|
You’re up to something. I wanted you to know I knew. So you
wouldn’t count on any element of surprise.
You’re just about to ‘spring something’ on me. I can smell you
hatching it. Don’t think you’re suave and unpredictable, because
on the lengthy list of things you’re not, those two qualities
have some very low numbers. If the list is organized with
qualities you have the least of being at the top. When the list
is organized alphabetically, ‘Suave’ is a little more than
three-quarters in, ‘Unpredictable’ almost at the end. But I
don’t list things alphabetically. That’s your scene.
I know whom I’m dealing with when I’m dealing with you. I’ve
watched your type in action. You’re a mole is what you are,
lying oh so low beneath the soil of your never having done
anything bad to me before, munching the juicy worms of your
seeming lack of hostility. But I see through all that. You
should have worn a lead apron over your intentions if you wanted
to fool me. Because my ability to suss out creeps like you is
Kryptonian. It’s a strange visitor from another planet. It
flourishes under a yellow sun, my friend.
There’s a shovel in my garage with your name on the flat of the
blade. Literally. I wrote it there several years ago after we
both attended that party and I said "It’s kind of hot in here,
don’t you think?" and you said, "Some might say so." I imagine
you’d been drinking, letting the mask drop that way. Or perhaps
you thought you’d risk a spot of bravado. Well that’s where I
got your number, chumo, and it’s still in my wallet, right next
to the thirty-five cents for emergency phone calls and the high
school condom that reminds me of life’s bitter and numerous
disappointments.
I know it’s you when the phone rings in the middle of the night
and there’s no one there when I pick up. I’d get caller ID and
prove it if that wasn’t an admission that it might be someone
else. I don’t need a fingerprint kit to know you’re the guy that
bent the flag on my mailbox out of whack. I know a flag bender
outerer when I see one.
Don’t get me wrong, I admire your patience, I salute you as a
worthy adversary, but that doesn’t mean I won’t dance on your
grave. I will. I will dance the Tarantella. I commute more than
an hour each way to the dance class I attend for Tarantella
lessons, but it will be worth it. Though the gas money adds up,
you deserve a well-executed Tarantella. It will be a Gold
Standard performance of the Tarantella and I’ll reward myself by
coming back six months later to kick over your head stone. Note
to self: Comparison shop for steel toed boots.
Your cover is blown, can’t you understand that? What were you
thinking with that mustache anyway? Did you imagine it the
perfect mustache of innocence? Because, and I’m only being
honest here, I’m only being a friend to you, it makes you look
like one of the Village People. I’ve seen the newspaper you
leave behind at the Café, dusted lightly with croissant crumbs.
Did you think to attempt the Jumble in pen and abandon it like a
fox depositing its scat as a gesture of contempt for the Hounds?
Well it’s time you woke up and smelled me not being a pack of
hounds, because I am no one’s collective anything, least of all
hounds! How dare you, sir? How do you dare!? I’ll thank you to
dare just a little bit less!
How many notches are there cut into the blade of your artful
waiting? How many brave lads have fallen, beguiled an instant
too long before your well-mowed lawn, your cubicle etiquette,
Your nostalgic appreciation for ‘Boston’ and ‘Kansas’ and other
bands of your youth named after places? Well I went through your
drawers when you took a sick day last October, and I took
account of the deliberate absence of half-empty prescription
bottles. There was no dust on your IN box, not one molecule.
Doesn’t that seem a little over the top to you?
And of course you can’t come in on Sunday when the project’s
overdue, sure I understand, I know you’ll stay late to make it
up. I understand about family commitments. Church is important.
Where was it you said you went? First Church of Treachery? The
one on the corner of Skulking and Ignominy? I think I went to a
pancake breakfast there about a year ago, sure, sure, that’s the
one with little daycare just behind the sanctuary and then if
you go down to the basement and give the secret knock they let
you into this room that’s lit only by banks of computer
terminals and a great huge map of our neighborhood with a red
dot showing MY EXACT LOCATION AT ALL TIMES!? That’s the place
right? Nice fucking bingo night they got going there, buddy!
So sure, I’ll play your little game of cat and mouse. You ask me
how the kids are, I’ll say "Oh, just fine, you know, Clarice got
the flu, but kids will be kids, right? They bounce back fast. I
saw you bought a Subaru, I hear they’re all right, what kind of
mileage you get with that?" A game of racquetball? Sure, why
not, sounds nice. A little Racquetball court, enclosed, say,
maybe we can take that first early game, you know, before anyone
gets there? That way the night before I can be in a changing
room locker the day before so when you come in after work to
hide in your changing room locker I can spring out behind you
with my shovel.
And if you don’t show? And I loose the game because my game
suffers from having spent twenty-four ours in a changing room
locker? Well, touché to you, my friend. You win the battle.
I’ve lost battles before. Sometimes you have to loose a few. My
advice?
Keep your eye on the war.
note:
Max Burbank is planning on offering Tarantella dance lessons in
the near future. Should any of you be interested, don't hesitate
to
contact him.
Then again, he's had his eye on you this whole time. He already
knows whether you're interested or not. He just wants to hear it
from your own lips.
|
