NOTE: This starts a bit weird. I actually incorporated an older prose poem of mine to use as "Joe's Dream" in the Prologue which may be a bit hard to understand. Don't worry. Things get much easier to read afterwards.
The story occurs in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St Paul in the mid to late nineties. There may be similarities to real people, but this is complete fiction and the characters live only in this world and not the real one. --max
Prologue
Joe often dreamed of his condition:
Man sits at a height looking down at the beautiful valley, vast, cut through by a large bending river. Man watches the sky flood with bloody red and the soft edged mountains a bruised purple as the sun dies its daily violent death. Is it a quieter death when the clouds are full of damp cold rain and the sun is hiding when it dies behind the gray white cold wet screen? A less violent death? A cooler death? He thinks out loud to the one disciple who knew the time was right for the transformation. Not Ready Freddy or Slew Foot Sue or the Man From San Fran or Louie Kablooey or Frank who stank or Madame Madeleine or Paulie the Dolly or French Fried Frieda. Jeffrey sits awaiting the transformation.
The time of day forces Man down among the brambles. Focusing in on the pain. The portal to the new day has brought him to the weeds which would tear away his outer skin. More than cosmetic. Deeper. Inside the flesh. The livid organs flowing against each other via the languid shapes they take. Ripped open skin reveals the flow of bouncing organs within the skeleton, held by the skeleton and wrapped up tight by the muscles. The skin ripped away, the nerves all jangled. And bloody vessels. The heart pumps out the juices covering Jeffrey and puddles of the thick stinking liquid are sucked by the root system of the brambles. The roses growing over the following two days crescendo in shape and scent at the very moment Man's journey ends.
The cool dry air feels nourishing blowing through Man's body. Nourishment is in the wind. The particulate, sand, saline and nitrogen and copper and silicon, and the gasses which the heart now guides out to all the organs and muscles and nerves out to the extremities. Man gets through the brambles and finds a clear spot where the wind could be most beneficial. Realizing he could only take so much, he races to the side of a barn most protected from the wind.
Man has left the stony ridges of mountains. He's back in Kansas where he's never been. Some sort of flat place with farms as far as the eye can see, farmland disappearing down the curve of the earth. Where new vistas would open up. He craves new vistas. He craves food.
Entering the farmhouse is easy. The door is open. That is, he passes through it. The family doesn't appear to like Man there. They back away. Man looks closest at the young woman, twenty, just back from college. Pretty. Wholesome. Scared. And at the handsome middle aged woman. Intelligent. Wise. Scared. Man craves these women. He can't have them. They don't crave him. So he backs into the kitchen and searches for food.
The larder is full. Eating is an olfactory sensation. Man can't stand the odor. Enclosed in this place of food Man has stuffed the air with the stink of his self. Got to be under the high sky and withstand the wind freely washing out the corruption, the purification stance that pains Man through and through, whistling through his intestines, setting his nerves to tremble making a white noise disharmonious yet true to Man's self. Has Jeffrey learned the art of fire in his life? Cook and eat can be done to draw away from the pain. Subterfuge of the mind. Every morsel chewed to a state of pure protein to reinstate life. Every morsel transformed into a morsel of Man.
What? Man asks Pretty and Handsome ladies.
You're Burlap, they say and show him in the shaking mirror both carry to bear the weight and cumbersomeness of it.
The nightmare recurred often, awakening him early in his attempt to sleep. The clock revealed minutes had passed since he last glanced at it before unconsciousness had brought forth his subconscious. He always worried the disturbing dream would prevent returning to needed sleep even though he always slipped into the realm of oblivion within a couple minutes with the ease of a body taking in breath.
Part I
"May I help you?" Joe asked the cute pixie of a woman either lost in thought or dazed as she stood in front of a row of vinyl albums. She had caught his eye as soon as she entered the anachronistic record store that sold old music media such as vinyl and cassette tapes and video formats of VHS and even Betamax. Nary a digital plastic disc existed in the store, the store he had built, at least its stock, and managed under the intimidating eye of the passive aggressive owner. Joe recognized her, the lead singer of a defunct punk/new wave band that she had branded "Blow-Up Dolls." Since he last saw her band at the Uptown Bar she had gone from blonde to nearly black brunette hair and from hardly curvaceous at all to stacked.
"Oh," she nearly shrieked, obviously startled by his cat-like approach. It made him cringe a bit wishing he could handle noisy leather shoes instead of the sneakers (most appropriate word) that allowed his feet to tolerate hours standing and walking.
"Sorry," he said just loud enough in his low octave voice to be heard over the music.
"S'Okay," she replied with a half smile, her deep blue, almost violet eyes connecting with his blue/gray eyes. The smile became wider and a bit mischievous as her eyes surveyed the terrain of his torso discovering an impressive lump at its base.
He always found her fascinating and alluring and incredibly sexy on stage. Her boob job only increased his interest. The chance to actually communicate with her one on one provoked full fledged tumescence.
Her response to his impressive endowment along with his tight t-shirt revealing taut albeit subtle musculature at his chest and abdomen appeared far less obviously than his response to her as it came in the shape of nipples pressing out her v-neck pink cashmere sweater that allowed plenty of cleavage and a hint of the black lacy bra beneath it.
They both breathed deeply to help soften the physical manifestations of their libidos.
"I need inspiration," she sighed.
"What kind of inspiration?" he asked.
"I'm getting sick of rock and roll. It's too noisy, too messy and too easy, and too old fashioned I guess. I've been checking out electronica, but it gets boring and repetitive. I kind of like the texture of it though, a sort of dreaminess, but it needs changes and not just tonally but rhythmically as well. I want to be surprised."
Joe grinned and felt daring. "I think I know just what you need. Are you familiar with Art Rock?"
She cringed. "You mean like Yes and Pink Floyd? They seem a bit silly and...male."
Joe chuckled. "Have you heard the early Pink Floyd when Sid was still sane?"
She smiled. "Yeah. It's pretty cool."
"Think about this. The early stuff is the most exploratory. They were making new music; music never heard before like Led Zeppelin inventing Heavy Metal at about the same time. It reflected their new state of mind. You know, being blown away by acid and such. Everything was new."
"Okay."
"Let me put on 'Piper.'" Joe rushed over to the turntable and replaced old school power pop of the 'Shoes' with the first Pink Floyd album. Unfortunately a regular customer decided to be rung up at the same time. Fortunately he was the only other customer.
"She looks familiar," said Todd, the music nerd in his usual quiet tone that kept the woman from hearing them. He only got loud when excited about some obscure sixties psychedelic band he found in his relentless explorations and he expounded encyclopedically on the esoteric subject. Fortunately, though he had quite a stack of records, none brought him that level of excitement.
"It's Maya Daring of the Blow-Up Dolls," said Joe.
"No," said Todd with certainty.
Joe chuckled. Then he watched his customer blush, eyes shying away. Todd said nothing after that, giving Joe cash and receiving his change. With one last glance at Maya, Todd hurried out the door.
Joe returned to Maya who had moved to the Rock P's in the general vicinity of Pink Floyd. She showed him the empty area in front of the plastic card with the band's name in plastic letters stuck to it.
"Yeah, it's usually empty," said Joe.
"It's really cool if a little messy," said Maya.
"Yeah, they got smooth and hugely popular later," Joe replied. Maya nodded. "But the point is, it reflects their state of mind, especially Sid's, in a really experimental fashion. I find that exciting."
"Me too," said Maya.
"But not inspiring?"
She shook her head. "Too full I guess and not dreamy enough. Too noisy."
"What exactly do you need as far as inspiration? I mean, are you going to start a new band or something? Speaking of which, would you autograph one of your singles for me? And a Blow-Up Dolls tape?"
The surprise of being recognized lasted less than a second. She smiled. "Sure. No Dolls record, hunh?"
"You pressed vinyl?"
"Like a really limited release. I still have a couple left. You could have one."
Joe got harder. Their eyes caught and gazed. Joe swallowed. "Be right back."
He returned with a promo copy of the 12" single, a fairly popular dance number at least locally, under her disco name Ani Domino, and a cassette tape of the Blow-Up Dolls' second and last and only widely distributed album which he had quickly unshucked from its plastic security container.
