The Early Days

I knew it was going to be bad when he put his hand on my arm like that.

When he finally opened his mouth it was to ask me to fight crime with him.

What???

All I said was, "Why me?"

He said he needed a partner, a side-kick.

"For what?" I asked.

To fight the bad guys, he said.

"Rob, someone needs to kick some ass in this city! And I think I'm the one to do it.  No, I know I am. Did I tell you about the dream I had-"

"Wait, wait a minute," I broke in.  "Bruce, you're not going say I was in some perverted dream of yours?  Are you? Like last time? I'm totally scarred for life from that one."

"Oh no, no no no nothing like that."

So we kept talking about it for a bit, hashing it out I might say.

"And I can change my name to Dick.  Cause the women are gonna be all over this Robin character!" I bragged.

"Robin? Why not just Rob.  I don't really like you competing with 'batman'.  I really really really want to use that."

"Allright, allright." I gave in.  After all, he was going to be my new boss.  Dancing in a cage was getting  old.

"So I have to ask you Rob-"

"Robin."

"Yeah right, so ROBIN, are you prepared to die for your fellow citizens?"

Well I have to tell you that made me pause.  I had to sit still for a minute and think about that one.  Sacrifice my own life for a fellow human.  Who I probably will not even know.  Who might not even be...attractive.
I thought- "Well, what do I get out of it?"

Which I accidentally spoke out loud.

"This job isn't for everyone Rob.  I thought you'd be a great partner because you have a big heart."

I was looking sympathetic and all, but all I could think of was dying from getting shot over some mean old lady or something.  A Junkie.
Well really anyone!

"Bruce, I don't know.  I mean...it sounds like a great opportunity and everything but...."

"I know.  It's not really for you.  That's fine.  I'm glad you told me now before we started trainings and costume fittings."

"Yeah.  Sure."

As he got up to go, Bruce turned and looked at me, and I have to say I shivered a bit.  He seemed to have some big time charisma coming off him or something.
"Rob, I wanted you to know that you were my first choice."

"Oh, hey, thanks!"

"No problem.  So I've gotta go look for Jessie, have you seen him lately?"

"Try the laundromat."

"Gotcha! Hey, do you mind if I keep the ROBIN thing?"

"Nah," I said.  "I won't be using it."

**********************************

My Angel

I saw him again! I saw him!

My love, my Love

 my guardian angel.

Don't think he's sweet and gentle, he's not.
When he lifted that car off of me, you could tell
that you would not want to piss this guy off!
His magnificence is beyond words, above
any knowledge.

He disappeared afterwards, after kissing my forehead,
sweetly
softly.
He went away
into the crowd,
away.

The first time I saw him I was a young girl,

trapped in a well.

A light appeared above and came

down, down.

And there he was, next to me, hugging me saying

"Sssh, ssshhh my darling

 it's alright, you'll be o.k. You

weren't meant to go like this."

Holding me in his arms his

blonde curls brushing the top of my head.

Soft fingers caressing my cheeks, my

 tears.

We ascended in a rush of wings, to the

world above

and he was gone.

Again.

So I saw him again and I love him, I do!

I've considered walking against traffic or
skydiving without a parachute.

He'll only come when I need him, I think.

How badly do I have to hurt to see
my love?

My heart will beat only for him, my
guardian angel.

**************************

FUCK THAT! part one

YEAH THAT IS WHAT I SAID MOM SO JUST GET OUT OF MY WAY.

I CAN'T STAND ALL THESE PEOPLE GETTING IN MY WAY.

I CAN'T.  I CAN'T.

DRIVING HELPS, it calms me down so I can focus on one thing and not freak OUT ABOUT ALL THE THINGS THAT ARE WRONG WITH MY LIFE!

THAT'S WHY I DRIVE MY FUCKING CAR ANYWHERE I WANT, MOM.








I'VE SEEN THAT OLD LADY LOOKING AT ME FROM BEHIND HER FUCKING CURTAINS, AND ONE TIME, OH THIS IS FUNNY.  SHE CAME RUNNING OUT OF THE HOUSE WITH A PAN AND SHE WAS SHAKING IT AT ME!  SHE THREW IT INTO THE STREET AND THEN FELL DOWN IN HER DRIVEWAY!

so i did a donut on her lawn.

I DON'T KNOW WHAT COMES OVER ME BUT I JUST WANT TO BREAK AND SMASH.

I HAVE NO LOVE, or hope what is that anyway?

WHAT ELSE IS THERE THEN??

MOM?

The Telegram

The brilliant Professor Fugate shrunk us for his own purposes.  Of which I don't even suppose to guess.

He wanted to make dolls out of us!
3 men, 3 women, all shrunk down by an atomic ray deviously operated by that seemingly sweet old man, the Professor.  Oh well you know the story.

So Mike? He's dead?  Well beat that.

Yes, I laid right next to him in the suitcase everytime the Profesor took us to the theater.  Those outings were called "picnics" and usually involved the 6 of us sitting on a doll blanket on the stage while the Professor forced us to interact with his real puppets in an Ibsen or Chekov drama.
Once Mike and I played Hedda and Lovborg.  My husband was played by a hairy wolf puppet.

You never heard that one?

So yeah. Mike.....I heard that right after we got put back he started hitting the bottle pretty hard.
 Is that what happened to him?

Cause in those days I was partnered with Rick and Mike was with Daphne.  The Professor liked things neat and tidy.  But I was secretly in mad lust with Mike.  I always hoped we would, I don't know,  sneak behind the coldcream bathtub and make love.  It never happened.  There was always the Professor. Always watching,  playing records and snapping his fingers and of course, writing in his dang notebook.

Are you going to to tell me what happened to him?!

So yeah, I keep going off on tangents don't I.  The injections the Professor gave us sometimes makes me.........................................................................................................................................Yes, still.

No one much comes around to ask me about those days anymore.  Right after it was all over, you couldn't keep the crowds of reporters away! Rick and I posed for Lady's Home Journal and Model Makers.  Reader's Digest did a wonderful story on Daphne.  Mike just....kept a low profile, he never seemed to want to really celebrate our liberation.  Now that I think of it, that must of been when he first started drinking again.  Hmmm.

But, gosh I'm sorry to hear about that.  Real sorry.  Don't tell me what really happened.  Don't.  I don't want to know.  I always thought that maybe someday.... So I can keep my image of him perfect in my mind.  Lying on the canopy bed braiding that rug.  Coming down the stairs toward me, looking in my eyes.

We lived in that dollhouse together, and yes it was a dollhouse, for 6 months.  It was years ago.
 Seems like yesterday.

****************




Thank you PSYCHOTRONIC 16 for showing Attack of the Puppet People, on which this was based.

SIT DOWN

Well, listen to me because I have been around much longer than you have, sonny.

Yes! Sit right there, where I can see ya.

 Do you want to hear the story or don'tchu?


So it all started when that crazy carnival came to town, they had tattoo'ed women in there! 3 dollars for barely more than a peep, i can tell you that.
I can tell you, that in those days you wouldn't see a nude women ordinarily.  But anyway, That Crazy Carnival, when they came to town with their tattoo'ed women and their few mangy animals,

.
...odd things began to happen over at the gas station.
Well for one thing, oh I
just don't see as how I can trust you,
I had promised Them that I
never saw any of those
dead people.

What dead people?!

When they had the beauty contest that night,

my girl Sheryl won.  She was a stuck up Bitch, but so pretty that night.  I stood out in that crowd and clapped like hell.

We were married for 55 long years till she killed herself.  

Still don't know why.

I seem to remember there were these two twins in the carnival, used to sell tickets and tell jokes.  Said to have been naturally borned that way.  Radioactivity may have played apart.  They'd come into the hardware store, and steal tools and such!  Got banned from there anyway.  And that darn carnival was only here a week!
They were fast runners.

So now I've given you a perfectly fine story.  

I did! I told you the story of...the story of the carnival numbskull!

Oh.  The dead bodies.

At the gas station you mean?

That strange stuff?

Well I can tell you that there were 4 sailors at the carnival that evening whooping it up in the tattoo'ed woman tent and those 4 sailors never left town the next day.  Because I saw them being buried behind the gas station in a mass grave, and the diggers were an elegant midget and a clown!

I've never told anyone that story, sonny.  Whew.

Feel better now, sincerely.

You took a load off of my heart, just sittin there...

Tonight when I say my prayers and comb my beard, I'll send an extra something out for you, young fella.

You keep away from them damn carnivals you hear?

*******************************

A Sign

I was driving across the bridge as the clock said 11:59. 
 It was almost midnight, I'm not even kidding.
How exciting is that?!


I thought, Oh my god, when I get up to the peak of this bridge, it will be midnight, and some portent will for sure reveal itself  to me.  In a big way.

So I started looking for signs, straining for something, you know? The time, the time!


The orange industrial lights blinded me from the north, the toxic river lulled me to the south.


But nothing.  Not one fucking sign of any kind.


I thought, what a dreary world this is, this is a pretty sad place where magical things don't really happen, no one ever really tells us the way.
Then.  It.
at 12:03
(I know because I checked!)
at 12:03, a meteor fell from the sky through the hood of my car, flipping me over several times thereby gaining the momentum for my car that I still owed 15,000.00 and myself  to be flung over the guard rail,  off the bridge and into the far-flung spring cold Duwamish below.  

No, I didn't "live".  

I "live" under the bridge where it's safe.  Not on the top. Some ghosts aren't very nice and there's a lot around here. 
 I spend most of all of my time sitting here at the peak of the bridge, watching the cars run to and fro.  Remember those moments, I want to tell you.  Your hands on the wheel, your mind in the world.  The  road running so fast underneath you.  The wide sky above you.

But the wind carries my voice so I make no sound at all.
At all.

***********************************************

Two Of A Kind

I always wondered which one it would be, me or her
me or her

ME  or  HER.
Who would triumph, would it be me?
Or her?

This had been going on forever, it was nothing new.  We were a competitive pair, we couldn't stop trying to beat the other at everything we did.

And now it had become deadly serious.



The competition was fierce and only one of us could come out on top as the winner.

The loser, of course, would be forever shamed and branded a L*O*O*O*O*S*E*R
 and well, they'd just have to live with the knowledge that THEY were the losingest loser for forever and forever.  Amen.

No small punishment.

But I didn't care, this time I was going for the proverbial gold!
I felt as if I could SEE the outcome, I could  TASTE it,  it tasted like fine boxed wine!
The victor, of course, would be me!
Yes!

However:
That taste in my mouth? The one that I thought was the sweetness of Victory?

It turned out to be the flavor of loss, and I was too stupid to know it.

I sit here and wonder:
If it had been ME that had died, would SHE feel as much like the loser as I do right now?
Maybe someday she'll tell me.


Maybe not.