birthday boy mentioned
pube forest
—Wayne Koestenbaum
Certainly not in a forest of
pubic hair. Bananas run
rampant. Bananas run slick.
If bananas ran. I ran a few
bananas at once. Once. Oh,
to be a birthday boy. Was
a boy once? A quote, a title,
and the body of a poem walk
into a bar. It was not a high-
brow bar, but there were a few
high-brow wannabes who were
angling for the title. What wa
it, they wondered. Did they find
out? Once discovered, how did
they manage to care, if so. If
so discovered. If once discovered,
only being wannabes, was the title
an aspiration? An understatement?
Understandable? Were these plebes
looking for royal genetics? More than
likely, but defer from calling them
plebians. At the moment. Or ever.
How do these three entities who’ve
walked into a bar interact with one
another? Ah, the questions. And
then, on the real questions. Let’s
talk about the body. Like everyone
else in the bar besides this trio.
Because hubba hubba? Because
abstract and, well, not enough
wannabes, so now the talk, the
wondering, the desire to know
falls on a few spare souls who’ve
never been to the bar. Hey, if
you were at that bar, and it looked
like a place wherein you might order
the drink you want, the drink you
deserve, do you drink? I’d want
some tobasco sauce in mine.
Because spicy. like the body of th
poem that walked into the bar with
his colleagues, the quote and the
title. The quote, though. Now isn’t
that the wild card. And look how it
engenders that notion, that potential.
Does this potential fade? Or does it
remain, that potential. What makes
potential in a quote that walks in to a
bar with such riff-raff? Did I just take
on the persona of the quote using the
word “riff-raff?” Look at me now (this
guy who’s been here all along, trying
not to reveal his presence (right!), so
as not to lead the rest of the us astray,
“as if we were all part of a lab experiment
or something.” Was that the quote? Was
it the title? Was it the body, so full of itself,
absolutely certain of its sex appeal, which is
only made more robust by a combination of
mystery and straightforwardness. Our body,
the Gemini. Only it’s an Aquarius. Does all
that appeal explode wetly like a pin pricked
into a water balloon once this fact is stated.
As fact. Whether or not it’s a fact, we must
all understand. This story should not be
taken too much further. All three of what
you might call the main characters (you
might call, perhaps I know the truth,
oh, well, perhaps you do, too. How
depressing.) are now midway through
their second drinks. Nothing much is
going to happen. Nothing much has
happened. A bit of expectation. A
bit of juxtaposition, which causes a
few eyes to roll, a little bit of giddiness
(I suppose we can guess who got giddy),
but nothing of any consequence. Who’s
looking for consequence in pretend action?
Dumb question if we have already taken for
granted that what we’ve got here are just a
bunch of plebian wannabes. But look around.
Where are we really? I can tell you where we
might should be. That is, if we were looking
for action. We should be at the IMAX theatre
watching an “monumental film.” Okay, does
anyone even inwardly chuckle at that joke?
If so, forget about the wannabes and the
plebians. Folks can be so judgmental. In
fact, I think the title might have let out a
tiny help of what might have been humor.
Put a banana in it and there’s never a
complete dearth of humor. But this
bar, this nothing bar in the middle of
the pubic forest. It’s not the cinema.
There is nothing complex about this
place at all. In fact, I doubt they even
have Tobasco sauce. And I don’t mean
that they’re out of Tobasco sauce. I mean
the thought never occurred by the folks
who run this joint to ever even have any.
So why are we here? Why am I here? Oh,
that’s easy. I totally love this place. You
might wonder why that is (doubtful). I
might wonder why that is (it’s slightly true).
It certainly isn’t that I blend in to the furniture,
the ambiance, like camouflage is meant to
blend in during wartime to wherever the
war is taking place. Nope. I was once th
the very life of the party at this place. I
remember it well, and have often tried
to recapture a moment that is in any
small way similar to the time in whch
I was. The life of the party. Here at
the bar in the middle of the pube forest.
