This week’s flash fiction asked for a children’s story. Definitely not the forte of a writer who has trouble writing cock-bursting cunt-bubble every other sentence.
So I went tongue-in-cheek. Never expected to win, and sure enough, I didn’t.
But that doesn’t mean I’m not proud of what I wrote. The judges responded that the humor seemed a bit adult. My response: they haven’t read a lot of children’s books. Like when my daughter makes me read a book seventy fucking times in a row to her. The ones that stay in the rotation are the one’s I find enjoyable, the one’s that have something in it for me. The rest are magically transported to the bottom of the pile (or the bottom of the trash can), I don’t give a shit how precious the fucking pictures are.
So, with that as background, I offer my completely off-color Children’s Book:
POLLY ESTHER AND THE 54 OF CLUBS
A very, very long time ago, further back than anybody can remember, there was a time of turmoil. A time of scary sights, of scary sounds, of scary hairstyles.
It was called the seventies. Ask your parents. Or better yet, your grandparents.
During this long-ago time, a mythical city rose up above the land. Towers of steel and glass reached toward the sky in the merry old town of York. Or rather, the very New town of York. Although, from your perspective, the New York of the 1970s would be Middle York, at best.
In this far-off land, in this very olden time, there lived a happy damsel named Polly Esther.
Polly Esther was known for many things. Her clothes was sleek, made of a magical cloth. Cloth of dazzling colors that don’t appear in nature, paired with other colors in stripes and zig-zags and polka dots. Polly Esther’s cloth was amazingly durable and breathable, but didn’t seem to fit to the form of a body, nor lose its own form, no matter how much she twisted or turned.
And Polly Esther twisted and turned a lot! She loved to dance. Every night, if she could, Polly attended galas and balls. She sang and danced to the falsetto grooves of the Brothers Gibb Bards.
The ballroom she really wanted to atten was the 54 of Clubs, a ball that catered to princes and princesses, and other magical beings, as far as the eye could see. This was the Club, it was rumored, where Cinderella ran away from Prince Charming. Or where Rumpelstiltskin spun himself through the floor. Polly Esther had never seen those things happen, but she was pretty sure she had seen Snow White dancing at the other end of the floor one night. Snow White was very easy to spot, for the seven dwarves dancing around her cleared the area around her face.
Now, 54 is a very big number, indeed. It is probably bigger than your parents are old. And that’s a VERY big number. There had been fifty-three Clubs before the 54 of Clubs. There had also been balls of Hearts and Diamonds. But never of spades. A spade is a shovel, and who wants to have a party with shovels? That’s silly!
Polly Esther had not been to all of the fifty-three Clubs before the 54 of Clubs, but she had been to many. And all of the princes and princesses, the earls and bards, even the dragons, used to love Polly Esther and her strangely static clothing of dazzling colors. But all of a sudden, on this, the fifty-fourth Club, they turned up their nose and turned her away.
“I’m sorry, but you cannot come in,” said the grumbly old gatekeeper at the bumbly entryway. It wasn’t a moat or a drawbridge or a thick prison door, but it might as well have been any or all of those things. Because right now, Polly could not pass through the mean old hag of a man.
“But, but why?” Polly Esther asked.
The dragon dragoon looked Polly Esther up and down with a withering eye. Polly felt like he was casting a spell on her. A spell of judgement. He did not approve of something about her, and because of that, he was barring her entry.
“If you don’t know, I shan’t tell you,” the doorman finally decreed, then turned away from Polly Esther as if he had something else, very important, to tend to, some very important person to allow through the magical portal of entry. Even though nobody could be seen for blocks and blocks.
“But I have always been allowed in before.”
“And that,” the not-so-wizened Wizard of No said, barely offering a glance over his shoulder, “is why you shan’t enter under my watch.”
Polly Esther ran away, crying in shame. She thought about leaving behind a shoe, but knew that no prince would come running after her. Besides, elevator platforms are as difficult to remove as a goblin’s tooth!
“I’m sorry that happened to you,” a voice said from beside Polly when she finally slowed down enough to hear.
She took her hands away from her face, where she had been hiding her tears. Tears can be very harmful in a summer wind, so Polly thought you must always shield them from the world.
Sitting in a doorstep, barely even noticeable if he hadn’t just spoken, was a ghastly monster. He might not have been an actual monster, but his pockmarked skin and crooked nose made him very scary, indeed.
“I have been trying to get into the Club since it was in the twenties,” the monster continued. “It can be frustrating, I know.”
The monster was trying to cheer Polly up, or at least to lessen her pain, but it was no good. The monster didn’t look like he belonged in a club. So now Polly had to wonder if she looked just as monstrous. The doorman had looked at her clothes when he dismissed her. Did her clothes make her look like this imp of a person? This person who, smiling to show Polly his support, showed teeth as mangled as his skin.
“I’m so sorry,” Polly Esther said to the monstrous man hiding in the doorway. “But I have only been barred from the Club by mistake.”
“I’m Guido,” said the monster, sticking out his hand.
In order to not seem mean, Polly shook Guido’s hand. He smiled again and Polly Esther did her best to not to cringe. She had only answered him because he made her feel uncomfortable. She was trying to sound empathetic, but Guido might have mistaken it for compassion. Do you know the difference between empathy and compassion? Empathy is when you try to understand somebody, to put yourself in their shoes. Compassion is when you feel sorry for them, but not in a bad way.
“Forget about what happened,” Guido continued. “Beauty is only skin deep. They only look at what’s on the outside.”
“There must be some mistake,” Polly Esther repeated. “They didn’t send me away because of the way I look. He must have had the wrong list.”
Guido merely shrugged. “That’s what I thought at the twenty-fifth Heart Ball.”
“I have a friend, Jim-Bob,” said Polly. “He never goes to Clubs or balls. Maybe he’ll explain it to me.”
“Jim-Bob?” asked Guido. “That sounds like a peasant name.”
“He comes from the countryside. His daddy is a farmer. But that doesn’t mean anything.”
“If you say so,” Guido said. “See if your friend Jim-Bob agrees.”
Polly Esther decided that was exactly what she would do. She prepared to leave Guido by apologizing for being brisk with him earlier. Guido said he was used to it. Polly said goodbye in a much nicer manner than she had said hello. In fact, after she was away from Guido, she wondered if she had ever said hello to him in the first place.
Polly Esther ran home as fast as her legs, swishing back and forth with an unnatural slickness, would carry her. She knocked on the door next door to her flat, on the 53rd floor of the Castle Gardens residential tower.
“Hey Polly Esther, how ya doin’?” Jim-Bob said when he opened the door.
“I’m doing fine, Jim-Bob.” Polly Esther said. “How are you?”
She wanted to delve right into her problems, but thought it might be rude. Jim-Bob, being from outside the city, enjoyed engaging in small talk first. Small talk is always polite.
“I’m right fine, thank you very much,” Jim-Bob answered, nodding his head and tipping its invisible straw hat in Polly’s direction. “I thought you were dancing tonight.”
“They didn’t let me in,” Polly Esther.
“Well, that’s a right-fine how-do-you-do, isn’t it?” Jim-Bob asked.
Polly Esther nodded. She didn’t really know what a right-fine how-do-you-do was, but she was pretty sure being blocked from the 54 of Clubs was definitely one.
“I never understood why you like going into those dungeons of fashion, any ol’ way.”
“You wouldn’t understand. You’ve never been inside. It’s not a dungeon. It’s a magical land of wonder and delight. Everyone that’s anyone is there. No offense.”
“None taken.”
Polly Esther looked in Jim-Bob’s face to see if there was truly no offense taken. He only smiled back at her. Either he really felt no offense, or he was better at hiding his feelings than a crocodile playing Go Fish with a fox.
Polly wished she could be as easy-going as Jim-Bob, but she just couldn’t let it go. Before long, the 54 of Clubs would be the 55 and then the 56 of Clubs. Would they let her in? Probably not. And what about the Heart and Diamond Balls? Polly Esther was still a single woman in the seventies. How would she find love if she couldn’t go to a Heart Ball?
“You should go talk to Bella,” suggested Jim-Bob.
“Bella, with the golden dress?”
Not THAT Bella-with-the-golden-dress. Or maybe it was. It was the seventies in the Village, after all, so who knows?
“Sure. She usually has a good crystal ball into what’s going on.”
Polly and Jim-Bob traveled to visit Bella. Through the tumultuous hallway, down the interminable elevator, out of the foyer of grime, they finally found themselves out on the streets of not-quite-New York. Two blocks later, they rang the doorbell and waited for the familiar brunette hairdo and the familiar yellow gown.
“I can make a phone call,” Bella said, and invited her two visitors inside.
“Who are you calling?” Polly asked Bella.
“Ringo,” Bella answered.
Not THAT Ringo. Or maybe it was. It was the Village in the seventies, after all, so who knows?
Bella picked up her phone and dialed. A telephone was an ancient device that somebody used to speak to someone far away. Like a teleportation spell for your voice. There were no text messages or Angry Birds or even Google. And it was tied to the wall by a cord. Can you imagine such a horrible device?
“He always knows what’s going on at the Clubs and the Diamonds and the Hearts,” Bella continued, then turned her attention to the phone receiver.
Polly tried to listen in on the phone call, tried to glean what was being said on the other side, based on how Bella was reacting. She couldn’t, and it probably served her right. You should not try to listen in on private conversations. And even worse, you should never base your judgement on only hearing one side of the story.
“I’m sorry,” Bella finally said when she put the phone down on its base (which is how phone calls ended before there was a big red “END” button). “It was no mistake. They meant for you to be left out.”
“But why?” Polly asked.
“It’s your appearance,” Bella confirmed.
Polly looked down at her clothes. She grabbed her long, straight hair. It felt horrible to be judged for her appearance, and even worse, to be judged poorly. They were calling her a pock-marked monster, like Guido, or an outsider, like Jim-Bob. Or a… actually, Polly realized she didn’t know why Bella-with-the-golden-dress didn’t go to 54. She hadn’t gone to 53 either. Polly wasn’t sure if she had ever seen Bella at any of the Clubs. Or the Diamonds. Had Polly even seen her at a Hearts?
“But I’ve always gone to the clubs before,” Polly tried.
“Ringo says the age of Polly Esther is over. It’s time to move on to something else.”
“Well, how do you like that?”
“Maybe you can change your clothes,” Jim-Bob suggested.
It was very nice of Jim-Bob to offer his advice. He had never been to any of the Clubs. He never seemed interested in the Clubs, and he always told Polly Esther that she shouldn’t be concerned with them. But he was a friend, and a friend supports a friend, even when they have different interests. Polly had gone to baseball games with Jim-Bob, and if the Yankees hadn’t let him into their stadium, she assumed she would help him go to a Mets game.
But the Yankees would never bar Jim-Bob. Only Clubs like 54 barred people like Polly. And Guido and Jim-Bob and…
“Bella, why don’t you go to any of the Clubs?”
“I’m more of a Broadway girl.”
“But you’re such a good dancer.”
“The Clubs don’t have my kind of dancing. Not my kind of music.”
“Would you go to a ball if it had music you liked?”
“Maybe. It depends. I don’t like places that shut my friends out.”
That’s when it hit Polly. She shouldn’t be changing her appearance, or changing the way she acted, just to be allowed into a place that didn’t want her. She had friends here. And music. And even more.
“What if I put on my own ball? We will play whatever music people want to listen to. We will put the Yankees game up on the TV. And best of all, anyone who wants to dance can come and dance.”
“That sounds like fun,” Bella said. “How will we get the word out?”
“I know a guy named Guido,” Polly said. “He’s the first person I’ll invite, and I bet he knows a lot of people who want to attend a ball.”
The following night, Polly Esther made a comeback. She had the biggest party in the entire city. Everyone who was anyone wanted to attend. And everyone, whether they were anyone or not, was allowed to attend. The music varied from the Brothers Gibb to Ringo’s old band (not THAT band) to some of Bella’s theater hits. Some of the older patrons, who hadn’t been allowed into a ball for decades, requested some old song by the King about his Hound Dog. After that, a young pup requested a new sound from the Prince of Minnesota, a purple sound ahead of its time, that the Clubs would not catch onto for another five years.
Some patrons danced the cha-cha. Some danced the polka. Bella twirled a pirouette that was elegant to behold.
Jim-Bob watched the Yankees game on the TV. He REALLY didn’t like dancing.
The called the ball “The First of Spades.” After all, a spade is a shovel. And what better name for a ball that digs up and buries all the outdated and exclusive ideals of all of the other three suits?
The Writing Wombat 