*The Mallard: A Radio Play

CATEGORY: Humor

AUTHOR DISCLAIMER: No animals were injured during the writing of this piece: they were already dead before I met them. The humans, however, are a different story.

Hi Buns. I’m back!

Oh honey, I have someth-

Where’s the mallard?

That’s what I -

Where’s the mallard?!

That’s what I -

Where - is - the- mallard?

That’s what I -

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE MALLARD?!

Give me a chance to tell - -

I’m listening.

No you’re not, you just keep asking - -

Oh, you mean I just keep asking where the mallard is because it isn't where it's been for the last two decades?

While we were gone, a rodent broke in and - -

Where - is - it?

The rodent?

THE FUCKING MALLARD!

It was...it wasn't...well, you know it had feathers and- -

Did you put it in the garbage?

You don’t want to - -

{sound effects in sequence: slamming door, running footsteps, rattling garbage cans, walking footsteps, opening door}

Thank God there was no pick-up yet!

DO NOT BRING THAT THING IN HERE! IT’S DISGUSTING!

Hah! I always knew you didn’t really like it.

What do you mean? I love it.

Oh I see. You threw it away because you love it.

Don’t be sarcastic.

Okay. I'll be straightforward: You hate it!

I admit, when I moved in with you it was difficult, at first, to enjoy my meals with a dead duck looking over my shoulder.

So you beat me home, realized you finally had it at your mercy and seized the opportunity to - -

Are you implying I've been plotting against a stuffed mallard for three years? Now, if it was one of your ex-wives, okay, you might be on to something,

You're too late. They've already been recycled.

Look, I just never got used to the mallard at the dinner table, okay?

You never said anything.

I did tell you dinner guests are grossed out - and that was even before it got chewed up by mice.

Not my friends.

True, your friends would hunt it down through the house if it had any mobility left. I'm surprised you didn't put the thing on wheels for their target practice. And now...LOOK at it.

I can fix it.

It’s been deteriorating for awhile.

I can fix it.

Fine, but...but... I’m putting my foot down.

You're going stomp to death what’s left of the poor thing?

Despite the fact that you treat it better than you do some of my very much alive friends, the mallard is already dead, remember? And after you fix it up, it’s not going to live on the dinner table anymore. We’re putting it in your clubhouse.

What clubhouse? Am I one of the Little Rascals?

You don’t have to call it a clubhouse. You can call it your workshop or your poker palace or your den of iniquity, I don’t care.

Whatever it’s called, I don’t have one.

Then build it. And the walrus head goes in it too.

He looks great in our bathroom!

Those beady little eyes watch me when I’m naked.

Now a walrus head is lusting after you? Why didn’t you ever mention this before? I can’t believe my sweet little Buns is saying all this.

I’ve been picking and choosing my battles. More than moving the walrus head, I wanted that swordfish off the bedroom wall.

Well you got your wish there.

You only agreed because it stabbed you in the balls when it fell during the earthquake.

You're the one who initiated sex during the quake, said you wanted the earth to move in every way possible.

Now I just want the mallard and the walrus to move.

Which first?

The mallard! I’m the one that found it, remember. I almost threw up.

It’s not like you don’t have any hobbies that affect our relationship, you know.

What’s your objection to my knitting?

None. It’s your meeting men on the Internet I don’t like.

I meet poets, not men.

Literary “chat,” my ass. They just want to get into your online panties.

Only when they take online Viagra. {pause} Honey, let’s not fight. I’m sorry about the mallard. It just looked so awful, I had to get it out of here.

Well, you broadsided me with all your revelations about the mallard and the walrus and the swordfish and the bear - It’s been building, I guess.

I forgot about the bear.

I’m going out to the garage to take care of the mallard.

Honey, are...are the differences between us starting to be a problem? I mean, these separate vacations we took, and now this fight the first time we see each other in a whole week.

Would you mind postponing a relationship talk so I can attend to my mallard?

That’s more or less what you said before our vacations.

I have no objection to talking about our relationship. It’s your timing that annoys me.

The mallard waited all week in that state. Maybe our marriage can’t.

Call those Native American friends of yours and have them bring a peace pipe, okay, or they can smudge us.

This is serious.

Hey, we’ll call my clubhouse a ‘sweat lodge’ in their honor!

Oh, just...go to the garage and fluff up the mallard's feathers. Excuse me, feather now. Singular. I’m going to bed.

Wait, Buns. Can't you understand I'm a bit upset? {pause} I brought you a present.

Was it something you shot? You know I won’t wear death on my person.

Look, I made no secret of the fact that I’m a hunter and fisherman. I told you on our first date and you said you didn’t mind.

You didn’t. You did. I don’t.

That’s big of you.

I can live with the hunting and fishing. What I can’t live with, as I finally realized looking at the mangled mallard, is the display of your murder victims all over the house.

They weren’t murdered. They had a sporting chance.

Guess I should feel grateful you’re not a bullfighter.

Those Native American friends of yours are killers too, you know. Whales and seal pups. Though some of them I’m not even sure are Native Americans, like that blonde-haired, blue-eyed Wolf Ghost.

Ghost Wolf.

How’s he listed in the phone book, anyway ? Plain old Ghost Wolf? Or Wolf comma Ghost ? Or maybe by his wife's name, Eagle Ears or Ears comma Eagle?

That’s his daughter. His wife’s name is Medicine Bitch.

Okay, okay, I don’t want to argue about your friends.

You don't even want to meet my friends. And this isn’t arguing. We’re busy not having a relationship talk.

I missed you, Buns. On my vacation, I missed you.

Me too. NO! STOP! Please don't hug me while you're holding the mallard.

I’m sorry. I’ll take it to the garage {pause} I guess the dinner table really isn’t the most appropriate place.

I AM sorry this happened to it honey. I never wished it ill.

I know that. Let me assess what restoration work I can do, then, well, maybe there’s another kind of restoration needed around here.

I’ve even grown fond of the walrus head. Not in the bathroom, but I am fond of it.

And I think your Native American poetry chants are...um... spiritually uplifting.

{they laugh}

(sounds of kissing and sighing)

Maybe you'll get lucky tonight.

How so?

Maybe I'll move the earth for you again.

Move the bear first, and you got a deal.

the end

*The Others

CATEGORY: Memoir

AUTHOR HINDSIGHT: Full of myself, I was. Still am.

Of all our mother's boyfriends, my sister Gail and I hated Morris the most. Not just because he was fat and bald. Al the trumpet player was fatter and balder and we almost liked him (though we never admitted it except to each other).

"You won't give any of them a chance," Mommy complained.

We didn’t bother to deny it.

"Gail,” she continued, “you just glare and won't say a word. It scares them."

Gail glared at her.

"Mommy, she glares at everyone."

Gail glared at me.

"And you, Sandy, always with sarcastic remarks they don't understand but can sense are not flattering."

"Can I help it if you pick boyfriends whose combined IQ isn't as much as an 11 year old’s?" I asked.

"Listen girls, I want to get married again, and I'm going to, even if I have to sneak dates with the guy and introduce him to Sandy Smartass and Gloomy Gail, after the fact."

That alarmed me. Mommy was capable of doing such a thing, especially considering her mental problems.

"Al," I said decisively, figuring we should go with the pick of the sorry litter. "We want Al."

"Al?"

"You forgot him already? He's only, what, four boyfriends ago? Let's see, there was Al, then Mickey the mechanic, then -"

"Mickey! Yeah! He had great Mr. America muscles," Mommy said, with a faraway look in her eyes.

"Uh-huh, and he smelled like gasoline and got grease all over the house the minute he walked through the door."

"Al got married, for your information. And it could have been to us."

My heart sank. Best cut our losses and keep going with the review.

"Ok, after Mickey there was umm, Axel?"

"God that man was handsome! Blue eyes like Paul Newman."

"Axel," I said, “who bought an alligator farm in Florida with his brother. Mommy, I just don't see us in proximity to alligators."

She grunted with what I assumed was begrudging agreement.

Obviously, grunters can begat glarers.

Back to the list.

"After Axel,"I reminded everyone,"there was Stevarino."

"Wait a minute," Gail spoke up. "You're skipping Lochinvar. He wasn't creepy like the others.”

"Agreed. He was merely embarrassing. Remember when we were in line to see The Little Mermaid? He recited ‘Down to the Sea in Ships’ to the whole movie line."

"Everybody clapped," my mother said.

"It was by John Masefield," Gail chimed in again.

Mommy looked smug. "See, Sandy. You can actually learn things from some of the men I date."

"I kept all the poems he wrote for me."

I could have clobbered my turncoat little sister.

"That's sweet, honey. I kept all of mine, too."

"Why in the world would you guys keep them? They didn't even rhyme!"

"What if he's famous, someday? They'd be worth a lot of money, girls." She was ever practical when it came to making an easy buck.

"I like them,” Gail said.

"Like them? You don't even understand them," I sneered, finding my own niche among the grunters and the glarers surrounding me.

"No, but they make me think interesting thoughts," she replied, with dignity and without glaring.

"Let’s move on from this fascinating literary discussion, shall we” I said, trying to keep everyone on task. “Now, after Lochinvar there was Stevarino."

"God he was fun. Girls, stick with the guy who's the most fun."

"Good advice, Mommy, but just remember, the man referred to himself as Stevarino. In third person."

"So?"

"I'm not even going to be sarcastic about him. Stevarino. It stands alone in all its glory."

"Which brings us to Morris, girls."

Yes, Morris. The most dangerous of all because he was the current boyfriend.

His fatal flaw wasn't being greasy or raising alligators. He didn’t say "Morrisino wants to go for pizza."

His flaw was more serious: Morris had a lustful eye for little girls. That was my trump card, and I intended to play it to stop the wedding ceremony itself if necessary. I hoped it wouldn't be, because I sensed this was new territory for us, adult territory. I had felt something wrong with Morris without a name to put to it, but when Gail said something to me last week, I knew it was big.

"He's like those bad guys school tells us to stay away from," Gail said. "Pooverts, Sandy. He looks at me funny."

"Good intuition, kid," I smiled at her, but was concerned.

"So here’s what I wanted to tell you girls about Morris. I'm not dating him anymore. His neighbor Ben asked me out. What a dreamboat! He's tall. A lean and lanky cowboy. He's a musician too, plays the banjo, so if you liked Al maybe you'll like him too."

Great, I thought. Does he yodel to the cows as he plucks his banjo strings, I stopped myself from saying. But I didn't want to jinx Ben. Morris was out!

"Do you do this to your father," Mommy asked,"or is this dual treatment of sarcasm and moody silence reserved especially for my love life?"

Gail glared at her.

I sneered.

"So what don't you like about his girlfriends?"

"Well, Carol made us go to the symphony way beyond the norm, which I would say is once a childhood. And Laura had a bratty son who stole candy and stuff from us. Minnie was funny, not Minnie-ha-ha, but funny in the head. Technically, we didn't break them up, though, because she got committed before we could do it. And Devon -"

"That's enough," Mommy laughed. "I get the picture!"

No you don't, I thought to myself. The "picture" is just the four of us. Gail, me, Daddy, and you. Together in one frame. And those others are never seen again. Let them be in their own family portrait.

Eventually, our parents each married an "other." The experience of having a stepmother and stepfather wasn't as awful as we had anticipated. They were both okay people. Anyway, by that time I only had a couple of years left until I could leave home and start screwing up my own life.

*Motherly Advice

CATEGORY: Pathos

AUTHOR INTRO: Little bit of truth and a lot of sadness about growing up.

Occasionally my mother would wake up and be normal for a day. She would do normal mom things, like make breakfast and give me advice.

"Hi honey," she'd chirp as I was getting a bowl for cereal on a school morning. Then she'd grab a dish towel, the good one with appliquéd strawberries that was just for decoration and playfully swat my behind. "Scoot. Go get dressed. It's MY job to fix breakfast, not yours."

That's more than she usually said in a week. In our version of the mother-child relationship, I was supposed to guess what she wanted or needed me to do. I always guessed wrong, because whatever I did caused her either to sob or threaten to kill me.

But on these 'normal' days - my standard of normal being the moms from books and movies -- she chattered like the best of them. And instead of staying in bed until evening, she was the Mrs. America of Housekeeping. I loved to peek at her in action. I knew it wouldn't last, but that didn't diminish the joy of watching her spin around the cracked, blood-red linoleum like a whirling dervish.

A half-hour later, I was dizzy myself, as she twirled me out the door. My head tingled where she smoothed my hair. I left the house with a sack lunch grown to fit a shopping bag, her final motherly kiss, and a piece of advice.

"Be nice today," were the words with which she armed me against the world. "Everyone loves a nice girl."

One day, I lingered and asked, "Did your mother tell you that when you were young?" My grandmother died when I was a baby, and I didn't know much about her.

She looked off into the distance, puzzled. Then her brow cleared. "Why yes, yes she did. And so I grew up and got a nice home and a nice little girl of my own."

Some years later she offered me more words of wisdom, right before my first date as a teenager. "Don't let boys touch your titties," she said.

I didn't followed her advice that time, either.

*Caverns

CATEGORY: memoir

AUTHOR LAMENT: All resemblance to my pubic bone and to the main character's is long gone.

Daily, at 10 am sharp, a girl with hair to the waist and skirt to the pubic bone left her no-window office in the basement of San Francisco's City Hall, circa 1970. She carried several half pieces of paper. Though she realized the papers were not documents with the significance for mankind as Hammurabi's code, or The Magna Carta, they were important to her and the city she loved. She and her gingerly held cargo would visit secret rooms well hidden from the public in the cavernous hallways within the vast building. With a look cultivated as professional, she would offer the papers, called 'requisitions' to ancient men who leered at her. Her job was to obtain their signatures. Her personal mission was to do so with as short a leering window as possible. Timing each station made her feel scientific about the whole thing.

It was a tricky business. The signatures needed to fall like dominoes, but not in the sequence on the paper itself. No, the girl had to commit the exact order to memory. Luckily, she had recently graduated from college.

It usually went without a hitch. Lately, however, the girl noted the men were frowning at her, no longer leering. Was her skirt too long today? Did she have a hickey from this morning's pre-work meeting with her boyfriend? No, they were frowning at the papers, not at her. She had to wait while each man picked up the telephone and shouted into it. "What is this 'black argot' shit?"

Every time a new job was created in any city department - bus driver, health clinic worker, court clerk, museum janitor, etc - a requisition was generated. The reason for the vacancy didn't matter. Maybe someone quit or died or was fired. A department's budget might have been increased for several new jobs. Whatever the reason, a new requisition had to be created in the basement, before anyone could be hired.

Then it was hand carried for approval around the building. And lately, the girl noted that more and more requisitions bore not only the name of the job, but the words "Position must be filled by person able to speak Black Argot." The Signature Men didn't like the trend. It took a long time for them to commit their authorization to paper, now. The girl also had a new, final stop added: she walked up the same gorgeous marble steps Dirty Harry did when he wanted to see the Mayor. The Mayor didn't mind seeing the girl, though he never leered, but he did want to see those Black Argot requisitions. The paper size was increased, to leave room for a large, flowery Mayoral signature.

Soon, the ancient men began to disappear, replaced by younger men and women who spoke black argot and leered at each other. Eventually they were out too, and gay men who wouldn't leer at pretty girls took over the caverns.

I'm not sure who's leering at whom now, because I moved on.

*Joke Of The Day

CATEGORY: A day in my life

AUTHOR'S PHILOSOPHY: As a storyteller, I regard it as my obligation to form a crowd of one for street performers. I'm usually rewarded with a new story to tell.

The street corner display is crude –a tower of three blue plastic crates. I slow down to read the small sign rigged on top. “Joke of the Day. Donations Accepted.”

My jokes are not crude, the proprietor informs me.

I smile, as required.

If you want a dirty joke madam, he says, you can put that dollar bill right back in your Bhopal satchel with the Malavi dialect writing.

I’m thoroughly respectable, I assure him.

He nods and removes the bottom crate, placing it against a store window within a small patch of shade. Patting to make sure it’s steady, he motions with a courtly bow for me to sit. I'm too hot to match his theatricality with my usual flair. I just want to sit down and watch someone else perform for a change.

Meanwhile, passers-by walk around us with the nonchalance of city dwellers accustomed to street antics. When he starts telling me the joke, however, a few people stop to see what's going on.

The joke is about a rabbi, a priest, and a flea in a bar, who meet a farmer’s daughter knock-knocking on the door. I don’t get the punchline, but enjoy the delivery. He acts out all the parts pretty well, I think, with an especially graceful leap as the flea.

During the telling an even bigger crowd assembles, and everyone claps at the end. The dollar bills in his hat mount up.The impromptu audience melts back into the late afternoon sunshine, but I remain sitting gratefully, for an extra moment or two. Then I remember what he said about my purse.

How did you know it’s from Bhopal, I ask. Have you been to India?

He nods. Not only do I know where it comes from, he says, but I can translate the embroidered words.

Really, I exclaim. What does it say?

He holds up a finger for me to wait. Reaching inside one of the crates, he pulls out a thick black marker. Then he begins writing on the other side of the joke sign. When he finishes, he sets it back in place.

“Translations. Donations accepted,” it says.

Fair enough, I think, handing him another dollar.

And that’s how I learn my purse has a dirty joke about eunuchs on it, written for all the world to see. Or at least, for those who claim to understand Malavi.

*Party Games

CATEGORY: Pure (or impure) Imagination

AUTHOR EXPLANATION: This is why I don't go out much.

Last night I met a wonderful girl at a party. I mean I could really talk to this girl. She approached as I was standing around feeling ill at ease holding a glass of wine, not connecting with anyone. To appear actively engaged in the party, I was shaking my glass a little and holding it up to my ear, as if listening to the tiny tinkling of the party charm around the base. My party charm was a skateboard, though I don't skate. I didn't get to choose my own charm, which I thought was supposed to be part of the fun. If I ever give a party, people will be able to have whichever charm they want. I mean if I owned party charms.

I noticed the girl earlier because she was dressed modestly by today's standards, the only one - male or female - whose nipples weren't featured prominently.

She didn't bother with introductory chatter, after a simple hello. "I want to stick one of my fingers into that fan," she said, indicating the one in the window closest to us. "Do you think I should?"

I advised against it. "I mean if there were fewer people at the party I'd say go ahead."

She nodded.

"I know a fun party game," she suggested. And it was fun! We went around the house guessing how each person was going to die. At first we were conservative. Cancer, heart attack, car accident - your garden variety deaths. Then we became more creative and developed back stories. My best contribution was the surfer dude wannabe who joined his father's relatives in the I.R.A and died with bombs strapped to his body at Heathrow. We regarded his once-gelled hair slicked flat with booze as he downed shots for a stunt. What a glorious death he would have compared to his current shallow life

The game that engaged us the longest was her idea. It was called "Assassin." You follow a drunk guy home from a party, then off him. This led to a lively discussion about method.

Now she's sleeping. I mean in my bedroom, and I'm fixing breakfast which I intend to serve her in bed.

Then we have to decide how to dispose of the body.

*The Importance of Food In A Relationship

CATEGORY: Part memoir, part wishful thinking

AUTHOR REFUSAL: will not say which part is which

I ran into an old boyfriend today. He looked great, and he must have thought the same about me because he suggested we continue the conversation over burgers and beers.

"I don’t know, Nate.” I shook my head. “That’s quite a comedown from the last time we dined together."

This was in reference to a meal we ate at Brazzaville in the Republic of Congo early 1999.

As a consultant in the airline industry for emerging nations, Nate travels all over the world. Accompanying him on business trips, which I was able to do a few times, was always an adventure in gastronomy.

"Liked that bat stew, did you?" he smiled.

"Hey, I got it down - and managed to KEEP it down," I reminded him.

"Only because I drowned it in the mango sauce," he countered. "I had to pour all of my sauce on your plate, too, when the Mbasa weren’t looking.”

When I asked him where he was going next, he replied, "How do you like your bobotie?"

"Stuffed with currants and flavored with gare masala" I shot back, grinning.

“In or out of a pumpkin?” His eyes narrowed.

I hesitated, unsure of myself.

Then, “No pumpkin,” I said firmly. “The Argentine version with pumpkin is based on a different sect of the Boer culture, the ones who chose not go to the East Indies. So, it’s too far from the source, for me."

He studied me, appraisingly.

Perhaps it's time to renew my passport.