Squibs 373-380 [by Alan Ziegler]

373: Would you prefer to:

    a) be a mule

    b) be a pig

    c) be a fish

    d) swing on a star and be better off than you are

    e) none of the above

374: Mr. Plant, my senior year high school history teacher, “confided” in us that the government and our textbooks don’t tell the whole truth, but there’s a book that does, except you can’t find it in a bookstore. He asked us each to bring in $3.00 and he would buy the books for us, but don’t tell anyone because it would take too long to get official permission. A few weeks later, Mr. Plant was absent several days in a row. The principal asked me to come to his office, and keep the meeting confidential (he trusted me because I was editor of the school newspaper). “We have not been able to reach Mr. Plant. There’s a rumor that he collected money from his students for a book.” I confirmed the rumor. “Did you receive the book?” He was relieved to hear that we had not, and told me the book was None Dare Call it Treason, a right-wing polemic adopted by the John Birch Society. The school reimbursed our money and we never saw Mr. Plant again, though one of my classmates swore he spotted him walking on the Long Beach Boardwalk wearing a dress.

 

375: Paused at an intersection on a desolate Northern Michigan road. A blue vintage Corvette whizzes by, the model used in Route 66. I used to dream about being the Todd of a Todd-Buzz Corvette-rambling duo. (Todd went to Yale and will have a lucrative future when his drifting days are done.) Another vintage Corvette, followed by another and another. I count to 16, when the intersection becomes still, ominously bereft of Corvettes.

 

376: I wake in the middle of the night and can’t find my left arm. Not draped over my wife or squished under my chest. I panic for a few groggy seconds. There it is: by my side, but somehow detached. I remember hearing that prisoners in German concentration camps were sometimes forced to sleep in such confined spaces that their whole bodies fell asleep while their minds remained conscious. I muffle a scream into the pillow as I shake my arm awake, breathing rapidly until I can once again embrace my wife.

 

377: On the 1-train, the ragged man blesses me for my dollar. At my stop, the train lurches and I stumble toward the door somehow eluding passengers. With a final harrowing jeté I land upright on the platform. The ragged man yells out, “Good balance, sir! Not bad for an old dude.”

 

378: I am five, in the hospital with a mysterious infection, led into a small auditorium—the audience a sea of white. I stand on stage and realize my pajama bottoms are sagging. I keep them up with one hand, while the audience listens and takes notes. I hear something about my parents “claiming” I am allergic to penicillin. A nurse takes me back to my room and gives me fresh pajamas to change into. While I am naked, a little black girl in a hospital gown walks by. Our unhappy eyes meet, and I feel no shame as she passes the portal that briefly connects our lives. Oh, little girl, I so hope you made it out of there. Oh, old woman, I so hope you are still out here and now know that the sad, naked little boy made it, too.

 

379: I float over what remains of her life as her voice shrivels like smoke born in a faraway explosion, getting weaker as it wisps into a whisper. But still I hear it, I hear what she is saying, her words like birds shot in flight carried off on a stretcher of wind. I drown to the ground, having breathed my first breath without her.

 

380: Assignment: Identify every hat (by manufacturer, model, and retail price) worn in This Gun for Hire (1942, starring Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake). You may substitute any black and white crime drama made between 1940 and 1955, or, in the interest of fairness, restrict your search to the second screenshot.

 

Comments

[The Best American Poetry]

#380 is very tough, even for fedora aficionados. But #373 is easy. The right answer is: You can be better than you are. You could be swinging on a star. (The last four words are on the gravestone of the song's composer, Jimmy Van Heusen.) -- DL

[Alan Ziegler]

Excessive toughness for #380 duly noted! I have added an alternative. AZ