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As if the stiff hot tension in the office wasn’t enough, what ten gallon-hat-wearing, chicken-wing-empire-building, ad-donkey-soul-bruising Texan do you think called me on the video phone today just as I was sitting down to enjoy a banana?
Alright, I admit it… the tension with Lisa in the office is one-sided. Truth is, I don’t think Lisa has one iota (what is that anyway?) of an idea that I, Donkey Pegasus, ever hoped or dreamed or cradled the possibility of our romance like I cradle Booby Muffin when she eats a spider. No, I’m sorry to report that all those early morning showers and dangerous flights to IKEA were all for nothing… except, I suppose, to reinforce what deep down I already knew: humans are great at disappointing you. Dr. Lynn says that means that Donkey Pegasus-es (don’t know the plural of this because there’s only one of me) are disappointable. When she said that, I told Dr. Lynn that was by far her dummest psycho-noticing ever. Anyhow…
“Donkey PP!” said Binkus, his big red mug slowly materializing, pixel by pixel, as the old dinosaur video conference monitor warmed from its slumber. “I’m gonna make this quick cause I’m gonna run out for some ribs and golf.”
“Good morning Mr. Binkus,” I said into the microphone. “You look like you’ve got a sunburn.”
“Well God damn it’s summer DP, the sun is a shining down upon us! Alright, let me get down to it. I got your latest proposal and I gotta tell you Donkey P, I’m getting closer to dipping my quill in the ink pot if you know what I mean.”
This is good. Good good good.
“But I was thinkin DP… I don’t really like the commercial you’re proposin. I want to do something bold. Something surprising and fresh and exciting. Something that people are going to talk about at the poultry counter or water cooler or whatever you kids say. So… what’s more exciting and fresh than a donkey that can fly? You DP, I want you to be in my commercial. It’ll be a way for you to make up for that time when you lied to me about eating chicken.”
“Sir, I did not lie.” Binkus’s face contorted on the monitor and looked straight at me, straight into my soul. “It wasn’t a total lie. I just didn’t want to hurt your feelings or make you think that I didn’t believe in Binkus Wings.”
Binkus’s face bloomed into a big Texas grin. “Well, then it’s redemption time DP. Listen here. I know you fancy San Fran ad folks like to start with a metaphor. So how about something along the lines of pigs flying? You know, I’ll try Binkus Wings when pigs fly. Well guess what, they do! But only, it’ll be you DP, and I’m not calling you a pig. I don’t know, I haven’t worked it all out. Hell, that’s your job! So write me up a little script when you get a chance and have it to me by tomorrow, and maybe just maybe you’ll have yourself a deal.”
Binkus, there in the monitor, pushed with all his might to raise his heavy body up from the chair. Then he leaned down so his big face was in the monitor, his red cheeks shining like oversized cherries, and waved, “Bye bye DP, wish me luck on the links!” and then his image slowly disintegrated into a static, snowy white.
Pigs will fly and Hell will freeze over before I schlep Binkus Wings in a 30-second national spot. No freaking way. I’m pretty sure. Probably not. Well, maybe.
It’s only taken me two straight weeks of therapy intensives with Dr. Lynn to get me to the point where I can talk about it. Oh yes, it’s been a long, difficult process through which Lynn and Booby Muffin, apparently the only two females that I can trust, stroked my mane and scratched my ears and looked me square in the eyes and said, “Goddammit Donkey Pegasus, pick yourself up off my new Indonesian wool ceremonial chastity rug and get over it!” (That was Dr. Lynn who said that. Booby Muffin thinks wool is itchy.)
Lisa, she-devil kitten lover. Lisa, oh I can’t wait to come to your nest Donkey Pegasus! Lisa, the one who I thought, really thought, might be the one. Turns out Booby Muffin’s not the only kitty-kat that Lisa’s been petting.
Friends, emotional counselors, Kerstin (my #1 fan somewhere in Oregon): here’s how it went down.
Remember how I was tidying up my nest, preparing for Lisa’s Saturday visit to my Alcatrazian nest of paradise high atop The Rock? Remember how I went to IKEA in loving preparation so my little turtle dove Lisa might have been more comfortable, felt more… oh, I don’t… at home?
It was the Friday before and Barney, my gouty nightwatchman pal, harnessed me into his homegrown shopping sleigh and I took flight, clumsy at first I admit, the lawnmower bucket bungee cord rig twirling unsteady behind me. But soon, I was prancing through the air, over the Bay Bridge, my sleigh steadied by my expert flightsmanship. (Shut up, it is too a word.) And there, there it was, like a giant yellow beacon calling me home, IKEA.
I landed in a vacant patch of parking lot with a screech of metal, stowed my rig behind a bush, and walked inside.
Did you know IKEA sells something called applecaka? Get it? Apple-caka. Caca? I knew it! You know that book, Everybody Poops? Every time I see that book I say, “Apples poop?” and laugh and hoot and elbow the people standing next to me. Of course apples don’t poop, that’s the joke you imbecile! But that evening, the bay mist still dewy on my coat as I stood before the IKEA snack bar, I wasn’t so sure anymore. Hold on, I told myself. Humans eat apples and poop. Humans eat animals and poop. Apples poop. So what do apples eat? Aaaah! I jetted away from that scene fast. Those Swedes are sickos and I guess apples are sickos too. Funny though, I saw some fat kid taking out a big slice of applecaca and it looked like a slice of cake. Applecaca… it’s a crazy world. But I digress.
I packed the following purchases into my rig:
1 Torenia quilt cover and pillowcases – $12.99
1 Gosa Blinka ergonomic pillow – $19.00 (neck issues)
1 Bellinge rug (nice colors) – $19.99
4 Pralin drinking glasses (nice wide bowl, I can lap the water with my tongue if I’m careful) – $12.99
2 Felicia throws (in case she got chilly) – $13.99
$78.96 I spent on home improvement.$78.96 so LISA would be comfortable. Saturday came and Booby Muffin and I trotted down to my vegetable garden to pick some fresh peppers and watercress for a little salad I was planning on putting together. Humans like dressing on their salads, so I even picked up a bottle of Annie’s Green Goddess dressing, which is yummy, but must be refrigerated after use so it’s down in my crab-pot cooler in the icy bay. Anyhow, Lisa came indeed. I heard her sweet little voice calling for me Donnnkkey Pegasusss! Donnnkkey Pegasusss we’re heeere!
We? We’re here? My immediate thought: multiple personality disorder. And it would have been better! I tell you, it would have been better than this.
I peered over the side of my nest, Booby Muffin excited to see Lisa given all that she’d heard about her. Lisa stood there looking up, looking lovely, wearing a little pink spaghetti strap dress and holding hands with some woman who looked like a man. This dudette was wearing some strange mechanic’s outfit and was built like a brick shit house, no doubt.
“Whoja got down there with ya Lisa?” I asked her.
“Oh, DP, hope you don’t mind, I brought my new girlfriend Perry. So should we come up?”
Girlfriend? Perry? Excuse me? Lesbian? Lisa’s a lesbian?
“Uhhhhh,” I seemed to be saying.
“DP, can we even get up there?” she asked, looking for a ladder or an elevator I suppose. “You might have to bring that little kitty down here. What’s her name again? Muffin?”
“Uhhhoohhough,” She didn’t even remember Booby Muffin’s name. And you’d think Lesbian Lisa would remember the name Booby! I mean, come on.
“Our tour starts in ten minutes DP, so come on, bring her down! Perry loves kitties.”
Oh, I bet she does…
I bit Booby Muffin by the scruff of her little disappointed neck. To be honest, I’d began referring to Lisa as your new mommy when talking to Booby Muffin. BM’s confusion was palpable, as was mine I’m sure. I flew down to meet them. Perry gave me a thrice over. What’s the matter Perry? I wanted to say, Haven’t you ever seen a Donkey Pegasus? I’ve never seen a love-stealing lesbian mechanic so there!
I stood there like a dumb tree stump while Lisa and Perry cooed and purred and petted Booby Muffin. When a large group of camera-toting tourists came shuffling by, Lisa gave me a stiff hug and said, “Thanks so much for showing us your kitty DP, she’s a real cutie.” Perry gave me a grunt and turned to walk away.
And then they were off… up the hill, to see the canons, to see the lockdown, to see where the Birdman of Alcatraz slept. And up in my nest the salad sat wilting, just like the promise of a romance with Lisa.
Lisa. Tall, long-legged Bakersfieldian, grilled cheese with the crusts cut off and french fries dipped in thousand island dressing Lisa. She who gets me coffee with three creams and four sugars. She who dots her i’s with hearts when she takes messages. She who tells me to, “Forget about that fat hog” when Binkus makes me feel like some dumb mule working the trails in the Grand Canyon. She, I’m happy to announce, who’s been practically begging me to come on over to Alcatraz for a play date with Booby Muffin. Besides an extremely bewildered IRS auditor last year, no human has ever been to my nest.
Sure, it’s spacious. Comfortable? Check. Yes, it’s climbable from the ground, Booby Muffin does it all the time you nimrod! Done with your line of questioning? Good. Because I’ve got a nest to clean. Lisa’s coming over this Saturday. Yeayah.
Frankly, the nest is a mess. Booby Muffin’s in her summer shed and the birds that nest in the tree above me must be molting. There are feathers and fur balls everywhere, not to mention that nasty yuck that little Booby coughed up last night during sunset. I had to give her a talking to about it. There were little downy feathers in there and it upsets the neighbors when my new pet kitten eats their young. We’ll smooth it out though, don’t worry. Those birds mate like sailors on shore leave.
So it’s a spring cleaning of sorts, but I’ve realized that I live like a barbarian out here on the rock. I don’t even have a table, a pillow, a lime squeezer – so tomorrow I’ll buy myself out of bachelorhood at the megastore everybody seems to visit when they need to pick up a few hundred basic home essentials. Oh, I got it at IKEA! Isn’t it unique? It was only thirty cents! Those Swedish meatballs are to die for!
Barney, the night watchman here on Alcatraz, has agreed to help me with a carrying vessel in which I will transport my haul. I saw him working on it earlier. Think Santa’s sleigh made from a lawnmower bucket and bungee cables. We’ll see… Barney’s been working the night shift for twenty years so he hasn’t exactly convinced me he’s an engineer and executioner of ideas. He gives me peanuts sometimes though. But they make me fart. Don’t tell Lisa.
Postcards have been few and far between. I haven’t wanted to mention it, not hearing from Vook and Pepé. Some days I figure they’re just out there seeing America and other days, I worry that Vook is roadkill on a hot stretch of highway and Pepé finally succumbed to his joi de tequila. But hark the herald, they live! This morning I got a raucous voicemail at work from none other than Vook and the Pepéster high on life, or something like it. It was, after all, left at 4am.
Apparently, Pepé chatted up some ladies at the bar of some swank Phoenix hotel and it turns out they were upstairs in the penthouse partying with a celebrity cornucopia of the likes of Valerie Bertinelli, Rowdy Roddy Piper, and Ted Nugent. Vook said the tunes alone pouring out into the hallway were too hot to handle, and once those little dudes cleared the threshold I guess they were knee deep in heavenly sins. The booze was flowing, Val was dancing the jitterbug on the coffee table, and Ted Nugent was doing target practice on far off cacti from the balcony. And as it turns out, Rowdy Roddy had received a massage just that morning from a little lady cockroach named Dolores. Pepé’s mom. She’s somewhere in the building. Apparently Pepé was so stoked he made the moves of one of the party girls and she let him sit on her shoulder until the sun rose over the hazy pink desert horizon.
Those dudes sure are living it up while I’m here trying to live it all down.
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