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MONDAY, 15 MAY, 2000, PHILADELPHIA |
I make the story that you are to be the reading now?The Little Boy Who Never Saw BostonEvery single attempt and without exception had proven to be a wash out. Something dumb happened that thwarted the boy’s plans. The boy gets sick and cannot travel. Both headlights go out in Providence and the rain comes down in a deluge for the rest of the night, thus barring a quick trip to Boston. Travel partners have some sudden trauma to deal with, and the boy’s plans are dashed, dash it all. Then one day, the boy made plans to go to the fairy princess’ superspecial Sangría Soaked Saturday festival at her Boston palace. Everyone in the land knew of the princess. Her charms were non-pareil, by reputation, and the Sangría Soaked Saturday was a lavish event. Invitations were coveted by all. The boy was interested in seeing if he could drink so much sangría and not throw up, and debunk the princess’ impervious image as well. “Jinkies!” said the boy, “What bliss! For certain I shall attend the princess’ ball! And I shall be a conniving sum’bitch to boot and make my company pay for it while I take classes thither! What a clever boy am I!” he plumed himself. But the Evil Witch of Anti-Boston whose name was Ewab was lurking near the adjacent girlee magazine rack just then and when she heard the boy’s feverish, gleeful plans, she raised her knobby arms to the sky and said these magic words: “Ishcan, bathimbleboo, ISHTAR!” A flash of lightening shot across the sky and the boy’s classes were canceled by the company that gives them, seemingly dashing his hopes of seeing Boston once again. “Zoiks!” said the boy. “Crummy luck!” Right about that time, the fairy princess wrote a scroll and sent it by electronic pigeon to the boy. The scroll read: “You fuck. You fuckin’ better come to my party bitch, or I’ll rip your liver out. I’m not fucking around here. I am in NO mood!”Such pithy poetry went straight to the boy’s sensitive heart. With stars in his eyes, he sighed a sigh of longing. “Whatever can be done? I must go to Boston to meet the fairy princess and see if she’s really all dat! And yet I have no classes to attend, because the company’s rescheduling of canceled classes sent that class to Atlanta that week instead. Crumb!” But the melodic loquacity found in the fairy princess’ scroll stayed with him, and he planned his next move… “Criminey! I’ll just take that Friday off, and drive up Thursday night or something!” he said, slapping his forehead in an exaggerated mime-like way. “I’ll get to see the fairy princess and Boston yet!” But as luck would have it, Ewad happened to be hanging out in the adjacent peepshow booth and heard the little boy, who really had a bad habit of speaking his inner monologues loudly and publically. “So, the little shitskipper still thinks he’s going to Boston, eh? I’ll take care of that! Nyah-nyah-nyah!” she cackled and flew off on her magical Vibrator of Despair. The next day the boy skipped into work, lighthearted and fancy-free, holding a large lollipop that complimented his 3-cornered hat and pageboy haircut and leiderhosen. “How are you, The Little Boy?” asked his coworker of him. “I am lighthearted! And I am also fancy-free! For I am off to Boston next month as I shall demonstrate to you by writing on this calendar on the wall that I will be out this day … Oh my!!” The boy was confused. “It seems you have beat me to it, dear Coworker. Pissfuck. What a pickle!” “Indeed I have beat you to it, The Little Boy, and at least one person must be here every day, as you know. If not, you will be thrown out into the street without a crumb to eat nor a drop to drink and you will be eaten by wolves in an unsavoury manner. Furthermore, I’m afraid my plans cannot be undone, for a crotchety old lady with a long hooked nose and a tattered black cloak cackled at me in the supermarket this weekend and I suddenly had an inexplicable urge to see Bolivia on the very weekend that you wished to see Boston. Tough luck, The Little Boy.” No one saw Ewad hovering outside the window, crackling her knuckles together melodramatically and displaying many more pejorative aspects of a witch stereotype. “Whatever shall I doooo!?” wailed the boy inconsolably. “Shall I never see Boston? Shall I miss the fairy princess’ magic fairy Sangría Soaked Saturday? Will she banish me from the kingdom if I fail? Will she send the dogs out to devour me? Oh, I am in a sticky wicket!” The boy sat on a mossy stone, throwing pebbles into the water. He sat and thunk and thunk and sat. And then he thunk some more. As the sun began to set, he forged a plan. “I know!” the boy sprang up and announced to the world aloud again, “I shall ask if someone can cover for me on that day, for I long to see Boston, and all this thinking and sitting and sitting and thunking has made me mighty parched for sangrías!” So the little boy sent an electronic pigeon to a coworker asking if he could cover him that day. The little boy hasn’t heard back yet… 
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