I slam my fist into Nat again. I can see headlines from the Peoria Urinal Jar that their two star Newspaper carriers get into a scuffle on their last night in Europe and now Peoria and environs will not be allowed to host or participate in the semi-prestigious Young Columbus contest ever again,
Charles and Trevor are behind me as well as cool Dylan from Sam's group and Dan the future Rabbi. They are endeavoring to lift me off of Nat. The Big Ten have risen as if it is the gospel reading in church and are chanting a fight mantra, fight! Baker seem to be initially pleased, sounding like a news caste stating that Harry is crazy as fuck. Nat's face is transitioning to the electric mauve color that is always circling Greta's head.I see Meg Weaver with her fingers cupped over her mouth looking as if she is ready to cry. I swear I can hear one of Rita's friends state isn't that that boy you are always talking to in the lobby who is never around very long.
I take another swing making contact with bridge of my adversary's nose.
If only he would have passed the Goddamn roles.
If only he wouldn't have publicly disparaged Mark in front of me or jested the sociological clime of my school.
I hurl another punch. Jennifer Flood comments aloud to Harmony that it looks like your annoying boy friend is foaming shaving-cream at the mouth and growing fangs.
Again I am being wheeled back.
When my left arm goes for a punch it inadvertently makes contact with the side of Sir Charles' visage. I take Nat's head and spike it into the ground.
Blood from Nat's face erupts in constellations of asterisks.
Harmony is biting her nails. She is shaking. Sir Charles is looking at me as if to say why, man? Why? The Lord of the Manor is looking like he is endeavoring to take a conscious bowel movement in his tights without anyone noticing. Vinny has his camcorder and stated that he has gotten everything on film for insurance purposes, sorry Tone.
I turn towards Lynn Minton.
"You want to know about youth today and how they interface with the world with the planet. Look at this privileged dip-shit.
"It's all about social gravity. You are pretty much born into shit and whatever. I mean. it's great that PARADE does this trip and, trust me, its life changing and everything but the bulk of everyone on this trip pretty much already had it made from the outset. I mean. The school I'm from loses half of their freshman before graduation. It also has something like a thirty percent teen age pregnancy rate. It's crazy. The kids just never, and I mean, just never have a chance to make something of themselves because society has already fucked them over from the preordained outset and then there's hoity-toity fucks like Nat here who thinks he's fucking better than everyone else because he goes to a high school where there is zero diversity whatsoever."
Lynn Minton takes out a parchment and ostrich quill. She is scribbling madly. Finally I have had my interview with Lynn Minton. Finally I have emptied everything that is in my chest.
Finally I have said something significant of cultural merit.
Harmony is looking at me like she doesn't want people to know that she knows me.
It is pretty obvious that the Lord of the Manor is still squeezing his butt-cheeks together and doesn't know quite what to say. Nat is saying that the only way it would be a fair fight if it were commissioned by the IHSA and we were in the same weight class, explicating to a nodding Miss Arkansas that sometimes the skinny ones like to sweep the leg which is a penalty. For some reason a northern-light reminiscent haze is permeating in the room. I am being held by cool surfer Dylan and Dan the Future Rabbi and both appear to be dressed as if they are on a bottle of Gin and guarding Crown Jewels in the tower of London. Lynn Minton as well seems to have a monocle and feather in her hair. She is scribbling with an Ostrich quill. I swear she dabs the tip of the quill into the side of Harmony's ear as if refilling ink. When Lynn is done she hands the scroll track-baton-relay style to Liz Madigan who in turn hands it to Frank McNulty the CEO of Parade Magazine who, for some reason is wearing a bowling hat and walking with a cane.
He is unfurling scroll. There are Oyez Oyez and the ringing of one of my moms handbell's accompanied by deafening pin-ricocheting silence. I have no clue how the CEO of PARADE Frank McNulty was capable of changing so efficiently still while the upper half of his body is dressed as the former Prime Minister of Britain, smoking a cigar, taking intermittent sips of sherry, while, somehow he is still capable of reeling the scroll apart and holding it up to the wagon wheel ceiling like he is assaying the gloss in one of Jim Baker's centerfolds. Next to Franl McNulty is the Jester how oddly resembles Spencer mimicking everything Frank McNulty does.
There is another oyez-oyez followed by distillate silence
"For the crime of treason against the Young Columbus program, I hereby proclaim thee David Von Barron, guilty and sentence thee to death."
There are cheers. I have failed everyone on this trip.
My head is being taken in the front of the room to what appears to be some sort of gallows. Everything is changing. The ties and dresses appear to be fading from the room leaving everyone attired in drab scraps of cloth. I am being pelted with have-chewed apples and bread that is brick heavy. I am being jeered. Several of the Big Ten appear to be wearing tights and missing teeth.
I am being led to the front of the room.
It occurs to me only when I am being lead in the direction of the gallows that, even though I am only one of two Young Columbusians who didn't wear a tie I am the only one who wore the menstruating standard YC jacket without he standard Elias Das
Nat's face is the color of a prune. He is sticking his tongue out at me. Ironically Harmony is sitting on his lap and he is stroking her hair. The Big Ten is approaching the gallows doing some sort of a dance stating that ol' Hair never fit in anyway.
It is England and we are leaving.
It is England and I am being sent back to the inky uber-consciousness, the blank kaleidoscopic void from whence I came.
It is England and I can feel the lower part of my neck place in the Guillotine. Oddly the opening where my head is placed looks like the drawbridge to the castle, the blade itself resembling a drawbridge gate.
There is a burning on the bottom of my neck I hear my name echoing from a far off in the distance distance. The Iron Maiden in the hood seems to be squinting at me through my puddle of wassail. She is saying my name in a mellifluous manner. For a second I wonder if it is Harmony even though Harmony was just seated on the lap of my nemesis all of two seconds ago.
"David."
I am feeling the whisper of the blade pirouette against the back of my neck as Harmony places her palm on my shoulder at the moment of death everything becomes England. I can't tell if the room is rising up like yeast. The feeling of the back of my neck that feels like a pacific coast breeze and when I try not to blink I realize that this is England and everything is gone.
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