The Rustling Skirt

The Rustling Skirt

Mark Coleman

A smattering of applause and laughter bled through to the stage. He realized too late that a lot of his jokes didn't make sense. Those that did just weren't that funny. They all seemed outlandish and semi-avant garde to his delirium tremens mind. But, then again, The Three Stooges had scared him. Lying in bed watching their impish antics. He sat down and carefully typed out the words.

The e's kept turning into a's, and occasionally an entire sentence would dance straight off the computer screen. The shakes kept rolling over him, leaving hallucinated sand in his chattering teeth. His eyes as desolate as a rusty swing set in the breeze. Now, liquored up again, his mind was restored to its former vigor. But he wasn't any good at improvising. Some people realize a mistake, and immediately try to save face. But his face was pock marked and scarred so badly that it could have been a stand-in for a MADD poster. Nothing really worth saving.

Even his mother would hint at how ugly he was. Always in a roundabout way with "dear's" galore. Of course, he knew. He avoided mirrors like the plague. He hoped for immortality, but it seemed fairly unlikely. Bad jokes belched out in noxious exhalations. Like strings of saliva that the light eludes. No real insights into life. The best stand up comedy is just a stand in for a candelabra in a Poe tale. Or a wedding ring in a war zone.

He retreated to a corner booth after his set, and worked on forgetting the ordeal. Didn't ask for pens to go with the cocktail napkins. The whiskey would write its thoughts in rings. He would play dumb, light the odd cigarette, and try to sink further and further from whatever surface he had sat on for a moment. Like a fruit fly on a still life. People only being polite to the wretched figure before them. He didn't need their pity. Even coming from the hands of Esmerelda, it would have been unwanted. Too say nothing of unwarranted.

The shadows dashed to and fro in the red light. Damned souls burning in the evening's banality. He couldn't help but catch snippets of conversations. All of which, even in context, were apropos of nothing. Just Moloch babble. The drink deluge spotted the entire town. Like blood drops from a hemophobe's nose. Tsk, tsk's scenting the air all the way to the detox, he was admitting himself to with every drink. A rustling skirt and a hard on behind it. He had found the perfect fit. The only fit. The one that would always have him.