Shivbar

Hoolie had scared everyone by passing out early so someone found a tab of windowpane in the glove box and slipped it under his Perfek Pink-Brownish tongue. In his oversized tan wool coat and fur leggings he came to like a bird's head popping up from a pool. They gave him a sharp knife and dropped him at the doorstep of a shivbar.

An elderly wiseguy in a Johnny Cash outfit greeted him with good-humored jadedness. There was a combo: two guitarists, a bass with a bow, and a polka master. "Who's that?" Asked the Hoolima. "Gilberto Whoopti-Sanchez and the Whatdaphux," answered the bawdy bouncer. "They're just doing a sound check right now-- should be starting in about seven minutes. I traida tell them: dooyer practicing at home, you know? Ha ha." Wiseguy addressing the ostensibly blind jazz organist on his off night sitting at the bar. "Waincha practice foya get here, y'know? Ha ha. Right Jimmy?"

Everyone loved Hoolie there, or so it seemed. Lovely Linda came right up to him with her throat uncovered; this was before she died. "Look what you've got!" she commented.

"I'd like to drag this lightly across your throat," said he, smiling, while doing so.

Linda was frightened and excited. She loved Hoolie, so she had some crazy faith that she would not die. In fact she didn't. Her subsequent death was unrelated.

She was sensitive enough to know that a tiny curly shrivel of the topmost layer of the skin which lie across her trachea was being shaved away and falling into His Perfek Pink-Brown palm, and that was all. She felt as though she had to trust someone just then.

Suddenly everyone Hoolie knew had ventured out into the rain and instead an impossibly beautiful young couple had taken a seat at the bar. They had shiv stones right in front of them but neither was going to lower their head for the tiniest lick. They were broke, he fantasized. They wanted all the beauty and meaning of this historic place without having to pay the price. But the longer he waited he knew that wasn't it. They only looked at one another, and all the more beautifully when knotted in that gaze. Hoolie asked the waitress, an elegantly aging goth chick, to send them a fresh dose on him, but only if they asked for one first.

Then the second guitarist was looking into his eyes and stroking vigorously to accompany his master. Between sets, the second guitarist stood in many places: near the service area, ordering for himself and taking in the compliments of the barkeep while letting his tawny brown eyes reflect in Hoolie's glass of port. Next to a column roped with Plaster Grapes, perfeckly in alignment with Hoolie's eyes. Standing speaking with the dark-spectacled accordionist while they drank, Peeping Gingerly over his colleague's shoulder into Hoolie's eyes.

In his dream, the second guitarist, a gaunt hungarian type named Kevin Reynolds, came up to Hoolie and whispered, "Darling you are too young to be sending Teary-Eyed Drinks to young lovers in nightclubs. Your true homage should be to those who can respect and appreciate the glory of your Ripened Manhood."

In reality, of course, Hoolie got tired of the suspense and went next door for a Bedtime Sandwich.

But songs began to well up in him.