GRANDMA’S NIGHT OUT writing in process
Our Nation's Centennial, 1976 Bulge, Montana.
To celebrate the occasion of her 40th birthday, Lola had slipped out Clive's garage door to her birthplace in the pretty much vacated mining town of Bulge, as the stoner kids called it - Hippytoseeme - to purchase depression beverage glasses to add to her growing obsession and then, why not, to the third bar on the left for socializing and numerous cocktails. Tonight as always at the He's-Not-Here-Lounge she delighted in offering advice to a laid off pit miner whose wife was never there. Could be a boyfriend in the picture. Yesterday the wife came in the door all happy, he says.
"She's taking a rock or something class at the, you know, mining whatchamacallet." Bob stared into the abyss of the ashtray where his last cigarette lay in the form of a butt.
Bill or you can call me Bob’s words held a pattern over Lola's general location. She leaned forward in the thrall of news of him maybe, well do we dare admit it? Except for his chin up gaze now glombed to national league on TV, her nose would be in his mouth.
"Do you mean Montana School of Mining? I knew. Think I know someone on the faculty there." She hummed herself, Burn low my flaming heart. Nat King Cole in minor took the edge off since high school.
"Yeah, that, Montana school something, but no matter. Thing is there's this fringed suede jacket, soft, pussy buck leather strings up and down the friggin sleeves? You got a spare smoke? Thanks Light? Looked like its a faggot's. Thanks. So, I ask her - I was nice - 'Where the fuck that jacket come from? Off some faggot?'
"Oh my."
"She says, get this..." His voice went girly. 'I bought it last month on sayel at the SoleVAshon armeee.'
"Um.
"Salvation Army. Damn bell dingers outside Western Mart at Christmas. Minus zero wind chill factors. No matter. I have a sponsor did that, ringing a stupid bell. Nother brew, Chink my man. Put it on my tab. He cons everyone comes out the door with that sad-sack clown look Drop all your life savings in the witches kettle, Brother. Hard to get the thing up. Almost needs a winch to get that mother on the hook sos it hangs right. Itsabitch. But that aside, he's good people. Dont mind helpin him out time to time, though. He throws a little something my way from the pot. So I tell her real calm, 'I'm asking you one more time where the fuck you get the fuckin’ jacket?'"
"What she say?"
"Nothin' You expect an answer? She don't want to talk about it. Never wants to talk about it. One little question and she walks out the door. Bam, and drives the off in her Fix It Again Tony, that’s a Fiat, in case you didn't know, with the tail pipe rattling all the way. I know where she goes."
"OK, so, where?"
"To the mining school, that's where. The parking lot out front. Her teacher's some wimp faggot. Women are suckers for rocks."
"Not me." Yes, me. "Maybe cubic zirconias."
"Joke, right? Man, you're something, and pretty to boot." He observes her as for the first time since summer of love, up then down and down.
"Lola directed her focus to a third down on the industrial monitor stuck between the wall and a ceiling which was festooned with fossil spider webs holding up War Bonds ever since the place was The Irish Spike. Back to Bob, brightly now, "But let's get you two back on track, Hon, here's some advice, Bob, ah sorry, Bill. Bring her some flowers. Women like romance. Take it from me, and that's the God's honest truth."
"Bob. It's Bob. Yeah, I know. They like faggots. Faggots sweetie-pie the ladies up without doing the thing. Know what I mean?"
"I do. Happened to me once but he... well, turned out he wasn't a, a you know, homosexual. A geologist you say? What's his name? She say what he looks like? Anything about him? Where he lives?"
"Ehhh! The bitch ain't worth it." Bob dismissed the air with a shove of his hand and directed his head toward the door, a ritual when anybody came in. Two males entered, Jacques and the one behind him but not together. There's a chill wind from outside.
When he spied the dude in back, Bob spat on the floor without wiping his mouth. "That one better watch out. Keep its fly zipped is all I have to say." He followed the invader with his worst face following the direction until "it" passed by the back of his head to the billiard table from Dublin. His face returned to Lucy and changed to nice. "Anyone ever tell you, you got pretty eyes? Blue are they? Baby blue?"
"Yeah, once. He did a lot. Doesn't your wife? Isn't she pretty? You married her. She married you until death due you part. I mean, so maybe the geologist guy is, say, already got a girlfriend or is probably you know a fag as you say, then she hasn't cheated has she?"
"Not thought of that."
"OK. Try a bouquet of a dozen roses or more. Two dozen is hard to ignore. Women love red or yellow roses. Fran's Plants and Things, that's the place to go. In the old bank, Keeps the flowers in the vault. She stays there too, you know, when the pass is snowed. Go six blocks down. Cross the street to Paris head shop.
Cool.
Not there. Next door. Maybe a half off sale and she's literally got a zillion rolls of real cute wrapping paper. Puppies mostly. You like dogs? Just step right up ladies and gents... check out the rare and exotic breeds on repeat patterns on sateen paper.” Lucy’s hawker act, back at it again. “You’ll love the adorable little Peekapoo chewing on a shoe. Cutest thing. That’s a Pekinese and the Poodle mixed together. And you got your American Dingo pattern which is genetically linked to the New Guinea Singing Dog, if you can believe that.
“You send me, baby. You could of been a star. Ever see Joan Crawford in Berserk? She was Mistress of the Ring. She's... beautific, that's the word. Lookin’ good for her advanced age.”
The bartender for Thursdays had been hovering to take in the gib. He's always one subject behind. He scrubs up the bar in front of Grandma and the guy to kill off the germs. He goes by the name of Chink. He makes a pronouncement that featured certain words for some reason:
"GOTTA BE DEAD TO NOT KNOW THAT. American Dingos are NATIVE to here, like the Indians and take ME, I'm Siamese and Inuit that's POLITE for Eskimo kinda like the ORBIT of a moon is a trajectory. Lived in New York City where the moon gets BIG. Bet you didn't know that about OLD CHINK here. Here's one you won't believe neither. Ever heard of a Karelinian BEAR Dog? No?." Chink was wiping in an ever widening area in earnest. “Well it hunts down BEARS, big assed Brown bears, the kind that stand ten centimeters tall.”
“Ten centimeters tall. Feet you mean. Are you nuts, man? No bear is ever ten foot tall.”
“I made a ENCOUNTER with one!” Chink stopped wiping and smacked the chlorinated towel over this shoulder. His eyes met Bill’s square on. “A KODIAK It was minding its own business but I didn’t want to chance on shooting it. I sure wanted to. Yes Siree Bob!
Name's not Bob. Bill. Call me Bill.
Ok OKAY, Bill, so even an idiot knows they can walk through bullets, CLEAR AS DAY. You don’t wanna be anywhere near one of them suckers. They got a genuine amount of PREDATORY Fangs.”
“I know that breed real good, Man. Don't you tell me what I know and don’t know. They run wild back east. Call ‘em yellar dawgs. Grew up in the Blue Ridge with them crewin’ up the holler. Breed only one time a year like a Dingo. That’s the Yeller Dawg kissin’ cousin.”
Chink lurched though the door flaps from the bar. “BEARS!. It's bears got the teeth. You got ears? Bears have predatory teeth. Not dogs, BEARS.” He talled up like a bear, his finger nails tore up the smoke fill up and down. He raised his upper lip up past his incisors where it shivered for a disconcerting amount of time.
Bill breathed again as Chink descended to normal. “I get it, man. You can clam down now.
“Calm not clam.” Jacques throws into the discussion from his seat by the door.
“I meant clam. Their shells shut in winter.
“Learn from your elder, boy! I'm being calm here. Chink is back to earth as a teacher. CALM is the scientific term for teeth on a bear OR a dog. Mostly used for peace NOT war. That means for MATING purposes. PEACE and WAR are two sides of the same coin. Bear, dog one in the same. Creatures means created. Created by The Spark...
The Spark? Uh o. Lola gathers her things.
...And I quote DIRECTLY. That means you don’t want to leave a Bear Dog alone account of the aggression. In their natural state Bear Dogs live underground like the Prairie Dogs in LIKE MINDED communities. that's why they tend to go nuts when you leave them alone by themselves. You need at least a PAIR of Bear Dogs sos they bond together. That way they can get together and harry a bear by loud barking, like this, ARC, ARC. ARC.
Arooooo! Jaques howled from his table by the silent jute and smacked his knee.
“He got it RIGHT.” Chink’s thumb goes out to Jaques. It’s at that there point you can RALLY UP the SHOT and come in for the KILL If a bear tries to leave, the dog will nip at it on the backside and aggravate it to keep it from running away. The Spark of Creation works pure and simple.
"What side are you on, anyway? Bill asks. “One minute it’s dogs and bears. Next it’s hunting hints. That’s crazy. Moabs been working on you?
"MOAB? I’m my own mind Ass HOLE and I'll likely kill you as not! Chink loped powerfully across to behind the bar to his folded jacket. He grappled inside it with both hands.
"Hold it. Hold it! Slow down." Jacques joins them close in now, juiced up inside the way guys tend to for gang bangs and such. But he wanted to pass not score. “You OK now?
Calm as a buzzard
Bon, bon. Jacques continues to deflect. Now, you boys with me? Good, good. I got one for you. Ever hear of a Norwegian moose dog?”
"There’s no such thing. "You mean Elkhound. ELK and a HOUND dog. Chink informed.
Jacques tucked a thumb in this front pocket and shoved his aviator glasses up off his eyes to make his point. “In Laplandish language elk or elg means moose. It is definitely not a hound. The Elkhound does not hunt or, I might add, even stand like a hound.”
“He’s callin’ you stupid, Chink my man.”
DOUBLE TEAM Jacques.
Mean now and gleeful and happy to be alive, Bill tosses a Budweiser which destroys a series of Bushmills stacked nicely by the mirror which shatters triumphantly. A filmic Western brawl ensues during the commercial break during half time, enough opportunity to accommodate a satisfactory amount of mayhem before things got real.
Chink makes a new Bushmill stack and sweeps up with a wide broom. The saloon is empty except in the back
Lola was sequestered at the far end of the billiard table. The other guy who came in the door the one Bill almost killed, he bore hammers of several varieties tucked into the pockets of his utility vest went by the name of Tool because it was something else. He smirked with his lips in. Tool was missing teeth in the front. Lola slumping herself in his chair, clasped her hands behind her head, and spread her legs out in a languid V in his direction. and smiled slowly. "Dogs. Man's best friend. No one else'll take that on."
“Words of unassailable wisdom, my pet.”
Tool rapped his knuckles on the table like before you’d throw dice from a can divining for snake eyes. “There are exceptions. You know who that is? Do you not?”
Lola kicked Tool in the boot and fell off her chair laughing. A dozen lipstick samples and Maybelline eye pencils spilled from her purse and skittered across the pug nasty checked floor. "Damn it to Hell, it's not you, Babe.
Let me pick those up. I bought you a new eight track from Fran. Flaming Hearts is featured it.
Nat King Cole?
No, Stephen Stills. Where have you been last night?
Our Nation's Centennial, 1976 Bulge, Montana.
To celebrate the occasion of her 40th birthday, Lola had slipped out Clive's garage door to her birthplace in the pretty much vacated mining town of Bulge, as the stoner kids called it - Hippytoseeme - to purchase depression beverage glasses to add to her growing obsession and then, why not, to the third bar on the left for socializing and numerous cocktails. Tonight as always at the He's-Not-Here-Lounge she delighted in offering advice to a laid off pit miner whose wife was never there. Could be a boyfriend in the picture. Yesterday the wife came in the door all happy, he says.
"She's taking a rock or something class at the, you know, mining whatchamacallet." Bob stared into the abyss of the ashtray where his last cigarette lay in the form of a butt.
Bill or you can call me Bob’s words held a pattern over Lola's general location. She leaned forward in the thrall of news of him maybe, well do we dare admit it? Except for his chin up gaze now glombed to national league on TV, her nose would be in his mouth.
"Do you mean Montana School of Mining? I knew. Think I know someone on the faculty there." She hummed herself, Burn low my flaming heart. Nat King Cole in minor took the edge off since high school.
"Yeah, that, Montana school something, but no matter. Thing is there's this fringed suede jacket, soft, pussy buck leather strings up and down the friggin sleeves? You got a spare smoke? Thanks Light? Looked like its a faggot's. Thanks. So, I ask her - I was nice - 'Where the fuck that jacket come from? Off some faggot?'
"Oh my."
"She says, get this..." His voice went girly. 'I bought it last month on sayel at the SoleVAshon armeee.'
"Um.
"Salvation Army. Damn bell dingers outside Western Mart at Christmas. Minus zero wind chill factors. No matter. I have a sponsor did that, ringing a stupid bell. Nother brew, Chink my man. Put it on my tab. He cons everyone comes out the door with that sad-sack clown look Drop all your life savings in the witches kettle, Brother. Hard to get the thing up. Almost needs a winch to get that mother on the hook sos it hangs right. Itsabitch. But that aside, he's good people. Dont mind helpin him out time to time, though. He throws a little something my way from the pot. So I tell her real calm, 'I'm asking you one more time where the fuck you get the fuckin’ jacket?'"
"What she say?"
"Nothin' You expect an answer? She don't want to talk about it. Never wants to talk about it. One little question and she walks out the door. Bam, and drives the off in her Fix It Again Tony, that’s a Fiat, in case you didn't know, with the tail pipe rattling all the way. I know where she goes."
"OK, so, where?"
"To the mining school, that's where. The parking lot out front. Her teacher's some wimp faggot. Women are suckers for rocks."
"Not me." Yes, me. "Maybe cubic zirconias."
"Joke, right? Man, you're something, and pretty to boot." He observes her as for the first time since summer of love, up then down and down.
"Lola directed her focus to a third down on the industrial monitor stuck between the wall and a ceiling which was festooned with fossil spider webs holding up War Bonds ever since the place was The Irish Spike. Back to Bob, brightly now, "But let's get you two back on track, Hon, here's some advice, Bob, ah sorry, Bill. Bring her some flowers. Women like romance. Take it from me, and that's the God's honest truth."
"Bob. It's Bob. Yeah, I know. They like faggots. Faggots sweetie-pie the ladies up without doing the thing. Know what I mean?"
"I do. Happened to me once but he... well, turned out he wasn't a, a you know, homosexual. A geologist you say? What's his name? She say what he looks like? Anything about him? Where he lives?"
"Ehhh! The bitch ain't worth it." Bob dismissed the air with a shove of his hand and directed his head toward the door, a ritual when anybody came in. Two males entered, Jacques and the one behind him but not together. There's a chill wind from outside.
When he spied the dude in back, Bob spat on the floor without wiping his mouth. "That one better watch out. Keep its fly zipped is all I have to say." He followed the invader with his worst face following the direction until "it" passed by the back of his head to the billiard table from Dublin. His face returned to Lucy and changed to nice. "Anyone ever tell you, you got pretty eyes? Blue are they? Baby blue?"
"Yeah, once. He did a lot. Doesn't your wife? Isn't she pretty? You married her. She married you until death due you part. I mean, so maybe the geologist guy is, say, already got a girlfriend or is probably you know a fag as you say, then she hasn't cheated has she?"
"Not thought of that."
"OK. Try a bouquet of a dozen roses or more. Two dozen is hard to ignore. Women love red or yellow roses. Fran's Plants and Things, that's the place to go. In the old bank, Keeps the flowers in the vault. She stays there too, you know, when the pass is snowed. Go six blocks down. Cross the street to Paris head shop.
Cool.
Not there. Next door. Maybe a half off sale and she's literally got a zillion rolls of real cute wrapping paper. Puppies mostly. You like dogs? Just step right up ladies and gents... check out the rare and exotic breeds on repeat patterns on sateen paper.” Lucy’s hawker act, back at it again. “You’ll love the adorable little Peekapoo chewing on a shoe. Cutest thing. That’s a Pekinese and the Poodle mixed together. And you got your American Dingo pattern which is genetically linked to the New Guinea Singing Dog, if you can believe that.
“You send me, baby. You could of been a star. Ever see Joan Crawford in Berserk? She was Mistress of the Ring. She's... beautific, that's the word. Lookin’ good for her advanced age.”
The bartender for Thursdays had been hovering to take in the gib. He's always one subject behind. He scrubs up the bar in front of Grandma and the guy to kill off the germs. He goes by the name of Chink. He makes a pronouncement that featured certain words for some reason:
"GOTTA BE DEAD TO NOT KNOW THAT. American Dingos are NATIVE to here, like the Indians and take ME, I'm Siamese and Inuit that's POLITE for Eskimo kinda like the ORBIT of a moon is a trajectory. Lived in New York City where the moon gets BIG. Bet you didn't know that about OLD CHINK here. Here's one you won't believe neither. Ever heard of a Karelinian BEAR Dog? No?." Chink was wiping in an ever widening area in earnest. “Well it hunts down BEARS, big assed Brown bears, the kind that stand ten centimeters tall.”
“Ten centimeters tall. Feet you mean. Are you nuts, man? No bear is ever ten foot tall.”
“I made a ENCOUNTER with one!” Chink stopped wiping and smacked the chlorinated towel over this shoulder. His eyes met Bill’s square on. “A KODIAK It was minding its own business but I didn’t want to chance on shooting it. I sure wanted to. Yes Siree Bob!
Name's not Bob. Bill. Call me Bill.
Ok OKAY, Bill, so even an idiot knows they can walk through bullets, CLEAR AS DAY. You don’t wanna be anywhere near one of them suckers. They got a genuine amount of PREDATORY Fangs.”
“I know that breed real good, Man. Don't you tell me what I know and don’t know. They run wild back east. Call ‘em yellar dawgs. Grew up in the Blue Ridge with them crewin’ up the holler. Breed only one time a year like a Dingo. That’s the Yeller Dawg kissin’ cousin.”
Chink lurched though the door flaps from the bar. “BEARS!. It's bears got the teeth. You got ears? Bears have predatory teeth. Not dogs, BEARS.” He talled up like a bear, his finger nails tore up the smoke fill up and down. He raised his upper lip up past his incisors where it shivered for a disconcerting amount of time.
Bill breathed again as Chink descended to normal. “I get it, man. You can clam down now.
“Calm not clam.” Jacques throws into the discussion from his seat by the door.
“I meant clam. Their shells shut in winter.
“Learn from your elder, boy! I'm being calm here. Chink is back to earth as a teacher. CALM is the scientific term for teeth on a bear OR a dog. Mostly used for peace NOT war. That means for MATING purposes. PEACE and WAR are two sides of the same coin. Bear, dog one in the same. Creatures means created. Created by The Spark...
The Spark? Uh o. Lola gathers her things.
...And I quote DIRECTLY. That means you don’t want to leave a Bear Dog alone account of the aggression. In their natural state Bear Dogs live underground like the Prairie Dogs in LIKE MINDED communities. that's why they tend to go nuts when you leave them alone by themselves. You need at least a PAIR of Bear Dogs sos they bond together. That way they can get together and harry a bear by loud barking, like this, ARC, ARC. ARC.
Arooooo! Jaques howled from his table by the silent jute and smacked his knee.
“He got it RIGHT.” Chink’s thumb goes out to Jaques. It’s at that there point you can RALLY UP the SHOT and come in for the KILL If a bear tries to leave, the dog will nip at it on the backside and aggravate it to keep it from running away. The Spark of Creation works pure and simple.
"What side are you on, anyway? Bill asks. “One minute it’s dogs and bears. Next it’s hunting hints. That’s crazy. Moabs been working on you?
"MOAB? I’m my own mind Ass HOLE and I'll likely kill you as not! Chink loped powerfully across to behind the bar to his folded jacket. He grappled inside it with both hands.
"Hold it. Hold it! Slow down." Jacques joins them close in now, juiced up inside the way guys tend to for gang bangs and such. But he wanted to pass not score. “You OK now?
Calm as a buzzard
Bon, bon. Jacques continues to deflect. Now, you boys with me? Good, good. I got one for you. Ever hear of a Norwegian moose dog?”
"There’s no such thing. "You mean Elkhound. ELK and a HOUND dog. Chink informed.
Jacques tucked a thumb in this front pocket and shoved his aviator glasses up off his eyes to make his point. “In Laplandish language elk or elg means moose. It is definitely not a hound. The Elkhound does not hunt or, I might add, even stand like a hound.”
“He’s callin’ you stupid, Chink my man.”
DOUBLE TEAM Jacques.
Mean now and gleeful and happy to be alive, Bill tosses a Budweiser which destroys a series of Bushmills stacked nicely by the mirror which shatters triumphantly. A filmic Western brawl ensues during the commercial break during half time, enough opportunity to accommodate a satisfactory amount of mayhem before things got real.
Chink makes a new Bushmill stack and sweeps up with a wide broom. The saloon is empty except in the back
Lola was sequestered at the far end of the billiard table. The other guy who came in the door the one Bill almost killed, he bore hammers of several varieties tucked into the pockets of his utility vest went by the name of Tool because it was something else. He smirked with his lips in. Tool was missing teeth in the front. Lola slumping herself in his chair, clasped her hands behind her head, and spread her legs out in a languid V in his direction. and smiled slowly. "Dogs. Man's best friend. No one else'll take that on."
“Words of unassailable wisdom, my pet.”
Tool rapped his knuckles on the table like before you’d throw dice from a can divining for snake eyes. “There are exceptions. You know who that is? Do you not?”
Lola kicked Tool in the boot and fell off her chair laughing. A dozen lipstick samples and Maybelline eye pencils spilled from her purse and skittered across the pug nasty checked floor. "Damn it to Hell, it's not you, Babe.
Let me pick those up. I bought you a new eight track from Fran. Flaming Hearts is featured it.
Nat King Cole?
No, Stephen Stills. Where have you been last night?
