I've been included in a Minnesota anthology "Under Purple Skies", now available on Amazon!

My second chapbook, "The Second Book of Pearl: The Cats" is now available as either a paper chapbook or as a downloadable item. See below for the Pay Pal link or click on its cover just to the right of the newest blog post to download to your Kindle, iPad, or Nook. Just $3.99 for inspired tales of gin, gambling addiction and inter-feline betrayal.

My first chapbook, I Was Raised to be A Lert is in its third printing and is available both via the PayPal link below and on smashwords! Order one? Download one? It's all for you, baby!

Friday, January 29, 2010

What’s Up with My Neighborhood or Hey! I Know a Guy Who Can Get Ya A Deal…

Once again, the weekend looms; and in my misguided and spitting-at-the-moon-three-times sort of way, I approach the iPod, harbinger of tunes yet unsung, in the belief that my morning’s commute playlist has a premonition for the weekend.

Shut Up and Let Me Go by The Ting Tings
Had A Dad by Jane’s Addiction
Sledgehammer by Peter Gabriel
Mongoloid by Devo
I Feel for You by Chaka Khan
Straight to Hell by The Clash
I Wanna Be Adored by Stone Roses

Hmm. This all fits nicely with my flirtation with chest pain as it relates to anxiety. I foresee double the yoga.

Now where were we?

Ah, yes. Last Friday we had just started a little serial posting, an every-Friday diversion regarding the Jefferson Hillbillies.

When last we spoke, the New Kids on the Block had just moved a dozen mattresses, several large-screen TVs and an ottoman into the duplex, gone on to set up a ping-pong table on the sidewalk, and had settled in for a solid evening of hootin’ and hollerin’.

The cans littering the boulevard in the morning bespoke their affinity for Ice House, a lower-cost, higher-alcohol-content beer known for its ability to cause fist fights and impregnate at 50 paces.

After the christening of the new place, things were quiet until the following weekend, when to my amusement and disbelief I watched the oldest of the boys running down the middle of Jefferson.

As a quick aside, I’d like to interject that following their move-in, I never again saw the parents, but I did see the children, ad nauseam. All boys in that family, all with abnormally large, square heads. I would like to say that I report this for effect only, but unfortunately, it’s not an exaggeration. Those boys had big, square heads, particularly noticeable over the brows – which wasn’t so much a forehead as it was a fivehead.

Ba dum bum.

So there I was, as the old saying goes, minding my own business, when I see Head Number One – we’ll call him Boris – come running down the street carrying two large wooden stereo speakers. He is panting. Clearly he has been running for quite some time.

He looks back, is satisfied with what he sees – or does not see – and continues to run at a somewhat slower pace.

He runs past our parked car, abruptly stops and backs up.

“Hey!” he yells.

I turn to him, my hands full of the flowers I am moving from one location to another.

“You wanna buy some speakers?”

“What?”

“You wanna buy some speakers?” he repeats. “I’ll give ‘em both to you real cheap. Fifty bucks for both.”

“No, thanks,” I say, turning.

“Thirty bucks!”

I shake my head.

He may be speaking to me, but he is staring down the street from whence he came as he does so.

“Twenty bucks, and this is my last – oh! Shit!”

A Lincoln Continental comes tearing down the street, and Boris loses his grip on reality and the speakers and one of them crashes to the tar, wooden splinters everywhere. He juggles and manages to hold on to the remaining speaker. Dodging the speeding car, he cuts through our neighbor’s front yard and into the alley, where he yells his parting offer:

“Ten bucks! Ten bucks for the one speaker!”

I return to my flowers.

21 comments:

Irisheyes said...

Recently, I have come to the realization that my boyfriend(the man that takes out the trash and opens jars for me)is a hoarder. So for him, I will offer to take both speakers for $5.00. They will be placed in our basement, the graveyard for broken electronics. Abnormally large, square heads...too funny!!

Pearl said...

I miss those people. Wait. No I don't. :-) But they were trashy good humor -- particularly now that they're gone. :-)

Kurt said...

I bet half the proceeds were going to Haiti.

justsomethoughts... said...

sounds like you need to tie one on.
at least thats what the great ipod in the sky wants you to do...

Nancy/BLissed-Out Grandma said...

Trashy good blog fodder. Gone is good.

Unknown said...

Sounds like he could rent out some space in that fivehead. Out here it's Keystone Light cans that you see everywhere--even in the wilderness, next to the also ubiquitous orange baling twine.

Anonymous said...

Pearl, don't flirt with chest pain, do something about it, begin some slow aerobics, get in better shape, get a doctor visit first, take care of yourself, everything else can wait.

Secretia

The Retired One said...

Square heeds???? Oh! this keeps getting better and better!!!
Besides, it was probably a pimp driving the Lincoln Continental.....so they deserved each other..

Surely said...

You can't buy that kind of entertainment! (:-D I can't wait for the next episode!

Liz Mays said...

omg, the shenanigans must be incredibly frequent for you to just go back to your flowers and carry on!

Mike said...

HAHA!! Who knew that Best Buy delivered!? LOL!

anon said...

Whoa, you spit three times at the moon too?

We have so much in common!

Golden To Silver Val said...

A sign of the times. sigh. Now the popular item is a GPS, complete with dangling wires and no box.

Irish Gumbo said...

5$ and he's got a deal...can he get a good price on one shoe, too? :)

Bill Lisleman said...

hold on to your ipod because he could even run faster with that lighter item. Given the range of things he could be selling, speakers are not too bad. But it could only be the beginning.

Jeanie said...

lisleman already said it, but I was thinking that you had better hold on to your ipod. The square head description is going to stay with me for a while.

http://howtobecomeacatladywithoutthecats.blogspot.com said...

Oh, lucky, lucky you! So many opportunities for hot speakers. What more could you want in a neighbor?

troutay said...

(laughing at the Kurt guy up there ^)
We had those too. Their house was bright blue and it was stuffed to the gills with stuff. The kids used to lay down in the street on a wet rainy day and see how many cars would stop. The mother went to jail for selling her prescript pain pills, the dad went to jail for stealing the propane tanks under the ice skating house.
Its been quiet for awhile now.

betty-NZ said...

They're everywhere, no matter what you choose to call them! Great story!

SweetPeaSurry said...

Stuff like that ... priceless ... I'm LOVING Jefferson Hillbillies!

MJenks said...

What a delightful little tale, though I was expecting the speeding car to be containing the immediately previous owner of the speakers.

I think I would have spent and inordinate amount on the front porch, just for the people-watching experience.