Willie Smith


OVID OVULATING INTO THE VOID

            When my name is Ezell the Weasel, I sport for boutonniere a teasel. Drive around in my diesel, allaying fears of the measles, taking out, in the mind, an easel – to support a canvas showing the following tableau:
            Linda Lovelace kneels in the barn blowing a goat wearing a Jimmy Carter mask. Onto the scene happens the Ayatollah, whom the abomination so revolts he jumps on the horn to the Pope.
            “Ignorance is purity,” quips the Holy Father. “Live and let love. Why, when I was your age…”
            The Ayatollah hangs up on the Holy See. Closes eyes. Gropes across the straw. Bumps into the wall. Feels his way to the door. Steps outside.
            Opens eyes to realize he has been all along Pluto in disguise. Lopes off after rabbits through an open field under sunny skies.
            Beelzebub, assuming the shape of Bugs Bunny, leaps from his hole. Confronts in mid-lope Mickey Mouse’s mutt. Bugs, taking from his buck teeth the cigar of his carrot, proceeds to mesmerize Pluto with the following recitation:
            “Polly and Esther fucked a pig named Lester. After, Esther asked which was bester – Polly or Esther? Lester let it fester. Then said, ‘Although Polly is faster, and Esther ain’t no lollygagger, I cotton to Rayon.’”
            The jingle so enthralls Pluto that he on the spot plucks and presents to Bugs a harebell bouquet. The incognito Lord of the Flies passes the blue blossoms under his nostrils. Inhales below lidded eyes. Nods at the dog named after hell’s own owner. On the surface a perfunctory thanks for the scentless flowers. But in reality (state bordering Maine, Buffalo and Erie) a post-hypnotic cue.
            Pluto sprouts horns, goat feet; arrowhead tail. Out of the muzzle splits a scarlet harelipped phizz. Neptune offstage pitches the changeling a fork.
            A twin-prop burbles overhead. A dot drops from the belly. Free falls. A canopy jellyfishes open.
            Into the meadow parachutes Elmer Fudd. On impact loses hat. Hangs dearly onto the shotgun. Frees himself, spluttering curses, from the cords and silk. Splays booted feet. Aims at the rabbit.
            “I wouldn’t do that!” cautions Bugs, pointing his carrot at the freshly-metamorphosed demon. “My sidekick here was in a former life a retriever. Guns excite him.”
            Satan pulls from his rectum a lava lamp. Overpowers Fudd before the worldfamous redneck can overcome his surprise to pull himself together to pull the trigger.
            In July of 76 Satan sat on the lamp. Has been waiting ever since for this moment to extract the irritant. Jehovah having sworn on the Styx – when Nick stole His Thunder by delaying the Mars landing till after the Bicentennial kickoff – that the tchotchke should remain high up beyond Pluto’s crypts of Morgagni until the sun shone on a dome bright enough to blind the world.
            Pluto, Bugs and Fudd are hardly the world; but good enough for government myth. And the sun spanks off Elmer’s pate into everybody’s eyes (bounces from Pluto’s glims into Elmer’s), rendering all sightless as Tiresias curled inside a Firestone at the bottom of a tar pit.
            Working by feel, using a mood ring to hold the anus open, Satan parks up Elmer’s bung the lava lamp (known as, prior to 69, the “astro lamp”). Morphing Fudd – in a burst of Saint Elmo’s fire – into Neal Cassidy air-guitaring into bassist Jack Cassidy of the Thomas Jefferson nickel airplane roach clip. A clip he schizophrenically views himself viewing.
            Bugs and Pluto, on a higher diesel plane, enjoy late-night reruns of Hopalong Cassidy. Passing back and forth, pendulumwise, loaded with crumbled Thai sticks, the bong.
            When not named Ezell, I sport just an ermine stole. Disport myself with abandon, as yesterday stole tomorrow like that piece of now-abandoned junk still and forever on Mars parked.
            Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the lava, and of the weasel going snow white.

Willie Smith's story collection NOTHING DOING is available on Amazon.
 
 
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