling September brings bittersweet tears.

All songs are sad songs.

Dreams drift away to wherever dreams drift away to and I got a pebble in my sock as I passed the grassy little park.

I sat on a bench with the sun warm on my back.

I removed the pebble.

I smoked a couple dilapidated Camels.

I blew tobacco smoke into the blue autumn haze.

I opened the vault of my life in search of a plus or two.

That was a mistake.

I got flattened by an avalanche of minuses.

Well there was nothing mysterious about it.

Some dirty bastard had reversed my escalator.

With me smack-dab in the middle.

I was the guy who went out to lock the barn after the horse had been stolen.

And found the barn missing.

Nowhere to go and no way to get there.

I shrugged.

Another fifty years and it wouldn’t matter.

The thump of a bass drum and the sound of voices drifted into my thinking.

A group of people entered the park.

They bore aloft a huge banner which read ZANZIBAR McSTRANGLE FOR PRESIDENT.

From across the park came the rat-a-tat-tat of a snare drum.

Another group of people appeared.

This group carried small signs.

KEEP ZANZIBAR McSTRANGLE PURE.

SAVE ZANZIBAR McSTRANGLE FROM THE POLITICAL JUNGLE.

ZANZIBAR McSTRANGLE IS A FULLBACK NOT A ½ WIT.

The opposing factions met in the middle of the park.

Words were exchanged.

Fists were shaken.

There was an excellent riot.

Nineteen people went to jail and I went to the Radish River Drug Store.

I called Betsy.

Betsy said hello my sweetheart when are you coming home to mama?

I shrugged.

I said probably right after Doctor Ho Ho Ho invades the United States.

There was a lengthy period of silence.

Betsy said I see.

She said will that be before or after the cow jumps over the moon?

I said apparently it will be right about the time the Radish River Possumcats play the Sycamore Center Ridgelings.

Betsy said what’s a ridgeling?

I said it’s a horse with only one testicle.

Betsy said then what do you call a horse with three testicles?

I said well I knew a guy who had a horse with three testicles.

I said he called it Blackie.

Betsy hung up.

Mayor Bradford Boone was entering the drugstore.

He had a bad limp.

I said did you get that limp from falling out of the oak tree?

Mayor Boone said no I got it from Suicide Lewisite stepping on my toe.

He said Purdue would you believe they blew off seven tons of aerial bombs Saturday night?

He said they loaded another fifteen tons into the scoreboard this morning.

He said they figure they can shoot up the whole bunch if Zanzibar McStrangle plays up to his potential this weekend.

I shrugged.

Betsy had summed it up.

Crazy places crazy cases.