mmmdcclxxi

A Tough Tête-à-tête

Like a ventriloquist’s voice is
the voice we hear coming from
the dummy as thrown through
the dummy at you, given that

you, the audience, have the
all-important willing suspen
sion of disbelief (and with
dummies that suspension

seems pretty steady), when
the voice that belongs to
the man who’s wearing
the exterior of the dummy

says “You didn’t hear it
from me,” there’s a bit of
a double-take regarding
who actually made such

a pronouncement. “Who
said that?” the audience
wonders, the dum-dum
or the ventriloquist, even

as they’re not too dumb
to know the actuality.
“Even the tiny creeps all
the way in the balcony can

see me,” taunts the puppet,
the “voice” that is its voice
rises up and through the
rafters of the grand theatre

and floats all the way back
to the nosebleed section.
It’s the nosebleeds who’d
be more likely fooled by

what’s happening onstage,
given they’re too far back
to see lips move, much less
a wide dummy’s mouth go

through its various fits. As
it turns out there’s one man
sitting up in the last row of
the balcony who’s become

incapabe to see the world
about him as it is, more or
less sees nothing, so it can
be said that he is just about

as dumb as a puppet. Unlike
our wooden performer on the
stage, however, he’s a hull
of a man within which there exists

little else than an entanglement of
emotion, but even that is swiftly
being dumbed down. As our
focus leaves the stage, it is now

on this man, who has been
quite obviously sobbing for
some time, for he has lost
his last chance with the

object of his undying love,
the source that had been his
every motivation, the person
with whom he was inextricably

connected. He slowly begins
to become slightly aware of
the intermittent laughter
that carries on around him,

and this soothes his spirit just
a bit, enough so that the sniffles
and snot relatively quieten and
become somewhat staunched

respectively. He’d beeb waiting
all day in front of the cafe for
her exit, which would always
transpire at precisely five in

the afternoon each weekday.
He had everything ready and
all he had planned to say was
branded into his brain. He’d

been parked across the street
from the tired retail outlet
where she’d worked for
over fifteen years now—

since late morning he’d been
here, his mode of transport,
an old Kawasaki, he had hidden
in the shade at the end of the

lot furthest away from her store,
in case she were to roam the area
during one of her breaks or her
lunch hour. He was ready to whisk

her away, something they’d talked
about for years now. It was to be
a surprise, though, so she was un
aware that to day was the day,

unaware perhaps that it was more
than a mere fantasy, all of that
talk of riding away one day into
the sunset. But, when finally,

out she walked, into the late
afternoon haze that the sun
strained through with some
success, something unequivocal

occurred, and like a wolf trapped
in a tailspin on a gray, wind-
blown tundra, his tongue, his
whole body, in fact, froze

into a stiff mess, and he was
unable to move, found it im
possible to make even a yelp
of any kind that would be audible

enough to reach his beloved, his
entire speech, every last gesture
he’d choreographed and practiced
for months just for one moment,

vaporized as he watched her
practically skip down the side
walk in the opposite direction,
her white skirt dancing with the

back of each of her knees, which
closed a bit, then widened out
straight, then closed just a bit,
then widened out straight as

she skip-walked, a movement
that reminded him of the
dummy’s mouth as
cranked by the ventrilo

quist on the set in the
town theatre where he
would, once his muscles
finally loosened enough

that he could move, find
himself attending, unaware
of how he even got there, at
the back edge of a balcony with

no easy way to escape, flum
moxed, lost, knowing now that
it was all just a long drawn-out
fantasy, their talk of running away

together. He convinced himself
that she thought the same, that is
if she wasn’t simply placating him
by going along with his every

desire. Before the performance
wound down, he found himself
somehow astride his motor
cycle. He flipped the

kickstand, revved up
the engine, and rode off
into the darkness alone.
And he really never

stopped riding, except when
he met whatever town the
road brought him to of an
evening or night. And, if

early enough, he’d find the
town’s center, where perhaps
an opera was being performed,
or a community theatre’s

production of a Shakespearean
comedy or tragedy, a dive-bar
performance by a strung-out
band or a stand-up comedy

open mike, or a dark film
in some worn-down cinema.
Whatever the genre of the
performance, he would find

himself there, where he’d sit
for a bit as far back as he
could get from the stage and
whatever was transpiring

upon it, and think about
movement and stillness,
movement and stillness,
until, like a blur, he was

gone once again, riding
ever faster into a darkness
by which he could never
quite become fully and end

lessly enveloped, much as he
tried, conscious or not of what
he was attempting. One day,
of course, he would. Inevitably...