MasterClass with The Chosen One

 

Cabaret dressingroom—devoid of people, if recently left with shallow jars of make-up, swabs and tissues, a tipped-over can of Diet Coke in its own, all-but-drunk, puddle. A note stuck on the mirror expresses in block letters: YOUR WELCOME, NOW GET OUT THERE & WIN! Reflected to the right of this note, the dressingroom door wedges open and a familiar pompadour pops in:

 

Too soon? (enter slo-mo like a battleship; grin at the intro of Kid Rock’s “Cold and Empty”; halt in the center as cabaret figures slither in real speed from all corners of the room)

 

I don’t have to be here, do I. (scan them, raise palms, thrust eyebrows, then wink an ‘Unbelievable!’) That’s right—you want me back. (where’s Camera 3?) Always keep ’em begging. What for?

 

—Kid Rock stops, as do the slithers—

 

More.

 

Now the walls split open like the Red Sea, as if Charlton Heston had raised his staff. A crowd cheers from the blinding spotlights that pull us to the stage and festooned lectern. The mic needs no adjusting, yet seems to love the power wiggle and half-a-dozen rasps of “Thank you, Thank you very much” to let the audience exalt.

 

You know, the great Hulk Hogan once told me—we were, I dunno, on some boat—and he drapes his arm around me and says, ‘Sir’—classy guy, the Hulk—‘you need the crowd… you NEED the crowd to cover up the cries of losers, let ’em save a little face.’ So true. Because by winning—

 

Cut to a tee-d up golf ball, swacked to the oohs of a cozier crowd. ‘MEET YOUR NEW INSTRUCTOR’ underscores the hugeness of the drive. Then right back to the cabaret stage:

 

—you make the losers feel you’ve graced them with your win. (swell like Mussollini to punctuate that point; turn shoulders before the cock of head; look with feigned surprise at the video montage that shows eternal rallies just like this—a house of mirrors rippling the message; listen in like one of the crowd): ‘It’s good to have a jester—a rake—and Rudy has been great from New York’s rubble to all these Sunday morning posers in the media.’

 

Close-up in a quiet office suite with nothing on the desk:

 

Be smarter than smart. Read the titles of things—that’s enough. ‘Enemy of the People’, I’ve heard, had terrible reviews from Norway—Norway, of all places! So I did those folks a favor and made that book a #1 best seller.

 

            Cut back to the note: YOUR WELCOME, NOW

 

Grab ‘em by the hand, those wanabees, and power shake to show who’s boss. You saw how Frenchy flinched and tried to hijack the headline.

 

            Macron dissolves on the cabaret montage; focus returns to the quiet suite:

 

I’d like to see him sweat the grip of Kim Jung Un (pull that letter from the drawer; muse as the montage swings to the DMZ; act surprised when Dennis Rodman dunks a basketball and hands it to the chubby chairman, declaring, “this dude’s dope, y’all.”) ‘Living proof, folks, worth repeating: “What the hell (swirl a hand to stir the cadence for the cabaret audience to chime in) have you got to lose?!”’

 

            Hand-held camera, strolling through a hushed and darkened corridor:

 

The best ideas (pre-nup pause and hover at the gold-star door) come from here—

 

Open to the opulence of gold-replacing-porcelain, glitterballing to the sound of disco muzak and discovering a cell phone balancing atop the roll of toilet paper. Within the characteristic light blue frame a message of ‘COVFEFE’ appears ambivalent to the index finger jabbing toward its ‘send’:

 

—and that’s the way to keep ’em coming: relevance in random streams. (complete the operation; kiss the faithful digit) And the world becomes your oyster, (eyeball the bucket of KFC half-empty and act wry) though I prefer the flyover cuisine.

 

The cockpit of a helicopter, lifting off a building roof, the camera feeling it has access to the controls:

 

And here’s a little secret: they really do let you fly (another wink? Nah—the pursed lip bop to a distant beat; time this to believe it): when you’re the chosen one.

 

Panning out a dusky sky, where oversized stars start to spackle into rows of 5, underwritten with endorsements from EIB, Rosanne, Hannity, Las Vegas Sands, scrolling Star Wars-style into oblivion. The montage at the cabaret returns, a Guilfoyle gearing up to say in unison:

 

‘The BEST / is YET / to COME!’ (thanks, Kim—now just me) You’re in this not for what your resumé suggests. That and a nickel will get you on the subway. Instead, you must adopt the instincts of a shark—move forward or you die. But here’s the hitch—

 

            back to the dressingroom, noiseless and devoid of slithering figures—

 

you’re nothing if you stop at this advice. It’s like date-night with your better half—

           

            turning to the mirror and speaking to its visage—

 

you gotta listen to the yappin’ if you plan on getting lucky. Afterwards, (pull the sharpie from your pocket, punctuate the note to show you’r not a moron)  you’ll know that luck has nothing to do with it.

           

Final image of the cabaret montage: the trophied bible clutched in front of St John’s Episcopal, Lafayette Square; the chorus of ‘Gaslighter’ rises to the smirk of self-awareness:

 

I’m the Chosen One, and this (press the goddam dentures to behave) is my Masterclass.

 

            Fade to white with little legalese to bug across the screen.

 

 Daniel Martin Vold Lamken (2021)

 

Recesses of the Resolute Desk

 

(a half-act play)

 

Morning, January 20^th. The boxlike stage is cloaked in darkness, illumined only by the razor-thin line of light from above, stage right. House lights are half-up to let the audience see the characters as they slouch in corners or lie flat upon the stage. No music, but

 

SHARPIE:  Shouldn’t we be hearing another round of ‘Hail to the Chief’?

 

TIC-TAC:  or blare-outs from Hannity… From what I gather, things are gonna change around here. Not that it would matter for my kind, travelling through the guts of anyone who pops us.

 

SCOTCH:  We’re all dispensable.

 

SHARPIE:  What d’ya mean be that, Scottie?

 

SCOTCH:  For the hundredth time, it’s ‘Scotch’! Can’t you—

 

SHARPIE:  —use one right now? Yeah. Make it a double.

 

SCOTCH (harrumphing):  What I meant, if you care to know, is that we all serve at the pleasure of the president. I’m a tape dispenser, you’re a marking tool…

 

TIC-TAC:  I’m a placebo…

 

SCOTCH:  And when our duty’s done, poof!—that’s likely it…, no curtain call.

 

SHARPIE:  Oh, I dunno. Got ink enough for another four years. And you won’t have to dispense as much tape for unruly red ties.

 

TIC-TAC:  And I?

 

SHARPIE:  How did you even get here? I think I remember you inside that collective coffin of a box—

 

TIC-TAC:  The ‘clown car’, we call it, and yes—I was next in line to go down the tubes when the orange fingers fumbled and I fell into this corner, fated, I guess, to wait out the future alone.

 

SCOTCH:  What are we, chopped liver?

 

TIC-TAC:  Maybe. A difference, perhaps, is that you guys had a role in this office—helped out the cause. I was just an on-looker. What does it feel like to be…

 

SHARPIE:  complicit? To further the course of a hurricane?

 

SCOTCH:  C’mon! There are countless pens that coulda been used.

 

SHARPIE:  Somehow I was the chosen one. Remember that cheat-sheet for a presser—“I WANT NO QUID PRO QUO”? Who do you think crafted that? In all caps for the cameras to see. Me! And who do you think wrote the note for the next guy comin’ in?

 

TIC-TAC:  You?

 

SHARPIE:  Me! Not that I remember what it said. I was a little fumed that day, if ya know what I mean.

 

SCOTCH:  No, not really. So where is the note—maybe we can have a sneak peek.

 

SHARPIE:  My guess is it’s that guy lying out flat. There’s nothing else left in this resolute cave.

 

NOTE (groaning):  Leave me alone. I was just about to go to sleep.

 

SCOTCH:  ‘Do not go gently into that good night’—we just want to see. Have a right to, for heaven’s sake.

 

NOTE:  Oh, I’m sure what Sharpie over there blotted on me has nothing to do with heaven.

 

SHARPIE:  What, am I incapable of moral high ground? I throw down my glove, Good Sir!

 

TIC-TAC:  Settle down, settle down. I’m sorry I brought it up. I guess the question ‘how do you feel’ covers either too little territory or too much.

 

SCOTCH:  What do you mean?

 

TIC-TAC:  I was asking reflectively—with the past in mind and whatever we had to do with that. But I asked in present tense: how we’re feeling now in real time. On our minds, though, are prospects to come in the near-future or further down the road… That’s too much territory, probably.

 

SHARPIE:  And too little?

 

TIC-TAC:  Hmm. Too little would be knee-jerk. A meme that gets folks to nod their heads, maybe press ‘like’ before scrolling on. Today’s news as yesterday’s, fast as the speed of light.

 

NOTE (snarkily):  Who elected you desk-drawer philosopher?

 

TIC-TAC:  You’ve heard why they call the place the oval office?

 

NOTE:  Can’t hide in the corners. Biased against the rectified.

 

TIC-TAC:  Yeah, that. But reminding its residents of a womb and the ‘ova’ they are, within.

 

SHARPIE:  ‘The Birth of a Nation’? I had heard that film premiered right here, President Wilson giving it an aryan thumbs up.

 

SCOTCH:  You heard that where?

 

SHARPIE:  Fox TV. They didn’t use ‘aryan’ to describe Wilson’s thumb, of course.

 

TIC-TAC:  One of many thumbprints on this oak that we inhabit.

 

SCOTCH:  I’m still interested in what you have to say, Note.

 

SHARPIE:  Maybe Note-made-outta-oak. The most organic of us all—no offense, Tic-Tac.

 

TIC-TAC:  None taken. I’m well aware I’m a chemical question mark. But I’ll second Scotch’s motion: what’s written on your underbelly, Note?

 

NOTE:  I don’t kiss and tell. The boss placed his sentiments face down for a reason, I suppose. From what I understand, the new guy’s moving in and then—who knows? I may find myself in the recycle bin.

 

SHARPIE:  Or tv screens. Framed in the Smithsonian for all to see.

 

SCOTCH:  Democracy. Or transparency? Not necessarily the same, I think we’ve come to realize.

 

Suddenly, the line of light above slides wider toward the center. The characters simultaneously freeze and shutter, anxious for the moment now and next. A large tube descends and the noise of a vacuum cleaner revs up, moving along the sides of the stage, carefully around NOTE and SCOTCH and SHARPIE; rising for a moment, the tube seems to recognize TIC-TAC in a corner, taking on a fetal position. The tube descends, swallows like a snake, rises again and disappears. The light diminishes to almost its original thinness.

 

 SHARPIE (uneasily):  Well, you know what they say—easy come, easy go. Godspeed, ovoid friend.

 

SCOTCH:  We’re all dispensable. It’s like a Beckett play.

 

NOTE:  ‘Krapp’s Last Tape’?

 

SCOTCH:  Now you’re just being obnoxious. Why doncha flip over and we can keep it all within these walls. I doubt that it’s salacious.

 

SHARPIE:  Or seditious. I certainly wouldn’t want to be a part of that!

 

NOTE:  Listen, we’ll all know soon enough. This afternoon, perhaps, and then curiosity can be appeased. ’Til then—

 

The line of light slides completely out, and the House Lights cut as well.

 

 

Daniel Martin Vold Lamken (2021)

 

Sapphire Within

 

Yeah, she mused when signing into church,

it lifts the lid of my mystery, yet

isn’t that a little due by now, depending…

 

The protocol had been in place since spring,

off for summer months then on again

for autumn during this endless quarantine,

and through the yuletide season more extreme,

 

online services at hand, if sorely not the same;

I have the looks for radio, she jibed

to no one listening, knowing her skin

and curves beneath the thriftshop layers

lent lust to shrifted imagination, least of all

the priest’s, who assured her through the years

the gospel wasn’t gained or lost from lip service,

his or hers or Vatican III’s, hiding needlessly.

 

Unlike some, her signature conveyed

the care of every letter, legibly, with little

flair for the L that led to u and enclaves in the i

between the c and a, no duplicity in mind

to bring this name to light, followed by

a surname that still spoke to a father’s claim

she had to leave at age thirteen, when

he turned into a viper, smitten by his bite

more than the bitten consequence, time and

time and not another time again. A smattering

of those who knew would keep an eye on things,

but God knows such surveillance depends on…

 

everyone and everything in synch, by

volition or involuntary mechanics, like traffic

lights with sensors, staying green or red

during the vacant hours of any given night.

 

To that extent, the midnight vigil lured her

most of all, whether Maundy Thursday, New

Year’s Eve, occasions when the hospital

threw up its hands and handed off to miracles

that maybe could be made, if never proved.

 

Tonight was such a need, when liturgy and nods

to one another were less the energy than

candle heat and silent streams of consciousness,

a bit of seeing and being seen, depending…

 

                                    ~~~

 

Resins of black cherry trees and beeswax

smoothed the splintered cavities of each pew,

kneeling bench and altar, polished by the timeless

hours of public privacies that these folks do—

not all prayers and adoration, to be sure,

yet by osmosis holy acts among the dreams,

 

or lack of them, for some. The two-year-old

we’re gathered for may understand this

not-according-to-the-plan; but has she wrapped

her mind around a dream? Depends on definition.

 

Two meters’ space meant empty pews and no

overt exchanging of the peace; masks

would muffle harmonies if singing were allowed,

 

but midnight vigils don’t need policies to color

within the lines—darkness does so, anyway.

 

Her mother named her ‘light’ and hoped

for eyesight greater than her own, jaundiced

through a steady flow of Božkov, a rum she

could afford with little guff at grocery stores.

There was no vigil the night she died

behind the steering wheel, dependent on some

 

navigation system to override her abdicating

dendrites, stretched and saturated beyond what

Holly deems the ‘mean reds’ and I still call the blues,

to keep a cloudless sky in front of you,

even in the dark, or within whatever ark…

 

She noticed other souls, of course, drawn to

pray for not-according-to-the-plan. Most were

old; some linked elbows as the law allowed—

provided they were family or tested negative

within the past three days (or nights, depending).

 

One—a youth her age—sat clear across

the sanctuary, usually last to come and first

to leave, between the taking of communion and

announcements for the week, which had no sway

on those who didn’t need community, as such.

 

How he heard about this vigil then? Unless

an uncle to the toddler or intern at the hospital…

At any rate, he was more enclosed in shadow

than anytime she’d see him try to peer her way

before, peripheral and in the ochre light of

Sunday mornings through stained glass,

a reason, perhaps, she had dyed her blonde hair

light blue, to keep away the likes of you.

 

                                    ~~~

 

The vigil reached beyond a fulcrum point

that presupposes God must be content by now, as

prayer is not a vehicle on which fate depends,

 

rather a hand to hold to face things unalone.

Purell was everywhere; still, the stiff-arm legal code

insisted self-control. In this regard, she thought,

I wish the world would caution from within,

 

just as things were finishing. She stood

and saw the young man hadn’t exited, as if

the blanket of the service had nuzzled him to sleep.

She dipped her fingers in the holy water font

and slipped outside, windy not enough

to mute her name, inflected as a question—

probably resigned to be ignored, depending…

 

She stopped, though, in the fading radius

of a courtyard light, glistening with

crystals of a freshly fallen snow. I’m not what

your imagination makes, her eyes said softly,

as stovetop flames when nothing needs to boil.

His, of hazel weariness, agreed. He raised

a mittened hand and uttered ‘peace to you’

before retreating to the narthex door.

 

He said likewise to Old Agnes, coming out,

keeping to the metered rule, and she responded

with his name. Frail and heartfelt all the same.

 

The women, sixty years apart, walked down

the hill to level, less slippery streets. Agnes

mumbled platitudes and faith the present plague

would run its course. Or curse, Lucia said.

Agnes nodded, ‘all depends on point of view.’

 

May I ask who shared the peace with you?

Agnes lifted her withered apple face

to look into the mournful irises of sapphire

and charity within. ‘He was found inside

a dumpster maybe twenty years ago. Cold just

like tonight, God only knows how long

he lay there, or would have lasted more.’

 

Too much to say at two a.m., they bid adieu.

Lucia listened when she passed recycle bins—

plastic yellow, paper blue, glass in green and

white—harboring perhaps another plight,

 

clarity for vigils notwithstanding. I could

never be a nun, she blushed, even there

being hit upon. Opening the blueness of her

mind, she would find what fate depended on.

 

Daniel Martin Vold Lamken (2020)

 

Gloucester, 20/20

 

 

 

                                    I.

 

He read about the story of a ping-pong ball

floating from his childhood haunt along

the Labe River, starting from the country’s

highest waterfall, with nothing but a happy

wolf emoticon; the thrower hitch-hiked home

to Nymburk and waited with some buddies

at the riverbank, camping countless days

until—hurrah!—the ping-pong ball passed by.

 

“That’s the ticket,” the old man said to no one

in his two-room flat, gifted by the brewery he’d

labored at, many moons and tacit howls ago.

 

He walked around the cobbled town to find

his measure of the same experiment, if not

a ping-pong ball or any scrawl of an emoticon;

an ‘Antik’ store had barrels in the back—relics

from the brewery’s storied past—and, deaf

to queries how he’d use it, the man paid twice

the quoted price, asking if they’d lacquer it a bit.

“Ready in the morning,” lending time to think.

 

That done, he hooked a trailer to his Trabant

and let them help him lift the barrel up and in.

One joked he’d start a brewery, another laughed

as the old man lowered eyes beneath his cap.

 

He’d tossed some pillows in the trunk, a bag

of apples, half-a-pack of cigarettes, a tepid

canister of tea to ride the shotgun seat, like no

one else had warmed before—well, no one in the

past ten years, when the last of brewers in his

pension class had asked his help to pass away:

“Just drive me to Macocha Gorge,” a silent

hundred miles from Nymburk and its reach.

 

That was not our hero’s inspiration for today.

 

                                    II.

 

He thought about his childhood as he drove,

shifting when the hills necessitated curves,

pulling off the road to urinate, then have

a smoke while checking bungee cords; all

the rusted corners of the trailer seemed to say:

“Don’t know what we’re doing, but it’s good

to be outside again,” as opposed to gathering

dust in the darkness of a cinderblock garage.

 

That was also gifted by the brewery, as long

as he’d have nothing tracing him to Charter 77.

 

He shook that notion from his head, a time

for all intents and purposes was dead, if

always hovering above the circumstance of

guys like him: compliant, shy, mostly thin,

devoid of family one way or another—“to each

his own” a phrase he all-too-often muttered,

sometimes at the pub when banter turned

its eye on him, fencing in his mug, as if a mate.

 

“That right there,” he’d hear them contemplate,

“speaks volumes”, an unassuming, get-me-to-

the-finish-line: this shift, this downtime

with the boys, this daily grind, this lack of

anyone to talk to, or rather, anything to say…

 

He dove back into why that ping-pong story

made his day—not the barrel plan, per se,

but what it meant to float from one source

to another, like a baby salmon in the eddies

wondering what salt tastes like, with zero

premonition that the fresh would lure it back;

the plastic ball itself would never care, but the

tosser was the reason he was driving there.

 

                                    III.

 

That the day was Tuesday, in October, meant

the traffic up the mountain was a smattering

of spirits taking cover underneath the tree line.

 

He had the marshy apex largely to himself,

his childhood self as well; he parked the Trabant

near an open bunker, faithful all these years,

and walked the solemn ground imagining his

grandma’s tears when the grandpa he had

never met went off to fight against the Munich

Pact, “rest assured I’m coming back,” and maybe

eighty years would pass before a promise kept.

 

That would be the best act on this Lear-like

stage, even if no witnesses were there to see.

 

He shambled now in what he planned to do,

the barrel, like a Saint Bernard, waiting patiently

to be unleashed; he took a penknife to an apple

and chewed the next few minutes through,

wishing this would be the way the world could

tuck into a ping-pong ball and let the volley

carry on, equal to the fate of one who claims a

win and one who has to lose, satisfying rules.

 

“That’s the difference between play, as kids

grow up and feel a need to gamble life away.”

The wind was both behind that thought

and pushing it along, not to let it linger, not to

orchestrate the day with any untoward force.

 

                                    IV.

 

He’d always seen with perfect sight, if cataracts

were niggling at the edges of his age; this

morning’s fog had lifted, though mists atop

the mountain could make a soul appear to cry.

No one was around, however, to cover up or

compare—“you also came for the view? What?

This barrel is… just here for the company”—

or some such artifice, rehearsed to no avail.

 

That walk-through served to frame the rest

of day (or days, as unasked angels might allow).

 

He pried the barrel’s lid and put the pillows in,

then the bag of apples; he left the cigarettes

on the Trabant seat but opened up the glove

compartment for a talisman from 1953: an owl

of lindenwood, hollowed out to make a whistle

if lips were pursed just so, given by his grandma

in case his wanders blurred the journey home.

 

That’d happened once or twice in passing

years, if no one heard or could respond in kind,

not that people were unkind, only disengaged.

 

He tucked it with the pillows and rolled on to

the task at hand; the depth above the waterfall

was just enough to keep the bark afloat, and

added weight might bottom out the scheme;

still, he closed the lid and tensed to blindly see.

Indeed, the barrel found the gap of gravity

and plunged just like that ping-pong ball. Then,

the man drove back to Nymburk to await its fate.

 

“That’s the way this year should end,” he said.

 

Daniel Martin Vold Lamken (2020)

 

 

Killin' Time, and Chillin', and Antsy for an End

 

                  “You mighta heard the other day ’bout Grandma Moses—”

                  “Painter up there on Woodbury Ridge?”

                  “That’s where she lives, with her ol’ boyfriend—”

                  “Haven’t met him. Or her for that—”

                  “—but she is known and he is, well, he’s dead.”

                  “He’s dead? Too bad, I guess, for both of ’em.”

 

                  “He died behind the wheel.”

                  “That so? Crazy puttin’ heart attacks into the other lanes—”

                  “And that was Grandma Moses’ role. She’s ridin’ shotgun, notices he’s slumped, tries to steer against his rigor mortis grip or bump his lead foot off the gas—”

                  “Nearby their house? That curvy road?”

                  “It all went down on County H, with curves enough to make ya think of other things, and who know what was on the dead man’s mind. Coulda been a thousand glimpses of his eighty years, coulda been the opposite—”

 

                  “—a clean slate, like a baby, or canvas that his gal might paint.”

                  “Instead, she fought against the throttle plate. And dodged the charging bulls. She got through crossroad County Q, layin’ heavy on the horn. Someone called the sheriff, but—

                  “What the hell’s he s’posed to do?”

                  “Damn straight. Try to close the road and sit ’n wait.”

 

                  The pause was worth a swig or two of beer. Hunters in a deerstand, break of dawn, autumn in an endless year. One opined a silent thought, the other did the same, guessing Grandma Moses would get up on her feet again.

                 

                  “What did the trick, y’know—”

                  “—like a magic show?”

                  “You might say that. A doe jumped out a ditch and—”

                  “—’xploded on their grill?”

                  “—bounced the pickup to the other side, into a slough where Grandma made it glide.”

                  “Good on her. And the doe?”

                  “Maybe comes our way. Got dibs.”

                  “You’d kill a guardian angel?”

 

                  “Hadn’t thought of it that way.”

 

~

 

                  “Wonder f’she will paint again.”

                  “You seen anything she done before?”

                  “Nope. But I heard she hung some at the co-op store.”

                  “Tha’s true, about a hundred bucks a shot. You musta seen ’em, then—”

                  “Nah. Get my groceries at the Stop-n-Go. Hot burrito and a fill o’ gas to boot.”

                  “You should step into the world more.”

 

                  The forecast was for Indian Summer, whether not the frost ran chaos on the harvest. In the gradual bulge of amber sun, the thing to do was chill. Talk above a whisper just to keep awake, but not too much to scare the deer away. Not that they were massing in the range of riflesite; mammals tend to eat their memos once the word is out.

 

                  “What kinda things she paint?”

                  “Oh, y’know. Flowers an’ stuff. Not bouquets. Nothing really Valentine.”

                  “Think they worth a hundred bucks?”

                  “This beer cost me a clear percent—I'm not the guy to ask. After this, assuming we’ll bag a doe or two, I’ll take you to the co-op, and there you’ll be—”

                  “—not interested. Got a reputation to maintain.”

                  “Above it all?”

                  “Mundane.”

 

                  “Hey! Shh—see one.”

                  “Where’s one there be another.”

                  “Don’ know that yet. She’s on the edge and flirting with the field.”

                  “Maybe there’s a buck the other side she’s sniffin’ out.”

                  “Think that goes the other way around, but quiet now, an’ get your rifle out.”

 

                  “The cat ’n’ mouse is killin’ me. Why the hell she—”

                  “Shut it, will ya? She knows a step beyond the line o’ trees is…”

                  “… her destiny?”

                  “Ours, maybe. Jus’ chill and maybe pray instead of speak.”

                  “Blessed are the meek?”

                  “Say what? No, don’ say anything ’til this one is complete.”

 

                  The doe had understood too much and ducked within the cover of the woods. The hunters gnashed their teeth yet tacitly agreed the wait was worth, a playing field as level as should be. Experience sometimes underscored: you don’t kill arbitrarily. Experience also rubbed it in when opportunities escaped.

 

                  “It’s done.”

                  “That doe? ’s only one.”

                  “The cooler full o’ beer.”

 

~~

 

                  “Think she’ll paint the slough?”

                  “The one she skidded through? Corpse of lover by her side? Would you?”

                  “Maybe not the actual event—hard to know what makes an artist tick.”

                  “Or anyone. Cuckoo clocks we are.”

                  “You aint cuckoo, sittin’ in this nest with me.”

                  “How’re you so sure?”

                  “’Cuz you care for Grandma Moses. And cared to make me care.”

 

                  “Almost noon, and you’re battin’ back a snooze.”

                  “Could do. Gotta urinate, at any rate.”

                  “So how ’bout this: we take a break, go into town and grab a bite, fill ’er up with Miller Light to get us through the afternoon.”

                  “Deer come out at dusk. Might as well check out the slough and maybe then the co-op.”

                  “Can do. Or maybe co-op then the slough. Get to know her style a little while.”

 

                  The on-hold hunters clambered down the jackpine ladder and hiked three-quarters of a mile to where their pickup seemed to smirk, glad to have no payload. Wordlessly they trundled over logging chips and gravel, wise to keep some focus for a stretch.

                   

                  “You okay to drive?”

                  “You bet. I didn’t drink as much as you—”

                  “—that’s prob’ly true, but factor in the eyelids, too.”

                  “Then tell a joke or anecdote, somethin’ int’resting.”

                  “Not boring, for a change? Le’s see. There was this gun-shy doe…”

 

                  “That’s it? She never took a risk?”

                  “’Cording how I told it. You can say another way—”

                  “I won’t contrive a story of a creature I might kill.”

 

                  “… as a curtain call, it’s better than it seems.”

                  “Dodgin’ death on curvy County C? A dead man in the driver’s seat?”

                  “Woulda died in his sleep. And she’s alive, so,…”

                  “That’s the way you’d wanna go? You may be cuckoo, after all.”

 

                  The co-op came into view. Both imaginations travelled to the slough, in part because they knew the doe would possibly be there and not remotely here. Interest has its patience and its path.

 

~~~

Daniel Martin Vold Lamken (2020)

desert, quasi-desperation

Karakum desert, Turkmenistan, circa when the Soviet had no great hold.  A Lada Zhiguli rests with some contempt along what anyone could pass as the shoulder of the road. The hood is up, the driver and two passengers are pittering around in various degrees of nonbelief.

DRIVER: As God is my witness, I had this engine checked just weeks ago—I swear!

VIP: You swear too much to meaningfully swear to God. I don’t care what ‘weeks ago’ might do for you, but weeks from now, your driving days are done.

DRIVER: Please, Madame, just give this a bit of patience, as I know you’re on that side of progress here.

VIP: What is that supposed to mean? There are no ‘sides’ in our Watan—the Turkmen stand as one!

DRIVER: Of course, no doubt. And we will get to Ashgabat in time for—

VIP (leaning into him): —Do you really know for what? Do you know what you are driving for, and I don’t just mean ‘for whom’?

DRIVER (lifting greasy hands):  I do, I… really don’t know why you’d…

DOCTOR: I don’t know the ins and outs of automobiles, but I do know a thing or two about how valved and value systems work. I think your efforts are unwieldy, on first look.

DRIVER: Unwieldy? Have you ever driven one of these?

DOCTOR: It’s not for me to drive. I’ve always trusted those who have to turn their trust on me someday.

VIP: Cut the crap—the day is going to fade and you two won’t be paid unless this mess is fixed, one way or—

DRIVER: I’ve got it! Doctor, please undo your belt.

DOCTOR: Excuse me? I don’t—

DRIVER: —Mine is just too thick, and Madame’s, well, is not an option here—

VIP (akimbo): You’re calling me unfit?

DRIVER: I’m simply saying: I need the doctor’s belt.

DOCTOR: Well, I’ve… never—

VIP: Give him what he needs. That’s in your Hippocratic Oath, let alone what had been Soviet…

DOCTOR: Um, I gather that you might mean—

DRIVER: The alternator’s out. Been slipping since we left  and now needs something imaginative to deal with it.

VIP: To deal with it?

DRIVER: To keep the engine charged.

DOCTOR: You mean the battery? We can flag down any truck to jumper-cable us…

DRIVER: I mean the engine. The distributor cap. The way the pistons get their spark—you said, dear doctor, you understood the way that valve and value systems work, so—

DOCTOR: I am s’posed to give my trousers belt to you?

VIP: To us, it seems—we’re all dependent on your belt.

DRIVER (looking in, then shrugging out): I could give you the replacement belt, as it might befit your waist—

DOCTOR (aggressively unloosening): This will be enough! I don’t need another belt.

DRIVER (accepting, as it comes): Thanks, good doctor. I may have to monkey with the buckle, if you don’t mind.

VIP: Of course, he doesn’t mind. I’m feeling rather flushed in this heat, by the way.

DOCTOR: Then get inside, Madame—we have a jug of water, and—

VIP: I won’t be interred inside a Zhiguli.

DOCTOR (guiding her into the back seat, and closing the door): Of course you won’t—we wouldn’t…

DRIVER: Let’s not get our hopes too worked up—

DOCTOR: What is that supposed to mean?

DRIVER (grunting with the ad hoc fit): I… mean… we are all… supposed to… deal with what our circumstances dealt us.

DOCTOR: Meaning? That sounds like Orwell’s doublespeak.

DRIVER: Orwell? You assume I’d know that—

DOCTOR: More than I’d assume. You are here to make a moment happen; I am here to stave off fear. The belt you’ve put into the engine—

DRIVER (pointing): —just the alternator, sir—

DOCTOR (nodding, with irritation): —onto the alternator, then, only one piece to a million jigsaws not yet cut, if you fathom that analogy…

DRIVER: I happen to have graduated, MGU, in systems management—

VIP (from the unrolled window): Hey, I get that you men have it all in hand, but in the name of all things Turkmen, get the damn thing going!

DRIVER (popping out from beneath the hood): Of course, Madame, of course—

DOCTOR (foreheading into the smoking engine): Do you know, really what you’re doing here?

DRIVER: Are you asking me in earnest? Have I not been driving the likes-of-you for decades now on end?

DOCTOR: I’m not looking for historical purview. I question only what is here and now. The engine’s dead. The madame waits. My belt is in your hands. You said you’d deal with it, and now you’ve got to deal…

VIP (from within): I think you’re talking more than making work! Stop the claptrap and make this bucket o’ bolts drive!

DRIVER (softly): I think she’s not inaccurate, Doctor.

DOCTOR: You think! You’re the driver—

DRIVER (softly, still): Physician, heal thyself.

The DOCTOR steps away, seething and beside himself. He hesitates once and twice before slamming the Lada’s hood upon the DRIVER, within the alligator’s jaws. The VIP jumps out from the back seat and clutches her ears before charging to the DOCTOR and clutching his.

VIP: Do you realize what you’ve just done? You knucklehead! Now we’re stranded here for—

DOCTOR (grabbing at his trousers, falling down): —Your Honor, I only meant to spur him on—knock some sense into him! He’s using my belt, for goodness’ sake! I mean, for Turkmens’ sake…

VIP (viewing him head to toe): You don’t know apples from Adam, do you, Doctor?

DOCTOR: I beg your pardon?

VIP: Get into the back seat, will you?

DOCTOR: Um, you mean… to…

VIP (lighting a cigarette, flicking fingers for DOCTOR to comply): I don’t mean to, I just have to.

DOCTOR (from within): Have to? Have to… what?

The VIP gently raises the hood of the Zhiguli and pulls the dipstick. She inhales to glow her cigarette and adroitly places it into DRIVER’s mouth. Explosion as she walks away.

Daniel Martin Vold Lamken (2020)