by Reservoir Dog
Thinly veiled whispers whisk through the air, along with the tranquil sounds of a tambourine player holding tight at center court. The party is a dull affair until you filter in the tambourine man, he gives the place a serious upswing on the grading curve. This guy, the tambourine man, he reminds me of my cousin, Scooter. Scooter, well, he isn’t a tambourine player, but he can sure take the clog out of a drain. He has this method of banging on the pipes with his monkey wrench. He claims he can hypnotize the clog in the drain to work free and slip right on down to the septic tank. Personally, I think its the sterno.
Speaking of sterno, I was standing in the toiletries aisle the other day when Ernie, from the local "Cash for Title," almost walked right up on me. I’ve been avoiding him for days now. For some reason he’s upset that the car I sold him for 500 bucks wasn't mine. It was my deaf uncle Stewy's old sedan. Geez, he can keep the title, Uncle Stewy hasn’t driven since he had his last physical 2 years ago. Ole uncle Stewy, he keeps pissing off the insurance company by not dying. He’s the first guy I’ve seen screw the system that screws the system. Yes, he’s been on disability since he lost the hearing in his left ear in a railroad accident when he was 22. Seems he picked the wrong time to clean the train whistle, or the right time if you consider the fact that he’s 47 and hasn’t worked since the incident... some folks think he planned it that way.
Well, I gave Ernie the slip and ventured over to frozen foods and caught the tail end of a conversation between my next door neighbor, "Bird Dog" Jolie, and Sid, the guy that mows the neighborhood lawns. We call Jolie "Bird Dog" because she likes to water her lawn in the mornings wearing little more than a bedroom gown, often allowing the front of her gown to get wet. At that particular moment she was working very hard to talk Sid into cutting her lawn again, but he kept insisting that it was too soon. He was saying, "The grass must have time to desensitize, revitalize, and then levitize..." his term for grow. Sid, he puts the D in lawncare - D for Dummy.
Jolie finally gave up on Sid, then spotted me. She hurried over with the most incredible news. She told me that Crazy Lester, the fella that lives out on Sawmill Road, way back in the boonies by himself in an old shack, well, he was claiming that he saw a UFO - claimed that it floated right across his house and shot down this ray of light that covered him with what he called "Rayon Crystalline Bath Lasers." Says he is now the purest human to walk the earth since before Eve corrupted Adam and that he’s gonna lead man back to the land of Milk and Honey. I told Jolie, heck, if he wants Milk and Honey he should just try aisle 5, it’d sure save him a whole lotta walkin’.
Seems that Pastor Rubarb didn’t take too kindly to Lester’s story. He’s been out campaigning to have Lester sent upstate to the mental hospital. Course, nobody pays Pastor Rubarb any mind now, not since that incident he had over at our Fair Ladies House of IL-repute. He says he was there to learn the ways of the devil, so's he’d have a better mind to deal with them. Lily, the girl caught in the room with him, she said that she wasn’t out to teach the ways of the devil, but if that’s what Pastor Rubarb wanted to call it, he sure was a quick study.
As a matter of fact, Lily just got a job waitressing at the local Hub. Business over there hasn’t ever been so brisk. It’s when the business over there picked up so well that the owner, Charlie Pritchet, decided he needed some live entertainment. Phillip, the self-proclaimed town martyr, never mind that he ain’t dead yet, tried out first with his fiddle. It was the worst squawking a person could hear. That’s when the tambourine man showed up. Didn’t even audition, just walked up to the area roped off between the tables and the restrooms, and started playing. He also does parties, which is the only reason I’m at this one tonight. Rock on, Mr. Tambourine Man.