The man in the hat saw Fellini, his hat pulled down over his brow, snarling at the other people on the bus, many of whom were wearing hats, boaters and fez’s, bowlers and bonnets, sun-hats and sou’westers, tradesman’s caps and panamas. This wasn’t the first time he’d seen Fellini, once before, one sunny afternoon in May, he’d seen him shopping at the Waymart across from the aqueduct next to the Seder’s grocery. He was pushing a shopping-cart full of knickknacks and doodads, one wheel caroming and veering uncontrollably, his hat pulled down over his brow. Poking out of his overcoat pocket was a dog-eared copy of Jakob Von Guten and a pocket-comb with several teeth missing. ‘Any fool can sharpen ice-skates, even a handless fool’ he muttered to himself, the salespeople moving politely out of his way.
‘Why do I see these things, these strange uncommon things’, wondered the man in the hat. ‘Why not dogs and cats and children flying kites, funny things that make me laugh out loud?’ He saw 8½ in a porno theatre that had been converted into an art film theatre, the man sitting in front of him shouting ‘fucking cunts, I wanna see cunts damnit’. The man in the hat slipped out of the theatre half way through 8½ (at 27½ minutes past four) the bottoms of his shoes slick with ejaculate and spilt soda. (The other day there was a very, very fat woman on the bus, the bus that carries the ambulatory and half-witted. She had a very, very fat child swaddled in the fat of her very, very fat arms. The fat child wailed and bawled, its cheeks quivering like a blancmange).
A thin woman with a circus-hat and a man with a turned inside-out face got on the bus at the same time at the same stop. The man with the turned inside-out face turned to the thin woman with the circus-hat and said ‘it’s hot as blazes in here’. The thin woman with the circus-hat turned to the man with the turned inside-out face and said ‘and smelly, too’. They both got off the bus at the same time at the same stop and went they’re separate ways, a wailing bawling in they’re ears. At exactly 27½ minutes past seven the man in the hat ate a curd-cheese sandwich with friar’s mustard and raw onion. He did this most days, and those he didn’t he did anyways. On those days he didn’t he pretended that he did, imaging he’d eaten something, a curd-cheese sandwich with friar’s mustard and raw onion, when in fact he’d eaten nothing at all. This way he could convince himself that he’d eaten when he’d eaten nothing at all.
‘Why do I see these things, these strange uncommon things’, wondered the man in the hat. ‘Why not dogs and cats and children flying kites, funny things that make me laugh out loud?’ He saw 8½ in a porno theatre that had been converted into an art film theatre, the man sitting in front of him shouting ‘fucking cunts, I wanna see cunts damnit’. The man in the hat slipped out of the theatre half way through 8½ (at 27½ minutes past four) the bottoms of his shoes slick with ejaculate and spilt soda. (The other day there was a very, very fat woman on the bus, the bus that carries the ambulatory and half-witted. She had a very, very fat child swaddled in the fat of her very, very fat arms. The fat child wailed and bawled, its cheeks quivering like a blancmange).
A thin woman with a circus-hat and a man with a turned inside-out face got on the bus at the same time at the same stop. The man with the turned inside-out face turned to the thin woman with the circus-hat and said ‘it’s hot as blazes in here’. The thin woman with the circus-hat turned to the man with the turned inside-out face and said ‘and smelly, too’. They both got off the bus at the same time at the same stop and went they’re separate ways, a wailing bawling in they’re ears. At exactly 27½ minutes past seven the man in the hat ate a curd-cheese sandwich with friar’s mustard and raw onion. He did this most days, and those he didn’t he did anyways. On those days he didn’t he pretended that he did, imaging he’d eaten something, a curd-cheese sandwich with friar’s mustard and raw onion, when in fact he’d eaten nothing at all. This way he could convince himself that he’d eaten when he’d eaten nothing at all.
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