Victor Henry

Playboy Meets the Virgin Mary

Tonight you are taking her to the drive-in.  You have purchased a new supply of condoms from REXALL DRUGS and bought a case of BUD on sale at SAFEWAY.  Now, you take off your cowboy hat and place it on the padded dash of your 1967 silver tinted Chevy pick-up.  Two key chains hang side by side from your rearview mirror.  A decoupage of the Virgin Mary on one chain appears to be speaking thick and muffled into the ear of the promiscuous Playboy rabbit on the other.  You have unconsciously hung both tokens without realizing their symbolism.  Driving your body like a machine, insensitive to its rhythms, you have already missed the end credits of the first film.  Nothing is going to stop this union of promised pleasure or the overdue alimony payment to your first wife, revenged by the small cameo appearance you made in DEBBIE DOES DALLAS.  The boys at the BARE KNUCKLES BAR liked you for that.  A dense fog rolls over your half ton, but intermission hasn't started yet.  After the next empty beer, you're going to propose marriage anyway.

The Death of Bed

A man complaining to his bed commands it to get out and drag the streets for a woman.  He is tired of playing second fiddle to the bed because he is short, dull, and unattractive. The bed, filled with fear, now huddles in the bushes, waiting for a capture.  At last, it struggles with a young woman, ripping her skirt from her waist, tearing her brassiere from her breasts, and massages her memorable mound.  The bed suddenly kisses her on the mouth, momentarily gagging her.  Later, the man on his hands and knees, leaning over the woman, sees spots on the sheets.  You have betrayed me.  This is to be a ménage a trois, he cries.  Taking an axe to the bed.

 

"Mob Underground" by Marcus Stanley Bausch

Mob Underground

A young art student sees himself in a painting by some obscure sidewalk artist in London.  At best he regards this as an art happening, an illusionary technique perfected by the painter.  Nevertheless, he finds his situation entertaining, as if he has discovered the other side of the mind, the unexplained riddle of the secret of the masters.  Now he looks searchingly into an image of an underground tunnel.  A yellow haze of light at its entrance shines in kaleidoscopic patterns.  The rush of the mob to the bottom is slow like the unseen motion of a planet's revolution.  He thinks of Strauss and Kubrick.  At this precise moment he does not perceive himself as an artistic subject, painted from life.  He notes the artist has used subtractive primaries with the addition of the isolated colors yellow and blue, the style Scientific Cubism.  He remembers the words of Picasso.  There is no abstract art.  You must always start with something.  Afterward you can remove all traces of reality.  In a moment the mob will begin the scream of the rush. 

 

Victor Henry's work has appeared in various small press magazines, anthologies, and Ezines.  He holds two earned master's degrees, enjoys working as a reference librarian, is a Vietnam veteran, and a member of Veterans for Peace. Website: http://victor-henry.net/