(no subject)
That morning, lying supine in his Central Parkway hotel bed, winged tip shoes pointing like duck feet toward opposite corners of the mottled plaster ceiling, Pete Limpelli woke to the wanging hum of a radio frequency trying to find a home. The cheap television set scrolled an indeterminate flicker of Jerry Springer, and white noise interspersed with the sonorous pall of Henge’s radio voice.
Uhh, I am going to be wearing a rare Sioux Indian headdress which has been blessed by a Nigerian taxi driver, and has been smudged with a bundle of smoldering sage.
Jerry would break in, talking about incest and weight loss, and trailer park culture.
The white noise would continue, and Henge’s voice would come back on.
Um, uh, well, it’s interesting and cathartic, to think of the great naval battles that have taken place over the millennia - from the Phoenicians to the marauding ‘Sea People,’ to the Greeks and Romans, through the Spanish and British to present day America. Naval power has been the lynchpin and the benchmark of societal prowess, and the litmus test of a military reach.
“Minchia,” Pete said, pleading to the tufts of cobweb on the ceiling, “what the fuck is going on with this fuggin’ thing?”
He edged up on the bed on his elbows, and squinted through his sepia toned glasses. The TV waggled and flickered between Jerry, and this mysterious interloping transmission. Pete fed a quarter in the vibrating bed, jolting the foul bed in a crack whore like convulsion. Suddenly, through some electromagnetic confluence of the archaic TV set and the vibrating bed, the screen went to the off air color bars, and through the audio, Henge’s Hubba Bubba show played uninterrupted.
So all you bubbas out there in Hubba Bubba land, there’s a naval battle happening locally between myself and Ed Groat. Up on Lake Me.
“Mother fuck!” Pete said. It was Henge. Fucking elusive Henge, right there on some sort of interference radio show. Maybe a CB or some fucking thing, thought Pete. Some of the clowns down in Jersey, being really into the trucking industry, used to fuck around with CBs. Where the fuck was it coming from? Was Henge nearby? He had to be.
It’s your chance to witness history. The first recorded naval battle on Lake Me. Canoe versus Snipe. Pioneer versus Indian Chief. It has the makings of an epic.
William Comparetto
© 2007