The Wet Part in the Front of It

The Wet Part in the Front of It

       by Generous Portion (Son of Bliss Carman)

                        general patton

                        waved his baton

                        start of the korean war

                        started what

                        then turned to treason

                        ousness right up until

                        their cand'ate gore

Neatly sipped, thought Ramsay as he helped himself to the last bit in the bottom of the glass. Tomorrow at 8:00 I will pour myself one of the same size. Yes, that's what I will do. Uh huh. With that he leapt to the window to see what might be developing there. A Girly Wagon had stopped beneath his apartment to fetch mulch from the greenhouse. Certain men of low rank and big proportion were making quick work of the pile beside the drive. Their shovels quirked into the mud and brought up clumps of it, excess streaming down beside. Flash, flash, flash went the hands, arms and spades. Nostradamus, Ramsay thought, and returned to his table and tilted the glass one more time before rinsing it under the tap near the door.  He drew on his mackinaw and got himself outside.

       Earlier with his drink the book that found itself before him concerned a Kilpatrick the Feeble, written by the warden of a prison in Kackpesh about the turn of the second last century.  Ramsay read the first pages with zeal and delight. In them the author, a General Zni, veteran of a certain war between the Uzbeks and the Georgians, introduced the theory that clear control of an army was a myth. Control over the variousnesses of an army was a hope and a teaching tool of the military academies but it never actually came about in practice. Men, soldiers, civilians and all individuals attached to the military on the battlefield always chose for themselves most of the time and the atrocities in prisons, on the field itself, and in P.O.W. camps were the product of self-interest.

       By the twentieth page Ramsay lost interest in the theory and turned his gaze toward the library window. He was at the library now. He had taken his book with him. The library was an old one and the dusty glass with the sun coming through entranced him and made him randy. He leapt up and cat-walked toward the window to see what lay below him in the street. A Girly Wagon disappearing around a corner carrying what looked like a load of mulch. Further down the same street a group of men gesticulated wildly as if they were discussing something of grave merit. Ramsay decided to go and encounter the group and involve himself in their discussion. He did so. He left the front entrance of the building and made his may down the street to the place where the men stood. They were still energetically engaged. One, the older gentleman, of Italian origins as his accent betrayed, called out for the death of all chickens.

       "They are such a nuisance!" he proclaimed and drove his arm downward twice toward the pavement as a way of indicating the violent end of the whole mass of them. Strong coffee smells from his breath wafted about as he spoke. A wagon clicked by on metal wheels, the horse peeing and farting down the avenue.

       "Women, too," a younger one announced and drove his arm upwards with vehemence. His breath was wine and tomatoes. His eyes were red as if he had just awakened from a bad sleep or suffered from the indulgences of the night before. He must be a herdsman with hair like that, Ramsay speculated in wise silence. Good grief, the men you find in the city on a Monday morning, he thought as the middle-aged one broke in, slamming his arms both up and down twice for emphasis.

       "Dogs get the better of us and we let them!" he shouted out. The others listened to him for a moment. "If I had the will and the money I would devote the rest of my natural life to their extermination!" The six men stood waiting for him to continue and explain himself. He did not, but then added, "The whole shitty mess of the house pets that the widows, single girls and spinsters bring out evenings to shit on the sidewalks where a drunk cannot help but lay down in it and wake up in the morning smelling like a kennel is the worst of it!" The others listened with something between amusement and astonishment.

       "I tell you, if you have ears to hear," the middle-aged one continued, "get rid of the whole reeking mess of pups and their dames and you will rid the world of the most hideous sort of danger and a defilement!"

       "What would you do?" asked the oldest one who had not yet spoken but who Ramsay could tell was generally venerated among these few. The old man stank, speaking of stinky dogs and their runny assholes. Garlic from the days before mixed with garlic from that morning's breakfast floated about them with such perturbation that all of them turned their heads to this side and that until the tainted air gradually drifted south.

       "What the hell do you think I'd do?" the dog-hater said. He drove one arm upwards and the other downwards with such force that the men stood respectful for a minute while he built up the momentum to tell them with more exactness. He puffed out his chest, cocked his wrists to flex his biceps, and then fell to with gusto. Hungry,. the men about him wolfed down his analysis.

       "I would take the first puppy I met on the street and I'd stomp on him, face first in the cement. But," he continued, speaking in a hurry in case the others might accuse him of methods too kind in the present circumstances, "I would walk early mornings till I came upon a pile of  fresh dog shit, and that would take about three steps. See, look about you. There, and there and there, within our eyesight and the reach of our very noses, three piles of it here! I would walk till I found the first dog turds and carrying them behind my back I would climb up to the apartment directly above it where I could safely deduct that the excrementor resided, I would knock on the door, and I would say with politeness, 'Ma'am, do you own a puppy?' and when she answered in the affirmative, I would ask to see the cute little canine. Then, when she brought me her pretty poodle, stroking it with maternal possessiveness, I would say, 'Ma'am, I just wish to bring to your attention the pile of feces outside your door across the way where each evening your puppy drops his lunch and where each morning another drunk must awake to the realization that all day he will be smelling himself in the rancidness of its droppings. I wish also for you to take note of the following action.' With that, I would take up the dog and stroke its fur, bringing him to a certain state of arousal by reaching beneath it and fondling there, too. Then I would wrench his digit right out from under him, dislocating it from its body with one vicious pull. While the mistress screamed her dismay at the loss of the site of her pleasure, and his, I would take its nose between thumb and finger, like this, and pull off the rubbery, wet part on the front of it with a great swipe of my hand. Next, I would put my boots to its face and dislocate its jaw, while at the same time driving my fingers deep into its eye sockets. Having done these things, I would leave without a word. She would have got my message and the powdered pudendum would decline in the future from defecating across the street."

       So saying, the vehement verbalist, vendor of often fresh vegetables down the block, glanced about him and noticed many signs of approval. Ramsay excused himself and walked home for a nap. He felt tired. Plus he anticipated next day's sipping of whiskey. Ah, Whiskey, he eulogized to no one, how kind you are to me.