Riffing Off of Other Writers

The Performance Artist

They might’ve been big, once upon a time — or not.

“Nicci, have you been down to the Jail Bar? Seen that ‘beat poet,’ Charles…something or other?” She pronounced it Chaawwwwws, dropping her jaw slowly and drawling out the “awww” like a grandmother who’d bandaged one too many boo-boos and wasn’t having it, anymore.

“No.” I was through with poetry. Greeting cards, that’s all anyone wanted, these days. Dr. Seuss for grown-ups. Smarmy rhymes for serious times. There are 987 words that rhyme with “dead.” We avoid using some of them, like “bread,” on the condolence cards. I lied, these days, when people asked if I’d written anything, lately. “Yes,” I’d tell them. “Cue cards, for Vanna White.” Sometimes it was, “Blurbs on the back of cereal boxes.” It kept the lights on, anyway. “Is he any good?” I didn’t care. I tried to look bored. Supremely bored. The way I draped myself against the kitchen counter, it’s a wonder I didn’t slide down it and stick to the floor like an overcooked noodle.

“Define ‘good.’ He thinks so. He’s got a cadre of co-eds who aren’t trying hard enough to prove him wrong.” She went on to describe his performance in agonizing detail.

I laughed. “One of those, eh.” I used to hang out at the Jail Bar, back in the day. Something in the smoke made us all believe it was edgy, avant garde. It was mostly just pretentious. But strip away all that pretension, waft away the weed, and the Jail Bar was just another seedy dive, serving cheap whiskey to minors from the University nearby, so the old guys could spend their retirement on booze while ogling busty co-eds for free. It ceased to be amusing and I gave up my fantasies of being a thorn in some Andy Warhol-wannabe’s side.

“You should go see for yourself.”

“Why?” I didn’t say, I’d rather rip out my fingernails, slowly, and dip them into a vat of alcohol. I may have thought it out loud, though.

“Come on, you can dig out the ol’ Nico cosplay — “

“Shut up, you.” I did laugh out loud, at that. It was hard to resist Alice when she was in a playful mood. “Fine. What’ll it be? Chanteuse? Performance Artist? Beat poet?” I wondered if Chaws would cut me for horning in on his territory. I half hoped he’d challenge me to a poetry slam, but from Alice’s description, that wasn’t his schtick. He wasn’t likely to break character.

“All three?” Alice suggested, with a smirk.

Ooooh, a challenge. I narrowed my eyes. God, that woman was a troublemaker. “Okay, but I’m going to need my roadies.” I couldn’t possible schlep everything without help. Alice was already dialing the boys. “Tell them to wear black.”

She put her hand over the mouthpiece of her phone. “Do they own any other colors?” She went back to directing the crew.

When she hung up, I couldn’t resist asking if the “band” was happy to be getting back together. “Delighted,” she said with a wink.

“The boys” as we called them were friends from college who had once fantasized about forming a garage band, calling themselves “The Monkey Lizards” — a play on “The Flying Lizards” and “The Monkees” or sometimes “Boiled Lizard Feet” when the pavement their dads made them pound was hot and they were tired from the daily grind. We all agreed it sounded edgy and cool and they wore cheap wigs that made them look like Tiny Tim on a bad hair day, because no one’s dad let them go more than three weeks without a haircut. Not if they wanted to eat mom’s home cooking. Not unless they wanted to sleep in the unheated garage when it was frigid and windy and howling dark.

Now, they had wives and kids and real jobs that made them wear suits and ties, but more money than they had in the old days, so their wigs made them look more like Gregg Allman on a good hair day.

“Did you bring the pot?” I asked.

Jim laughed. “Yep, it’s in the back of the truck.”

“Damned near threw out his back lifting it up there, too,” said Steve. Steve’s wig made him look like Cher. Cher never had a bad hair day in her life. I wondered if his wife got as turned on by this androgynous sexy hotness as I was getting. I couldn’t resist touching that long, silky coal-black hair. That is some fine petroleum product, right there, went my brain. I giggled like a schoolgirl.

“Groovy.”

We get to the Jail Bar around 9. Alice had called ahead to arrange my place among the “hopefuls.” We enter through the loading dock. Ol’ Cap, the head cook, still works back in the kitchen, and he’s already got eight dozen eggs and six pots of coffee on standby. That’s good, ’cause someone’s getting drunk tonight. “Hey, Daddy-O,” I say, blowing him a kiss. It’s been five or seven years, but he hasn’t forgotten and he’s still got those lightning fast reflexes. So do I. I feint left as his hand whips out, fingers grabbing air instead of ass, but I’m glad he hasn’t given up trying. Sucks to get old.

“You’re up, Nicci,” whispers the stage manager, whose name I don’t know. “Knock ’em dead.” He nods towards the guy in the beret and turtleneck, who’s watchful eyes belie the aura of boredom he’s so carefully crafted for the busty, naive co-eds that flit around him like bees on last summer’s dandelions.

I signal to the boys. They come around and haul the pot on stage. It’s a large, porcelain toilet on which I hastily scrawled my name in black Sharpie marker. Underneath, there’s a crudely drawn dick pic and the word “pwned.” I’m not sure where that came from, but I turn and give Jimmy a quick glare. He shrugs. “Jesus, what are you, twelve?” I hiss.

Dressed in a skin-tight black turtleneck, black leather jeans, and a cadmium-blue beret, with a necklace of tampons dyed cadmium blue, I walk up the stairs to the stage — nonchalant as you please — open the lid to the pot and sit. Between my open thighs, I pour an entire tube of blue paint into the bowl, letting some of it speckle the black leather jeans. I lean back my head and Howl.

I am Picasso’s Blue Period, sitting on Marcel DuChamp’s “Fountain.”

I fart. I have been eating beans all afternoon, in preparation for this moment. The finger-snap is so passé.

“Viral.” I say. I pause,commanding the crowd’s attention.

“Everyone wants to go viral. Till they do.”

I let loose a fart, never breaking eye-contact with the great Chaws. His face, that careful mask of ennui, begins to crack.

“I have seen the dullest minds of my generation — masked, gloved — but no more. Not till I see the pine boxes, Beetle-bitten, sap-sucking, pine fucking boxes.”

I let out one sad, slow, whining fart — butt-cheeks clenched. Chaws jowls begin to jiggle, ever so slightly. The co-eds stand transfixed, their mouths open in horror. They’re not watching for his reaction.

“A generation lost to their red hatted, mad hatted, hate hatted, blond matted Bleach and Lysol cuvée sunlit happy hours.”

The boys all hit the whoopie cushions as I reach behind me, into the tank, and pull out a wine glass full of neon blue sparkling water, and down it in one thirsty gulp, allowing the blue to dribble out over my cheeks and ears.

Fuck. The things we do for art. That’s gonna stain.

I stand. Bow deeply. Hold it till my haunches ache. Let loose and fart, once more — loud, resonant, percussive. Without glancing towards the great Chaws, because God forbid the arrogant man should think I give a shit — literally or figuratively — about his approval, I walk off the stage. To utter silence.

Followed by an entire audience…farting.

I turn from the kitchen door, just for a peek, just in time to catch Charles chuckle. My work, here, is done.

Or so I thought.