Clowns and Steeples

When the biggest dogman was a boy, a towering boy, his grandmamma fed him water and beans. She served the beans in a clown’s bowl and the water in a Shiner’s glass. She pinched the Shiner’s glass from the trash behind the Occidental restaurant, the clown’s bowl from a fool with a stray eye. She cooked the beans in a black skillet. She fed her grandson from her bed, poking beans into his mouth with the grip-end of a fork. She slaked his thirst with the water fished from the river that never went dry. Her grandson sat at the foot of her bed whistling through the steeples of his hands, his face a mess of split beans and fished water. When he was old enough to tell good from bad the biggest dogman left home, the Shiner’s glass tied round his waist with string, the clown’s bowl in pieces on the kitchen floor, his grandmamma fast asleep in her bed. From that day forward he swore he’d never listen to fools or old woman again, ever. Dogmen and Shiner’s, clown’s and steeples, what a tall tale.

Dejesus wet his thirst with Pale Ale and Gypsy Gin. He slaked his thirst, an insatiable wet thirst, with russet Pale Ale and dry Gypsy Gin. He slaked his thirst, an insatiable wet thirsty thirst, with cup upon cupful of pale russet Pale Ale and shriveled dry Gypsy Gin. Every morning upon waking Dejesus poured himself a cupful of Pale Ale and a thimbleful of Gypsy Gin. He took a long pull from the cup and a nip from the thimble, chasing the two with a mouthful of willowy blue smoke. ‘…I am slothful and damn proud of it…’ said Dejesus sitting on the edge of his bed thinking about the day that had just begun. ‘…slothfulness is highly underrated…’ he mumbled, ‘…left out in the cold to shrivel and die…’. Acquitting himself from the sheets, his feet swathed in day-old linens, he said ‘….where ratings are concerned, sloth is nowhere to be found...’.