Photobombed In Brooklyn

Archie hated people. He didn’t want to talk to them, he didn’t want to live with them, and he certainly didn’t want to work with them. As a result, he shunned society by living in a cardboard box under the L on 86th St. in Brooklyn, and that suited him just fine.

One day, when Archie was out scavenging for food, he caught sight of Alice. He wasn’t sure what it was about Alice…perhaps the disproportionate amount of doughy flesh on the backsides of her arms, but she reminded him of his dear mama who he’d last seen when she told him he was birthed in a dumpster in the back of the Coney Island AppleBees. That was right before she ran off with Mario from Mario’s Pizza and Doughnuts on the M75 to fulfill her dreams of becoming the Donut Queen of Long Island. But in any case, his heart, which he hertofore had dismissed as no longer capable of doing much more than keeping him alive, albeit in the flimsiest of manners, skipped a beat. He felt an undeniable urge to bond with this human Alice of the Fleshy Arms and he began running towards her.

It just so happened that Alice was just in the middle of snapping a picture with her cousin Mavis who she hadn’t seen in a dog’s age (her words not mine). Archie came close but never did quite make it to Alice, who he was hoping to embrace, by the time the picture was taken.

Now, unbeknownst to Archie, Alice was on the the tail end of a 15 minute bout of fame spurred when a Youtube video of her laughing maniacally at a wind up parakeet that shouted out swear words in Chinese somehow went viral.

Also unbeknownst to Archie, the photo of her and Mavis would end up on Alice’s Facebook page bearing the caption #photobombedinbrooklyn.

So while this picture of Archie photobombing Alice was getting shared, tweeted and retweeted, Archie’s heart strings were still acting up. He hence ended up photobombing many, including a man who’s balding pate recalled memories of his favorite uncle, Heroin Harry and a particularly photogenic chihuahua who reminded him of the feral cat who used to claw through his dumpsters til old ma threw a shoe at it.

So Archie’s fame rose in social media circles by fans who called him Photobombing Phil, (because they didn’t know his name was Archie) and all sorts started to line up on 86th St. outside Archie’s cardboard box, taking photos that they hoped Archie would photobomb. The masses included washed up actresses wishing to revamp their careers, hipsters who found Phil delightfully ironic and debutantes who decided being Photobombed by Archie would be the height of slumming it. There were even some who brought their sick relatives believing Archie had strange and magical healing powers. Bootleggers sold shirts that said things like I Got Photobombed in Brooklyn and I Took A Still With Phil!

But all efforts were in vain as Archie soon decided that his misadventures were due to telepathic messages coming to his brain through iPhone batteries as well as a bad case of acid reflux from the subway fumes. So Archie decided to relocate to an abandoned industrial warehouse in Williamsburg were he was killed in an unfortunate accident involving a button holing machine he wrongly assumed was inoperative. His body was never found.

This is a picture of me and my cousin with my kids in Brooklyn getting photobombed. It inspired the blog which is otherwise fictionalized and, no, my cousin does not have disproportionately fleshy arms.

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A Fly On The Wall

Ms. Chesterfield lifted a feathery hand
As on her death bed she did lie
She said “children I have just one final wish
And that’s to come back as a fly”

Her kids looked around with their brows furrowed deep
With queries abuzz in their heads
But nary a question could any to ask
Because by that time she was dead

Her mister he mourned for a day and a half
Though some called him cad and some heathen
He dared them all down to see what was around
Now that he had found his new freedom

And boldly he ventured with every young thing
And drove around town quite undaunted
A mistress once hid in a Motel 6 bed
He now would have quite proudly flaunted

And so to the best restaurant he did take
His passion of greatest amor
A sweet 26 to his arm he’d affix
And let’s call her his babe du jour

But just as a waiter was pouring their drinks
And put out their basket of bread
The two were harassed by a winged insect pest
Who persistently buzzed by their heads

And landed on lips, flitted to fingertips
And even left plenty of poop
But imagine the luck of that dear fly had struck
When the waiter did bring out the soup

Because oh that fly gave it the college try
To extract her revenge on a cheater
To the cruel world goodbye as she hastened to dive
And the second death was that much sweeter

A Pack of Smokes

Mr. Butcher did not know where his cigarettes were but he did know one thing…they definitely were not on his person. And they definitely were not on the park bench at Tompkins Square Park where he had just been sitting. Oh well. He supposed this was just another step on his path to Eternal Damnation which started long ago. But sitting in the middle of a playground, puffing away, while parents looked on disdainfully, probably advanced him quite a bit.

But to hell with them. He remembered this park when a kid wouldn’t step foot in it for fear it would be scurried over by a rat. Those were the days when he and Skeeter ruled the streets…or so they would have liked to have thought. Those two…they always had some kind of scam going. They lived on the streets and worked them for all they could get…cigarettes, drugs, sex… Butcher thought he had made it for sure the first day he could even afford his own pack of smokes.

And Skeeter…what happened to him? Butcher heard that he was now filed under Married with Children, headed for a life of yuppiedom with a woman who was seriously looking into converting to Krishna, if she hadn’t already.

In the meantime, somewhere blocks across The East Village, Skeeter hadn’t completely lost his edge. Behind his wife’s back, he was meeting with a group of conspiracy theorists who believed that one day, when everybody realized that you didn’t have to pay $22 for a sandwich, the punks would take back the Lower East Side…and they were getting the next generation ready.

Every Saturday at 2, when Skeeter’s wife Emily was getting ready for her knitting circle, she’d send Skeeter and their son Mason off to yoga…only that’s not where they ended up. Once well out of her sight, Skeeter would take off his son’s yoga pants and headband, and replace it with (authentically) ripped jeans and a Cannibal Corpse t-shirt. Then Skeeter would take Mason to Juvenile Delinquent’s Class where he learned the finer points of looting, pickpocketing and becoming a successful drug lord.

No one could quite believe it when they saw Mason running around Tompkins Square Park with an unlit cigarette hanging out of his mouth so they all just assumed it was candy. “Nice job son” Skeeter said, as he extracted one from the pack and lit up.

 

I’m kind of excited at my foray into short story writing and am looking forward to your comments and criticisms. The story was inspired by my trip to New York and partially based on truth.

Brandon The Emotional Cat From Hell

There once was a poor cat named Brandon
Whose owner did all but abandon
He took him out nights
To eat up the mice
He cried nightly by our ground floor landing

Did he need to be taught a strong lesson?
Did he need a good therapy session?
As it was clear to see
Sep’ration anxiety
Had become the poor kitty’s obsession

Owner said “throw him back up the stairs!”
But dear reader I would not have dared
As it was clear to see
He had 10 pounds on me
From that caper he’d far better fare

We decided to leave him among us
He was emotional and humungous
Showed him we sympathized
But we left him outside
Lest he might well have eaten my youngest

Well, I’m back from NY and slowly getting back in the swing of things. I’m attempting to chronicle my adventures, the first being about a cat named Brandon who had just been downgraded from a plush Harlem apartment to living on the back patio of the building which just happened to be outside of our Air BnB rental. Sorry I have been so bad about responding to comments and reading posts but this time off was much needed. I’m still not sure if I will return to blogging with as much vim and vigor as before but thought this one worth publishing.

Brandon Himself