2/7/14
BAMBOOZLER BACCHANAL
by Tiffany Osedra Miller
(c) 2014
Bloated, disagreeable, and restless, I took a dollar cab to the Epiphanica Retirement Shelter to visit with an elderly blind man I knew from church. A retired veteran of the sea, he often charmed the congregation with stories of how he traveled the world by water and fought in the sea over the course of two holy wars and twelve small battles.
When I arrived at the shelter, I knocked twice on the door to his room, turned the knob, and walked in. The Seafarer was sitting alone at a card table mumbling to himself about how fortunate he was to have gone blind, as, in truth, he could never tolerate the awful sight of the sea.
“What a profound waste of water that damned sea is,” he concluded. It took him a moment to sense someone else in the room.
“Miss Stoosh, is it?” I didn’t respond right away as I was taken aback at how much the old man had begun to look like a sun dried apple core or, worse, an empty shell.
“I know you, Miss Stoosh, from the sound of undigested roadside goat water mucking about and distending your belly. You can’t say I never warned you.”
“Yes, sir, it’s me,” I said. “And as usual, sir, I’ve brought you nothing but my misery.”
“Why me? ” He whined. “I’m just an old man who’s earned his rest. Why don’t you go away?”
“I’ve nowhere to go.”
“But I’ve nothing to offer you, Miss Stoosh. I’m merely trying to rest in peace.”
“I’ve something to offer you.” I replied. He shrank and dried out even more until he was an effigy of an old man.
“What’s that? What have you brought me?”
“I’ve already told you: my misery.”
“But I don’t want your misery. I’ve enough of my own. Now, shoo, go away!” Outside, just beneath the Seafarer’s window my Brother, Henry, or ‘Horny’ as we like to call him for reasons not relevant to the matter at hand, put a bamboozle-horn to his lips:
baw baw! buh buh buh…baw baw…
A nearby Auntie fully dressed for church but wearing phallic motley on her head, responded by playing her steel pan:
Pa-pin, pin, dist treh-mo-lo, pin-pin…
It was carnival time again. The music that night, though jubilant, celebrated the persistence of grief, honoring revelers, who had long since packed up their costumes and gone away from this hard life. Garish lights disturbed the dust on the window. In the melee outside, I could discern the blue and purple mask of a dancing peacock, the orange and gold wings of a drunken sparrow, and a mass of black and silver angels throwing poppy flowers into the crowd. I felt so moved by the music drifting in through the Seafarer’s window. I couldn’t leave.
“Sir, if you only knew how much I wish I had the effect of music. If only my face were nothing but music, the beautiful kind made by Aristocrats, I’d be known all over the island as “Lady Miss Stoosh: The Beauty without a Face.” Imagine if my nose, my arms, my legs, my breasts, and even my goat water-filled belly were all songs. Imagine that through these me-songs I had the ability to reach everyone in a room at once and that they’d all enjoy me and find me pleasant because though they could turn me off whenever they liked, Mr. Seafarer, they could also turn me on anytime and play me. If you only knew –”
“Do you wish me to strike you blind?”
“Of course not!”
“Then get the hell out of here with that nonsense. You wish you were music! Chuh! You wouldn’t even know what song. What would be the point? I’m going to call your mother. A young girl like you shouldn’t be out in a town like this on a night like this. You’re not music. You’re an ugly, filthy girl who likes old men. That’s all you’ll ever be. You and your nauseating ideas make me seasick. Get out of here.” He shrank some more until he was no bigger than a communion wafer and nearly as flat. Still, even wafer-sized, his voice continued, cruel, repentant and unrelenting:
“Kindly forgive me, Miss Stoosh. Though I am blind, the sight of you repulses me.”
I put him into my mouth and ate him in order to settle my belly. I could hear him yelling at first as he traveled through me as easily as though I were the open sea for which he pretended not to long. Bon Soir, dear Captain. I lifted my ugly arm to my big head and managed to salute.
dis-treh-mo-lo, the steel pan said.
be-hee hee hee, the bamboozle-horn answered.
And the old Seafarer sailed along inside me, descending into my loneliest, lowest depths where the beautiful spirit of the real me often slept. The Seafarer drifted in the volatile goat water seas of my unconscious until he noticed my spirit floating calmly on the sea beside him. Here, he could see me.
“Stoosh! My God, is that you? Stoosh! You are exquisite. What is this place that has you looking so perfect?” My beauty, the beauty I’ve longed for, that sleeps soundly in my dreams, never woke up to greet him. My beauty never woke up to greet anybody.
“Beauty, can I hold you?” He pleaded. My spirit let out a long sigh.
“Beauty, answer me!” The Seafarer looked around him, his eyes opened wide with delight.
“Stoosh! Stoosh!” he yelled, his bony arms shaking me, trying to rouse me from my sleep. “Has the sea finally come to get me? Has she?” My beautiful spirit turned its back to the old man and offered nothing. He sunk into the seawater.
***
My consciousness returned to the tiny room at the Epiphanica Retirement Shelter. The Seafarer, a smile cracking his face, had hardened into a small figurine. I locked the door, put a white sheet over his card table and placed the little wooden Seafarer on it. I grabbed a tall white candle near the sink in the kitchen, lit it, and placed it near to the Seafarer. I took a metal crucifix from off the wall above his bed and a child’s old wooden toy boat from the nightstand and placed these on the altar, too. I poured a shot glass full of his whisky and drank it straight. I poured another one and placed it on the altar. I quickly went through the old man’s closets, rummaging through his pants pockets, turning them inside out. Nothing.
I repulse you?Well, I never needed beauty to survive, anyway, you old fishy-smelling derelict. I opened drawers and chests looking for other hidden treasures. Still nothing. I’ve survived my whole life without beauty. Look at me now. I grabbed the toy boat from the altar and examined its fine craftsmanship, wondering how much money I could get for it. I put the little boat back on the altar and left.
A Reveler wearing a peacock mask greeted me outside the Shelter. He turned around to show me the rest of his shoddily assembled costume and danced some more. I couldn’t believe how well he could move his large, purple, peacock ass. Empty handed, Horny and I walked away from the Epiphanica Retirement Shelter and headed home.
swing lo, sweet treh-mo-lo
***
We took a detour to avoid the main carnival strip and found ourselves walking past High Yellowtail Road, where, as usual, a line of fancy streetcars blocked the road’s newly constructed entryway, which was flanked by two big, perverse pieces of bamboo. That road was uncannily quiet for a carnival night. A solitary streetcar driver stood smoking in the shadows, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. Horny started to put his bamboozle-horn to his lips but I stopped him with my hand. He sucked his teeth and spat in the direction of the streetcar driver.
High Yellowtail Road, named after generations of mildly consumptive, light-skinned prostitutes, who, thanks to their special color, made history by jaundicing the window frames of well-kept brothels to advertise their voluptuous figures, had, in recent years, become an artificial road.
Once a favorite destination of soldiers and sailors, High Yellowtail Road was now exclusively for tourists and those who could afford to see the exquisitely made figurine replicas of women. The local Tourist Board described the figurines as “well-crafted statues of famous, elegant, high-yellow whores, yellow as old, acid-eaten colonial, romance paperbacks. Not to be missed!”
When it had been simply an island road walked by everyone, anyone could see that many of the brothel-women were indeed what could be considered beautiful if one were into considering that sort of thing, but quite a few of them were, in fact, longish in the tooth ( I dare say!), even downright ugly. Tourists to the Island, in earlier days, however, tended to covet any kind of “colored yellow,” as the color yellow quite naturally reminded them of the sun.
Some time ago, I heard a rumor that the famous prostitute figurines of High Yellowtail Road were more alive seeming than were the living originals. I’ve even heard it whispered that some flesh and bone prostitutes lived amongst the figurines in the brothel houses, and, for extra money, one could, if one so desired, enjoy a more authentic experience.
I was by no means even a low yellow, let alone a high one. In school, the other children branded my complexion “Baboon Maroon.” Nevertheless, I believed I could offer anybody an “authentic experience” if I were so inclined. I’m as real as it gets.
“Horny, I know you’re my brother and all but tell me honestly, do you think that despite how I look that someday someone might find me the least bit beautiful and even come to love me? I mean is it possible?” He looked at me for a long time and I held my breath. He lifted up his mask and showed me his true face. I quickly looked away.
“You see, Stoosh. I wouldn’t know,” he said.
“Please don’t tell anybody I asked you that, Horny.”
Back on the dusty, unpaved carnival roads, Horny linked his arm with mine. We made sure to avoid all the offerings of roadside goat water sold by the tired Aunties who looked like they had been sitting out along the side of the road since before God invented the sun. My belly on that long voyage home through the motley sea of revelers gradually deflated until it was once again flat.
bam-bam-bamboo-lo
***
This is the sixth world. That’s twice what the third world is, for those of you who are not yet caught up on your maths. Twice as many devastations. Twice as many delights.
END
BAMBOOZLER BACCHANAL
by Tiffany Osedra Miller
(c) 2014
Bloated, disagreeable, and restless, I took a dollar cab to the Epiphanica Retirement Shelter to visit with an elderly blind man I knew from church. A retired veteran of the sea, he often charmed the congregation with stories of how he traveled the world by water and fought in the sea over the course of two holy wars and twelve small battles.
When I arrived at the shelter, I knocked twice on the door to his room, turned the knob, and walked in. The Seafarer was sitting alone at a card table mumbling to himself about how fortunate he was to have gone blind, as, in truth, he could never tolerate the awful sight of the sea.
“What a profound waste of water that damned sea is,” he concluded. It took him a moment to sense someone else in the room.
“Miss Stoosh, is it?” I didn’t respond right away as I was taken aback at how much the old man had begun to look like a sun dried apple core or, worse, an empty shell.
“I know you, Miss Stoosh, from the sound of undigested roadside goat water mucking about and distending your belly. You can’t say I never warned you.”
“Yes, sir, it’s me,” I said. “And as usual, sir, I’ve brought you nothing but my misery.”
“Why me? ” He whined. “I’m just an old man who’s earned his rest. Why don’t you go away?”
“I’ve nowhere to go.”
“But I’ve nothing to offer you, Miss Stoosh. I’m merely trying to rest in peace.”
“I’ve something to offer you.” I replied. He shrank and dried out even more until he was an effigy of an old man.
“What’s that? What have you brought me?”
“I’ve already told you: my misery.”
“But I don’t want your misery. I’ve enough of my own. Now, shoo, go away!” Outside, just beneath the Seafarer’s window my Brother, Henry, or ‘Horny’ as we like to call him for reasons not relevant to the matter at hand, put a bamboozle-horn to his lips:
baw baw! buh buh buh…baw baw…
A nearby Auntie fully dressed for church but wearing phallic motley on her head, responded by playing her steel pan:
Pa-pin, pin, dist treh-mo-lo, pin-pin…
It was carnival time again. The music that night, though jubilant, celebrated the persistence of grief, honoring revelers, who had long since packed up their costumes and gone away from this hard life. Garish lights disturbed the dust on the window. In the melee outside, I could discern the blue and purple mask of a dancing peacock, the orange and gold wings of a drunken sparrow, and a mass of black and silver angels throwing poppy flowers into the crowd. I felt so moved by the music drifting in through the Seafarer’s window. I couldn’t leave.
“Sir, if you only knew how much I wish I had the effect of music. If only my face were nothing but music, the beautiful kind made by Aristocrats, I’d be known all over the island as “Lady Miss Stoosh: The Beauty without a Face.” Imagine if my nose, my arms, my legs, my breasts, and even my goat water-filled belly were all songs. Imagine that through these me-songs I had the ability to reach everyone in a room at once and that they’d all enjoy me and find me pleasant because though they could turn me off whenever they liked, Mr. Seafarer, they could also turn me on anytime and play me. If you only knew –”
“Do you wish me to strike you blind?”
“Of course not!”
“Then get the hell out of here with that nonsense. You wish you were music! Chuh! You wouldn’t even know what song. What would be the point? I’m going to call your mother. A young girl like you shouldn’t be out in a town like this on a night like this. You’re not music. You’re an ugly, filthy girl who likes old men. That’s all you’ll ever be. You and your nauseating ideas make me seasick. Get out of here.” He shrank some more until he was no bigger than a communion wafer and nearly as flat. Still, even wafer-sized, his voice continued, cruel, repentant and unrelenting:
“Kindly forgive me, Miss Stoosh. Though I am blind, the sight of you repulses me.”
I put him into my mouth and ate him in order to settle my belly. I could hear him yelling at first as he traveled through me as easily as though I were the open sea for which he pretended not to long. Bon Soir, dear Captain. I lifted my ugly arm to my big head and managed to salute.
dis-treh-mo-lo, the steel pan said.
be-hee hee hee, the bamboozle-horn answered.
And the old Seafarer sailed along inside me, descending into my loneliest, lowest depths where the beautiful spirit of the real me often slept. The Seafarer drifted in the volatile goat water seas of my unconscious until he noticed my spirit floating calmly on the sea beside him. Here, he could see me.
“Stoosh! My God, is that you? Stoosh! You are exquisite. What is this place that has you looking so perfect?” My beauty, the beauty I’ve longed for, that sleeps soundly in my dreams, never woke up to greet him. My beauty never woke up to greet anybody.
“Beauty, can I hold you?” He pleaded. My spirit let out a long sigh.
“Beauty, answer me!” The Seafarer looked around him, his eyes opened wide with delight.
“Stoosh! Stoosh!” he yelled, his bony arms shaking me, trying to rouse me from my sleep. “Has the sea finally come to get me? Has she?” My beautiful spirit turned its back to the old man and offered nothing. He sunk into the seawater.
***
My consciousness returned to the tiny room at the Epiphanica Retirement Shelter. The Seafarer, a smile cracking his face, had hardened into a small figurine. I locked the door, put a white sheet over his card table and placed the little wooden Seafarer on it. I grabbed a tall white candle near the sink in the kitchen, lit it, and placed it near to the Seafarer. I took a metal crucifix from off the wall above his bed and a child’s old wooden toy boat from the nightstand and placed these on the altar, too. I poured a shot glass full of his whisky and drank it straight. I poured another one and placed it on the altar. I quickly went through the old man’s closets, rummaging through his pants pockets, turning them inside out. Nothing.
I repulse you?Well, I never needed beauty to survive, anyway, you old fishy-smelling derelict. I opened drawers and chests looking for other hidden treasures. Still nothing. I’ve survived my whole life without beauty. Look at me now. I grabbed the toy boat from the altar and examined its fine craftsmanship, wondering how much money I could get for it. I put the little boat back on the altar and left.
A Reveler wearing a peacock mask greeted me outside the Shelter. He turned around to show me the rest of his shoddily assembled costume and danced some more. I couldn’t believe how well he could move his large, purple, peacock ass. Empty handed, Horny and I walked away from the Epiphanica Retirement Shelter and headed home.
swing lo, sweet treh-mo-lo
***
We took a detour to avoid the main carnival strip and found ourselves walking past High Yellowtail Road, where, as usual, a line of fancy streetcars blocked the road’s newly constructed entryway, which was flanked by two big, perverse pieces of bamboo. That road was uncannily quiet for a carnival night. A solitary streetcar driver stood smoking in the shadows, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. Horny started to put his bamboozle-horn to his lips but I stopped him with my hand. He sucked his teeth and spat in the direction of the streetcar driver.
High Yellowtail Road, named after generations of mildly consumptive, light-skinned prostitutes, who, thanks to their special color, made history by jaundicing the window frames of well-kept brothels to advertise their voluptuous figures, had, in recent years, become an artificial road.
Once a favorite destination of soldiers and sailors, High Yellowtail Road was now exclusively for tourists and those who could afford to see the exquisitely made figurine replicas of women. The local Tourist Board described the figurines as “well-crafted statues of famous, elegant, high-yellow whores, yellow as old, acid-eaten colonial, romance paperbacks. Not to be missed!”
When it had been simply an island road walked by everyone, anyone could see that many of the brothel-women were indeed what could be considered beautiful if one were into considering that sort of thing, but quite a few of them were, in fact, longish in the tooth ( I dare say!), even downright ugly. Tourists to the Island, in earlier days, however, tended to covet any kind of “colored yellow,” as the color yellow quite naturally reminded them of the sun.
Some time ago, I heard a rumor that the famous prostitute figurines of High Yellowtail Road were more alive seeming than were the living originals. I’ve even heard it whispered that some flesh and bone prostitutes lived amongst the figurines in the brothel houses, and, for extra money, one could, if one so desired, enjoy a more authentic experience.
I was by no means even a low yellow, let alone a high one. In school, the other children branded my complexion “Baboon Maroon.” Nevertheless, I believed I could offer anybody an “authentic experience” if I were so inclined. I’m as real as it gets.
“Horny, I know you’re my brother and all but tell me honestly, do you think that despite how I look that someday someone might find me the least bit beautiful and even come to love me? I mean is it possible?” He looked at me for a long time and I held my breath. He lifted up his mask and showed me his true face. I quickly looked away.
“You see, Stoosh. I wouldn’t know,” he said.
“Please don’t tell anybody I asked you that, Horny.”
Back on the dusty, unpaved carnival roads, Horny linked his arm with mine. We made sure to avoid all the offerings of roadside goat water sold by the tired Aunties who looked like they had been sitting out along the side of the road since before God invented the sun. My belly on that long voyage home through the motley sea of revelers gradually deflated until it was once again flat.
bam-bam-bamboo-lo
***
This is the sixth world. That’s twice what the third world is, for those of you who are not yet caught up on your maths. Twice as many devastations. Twice as many delights.
END
Part 2
Written and Ilustrated by
Tiffany Osedra Miller
Tiffany Osedra Miller
GOATWATER
(c) 2011-2014
words and images by:
Tiffany Osedra Miller
all rights reserved.
(c) 2011-2014
words and images by:
Tiffany Osedra Miller
all rights reserved.
Please Missus, can I have some more Goatwater?
You can have as much Goatwater as you like, Officer. Just go to the Table of Contents, start at the beginning or start anywhere. Got it? Now, quit all that begging.
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