They Always Come Out on Tuesday

Early morning. Greasy-spoon diner.

A haggard old man walks in, with a baby harp seal on a leash flopping after him. He sits at the bar. The harp seal hops up on a stool and pushes his head onto the counter.

“Aye, what’ll it be?” the barkeep asks, eyeing the seal nonchalantly.

“Gimme a cup o’ coffee. Black. Oh, and, uh …” The old man glances down at the seal. “A bowl o’ porridge for m’ seal, here.”

The seal gazes up at the bartender with a vacant, happy expression. The bartender gives the old man a cock-eyed look.

“Mister, I think he’d prefer some fish.”

The old man looks incredulous. “Even at this hour?”

The barkeep looks at the old man, then down at the seal. The seal slaps a flipper on the counter and barks.

“Yessir, I do believe so.”

The old man sighs. “Fine. Haddock will do.”

“Haddock?” the bartender snorts. “What do I look like, a fishmonger? We got bacon, eggs and grits on our breakfast menu, mister.”

“Then what the hell you gone bring up fish for?”

“What the hell you orderin’ porridge for a seal for?!”

The old man stands up in a huff, then gently tugs at the leash. On cue, the seal gazes up at him with those vacant, black eyes.

“Come on, Petunia. I know when we ain’t wanted.”

A woman motions to the barkeep. He shakes his fist at the departing man-and-seal, then goes to the woman.

“Who was that strange man?” the woman asks.

In an instant, the old man stands before them. The seal barks happily at his feet.

“Wench! I am … The Seal Whisperer … ererer … erer.”

“The hell you are!” The bartender glares at the old man. “Seems to me a seal whisperer would know what a seal eats!”

“I know what a seal eats,” the old man mutters.

“Oh, what an adorable little snookie-kins!” 

The woman seems to have suddenly noticed the seal, and kneels down to pet it. The animal pushes his head into every one of the woman’s strokes, making a sound not unlike purring. 

“I’ll bet you’d like a nice, warm bowl of porridge, wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t you?”

The old man puts his arms out, palms up, and gloats at the barkeep. The barkeep snorts, turns.

“They always come out on Tuesday.”

The Last Real Musicians ... are Jokes

Today I got paid, and before I could fritter my money away on junk food, I decided to make some purchases for my instruments that I had been putting off for a while. Granted, I'm not playing music right now the way I used to, but I haven't totally given it up yet. 

I stopped into a music store that I will not name. The clerk was engrossed in a conversation with a fairly well-known Capital Region musician, who, again, I will not name. The musician introduced himself, with an air of, "You might remember me from ..." and sure enough, the clerk did. Neither had any idea that someone else was in the store. I was browsing cables on the other side of the room, hidden behind racks of hanging guitars. 

So the musician confided in the clerk, something to the tune of what's wrong with the music scene today. And what's wrong is apparently those damn kids.

He went on a tirade for a good five minutes, with the clerk agreeing wholeheartedly, about how the new crop of musicians "sucks," and how hard it is to play shows and compete with "35-year-olds." I swear to God, this is a direct quote: "You know, our generation were the last real musicians." It was like stepping into a bad cartoon. I had to practically jam my fist into my mouth to keep from guffawing.

But I'm not one to confront people, or talk to people, or announce my presence to other people, so I continued to browse nonchalantly and listen to these two make asses of themselves. Eventually the clerk asked if I needed any help, I said I was just browsing. The musician seemed a bit flustered: "I didn't know anybody else was in here." 

After selecting an overpriced cable, I went to the counter to get some overpriced Elixir strings (my finger sweat eats acoustic strings like you wouldn't believe). After the clerk grabbed the strings, I asked him about a crate of records I had seen in the back. He said they're $5 each. Great, I said, I'll be back. I went and got the "Best of Buck Owens Vol. 2"  record I had been eyeing before, then reached for Paul McCartney's "Ram." But on the way back to the register, while looking at the song list, I decided I didn't actually want to buy the record at that moment, and add to an already exorbitant bill.

Unfortunately, the clerk saw me put it back. And thus began the uber-cool old guy hipster grilling:

"Can I ask, why did you put it back?"

Me: "Uhh ... because I didn't recognize any of the song titles." 

(Yes, really, I'm horrible at song titles. And I really just wanted "Maybe I'm Amazed." And that's not on "Ram." Proceed.)

Clerk: "Oh ... I think I would have put back the Buck Owens."

Musician Guy: Yeah.

Well whoop-de-doo. I put it back, so why don't you buy it then? But instead of saying this, I just kind of shrugged like a schlub and silently hoped the conversation would end.

When it was finally over and I was left to reflect on the entire transaction while standing on the curb just outside the shop, I came to a few realizations.

1. I will never shop at this music store again.

2. Here's the important one. If the music scene here sucks, it's because of people like this. Not to be all hippy-dippy, but isn't there room for everybody, man? Can't I play my 90s throwback grunge and you play your '70s granola singer-songwriter stuff and some kid play his hip-hop/funk/dubstep hybrid, and can't we all respect each other for being kindred, creative spirits? There are plenty of bands I dislike, international, national and local (again, I'm not naming names). There are even more bands I love. Let's not be petty about this. 

I've largely given up on doing the band thing beyond the basement anymore, and I may be a bit bitter about it sometimes. Of course. I'm human. But I don't think people younger than me who are just discovering music and learning to do their thing are to blame for my shortcomings as a musician. And it's not the veteran musicians' fault, either. It's mine, and mine alone. I think the guys who have been doing it forever and are still out there doing their thing deserve the utmost respect. I think the kids just starting out should be encouraged.

In the end, we all seem to have forgotten what this should be about. A few years ago, my band was having a particularly difficult practice. I was losing my temper, as usual, and slamming around the practice room, yelling obscenities, being an ass. Our bassist at the time brought me back down to Earth. "This is supposed to be fun, remember?" Last I checked, sniping at each other isn't really all that fun. We all need to remember that sometimes.

SOL

This post is for my friends who have seen my paintings on Facebook and have wondered what they are supposed to be. This is an excerpt of a story outline for something -- I'm thinking comic book series -- that is essentially going to be a space opera set in our own solar system. 

Below is a monologue from one of the main characters, a Plutonian named Lahf. He has just rescued two Venusian troodons -- Ma'lak and her younger brother, The'rhn -- from a slave colony on Mars, and is now explaining to them how their people got to be on Venus. It's a pretty good introduction to the thing I'm trying to build.

Many epochs ago, when our sun was much hotter, your ancestors lived on Earth. These Troodons were the smartest species of a creature known now to Earth's current inhabitants as dinosaurs. Your people are far more ancient and storied than you could imagine. Your legends, your mythology, most of it is true. I should know. I lived it.

By the time of the Great Meteor, Troodons were in the process of dominating Earth. They had discovered agriculture and were settling into villages. They had developed a written language and a means to print it. Combustible steam power was at their fingertips. And rocket propulsion wasn't far away.

But then the meteor hit. Vast populations of all dinosaurs, including many Troodon nations, were destroyed in the initial impact; the radiation and nuclear winter that followed claimed nearly all life on Earth. 

Extinction doesn't happen all at once, though, and a few pockets of Troodon civilization remained. The total population may have numbered in the hundreds at that point, but the tenacious creatures were searching for a way to struggle on, despite the encroaching darkness and severe lack of food.

Mellik was a young shaman and princess of the largest Troodon village left standing, Myr'Ahir'rr. She knew the future of her kind, if there was any to be had, lay beyond Earth's atmosphere. She knew about the experiments in rocket propulsion that took place just after the meteor hit -- nearly a century earlier, at that point -- maybe 140 Venusian days or so. There must be a way, and she had to find it.

And this is where I come into the story. My people have long watched over the Solar System from our vantage points in the Kuiper Belt and at Pluto-Charon, and I had taken a particular interest in the noble Troodon people of Earth. While most of my kind felt the Titanians, inhabiting Titan and the Saturn moon system, were the future of our system, I had faith that the Troodons had an important role to play as well.

The first time I appeared directly to Mellick, she gave me this scar behind my right antenna. I was young then, only a few million epochs old; I had no concept of how the sight of a big blue monster with no mouth would be taken by a Troodon. But I was quickly able to learn her language, which truth be told is not much different from your own today. In fact, evolution does not seem to have touched you creatures. You are a bit taller than she was, though. 

It took many Earth-days, but I was finally able to earn the young one's trust. Mellik was nearly two-thirds of the way to getting off Earth -- she had rocket technology, which was surprisingly good given the circumstances. She knew how to make the ship with the materials at hand --wood and tar were the primary ingredients, with the tar effectively making the entire device airtight. She just didn't know how to create a breathable atmosphere on board the ship.

She knew she had to get as many of her people off Earth as possible, but she also knew that she probably only had one shot at this. She had designed a ship, big enough for 100 Troodons. With size came a time issue though; this giant bus would take nearly a year to get to where she intended to go -- Venus.

Back then, Venus was a lot like Earth, with perhaps less diversity of animal life. Mellik only knew that the planet was closest to Earth; I, fortunately, knew she had made the right choice. Mind you, Venus was never supposed to be a permanent solution. Mellik (and I) thought her people would be coming back.

Under my guidance, Mellik was able to create a rudimentary atmosphere system for the cabin. Before you take me for some unfeeling Wvurm, the thought did cross my mind to use Plutonian ships to safely whisk the Troodons away. But even then, when I held a position of power, I could not sway the Plutonian government to my side.

In all, only 94 Troodons were willing to take the flight. Most had no faith in Mellik's plan; many wanted to stone her to death. The plan was simple: Mellik was to fly the ship; I would follow in the Trilobite (Mellik's name for my ship; I kind of liked it). The best I could do was help them along, but after a month I was called away to urgent business in the Jupiter moon system, and Mellik was left on her own.

Of the 94 on board, only 40 actually set foot on Venus. Thankfully, Mellik was one of them. She had grown to be special to me, and the thought of her death was unbearable. She felt the same way, but we were unsure of what to do, for obvious reasons. She and I would go on to have many more adventures together, but that story is for another time.

As for how you two wound up here, talking to me: A natural disaster may have destroyed your Earth, but your people destroyed Venus. The troodontids' unfettered pollution destroyed the atmosphere and forced them into the sky. The name of Mellik's city should have been familiar to you: The city in the sky  was named Myrr'harr, in honor of what is now myth to your people.

That was over 1,000 Earth-years ago. And if your people do not find a way off Venus, they will surely perish. But you know this much; it's why you were sent to the Red Planet. Your people are weary of Earth, and for good reason. But Earth, and its primary inhabitants, the humans, are going to provide on of the battlegrounds -- and the army -- for the biggest war this Solar System has ever seen.

The Tragedy of Bear, Chapter 1

After years of inactivity in the fiction writing department, I've decided to write a novel. I'm working from an incomplete short story I began back in 2007 for a fiction writing workshop I took at Keene State College. The first half of this chapter is that incomplete story, now edited; the second half I completed this week. Feel free to leave your feedback -- it's been a while since I've done this and I'm looking for pointers.

There wasn’t much to tell about Jack Bophy, except that he had led a short, horribly depressing life and at the age of 38-and-a-half he had decided he would sit on his front porch and let nature take its course. He had, of course, a wife, a boy of about 12 and a small girl about four-ish. But he had grown weary of them, what with his wife constantly chastising him for his continually diminishing physical appearance, and his son being on the cusp of adolescence and at that point where everything Jack said was a point to argue. He still liked his daughter, but he couldn’t, in his constant drunken haze, even remember how old she was anymore. She did look decidedly like old pictures of his wife as a child, so he had a reason to dislike her as well.

It was 8:30 a.m. Thursday. Jack had just settled down to await his eventual end in a white plastic lawn chair on his porch, clutching a packet of unfiltered cigarettes and a bottle of cheap whiskey to his thin, haggard frame. His appearance and carriage suggested a man nearly 40 years his senior. Watery gray eyes peered nervously out at the world from sockets set deep in his veiny skull, which balanced on a chicken neck. His gray long-sleeved polo shirt almost perfectly matched his slacks, giving the appearance of prison pajamas. Jack always wore gray.

The bottle touched Jack’s cracked lips and a thin stream of liquid vaguely resembling baby shampoo in both color and flavor filled his mouth. He coughed and lit a cigarette, exhaling blue smoke. Jack knew that his wife and children would not be back from the Hamptons until Monday. They were visiting with his in-laws, who were disgusting, mole-like people who at one point had been the most powerful couple in the state. Now, they never left their cavernous mansion, and always complained to Jack that their daughter “needed to express her intellectual side” and that his job at the Marriott Hotel on Long Island didn’t provide the necessary funds to allow for that. Like hell it didn’t. Marleen could read Chaucer or Dickens or that twat Shakespeare until her eyes oozed out of her head onto the floor, and it definitely wouldn’t make her any smarter. Or nicer at that. And what did that have to do with him? If she didn’t like it, she could get a job. Or leave. But Marleen wouldn’t do that. She was content enough to spend her days moping around the house, whining at the kids and shouting Jack down every evening over the T.V. dinners that she had “painstakingly slaved away at preparing exactly according to the directions on the package.” He had no idea what she did at night, but he could guess – the two hadn't slept in the same bed for years, let alone made love.

Jack had until Monday to die. He wasn’t brave; he feared death, and he feared any pain over that of a finger prick, so he wasn’t about to outright commit suicide. It would have to be natural causes, which was part of the reason why Jack had purchased nearly five cases of the cheap whiskey that he was currently choking down. His tolerance was not very high, and after about four swigs he was already starting to feel the effects of the alcohol.

Sammy, the mailman, came strolling by on his daily route. Jack and Sammy and Marleen and the kids all lived in a very nice, white-bread community, filled with row upon row of suburban box houses, all with the exact same cream-colored walls, sloping roofs and red-painted shingles. Jack made just enough money to be able to rent one of these boxes and live in a neighborhood full of upper-lower-middle class working stiffs who got off cruising their pickup trucks up and down the street every weekend.

Sammy walked up to Jack’s house without even the slightest interest at seeing a scraggly old man in prison pajamas drinking himself to death on the front porch. After knowing Jack for the past 12 years, he was pretty used to this kind of behavior. Jack enacted this same drama about once every two months, and had never actually succeeded in doing much of anything besides passing out on his porch for a few hours, then going back inside to watch Lifetime movies until 3 a.m.

“Mornin’ Jack. How’s the old ball-and-chain treating ya?”

Jack swiveled his bony skull around and gave Sammy a hazy look. “She was kidnapped by aliens last night. Don’t know what I’ll do with myself now.”

“Looks to me like you’ve got a pretty good idea of what you’ll be doing with yourself for a while.” Sammy continued to walk down the street as Jack flipped his cigarette butt in the mailman’s general direction.

Jack was just about to doze off when he saw something else on the horizon moving down the road, coming back towards the house. At first he thought it was Sammy again, until he noticed that whatever it was most definitely had wheels. The wheeled object was moving steadily towards Jack, pausing every five seconds or so for some unknown reason before picking back up again at a slightly faster pace. Jack made a move as if to get up out of his chair, then decided that it didn’t make much of a difference anyway. If whatever it was coming down the road on wheels posed any sort of immediate threat, it might just kill Jack eventually, which would solve all of his problems. He sat perfectly still, cross-legged, and awaited this new doom-on-wheels.

            He became rather perplexed when a black bear on a tricycle pulled up alongside his house. Initially he felt some disappointment, as the black bear was small and by no means looking like it was about to maul anyone. Still, bears are bears, and this was unmistakably a bear, on a shiny red tricycle stopped in front of Jack’s house. The bear scratched its head and snorted a few times, looking nearly as perplexed as Jack felt. It then rose from the tricycle and lumbered up onto Jack’s porch. Here it comes, thought Jack. He wondered if he should say a little prayer or make a cross over his chest or something. He wasn't religious, but had attended a Catholic school as a youth at the insistence of his mother. She hadn't been a Catholic, either, but felt that the school's strict environment might do some good for young Jack, who was teased mercilessly by his peers for his small stature and by age 8 had resorted to locking himself in his room for days on end and playing his father's old Bee Gees records at top volume.

            But it was too late for even a mumbled "Hail Mary." The bear took a seat in the other plastic chair next to Jack, and clumsily attempted to retrieve a cigarette from the packet on the plastic table. Jack stared dumbfounded for a moment or two before taking another swig of the nauseating whiskey. He continued to watch the bear struggle, too confused to say anything. The bear looked up from the packet, caught Jack’s eye and gave an exasperated growl.

“Little help, bucko? Not all of us are blessed with opposable thumbs, you know.”

The bear tossed the cigarettes to Jack, who immediately removed one and placed it between the bear’s waiting claws. Despite his shock, Jack knew, as well as anyone else should, that you don’t say no to a bear. Besides, Jack decided upon hearing this bear’s voice that he liked him. The voice sort of reminded him of one of his old roommates from college.

"How 'bout a light?"

Jack dutifully held out a lit match and the bear inhaled deeply, a wet snuffling sound that was loud enough to rattle the front windows of Jack's suburban box. The animal exhaled and grunted, and Jack suddenly remembered a book he had read a long time ago that might help him in this situation. He opened his mouth to speak but was cut off.

"Before you say anything, I don't even like John fucking Irving," the bear said, pre-empting the next thought that popped into Jack's mind. "That man does not know bears. I read 'Hotel New Hampshire,' and I can tell you that no bear I know would have had the patience for any of that 'performing tricks' bullshit. A bear is his own master. I mean, unless it's a zoo bear. Those poor guys are kind of stuck. But they're not doing any tricks for you, believe me. If their cages were ever opened, boy howdy!" The bear attempted to whistle, but his mouth wasn't designed for such an action and he ended up spraying Jack in the face with warm saliva and the still-lit cigarette. "Of course, there's circus bears, too. Now that's a whole other breed all together. I'm convinced that circus bears long ago gave up their bear-ness when they all decided to get all artistic and be performers. That's right. I bet you didn't know they have a union. Performing bears. Hrrrmmph! I'm telling you, no bear–"

"Barry?" Jack said. He was still stuck on that voice. It wasn't a growl, like you might expect a bear's voice to sound like, but more of a lilting sigh, as if everything the bear had to say was so obvious that it pained him to explain it.

"Beary? Seriously? Are you a child?" the bear sighed, more curious than exasperated this time. "Why am I not eating you right now?"

"No, B-A-R-R-Y. Barry was my old roommate in college. You just remind me of him, that's all," Jack said. "And if you'd like to eat me, please do. You'd be doing me a favor, Mr. ... Mr. ...?"

"Bear," the bear sighed.

"Your name is Bear?" Jack raised a stringy eyebrow in disbelief.

"No," Bear replied, impatience once again rising up in his breathy sigh. "But I can't possibly expect you to pronounce my given name with those tiny human lips and teeth of yours."

"Well, you seem to be doing fine speaking my language with that big bear muzzle," Jack said, offended now that this bear was telling him what he could and couldn't do with his lips and teeth.

"Oh-ho-ho!" Bear attempted to jump to his feet, but managed to only knock the open, half-full bottle of whiskey off the table. "So now it's YOUR language? You invented English? Is your name William Shake-spar?"

"Speare," Jack corrected him.

"SPEAR!? WHERE?!?" Bear again attempted to jump up, but this time his chair collapsed in a pile of white, jagged shards, leaving him splay-legged on the porch.

"No, William Shakespeare."

"William had best not be shaking his spear at me," Bear sighed, attempting to wag his claw "no." Jack suppressed a giggle at the phallic implications of this declaration.

"Um, anyway," Jack said, after Bear seemed to calm down a bit. Bear had discovered the puddle of whiskey now pooling by the broken glass bottle he had knocked over, and was leaning over to lick at it every few seconds.

"Up!" Bear sighed.

"Up?"

"You asked me 'Any way?' and I chose up. I want to go up."

"No, it was – you know what, never mind." Jack wiped Bear drool from his eye. "I was thinking that 'Bear' is such an unoriginal name for a bear, you know? And since you remind me so much of Barry –"

"Again with the child speak," Bear sighed. "If I was a mouse, would you call me 'Mousey?' Do you call your wife 'Wifey?' Do you have a jobby and go to worky and come homey and play with your kiddy?"

Jack stared at Bear, wondering if he should once again attempt to explain the different spellings of these two similar-sounding words. He wracked his brain trying to remember what that was called. Homonym? Palindrome? Pseudonym?

"Fine, 'Manny,' you may call me 'Beary' if it makes you happy. And I will call you 'Manny,' since we're all apparently 3." Bear licked at the whiskey puddle, raised his head, snuffled and sneezed, spraying Jack in the face once again.

"My name is Jack," Jack said.

"Very well, Manny." Lick, sneeze. Jack shivered, now fairly soaked through with bear fluids.

"Fine." Jack stood up gingerly. Bear was now attempting to shove his long, pink tongue into the mouth of the broken bottle. "Barry, are you going to eat me or aren't you?"

"For din-din?" Bear laughed at his joke, sounding like a toddler rapidly blowing multiple raspberries. "No, Manny, I have no interest in eating your kind. I've never had a human that agreed with my stomach."

"Fine." Jack turned and opened his front door.

"Wuh .. where are you going?" Bear actually sounded heartbroken. "Here I thought we were having a nice conversation about zoos and any ways and William shaking his spear, and you're just leaving me?"

"Barry, I hate myself and I want to die," Jack said. "If you're not going to kill me, I've just got to find someone or something that will."

"Oh, I never said I wouldn't kill you," Bear sighed. "Just that I wouldn't eat you. If you'd like me to kill you, I can provide that service, but it will cost you."

Jack waited for Bear to name his terms.

"I want a Malgamaloo."

"A ... Malga ... Magamahoo?" Jack scratched his head and sat back down on the plastic chair.

"No, a Malgamaloo," Bear sighed, even more exasperated than before. "Don't you know anything, Manny? You're not much of a manny, that's for sure, if you don't even know what a Malgamaloo is."

"Well?" Now it was Jack's turn to be exasperated. "What is it?"

"Stupid Manny." Bear shook his long muzzle back and forth. "Stupid, stupid Manny. I can't tell you that. I have no idea what your Malgamaloo is. That's something that every bear has to find for himself."

"I'm not a bear, Barry."

"Well, maybe you should think about becoming one."

"I'm going inside, Barry." Jack stood again, checked his watch and found that it was already noon. He felt his stomach rumble. He hadn't eaten before he began his suicidal adventure on the porch, and his hunger hit him suddenly, even with the scent of bear saliva and mucus practically gagging him. "Would you care to join me for lunch?"

Bear thought about this for a moment, his eyes fixing intently on Jack's even while his tongue was suspended in midair, three inches from the mouth of the shattered whiskey bottle.

"Come to think of it, I'd love a banana."

Bear struggled to his feet and shuffled after Jack, claws clacking on the wooden porch.