experimental sketch

Two psychics pass each other in the street. One says to the other “You’ll be fine, how am I doing?”

Or –

The Dalai Lama goes up to a guy selling hot dogs and says “Make me one with anything.”

No wait, he says “Make me one with everything.”

No wait, he’s selling hot dogs and a guy goes up to him and says, no wait.

I’m not good at jokes. The kids say I'm weird. I carry a joke book in my pocket because mom says I can make friends if I tell jokes.

What I get is numbers. The number 7 is brave, and seven is the color blue, because blue is brave. Brave and sad which is what heroes are like, like that movie Beastmaster. Did you see Beastmaster?

I remember how to tell the hot dog joke now, want to hear it? Well. Okay. I’m not good at jokes. I’m a weird guy.

I like to be alone better. When I’m alone in my room I run my hand along the bed spread, which has these raised tufts ridges and when I run my hand over them I smell lavender and I get very dizzy and silly like my body is floating near the ceiling. The tufted bedspread smells something like purple but bigger and sharper and it gets me excited. When I feel scared, when some bigger kid is in my face I close my eyes and think of numbers. The number 8 is kind and warm like a big pair of breasts, it’s mother and woman. Eight is a kind of mango pink which is warm too. I snuggle into the number 8 and close my eyes.

Make me one with everything, you don’t think that’s funny?

I can practice. I carry a joke book in my pocket and I practice so the other kids will like me better. I like girls, I want girls to like me. I tell jokes to girls.

Guys who push you around, they look green and they smell green too, and their voices turn dark blue when they yell stuff which is different from the number 7 blue. 7 blue is beautiful and asshole dark blue is ugly and smells like shit. Maybe that’s why they call guys like that assholes, I don’t know.

I had an epileptic seizure when I was four. I remember the room stretching far far away from me as though the walls were being sucked up by the stars outside and then time stopped passing and became very still and time changed into jelly and shivered and the space around me stretched into a thin white line of light and the white line was singing like angels. It was really beautiful and I liked staying there. And then I guess I stopped breathing, its what they said.

In the hospital dad gave me crayons and coloring books while I rested. And these puzzle books from the gift shop down stairs. There were number puzzles and the numbers were different and they were talking to me. I didn’t color so much. I lay in bed and talked to the numbers in the number puzzles.

When I turned fourteen I had a dream that the number 588 came to me and removed her clothes and lay on top on me and then she turned into a big balloon and I sat on the balloon until I felt really, really wonderful and woke up and my underwear was filled with something that smelled like the color silver feels. I guess my mom complained and that evening dad took me for a walk and explained about girls and my dick and did this thing with his thumb moving in and out of his fist to show how everything worked when you’re supposed to do it after you get married and I knew I wanted to find a girl who would do that, but I’m a weird guy and girls don’t like me much.

But listen.

You’re the number 69, I always talk to you 69 because you always listen and you don’t make me feel stupid.

I have a girlfriend now. She's there on the bed. She still in the bag, because I have to get ready before we do it.

I begin by brushing my teeth, so my teeth will smell pink. The toothpaste tastes pink and the tube feels as though it’s happy for me because I’m not lonely anymore. Pink is happy like bubble gum, and its telling me to feel pink because my girlfriend is right over there.

I’m a synesthete. That’s not like an athlete though both words are white and orange, and they sound like a Creamcicle tastes. White – orange. Sounds delicious. I want to take the word synesthete and put it on my tongue and suck on it until its gone. Synethete Syneth syne sy s …icicle

You don’t know what you are until somebody tells you. You don’t know you’re poor until a kid looks at your lunch in the bag and says “Peanut butter. You’re poor.” Or you tell him you can add numbers fast because you think he’ll like you more if he knows that, and you know you were born on a Wednesday because the word birthday is red and Wednesdays are always red, and red pencils are happy and cheerful and red pencils like me, and then he says “You’re weird.” And he pushes you down. And it hits you. He doesn’t know Wednesdays are red days. Nobody does. Just you. Because you’re weird.

But then you feel sorry for them all. Its nice to know Wednesdays are red and Thursday are bright pink, and Saturdays are like someone shining a flashlight in your eyes. It’s nice to know that. But they don’t know, like you have one eye and everybody’s blind but they don’t know you have something they don’t. If you’re Clark Kent and you find out other people can’t fly, but they might think you’re weird because you do, you don’t fly and bounce bullets off your chest but you feel sorry for people who can’t. They look down on you, but you have something they don’t. You only feel bad because they know you’re weird and they’re right. That’s all. Weird is good.

So I’ve brushed my teeth and washed my feet. And I strip down to my skin because I’ve locked the door to my room.

I go back to my bed and under the mattress is a rubber in a tin foil. I took it from my dad’s underwear drawer, he has a whole box he won’t miss one or two. I put it on the pillow and open the bag.

The Cheesecake Factory opened up in the mall last spring. I started earning some money there washing the plates and people are always throwing out cheesecake. Ladies buy it and eat a couple bites and maybe feel bad or something and they never finish it because they think wasting it won’t make them fat.

Coffee was a big discovery for me. Black strong coffee made my head hurt and the air sang in my ears like a storm and I like the huge taste that filled my head like wood smoke and the sound of angels crying. But then you put cream in it. When you put cream in it, things happen.

Cream is like the number 8, a big warm nuzzly pair of breasts. Black coffee is like this crying screaming baby but when you pour half and half in it, its like giving it a teat to suck on and it gets calm and it makes me feel warm all over. And I mean all over.

So I was like that when I was washing dishes and a saucer came by with a piece of Caramel Fudge Brownie cheesecake someone had taken just one bite out of, like it wasn't a virgin anymore but that's okay, a little used. I drank some coffee with cream and let its warm ooziness fill me up and it got me thinking about women’s bosoms but I was wearing an apron so it didn’t show. But it does that. I took the cheesecake in the back because I was hungry and can’t afford it so much and anyway it wasn’t like eating out of the garbage, nobody ate it. So I ate it.

She was the color of chocolate and smelled so red I thought I'd go blind. She was naked. She was a little taller than me. She had wide hips and long legs and golden hair like Rapunzel that reached to the floor. There was a wonderful warm lumpiness to her thighs and belly like Cream of Wheat and she had breasts like the number 88 and nipples as big as 99. She put her arms around me and kissed me and pressed her belly against me. She lifted her leg up and wrapped it around mine and whispered in my ear that she loved me and had been waiting in the cheesecake for me to set her free. We were alone, just me and the girl in the cheesecake.

She let me do it with her until the cheesecake was gone and then it went on a little more. She went away into the air as soon as the cheesecake in my mouth was gone and I couldn't taste it and I ran into the bathroom holding my jeans up with my hand and washed up, because I wasn’t ready, but how would I be ready? Is any guy ever ready when it happens for the first time?

She only happens with Caramel Fudge Brownie. Believe me. I checked. I checked real good.

I drink some coffee with cream and in a minute or two I’m as hard up as aqua marine sounds. I unwrap the rubber and put it on.

I pop the top on the cheesecake box and smell it until the room is filled with sparkling angel song and I can feel her standing behind me. She costs more than I make in an hour.

But what’s money, when you’re in love?



C. Sanchez-Garcia