Harlan Ellison - 1980

Love Contrivance (12)

   
   "Love Contrivance (12)"
   
   Tucking Grandma into bed, a cough drop in her mouth, and one of those fancy, female 100-long cigarettes dangling between her lips; moreover, an ashtray placed strategically beneath--so that she didn't burn the quasi-suburban house down; then, I left for work, talked to Wally about the Big Orange and their running game; next, flung my newspapers, conversed with a couple of cops on my route; plus, the dude working @ the open ALL NIGHT gas station with eatery convenience, where I got some cheese crackers, and then:  I pondered, with reflecting reverie, the Scooby-Doo van.
   Indeed, I needed a mystery.  A shake up in life.  But who would constantly watch over my elderly Grandma?  At least I could get a dog.  Not a rich man; thus, I went to the pound.  Found a damn Goldendoodle, can you believe it?  An elegant hybrid, bred to not shed; also,be friendly and serve and protect.  Her name was Jumbles.  I liked her, and she liked me.  But when I put her into the Plymouth Road Runner and cranked up the powerful, big block 8 cylinder--she cringed, as might a coyote knowing he or she can never win the animated race.
   Oh well, Jumbles and me, old Simon Swiss, well, we would be fast and true friends, loyal to the end.  That's what dogs are for.    

Love Contrivance (11)

   
   "Love Contrivance (11)"
   
   I was exhausted, to the extreme; still, it was Grandma duty, a perpetual ritual of feeding and cleansing.  Anyway, after making her some apple-cinnamon oatmeal, followed by a hot cup of Maxwell House java, I rolled her wheelchair into the den; then, I turned off the possibility of any violent television shows or angry-speaking political shows, finding a family movie--so that she would not be stressed; furthermore, I put one of my newspapers under her feet, and began to cut her toenails--it was crusty work.
   So, after washing and sanitizing my hands, igniting the cherry on her long ass cigarette, and putting an ashtray in a targeted position, I caught my breath; next, figured I should do more, for I had a compulsion to make Grandma's life filled with the spirits of calm and mirth.
   So, breaking my back, or so it felt, I loaded her up in my monster Plymouth, cranked the Road Runner to life, and without proving my potent low-end torque out of the hole, I modestly cruised us to the local comic book shop, it having a Scooby-Doo van out front.
   Wanting the memories to be as close to eternal as I could craft, I unloaded Grandma, put her in her wheelchair, and got her to smile in front of the Scooby-Doo van; next, I snapped a picture, wondering what I would ever do without that lovely, old bird.  

Love Contrivance (10)

   
   "Love Contrivance (10)"
   
   I'm not saying Twain had an adolescent crush--NO, no freaking way!  Nor am I here to imply that the Koran is offensive in direct dictation, when it only submits to the One, True God.  Jews, Christians, and Muslims--we all have Him.
   Angels are fallible, unless one attracts the Truth, and the Wrath of Khan cannot compare to the Wrath of Twain, for a pen's blood remains eternal, scribbled on the velvet vibrations of time itself.  I even invoked Huckleberry Finn after reading the book--characters can come to life.
   But maybe the philosophical mess of it all should exit my head; next, get a computer girlfriend, an android love to speak robotic words of animated arousal in my unguided direction.  But is a lover a mentor?  What else is the use of love, except for play itself?
   Wally was right.  Watch college football.  

Love Contrivance (9) Removal Machine

   
   "Love Contrivance (9)  Removal Machine"  
   
   And they said Mark Twain had a crush on Saint Joan.  Or that Ulysses S. Grant drank for this reason or that.  Hell, even Sherman and his famously infamous MARCH stated about Grant:  "I don't understand him; moreover, I don't even think he understands himself."  
   What the hell; I was living in Franklin, haunted perpetually by Civil War specters of spectacular fashion; indeed, Confederate Generals were not BETTER Generals; nevertheless, they were dressed better.  Pomp and it all, like cheerleaders with big breasts yet no true spirit.  Hell, God love us all.
   And Wally at work said:  "Boy, you'd better get an Internet girlfriend, cam with her your fantasies, and make love to a machine."
   Yet the poverty.  The only means being to embrace nature and respect the roof over your created head.  Hell, they killed Joan of Arc.  And Mark Twain had a crush--now:  taken out of libraries.  Have you not heard the offensive words of Saint Gabriel, the Arch-Angel, to the Prophet Muhammad; indeed, he uses colorful language at times, and the poetic prophet writes it down, illiterate, yet so finely tuned to God?
  Still, me being a Southern Catholic, knowing the theologians of Catholicism even attempted to trick Saint Joan, but she was solid, offering:  "If I am not, may God put me there; and If I am, may God keep me so."  About Grace.  About being in its STATE of forever, always resonating to the future of your death-like trial.   

Love Contrivance (8)

   
   "Love Contrivance (8)"
   
   I lifted Grandma out of her wheelchair, my ectomorph-like frame aching afterwards, but I chewed some Tylenol and had a cool glass of iced green tea; next, I felt better, locked up the house and jumped into my powerful Plymouth, cranking the 8 cylinder to a furious life.
   Driving through the bucolic backwoods merged with suburbia, I spotted a Ten-Point Buck, though never kill a stag--my opinion, but I don't live off the land like them fellas up in Alaska.
   So, at the warehouse where I rolled the newspapers, I cranked the Plymouth off, and smoothly exited the classic muscle car, strolling casually inside the blue collar work area.
   I was greeted by coffee-drinking types from all walks of life.  City architects attempting to make extra cash, and hillbilly dudes, kinda like me, slinging the news as an entire lifestyle concerning economic support.
   Football season was approaching, and as I rolled the political headlines, I started talking to a tobacco-dipping dude name Wally.  Wally was a Tennessee Volunteers fan, used to say stuff like:  
"I bleed orange; plus, shoot black and gold."  The last comment referring to Vanderbilt and the animosity that thrived between them and the University of Tennessee.  Next, Wally stated:  "Gotta watch the Big Orange play the Gators this weekend Simon, for they'll be playing way down south, in The Swamp."
   I thought about, and figured hell, I might just do that.  

Love Contrivance (7)

    
   "Love Contrivance (7)"
   
   West Arkeen, wrote many songs, including a plethora for Guns and Roses, with:  It's So Easy, and I still don't know if I got it.  Like:  "I'll see your sister in a Sunday dress."  What the heck?
   Regardless, it is all relative.  The Sun, the Moon, the twists of fate and the awesomely arcane; indeed, this world be weird, and I ponder the Nordic gods.
   Yet I serve the God of David--who doesn't--who be in tune with jive and urban and smart?  The Abrahamic God kicked the living shit out of all the others; next, if we would gel; then, Our World Again!!!
   They're waiting for America.  The Canadian Prime Minister of Defense and wholesome journalists talking the metaphysical trash, and ABC reports on Disney Fun.  WTF?
   I love it.  The broken mirror.  The lack of a Tower of Ivory.  And yet, on those long journeys, through the suburbs, thinking of Grandma with an Upper Respiratory Infection; alas, I shrink to my disease, though not demonic decapitation--a cerebral mind saved for the persecuting hypocrites.  
   I saw rabbits that night.  Chipmunks too.  Scattering their fury of Good News (Gospel) gossip.  And why do Fox News Girls look half naked?  It sells.  And so do we.  A shame.  COME BACK, Shane.