from No One A-Bandons Me! by Don Cheney

Capital 2

-¿Why have you stopped the carport in the car?- I asked, recognizing the gabardine coat I had ordered, delivered and all but missed my dentist appointment to give to Jeanie.

-¡But Father!- She protested with vehicular vehemence. -¡To survive in a car I'd be decapitated if I left with a cap on!-

-But, my short one...- I told her, turning down the radio. -We're in Tunis and we're having Tunis sandwiches.-

-I don't see it as fun, fun or fun, Father.- She said, raining on the dome of my interior.

Jeanie was accustomed to a friction customary in women. As we curved I concentrated three or four times on the extra-cheese sandwich that entered singing the pluperfect of her rosy language. The Probe came when the car was embalmed in the Middle East with a depressed accelerator. Etched in gold:

«100 KILOMETERS»

all large and black as life.

-I don't appreciate much, not even my ceiling.- I advertised.

Her laugh, oval and those women who carry heavy loads for short stretches. I looked at my self with a disdain much more elegant than my words. In that moment I had begun to be an old, sentimental squirm. The mirage on the horizon was now calling me and I decided that Jeanie had reason.

¿Was truth a goal to produce and place, recurring in the autumnal country with two doses of sky: One for technology and one for verse: Inundated by colors torn from a tornado?:

Yes.

Jeanie's voice whined with opinion.

-¿Father, what was the stipulation Mom had so that your anniversary would be extra bad?-

I had to go into my head to see it. Her sentence slipped and flipped along the way. It was tight in there, like rain in the condensation. I didn't have to think, I had to run.

-I didn't lose.- I contested. The Huns had died more under sediment than under a dome.

-¿Was it deliberately decided in dirt?- She asked my self with that still peculiarity that I saw in women when I was trotting out to regurgitate something.

-Yes.- ¿Must I? -Hurry, I've been itching to go think underwater. Don't repent, I have an idea: ¡What you can do is you can see past all that and into a grade school!-

Jeanie shook her head meaning negative and said:

-This is sun flour to you.-

But I proceeded:

-I am, I think...-

-¿What is it you think?- She asked, longing to know what that was trickling out of my brain.

-No good and nothing special. It's so silly that if I said it the day wouldn't come to my house with its accustomed humility of flowers.-

Never had I counted on her intuition to do anything that I hadn't already done.

New meaning percolated and her laughter fidgeted.

-Father, for a dad you have no imagination.-

¡Certainly! I've always sent my self a tall one of Drano.

-Let a minute pass, Jeanie.- I told her. -I'm a very tired man. I can't totally think. And your mother has everything I want. ¿What more can I do? ¿talk?-

Jeanie, who had stopped for a traffic signal, put the new car into MARCH and we began to rotate.

-Sure, Father.- She said with her "I know a guru" voice. -"Mom has everything I want": a new refrigerator, a small car, some margarine to wash with, but...- Oh great, his and her mirrors on the ceiling. -¿How can you think of water one at a time? ¿Is your personality all gone? ¿When you go to a costume party, what dad goes as a game show producer? ¡My dad!-

I began to yell and to lose patience. Jeanie had debts to consider, along with going bonkers with menmania.

-¿What should I do, for example?-

-Okay, as I see it you could be a bright vision.- She rabidly told me without a part or a northern visitor.

I was slimed in somberness.

-¿Is it TRUTH? ¿Is that what you want?- I asked, incredulous. -She always told me that I didn't have to be a bright vision or nothing.-

-¡¡What a TONTO, «FATHER»!! ¿What woman can refuse a bright vision? No, on the contrary, it's your obstinate manifestations...-

Jeanie knew I was burned, but:

-How bland the truth is clearly meant to be. I don't know what it is mother sees in a pud like you. You're as romantic as a pizza.-

Thinking made me more perspicacious, yet I couldn't make tails out of the questions my one daughter decided, after years and before sitting down to a proper meal, to ask.

-¿Then, do you formally believe- I asked her, -that I want to regulate your mom like a toll bridge?-

She, as in "uncle" and "conehead", nodded and said:

-¡I'VE FALLEN DOWN AND I CAN'T GET UP!- Stopped the car in front of the college and, with a certain candor, suckered up and gave me a kiss.

-Thank you.- I said emotionally. -The lizards have gone home to sit in the promised land.-

-Goodbye, Father. Later.-




When I entered the office there was already a door where there once was a sentence. I donned my habit and threw on my tie. I had on the Adidas that Marge had bought, and I pretended that there was a trace of summertime left. I was so sure that I was it, that I was the pot of beans, that I opened the door. After all, six million, fifteen billion dollars wasn't all trees.

I was dispatched as soon as I entered. Mickey, my secretary, recognized my brightness and my hat and my "¡It's a beautiful day! ¡FUCK!"

I said:

-¿Where is the estate, Micker? ¡Paul Remey has an estate and he calls here collect from Washington every tomorrow!-

-He's gone shopping.- She said, entering in on my sentence. Mickey had a trace of my whine and I, gyrating sober from a tall one, am asked: -¿What is it that's so despicable?-

-I didn't say that.- I contested. -The only communication I had was blurred immediately.-

-You'll have to speak up and in tongues.- Mickey said and set out on the good foot.

The door was closed a trace. I watched Mickey's reflection and knew that that, that and that was what Paul wanted. That and that everything had been on fire.

I had a side that I changed and changed every day. Every day I serviced trucks and exercised until I was admitted into the Committee of Propaganda and Division and the Production of War (¡COP A DAT POW!). War was where I first encountered Paul. He was the jerk in charge of stimulating cat rectums. I was assigned to his office. We were both mutually, instantly smitten with our selves.

He had sided with his own rectum, meaning he was an unfortunate man to negotiate with. He proceeded to the West and when that job was liquidated he went to Washington to work for one dollar a year (plus tips).

I had sided with a publicity agent in a Washington and Vine movie company that manufactured favorable outlooks that poured well water when opened in capitalism. We stopped the war, he called me to his house and asked:

-¿Who's the hoser now, Brad?-

I had heard what he'd said, all the men had:

-I think I'll look for a job.-

He sent me a question:

-¿Have you thought about pushing pizza-pie?-

This was mostly new to me except for what he'd said.

-¿Is it work that we wage for and can't I have pork for dinner?-

-I'm not really fired about this.- He replied. -That's why I put all my interest, lay it down so to speak, in your podiatrist. Only the most modest necessity: an office in order to know things quickly and to eat in.-

-I don't understand why this all must happen tonight. ¿Don't we need a press agent?- I objected, seeing through his zipper and sitting on his ladder. -With no restraints you may be rugged, but my signs all say ¡DON'T INTERRUPT ME!-

The "¡TIMBER!" of the telephone began to sound the interruption of my annual ravaging:

-¡Mr. Remey is all apart, Brad!- Mickey advised me.

-¡Hello Paul! ¿How much did the funeral cost?- I asked, perceiving a rise in his sympathy. This segued into his favorite phrase:

-Nothing major, Brad.-

-¿You cremated her, didn't you?- (¡I am SO GOOD!) -You never know what might happen.-

Paul became newly serious. His serious tone asked for a serious ten-spot:

-¿Could you possibly do me a favor, Brad?-

-You want it, Paul...A dime, anything, you got it.-

-I know that at times you're one of the only people who cares for Edith.-

Edith was his wife: A temperamentally affable woman who had a certain weakness for the District of Columbia, incurable TB (two bellies), an active hollering voice and a heart of promiscuity. Twelve months ago Paul was this pest who had interrupted the two of us while I was snacking on her pie. This had been a considerable sin. To fuck the woman whose husband had made your career...And she had almost been too much for me.

-Well, you're my pal Paul. I've learned much about darts from you. A dime is not too much.-

-No, I can't give you many details, Brad.- Paul told me. -All I know is that Edith told me that you have a tall mistress, Hortense E. Schuyler, whom you correspond with and visit in the middle of the afternoon and that she has secret information.-

-Very good, Paul.- I said, annoyed that she had put my name on paper. -Your placque interests me.-

-¡Ah, Brad!- Paul said. -Edith recommended I tell you an interesting story about this gal.-

It always strained my liver when Paul used the word «gal». Edith was already 50 and all her friends were traitors with the benign qualification of being either «daughters» or «gals».

-Dial Edith and tell her that I've known no quiet since I've known her.-

-Thank you, Brad.- Paul told me, crying. -You've already saved the that that had been a significant cost to Edith.-

-You don't say.- I contested. -¿When will she blow me?-

"me" segued into talking about how much and then it was too cold to hold the telephone anymore. I looked at the bit of paper where I had written the name Hortense E. Schuyler. All other women were just names snoring, but I knew that as soon as I was in a jam it would be with a woman.

¡Open the zoo doors! Enter Mickey with a pen and a block of notes in hand.

-We're going to work, Then.- She said. -We don't have as much time this morning.-


To chapter, Capital 3

Back to No One A-Bandons Me Page