sparkle
“What if he’s a Nazi?”, my
wife asks about the dentist
as she rubs her cheek. Her mother calls to absorb her
anxiety, and I steer the car
away from a fallen Yield sign.
The dentist office’s door
squeaks, and I ask her if
she wants to go home. She
groans and enters
to the hygienist’s squeal of
delight: “There she is!”
My wife, Dentist Office
Celebrity.
“C’mon, we’re ahead today,
you’re next!”
Arm in arm, they enter the
Drill Zone.
I sit with the aquarium and
communicate
Telepathic Yiddish and Miami
to the fish as they watch
Animal Planet,
then I dive into Asimov’s Microcosmic Tales.
anesthesia: gimme the loot,
gimme the loot,
and so I dream:
I’m in Southern
California again. It’s the end
of the party for the Fonz.
His doo-wop records
were warped. The Pacific
was a tide of roaring
carpet feelies, its
judgment: “the Earth is merely
a trampoline or merely the
bumpers of a pinball
machine! the world must be
perused, merely
perused!” I was invited to
participate,
finally.
I hear a heavy door shut, a
sound reminding me
of the janitors folding the
collapsible cafeteria
tables after 5th grade
lunch, my mind turning to
recess under the branches,
reading DC Comics’
Who’s Who encyclopedia of heroes & villains:
four Clayfaces, three Green Lanterns,
two Manhunters,
and one Ten-Eyed Man.
The old man enters the office with
his three granddaughters;
The oldest, with the pink
off-the-shoulder Marist sweatshirt,
had the appointment. The receptionist kisses everybody.
The granddaughters sit with their
fidget spinners.
Unimpressed, the old man leans
against a coatrack
and calls his son. “Speed-dial
1…don’t tell your
grandmother,” he chuckles to
the girls.
The old man speaks at a loud
volume:
I don’t have the time to
fix my broken clock. Oh, isn’t that funny. Heh.
I’ve been to two wakes this
month and I’ll attend my third
on Monday night. Alan’s
sister, not Alan From Church, but
Alan From the Diner. The
pool was getting fixed; when are you
leaving for Florida
I hide my guffaw behind the
pages of my paperback anthology,
recalling a message vocalized
by 76-year-old Great Uncle Skippy
from his purple barcalounger
in City Island
you get to be my age only
two questions
are important to you:
When are you going to Florida
How was Florida
On with my headphones and I
listen
to Harrison ’s
guitar gently weep. Clapton sang
the song in Royal Albert with
a gang of minstrels
one year after George found
out what life was.
“When did this happen?” she
asked as I watched
the concert on NJN. “You like
George Harrison?”
Man cannot subsist on Nine
Inch Nails forever,
but man’s teeth became
sharper. Dad played Lennon’s
“Starting Over” on 8-track
while I watched Pufnstuf
in 1982. I shoved Silly Putty
into the player as
Dad shouted horror and
heartache through a Giants fumble.
“Oh, wow, the 8-track finally
died…no more Dolly Parton.”
Hallelujah, Hare Krishna.
my wife enters the lobby, her
own brief appointment
concluded. I ask, “How was the
dentist?”
and she states, “Never met
him.” (devious grin)
“But you will.” My
Sweet Lord, please,
someone perform CPR on that
Yield sign.
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