Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet No. 14 Read online

  * * * *

  Q: Global warming isn't fast enough. What do I have to do to change things in Washington, D.C.?

  A: Is it possible to change things in Washington, D.C.? The answer is sadly no, for people are too happy with their thick steaks and nubile interns; let's move the capitol elsewhere and start fresh.

  [Cue ominous classical music]

  But whatever you do, don't vote for Nader this year. I can't promise real, substantial change if The Dynasty falls but, as Diane Keaton and Jack Nicholson have proven, the American people must believe “Something's gotta give."

  * * * *

  Q: I have a summer cold and I want a good black and white movie or three to watch. I don't want one with a smarmy git or a heroine who melts in the end.

  I also want some ginger ale, or tea, maybe some soup, but hopefully those won't appear on these pages, otherwise they might get messy. So, films?

  A: I hope your summer cold is gone now (or possibly has returned). Melting heroines and black and white leaves The Wizard of Oz right out. Here are three excellent summer cold, b&w movies:

  * * * *

  Midnight (1931)—"Every Cinderella gets her midnight."

  The Blue Gardenia (1953)—"For drinks, Polynesian Pearl Divers, and don't spare the rum!"

  The Loved One (1965)—"This botched, patched-together movie is a triumphant disaster—like a sinking ship that makes it to port because everybody aboard is too giddy to panic. They're so high and lucky they just float in. Perhaps they didn't even notice how low they'd sunk."—Pauline Kael

  * * * *

  Q: What's the best time of year to prune grapevines?

  A: Is that what the kids are calling it these days? I call it making baby jesus cry.

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  Beer with a Hamster Chaser

  Devon Monk

  Before the hamster hit maximum stride, before the flexing wires and filaments sputtered and sparked into full life, blowing open the parallel reality, Carla, a strong-minded girl who nonetheless had her doubts as to the viability of using hamsters in conjunction with quantum physics stopped thinking about Gerald's cute smile and said, “Oh, shit. It's going to work."

  If, before that, Gerald hadn't laced the hamster's water with the equivalent of a pot of Italian coffee boiled down to a teaspoon of baby-fine dust, the hamster would never have made those kinds of speeds. But Gerald, whose chest still hurt, knew his experiment would work. He had his sister's life and free beer riding on the outcome—and he wasn't going to let anything get in the way of free beer.

  All he needed was a hamster's worth of physics, a split moment of reality blurred long enough for Gerald to send Anthony The Thumb packing a hundred miles away—far enough that he wouldn't be able to date Rachel anymore, which would suit Gerald just fine because he had higher aspirations for his sister's marital status—namely, the bartender, Dan, down on Court Street who'd had his eyes on Rachel since she snuck her first shot of tequila when she was eighteen. Dan gave Gerald a beer on the house so long as he talked about how Rachel was about to break it off with The Thumb.

  Gerald probably would have coasted on the one beer a day for the rest of his life, but Dan the bartender had sweetened the deal by offering Gerald the family plan—free beer for the rest of his life—as soon as he and Gerald were family.

  It was a good thing Rachel wanted to dump The Thumb anyway—she'd said something near enough to that, in Gerald's living room just an hour before he'd boiled down the coffee and fired up the hamster.

  If Rachel hadn't taken a fistful of Gerald's t-shirt and enough chest hair to get his attention, he might have missed her gentle confession when she said: “I'm getting married to who I want when I want, asshole. Screw that up, and I will kill you."

  Good thing Gerald had already called Carla over the night before to help him rig the hamster-bulb-reality-blur contraption.

  Carla was in on the experiment because she had the math to back up the blink theory, all of it except for that little gap during the actual phenomenon itself—that lightbulb blink that happens when you're just sitting around the house, not doing anything and the lightbulb dims and refires in a blink, and you know it isn't caused by a flux in the electric feed, flawed bulb, bad wiring, or falling barometric pressure, because you've checked all that.

  Carla's theory was that the blink only happened when parallel realities bumped into each other, and, for a split second, become the same reality. Unfortunately, the exact moment in which a blink occurred was the part of the theory Carla hadn't quite nailed down.

  Which was okay, except that Carla didn't really think the experiment would work. She helped out because she kind of liked Gerald, the clean-shaven angel-eyed slacker slob who was a little tight with his beer money, but cute enough and nice enough that he was probably going to go gay if a girl like her didn't step in and turn that smile he used on bartender Dan around to a good girl like her.

  So when Gerald called, she said: “I still don't have the blink accounted for."

  At that point, Gerald was past caring about the why and how of the blink, and more focused on the if and when. “But we can do it, right?"

  "Yeah,” she said, “we can do it."

  Gerald told her to come over right away before his crazy Thumb-sucking sister ruined everything by buying stationary with Mr. and Mrs. Opposable embossed in gold script on it. Gerald was worried. Screwing with reality was one thing—trying to return gold embossed stationary was out of his league.

  Carla said she'd be right over. She hung up the phone, tucked the pencil behind her ear and put on a new coat of lip gloss. She'd get Gerald to shine that angel-eyed slacker smile on her tonight—hamster or no hamster.

  Gerald was ready for her. He had left his bedroom window open just enough for the ground wire attached to the city light pole to get through. He'd rigged the ground in case they blew the half-dozen drained car batteries strapped together on the floor of his room. The wire snaked toward the hamster cage on his desk like, well, like snakes—and there the cables and wires connected to hangers, six sets of jumper cables, and a broken handled turkey fork held in place above the cage with a network of de-papered twisty ties, which in turn wrapped around the bars of the squeaky wire exercise wheel and the forty watt lightbulb in a socket in the corner of the cage.

  Gerald had taken extra care to strap the whole deal together with generous strips of duct tape, because he wasn't about to risk reality or beer to a half-assed wiring job.

  Once Carla arrived, they fueled the hamster with super-condensed Italian caffeine, and dropped it into place on the wire wheel. The hamster ran—all four of its nubby legs pounding like hummingbird wings, moving faster than any rodent had ever moved.

  Gerald already had the phonebook open in his hands and his finger planted on Anthony's address. He stared at the hamster and repeated to himself, Anthony's gone, Anthony's gone. He tried really hard not to think about the beer, the free beer, just Anthony gone, free beer, Anthony, free beer, gone . . . when the hamster hit the threshold speed and triggered Carla's mathematically unpredictable blink.

  A firework shower of sparks filled the cage, first too bright then too dim, and then just plain too dead. The lightbulb went dark and stayed that way.

  Carla covered her nose, her eyes watering from the smell of scorched hamster—a little like over-heated vacuum cleaner and three-day-old road kill skunk. “Did it work?” she asked.

  Gerald glanced at the phone book and realized that under his finger was Torlioni, Anthony, same street as always, even the same phone number. Realities might have bumped, but they hadn't changed.

  Gerald shook his head. By now Rachel had probably picked out the stationary, maybe even registered for wedding gifts, the bitch. His window of opportunity was gone and The Thumb hadn't budged.

  Carla was talking, her words coming out sort of muffled. “Sorry about the hamster."

  Gerald looked down at the tan-colored lump and felt an overwhelming moment of
guilt.

  "I don't know why it didn't work.” He gave the hamster a gentle poke. Nothing.

  "It's not your fault,” Carla said. “You were great. I should have predicted when the blink would hit and warned you. Maybe if I try—"

  "Naw,” Gerald said, “That's it. One hamster is my limit."

  Gerald glanced at Carla, who looked pretty cute with her hand over her nose.

  "How about I buy you a . . . uh . . .” he paused. “We could go out for a . . .” He glanced at the hamster. Something. He was thirsty for something. The ghost of a memory slid by, cool and fizzing, tantalized, and was gone in a blink.

  "For . . . coffee,” he finished. “Would you like to go out for coffee?"

  Carla looked surprised.

  "Unless you'd like something else?” he quickly said.

  "No, no,” Carla said, “coffee sounds perfect."

  And it was.

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  The Blue Period

  Sally Bayley

  The portrait hanging in the dining hall

  above the table

  where the children

  in the psychiatric

  hospital

  ate

  * * * *

  was a Picasso—

  from his

  Blue Period.

  * * * *

  Nobody knew it;

  for it was

  simply

  abandoned to

  a fate

  of brick walls.

  It was a portrait

  of Picasso,

  or his son,

  it didn't matter which—

  both were abandoned,

  like gypsies;

  both were the product of neglect

  that takes its own revenge,

  in its own time,

  as this painting

  took revenge

  upon our silence

  with its cruel blue stare.

  * * * *

  It was a child left out

  in the cold,

  holding nothing

  but his own eyes in his head

  that he held out

  to us, who could

  barely hold straight

  our own knives

  to our own plates.

  * * * *

  The sound of the clock

  ticking above was a

  church clock

  in a deserted

  Spanish plaza,

  after the soldiers

  had swept through

  and ravaged all the women

  and children.

  * * * *

  The silence in our room

  was the terror in the

  eyes of the ‘Guernica’ inhabitants,

  after the monster had

  passed through all their flesh;

  and the women of ‘Les Demoiselles'

  whose flesh many men

  passed through

  day in, day out

  upon the rude streets

  of Paris.

  * * * *

  None of us ever

  took time

  to return the stare;

  the silence was too mesmerising.

  * * * *

  But the child in blue

  took advantage of our

  stupor,

  and stepped out

  from his framed institution

  to the institution

  of our lives,

  day after day.

  * * * *

  But we,

  stupefied

  by the searing gaze

  of white psychoanalytical theory,

  fell back into the easy coma

  of divining the flavour of our soup.

  * * * *

  And the Blue Period ate through

  the brick walls.

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  Sun

  V. Anne Arden

  How can there be something so obvious that you are not supposed to look at? Right up there in the sky. Is it true that no one ever looks at it?

  Don't look at the sun, Danny.

  But how do we know not to look? Someone must have.

  I follow Mom and Dad's legs through the park. Blue jeans, both of them. I keep close. There are many blue jean legs in the park.

  Don't look at the sun, Danny. You'll go blind.

  There are blind people. If I ever meet a blind person, I'll ask what the sun looks like. Blind people have canes. And sunglasses. But sometimes they have a dog. I'd like a dog.

  I want to look. So bad. Just a peek. A little peek.

  But I don't want to go blind.

  It must be glorious. Glorious enough to be a last vision. Hold it in your mind forever. I'll wait until I'm older. When I have less years for it to hold me for. When I'm ten, or maybe thirteen. Thirteen is very old.

  I can feel the sun on my hair. It is warm. I stop in the spot of sunlight. I see my shadow. My shadow is taller than me. It must be older than me.

  I could just turn around.

  No.

  Peggy draws the sun as a round yellow circle. She says because that's what it looks like. I don't believe her. She's not blind.

  The sun has no color. In the sun the walk is still grey, the leaves brown and yellow and orange and red. The grass is green. There is one stalk of grass that is taller than the rest. It comes to my knees. It must be very old.

  I want to show Mom the old grass.

  There are no blue jeans near me.

  I am alone.

  Lost.

  Abandoned.

  There is hollow inside me where Mom and Dad used to be.

  I am a big boy. I sniffle but do not cry.

  Shorts with curly black haired legs. Brown pants. Black pants. A soft grey skirt, like Teacher. I move towards the skirt. But then I see blue jeans. Two pairs. I run to the jeans.

  "Danny!” It is Mom, behind me.

  I turn and look. I am not careful. I see Mom and Dad, sitting on a bench by my spot of sunlight. I also see it.

  The sun.

  A yellow-orange dragon of flame. It devours Mom and Dad with its fire teeth and comes for me. I can see only it. A long tail, haunches, circular head burning, burning. A claw reaches out for my eyes. It hurts. I scream.

  Blackness.

  "We're right over here, Danny. It's okay."

  Mom's face takes shape in front of me. I see first her nose, then chin, cheeks, eyes. Her brown hair burns around the edges with the touch of the sun. A jagged blue stripe hovers in front of her, like a scar from the claw of the sun-dragon. Her cool shadow covers me.

  I hug her, and she lifts me. I bury my head in her shoulder, more careful now. Mom's shadow saved me. I would not be so lucky again.

  But I have seen the sun. It is glorious.

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  Careless Liza:a fairy tale

  Bret Fetzer

  Once there was a young girl named Liza, who was left by her parents to take care of the baby, pink and new and cooing soft like a dove. Liza loved the little babe, but she was a careless girl, easily distracted by bright yellow flowers and clouds and pretty birdsongs. So something happened to the baby: Liza came home and three of his fingers were missing and one of his toes, and the baby had cried and cried but no one had come and now he had tears all down his face and shoulders and blood all down his belly and legs. No one saw this but a little cat, so Liza took the little cat into the woods and hit it with rocks, because Liza was afraid the cat would tell the truth about how careless she was, and how she'd let the baby wander, and how somehow the baby had lost three of his fingers and one of his toes and it was all Liza's fault and Liza would have to be punished.

  So Liza left the little cat dead in the forest and came back, and when her parents came home she said the little cat had eaten the baby's fingers and toe and run away, and though her parents were surprised because the little cat had loved the baby just as much as Liza did, maybe more—but still it was a
cat and you can only trust a cat so much. Liza's parents wrapped the baby's hand and wrapped the baby's foot and wiped the baby's face and shoulders and belly and legs, and once again the baby's skin was smooth and pink and clean and he cooed soft like a dove, because babies forget things as soon as they happen, sometimes sooner.

  You would think Liza would watch the baby closer than ever after that, but she figured something like that wouldn't happen twice and she let herself be distracted by ripe pears, idle bumblebees, and sunset. Then Liza came home and the baby had lost one hand and one ear and perhaps a bit of hair along with it, but who could be sure with all the blood that lay all over his head and face and belly and legs, except where the baby's tears had washed the blood away, rolling down his cheeks and shoulders. No one saw this but a little dog, so Liza took the little dog into the woods and hit it with rocks, because Liza was afraid the dog would tell the truth about how careless she was, and how she'd let the baby wander, and how somehow the baby had lost one hand and one ear and it was all Liza's fault and Liza would have to be punished.

  So Liza left the little dog dead in the forest right next to the little cat, and when her parents came home she said the little dog had eaten the baby's hand and ear and run away, and though her parents were surprised because the little dog had loved the baby just as much as Liza did, maybe more—but still it was a dog and dogs sometimes get carried away. Liza's parents wrapped the baby's wrist and wrapped the baby's head and wiped the baby's face and shoulders and belly and legs, and once again the baby's skin was smooth and pink and clean, except where there were bandages, and the baby cooed soft like a dove, because babies forget things as soon as they happen, sometimes sooner.

  So this time Liza set all of her carelessness aside, which took quite an effort, and she never took her eyes off the baby all day long and all night long and if you're wondering just where were her parents all this time, well, it will do you no good because I do not know—but they were gone a long time and Liza began to grow tired. She drooped and she yawned and the baby's soft cooing, soft like a dove, made her all the more sleepy, and her eyes began to close, just a little at first, but then her eyes shut fast and she was asleep before she knew it.

  Then she heard an awful sound and woke up, and there before her was the most horrible badger Liza had ever seen, a badger almost as big as Liza herself, and it was eating the baby whole. And Liza looked close and saw that one of the badger's ears had a little piece bitten out of it, a little piece that exactly matched the bite of the little cat. And Liza looked close and saw that the badger's other ear had a little piece bitten out of it, a little piece that exactly matched the bite of the little dog. And now that there was no little cat and no little dog to stop the badger from eating the baby, now that there was no one but Liza herself, the badger ate the baby whole because Liza just sat there and looked, because the badger was horrible and big and Liza was scared.