I
lost my nerve last Wednesday. It was nobody’s fault. It just got up and snuck
away while I wasn’t looking. It was a shame. I’d grown fond of my nerve. It was
something I could depend on.
I
called the Bureau Of Lost Emotions to see if they had any leads, or if maybe
they’d picked up my nerve and were holding it for me at the station. What
station? I’m not sure if there even were such a thing. That’s why I was
calling.
“Hello,
yes. Well, you see, I’ve…well. It seems my nerve, well, it’s been…um.”
“You’ve
lost it, haven’t you?”
“Well,
in a manner of speaking…”
“Okay.
Just stop that mumbled hesitating. It’s not getting us anywhere. So, what I’m
going to need from you is your name and the first letter of your favorite
beverage.”
“Wha…?”
“How
do you spell that? W, a, h? That right?”
“Wha…?”
“Okay.
So, Wah. What was that letter, the one for your go-to beverage?”
“Um…”
“Got
it. That’s a pretty common one. You better believe it. Yep. Get that one quite
often. As you’d figure.”
“I
would?”
“Of
course. So…”
“I
don’t think you understand…”
“Don’t
tell me what I think! You’re the one going around all namby-pamby without any
nerve, okay? Got that? Let’s not fuss over what I do or do not know or
understand, because you, my dear Wah, do not understand jack about shit, okay?”
I
hung up the phone. This wasn’t helping. The BLE was crossed off my list of
numbers to call.
I
was practicing saying, “I love you,” in my room by myself. I was saying it to
my Hare’s-Foot Fern, to my collection of Harvard Classics, to whatever was on
the television, to my Bad Lieutenant poster, to creases in the wallpaper and
thumbtacks. I said it over and over until it sounded just right, like I meant
it.
It
was a shame that at long last I still had no nerve to speak of. I missed it.
I wanted it back dearly. I started humming that song from The Graduate, and
then I started trying to sing it but couldn’t remember the words. I sung,
“Where have you gone Emma Lazarus? The poet of exile has left and gone away. Oy
oy vey.” Way too much dust was residing in my head’s inbox. Going outside
seemed like the most edifying of options left to me.
The
dizziness came on with a touch of nausea and a dash of borborygmus. I heaved. I
swayed and moaned. A car going by was blasting The Doors. I hate the fucking
Doors. It was then that I noticed the No Parking sign bobbing back and forth by
the curb. ‘That No Parking sign is going down,’ I thought. ‘And apparently, so
am I.’
I
went down hard, meeting the concrete with a quick thud. The world must’ve been
out of mercy, at least for me. I gave up. Soon all was black and easier to
manage, and I was more comfortable.
I
woke up lying near the gutter. Luckily the gutter was dry. I counted my stars.
All came up decent enough. As I gave a gander to my surroundings I noticed a
woman on a bench near me in shorts and a t-shirt who was coating her arms and
legs with what at first I thought to be suntan lotion. But upon further
inspection I realized it was a bottle of hand sanitizer that she was squirting
into her palms and slathering all over her skin. This made me want to pass back
out into the blackness. But I couldn’t, so slowly and somewhat surely I got
myself into a standing position. ‘No more dallying,’ I told myself. ‘Strictly
sticking to business from here on out.’
I
started singing, “Strangle me. Do, dah, do. With your hands, strangle me,
strangle me. Oh, dah, dum, duh.” A
few strangers walked by and stifled smiles. A cop patted a blind man’s dog on
the head. The blind man told him to, “Quit that. And mind your own damn
business, Officer Chump. That dog ain’t for petting.” The cop walked over to
where I was doing my gawking.
“Just
who do we got here, huh? Buddy? What’s this guy over here up to?”
“Just
browsing.”
“That
right? Well, could you do your shopping around somewhere else? This ain’t no
business opportunity. Go ahead, move on away.”
I
walked fifty paces to my left. I was very officious in my movements. There were
no pigeons in my way. My strides were of the serious kind--no sags of wasted
effort, no jumpy steps or mistimed clops of shoe. I was on my way.
A
commercial came on in my head: “Nifty SugarClumps will fill your bowl with
delight. These Cuisinart-inspired rich flakes of snowy gooeyness do not go
soggy or light, but instead stay crisp and hard throughout their float in any
type of milk or milk-substitute liquid of your choice. Refuse the rest. Say
hello to the best! Nifty SugarClumps! One scoop of white, two scoops of
high-fructose-corn-syrup based near-grain/oatish/floury mash mixture, three
scoops of delight! (this message has been brought to you by Nifty SugarClumps
Inc&Ltd Corp)”
After
the commercial break was over, I decided to head to The Hottest Magazine Shop
In The Planet! to see if my old friend July Tuesday was working. I’d been
trying to get them to change the “In” on their sign to “On” for quite a while,
and wanted to see how things were coming along.
It
turns out that The Hottest Magazine Shop In The Planet! was closed. I’d
forgotten that it was a weekday. They were never open on weekdays. A Wurlitzer
organ was playing Old Black Joe from inside of a sewing factory down the
street. I didn’t feel much like singing along, so I got out of there.
So
many people. So much time. So little left to be lost.
I
went back home. I opened up a can of sardines, cutting my finger on the edge of
the can’s peeled-back top. “This stinks!” I screamed. “This really, really
stinks!”
Something
soon was rapping on my bathroom door, which I’d absently locked from the
outside. I shivered. I winced. I let go a bellowing fart. Who had I trapped in
there? And why? How? Whereto wended thou, my fair dignified one?
Well,
shit. My head is bending low.
The
End
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