Down With Dogs, I: Very Small Theatres Part 4

The Starbucks that Victor prefers is very small, and to get there you have to make several right turns in a row, in relatively rapid succession; even when you arrive, you walk in the front door and you have to turn a corner to the right before you even get to the front register. The seat Victor prefers is beyond that, around another corner to the right, tucked back into a little nook at the far back right corner of the room. You don't really see it when you walk in, because of the dark wood surrounding it. The way the room is shaped, you notice the hallway to the restrooms on the left, but not the dark nook tucked back away on the right. It's almost always empty, and when it's not, Victor is usually the sole occupant. He calls it his office, and getting there feels rather a bit like a journey to the center of the Labyrinth.

When I arrive, he gestures for me to sit down, an enthusiastic yet curt gesture which seems to imply that we are slightly behind schedule for the running of Planet Earth. It's immediately energizing. Sans preamble, Victor speaks:

Victor: A tearful phone call from Fat Sister after I left. You are, if I remember rightly, a Tyrant, a Neophyte, a Parasite, Judas Iscariot and Adolph Hitler rolled into one. Surprised?

Edward: No.

Victor: So. How'd it go?

Edward: She stomped out to the lobby after you left.

Victor (laughing): She had the courtesy to call me from the office phone.

Edward (a chuckle): A point in her favor.

Victor: I'm sure Charles will appreciate funding her rant.

Edward: There's got to be a discretionary Dissonant Diva fund in every theatre's budget.

Victor: Amen, my brother. Amen.

Edward: How was your first company meeting?

Victor picks up his coffee and sips it, tilting his head to the side and tasting it like wine. A thoughtful but brief pause.

Victor: Well, it's cold now. But when I arrived it was hot and dark and steaming.

Victor takes a second sip of his coffee.

Edward: Steaming like the Christmas Pudding you've ignited between Fat Sister's legs.

Victor spit-takes to his left, misting the wall perfectly with a fragrant spray of coffee. I'm telling you, his command of physical comedy is unparalleled. I'm laughing, possibly howling, at this; I take a look over my left shoulder to see if anyone else in the room is disturbed by our presence. The room is fairly full, nearing packed. The music, whatever it is, sounds like Louis Armstrong playing Saint-Saens' The Aquarium. Some of the other patrons are looking around, confused, trying to figure out who is laughing so loudly. It feels like we're invisible in the center of this labyrinth.

Victor: What are you going to do at the next rehearsal?

Edward: Run the show. Backwards.

Victor: Vagina my through poop I.

This slays me. I have this braying wounded-asthmatic-hyena laugh, sometimes. It can be a little off-putting. A lady two tables down slams her book of Feminist Thought Form Poetry closed, grabs her woven hemp bag and stomps her Birkenstocky feet right out of that Starbucks. Perhaps she is in search of a pumice stone and some toenail clippers. For the sake of the other riders on local public transport, let us pray.

Victor leads the way through an alarmed back exit that isn't terribly alarmed at all. We're on West 47th. I have no idea how. We walk over to 8th Avenue and down many several blocks until we reach the bar at which we had agreed to get a drink. Just as we cross the street, Victor's cell phone rings.

Victor: This is Victor. Yes. ... Yes. ... Yes. ... Yes. ... Yes. ... I see. ... No.

Victor ends the call.

Edward: Am I drinking alone?

Victor leads the way into the bar. Late afternoon light angles around buildings to flash from passing cars.

Victor: Heaven forfend. As I remember it, you are partial to Manhattans, no?

We are inside, heaving ourselves onto backed bar stools.

Edward: O indeed, Mighty Mister Maog.

Victor: You've penetrated my alliterative anus.

Edward: Mercy me.

Victor: ... Perplexed playwright purloins purpose.

Edward: Derelict director ditches duty.

Victor: Ha! Yes. ... effervescent Edward eases egress.

Edward: That was particularly well done.

Victor: Thank you.

Bartender: Order a drink, fancy fucks.

Slight pause.

Edward: Manhattan, up, Jack is fine.

Victor: Lemon Drop.

I turn to look at him, but he's regarding the bartender with calm, even eyes.

Bartender: You got it.

The bartender turns and makes our drinks in what feels like three seconds.

Edward: Lemon Drop?

Victor: I'll explain later.

Just as our drinks hit the bar, Charles appears next to us.

Charles: Scotch, cheap, neat.

Charles turns to us.

Charles: Fat Sister is crazier than a gay Republican.

Victor: Charles. What a coincidence. Tell us, we're all agog.

Charles: She is at a pay phone near my apartment, calling the office and calling my answering machine, waiting for me to get home.

Edward: How did you avoid her?

Charles: Iain saw her as he left to walk Stockard. He's sipping espresso at the cafe down the street --

Victor [sim.]: The one with the chocolate eclairs?
Charles [sim.]: The one with the chocolate eclairs -- pretending to read Proust.

Edward: Does anyone ever actually read Proust, anyway?

Charles turns to look at me, I can't tell if he's offended or thoughtful.

Victor: A gay man in a sidewalk cafe with espresso and a Pomeranian, pretending to read Proust. It would be better if he were eating madeleines.

Charles: They're baking a fresh batch. He's having the time of his life. Meanwhile, I'm being stalked by this crazy bitch -- all because of your little stunt, Victor.

Victor: Sadly, I think that the one most likely to be affected by this turn of events is Edward.

They are looking at me; I raise my glass to them. We clink, and the music in the background resolves itself into Louis Armstrong, A Kiss To Build A Dream On. We leave after one drink, scattering to three winds on the corner outside the bar. 

When I get home, my girlfriend is complaining that she did the dishes. I try to make her laugh. It does not work. We have nothing to do, very little money to spend. Well, she has money: wealthy upstate family, a full-time job at Godiva on 5th Ave., but I don't make as much. So I don't propose what I would have back in Boston: rent a movie, see a film, do something fun. We live in Corona, Queens: there is nothing to do when the Lemon Ice King of Corona is closed. I retreat to my room, where, when I hear her footsteps outside and the door quietly open, I pretend to be asleep.

Notes from the Future: Dead Letter Office III

[The following letter floats, kite-like, attached via lightweight but very strong line to a rusty shovel burned and bent and melted in among rocks at the top of a very tall but as-yet unnamed mountain in the Sierra Nevadas. It is known and noted by the Dead Letter Office, but it cannot be removed from its present location; all attempts to do so have failed, and it has been made clear to the office that the letter will only be released under a very specific set of circumstances. These circumstances include but are not limited to: date, time, wind direction, weather, magic feather, I seen a elephant fly [sic], here come Winky and yes we have no bananas.]

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Item: Letter
Lost: Uncertain; More likely placed; Date Unknown
Found: Fluttering in the wind on peak 10,858 in a currently undisclosed location.
Date Found: Yesterday
Condition: Tomorrow

Dear Reader,

This is not the actual text of this letter. The actual text of this letter must remain secret. What you are reading right now is a mask, an illusion created by your mind in place of the actual text. It is possible that you would not be able to read the text anyway, as it may have been written in a glyph or dialect utterly foreign to your world. It may also have been written by your Aunt Petunio -- the one who liked to pull her dress up at family dinners and who, as a result, has engendered in you a lifelong inability to eat or even look at fried chicken.

This letter has been enchanted. It has been placed here so that, when the time and conditions are right, it will be released to fly, kite-like, to the person or persons who need it most. Whether those people or that peop are/is good or evil remains to be seen. Even that much must be kept from you, in the event that you are an agent of some force which considers itself good. We feel it best to remind you that this letter could come in handy for people on your side. We feel it best to assure you that it could also come in handy for people on the other side. We are not concerned with the stating of your case, we recognize that any charismatic emissary may be convincing enough to sell goodness to Saint Peter. We also recognize that peter is a word for penis, and we invite you to reconsider the Pearly Gates in light of this revelation.

Why, then, are we telling you any of this at all? The answer is simple: leave this letter where you have found it. Do not tamper. We realize that one of you must do his job and take detailed notes. We caution you, sir, that even your notes of this letter will flex and breathe and change over time. This letter has been cast into the river of time and is never the same letter twice. Until it is opened and read by its intended recipients, who are whoever they are when this letter lands, kite-like and unexpected, at the last possible place and time where it could come in handy. Even the phrase "come in handy" draws the mind back to our earlier shared revelation of Saint Penis and the Pearly Gates. Is that how they got so pearly? Did a lot of people come in handy en route? Were the masturbators excluded, and did they grab the gates and shake them, begging admittance? Why would Saint Penis exclude masturbators? If I were Saint Penis, my attitude toward masturbators would be universally inclusive.

As a token of our appreciation for your compliance with our wishes, we offer the following facts which will not change and are perhaps inescapable; you may bank -- or not bank, depending on your viewpoint -- upon the following:

John Muir didn't do it. This means more to those of you who used the Roosevelt/Solomons Trail to get here, but it could come in handy for those of you whose method of ingress was the JMT.

When you have a hair on your tongue, the best way to get it off is to lick cloth.

The series of earthquakes which for some of you begin in 2012 and for others of you begin in 2016 or 2018 are completely unrelated to Mayan calendars or the predictions of funnymental preachers.

Overwinding a pocketwatch will not get you anywhere faster. Underwinding a pocketwatch will not get you anywhere slower. This porridge is just right.

July 4 marks the day when you would be wise to be above 1,000 feet in elevation. The year cannot be determined without dowsing rods. Take caution.

There is one man who will write some warnings on this subject. He will pretend they are fiction, but he is not the man who writes this letter. Sudden silver in his beard is proof he is of the future. The man who writes this letter is fictional. The letter is no less real for having been crafted by an imagined person.

There is one man who has darkness seeded inside him. His fingers on your sex are enough to transmit the shadow. See that you avoid him, unless you wish to be of shadow as well. Note our non-partisan approach. This man was once of the light. The path to enlightenment is steep and winding; it is easy to slip and fall.

Thank you for reading our useful facts. This letter will breathe and change with time. Please wash your hands before and after reading this letter, particularly if you wish to get to heaven, whatever that may mean to you now that we have revealed the true nature of the guardian of the gates.

Sincerely Your Servant In Nothing We May Specify At This Time,

Quincunx Conundrum

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Analysis: Each time this letter is read in these files, it changes. Even the location is in doubt, as recent reports describe this letter atop Mt. Whitney, Half Dome and Mt. McKinley. One unverified report claims this letter is streaming, kite-like, from the highest steeple of the Abbey at Mont Saint Michel. Items remembered but missing from the current text: 
*Beware of Werewolves reading Shakespeare.
*Spankings are good for you.
*Run! Run! Keep running! The fire is closer than you think!
*Trevarno is the Town that Time Forgot.
*You are being watched as you read. Don't look up. If they know you know, they will come for you.
Even upon re-reading the above phrases, we find them silly or disconnected from their earlier import.  Each of us who has read the text cannot remember why we thought the phrases were so important, near-prophetic in nature. Here's another one:
*Get Spanked, Mormons!
Once again, a relatively useless sentence. Though what one intended to write was a dire warning about this letter and its blurring of reality, a warning of world-changing consequences. Writing this sentence is like trying to speak in a dream. Masturbate with friends soon, it increases self-knowledge. Infectious. Worried about what one will say to one's wife tonight.

-- Bradley Q. Puyallup, Postmaster, Montclair Station
December 31, 1982