Stomach of the Ventriloquist
debut to dread
—
Marionette: noun. Puppet. A small figure of a person operated from above with strings by a puppeteer.
—
“ET MAINTENANT – le ventriloque!” promulgated the top-hatted Master of Ceremonies at the bottom of his crisp, deep baritone voice, jutting his large stomach out in the fluorescent stage light and holding his arms wide to the tall, skinny, nervously wagging man at his left. The previous act shuffled off the stage, a gaggle of cabaret dancers in knocking heels and bands around their thighs. The fat clown waltzed off, following the last woman's behind, and the resonance of his hard footsteps on the hollow board stage rang against the small walls, accommodating the dozen's pierce of stilettos.
The skittish man briskly walked up in a pinstriped suit holding dearly a dirty, childish puppet dressed just the same with a nutcracker mouth mechanism. He settled down on a stool and the stage light hastily adjusted to his tall stature, having cut off the top hemisphere of his dark, greasy mop of hair. The ventriloquist cleared his throat timidly, a small kitten with a shy hairball, and let his hand crawl up the puppet's backside as he set it down on his right knee. His eyes twinkled in the faces of the spectators before him.
“I am,” he mumbled from a thick pair of lips into the bulky old radio style microphone, propping his chest up as if he himself were on strings, “Jack Twist.”
With another cough, he shut his lips tight together and began to speak. Jack Twist the Ventriloquist moved the puppet's mouth in time to the words like a sick metronome.
“Hello, madams and beldames. Fellers and folks. Ladies and lovers. Gents and blokes,” the puppet said, muffled as the phrases came from the side of the ventriloquist's mouth, “Me, here? I'm Peter Pestles, town drunk, and my pal here Jackie is a right ol' pervert – you could imagine where his hand is right now.”
The crowd murmured quietly with coughs and gags. Jack looked uneasy. His marionette was a mistake, misconstrued, malefic.
“You see, I was a sittin' at o' bar a few nights ago, tolerance real high these days, gotta drink nothin' but the best. I was a' one tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor!”
I watched from the sidelines as Mr. Twist crashed and slowly began to burn, half expecting the homeless portion of the crowd to lean forward and try to warm their cold fingers to his flames of disaster. I didn't know what I was doing here, in a small bar in an underground society in New York. I don't think I ever did.
Tiresome topics tangoed with my mind. Did a puppet ever die? Was it ever embarrassed? Could it feel? Did it like being used?
Did I? Did I like being used? Would I ever? I was art. What could I ever think of myself?
Perhaps I asked for trouble or perhaps it simply trailed along after me like a lost, sick, ugly hound, but I had never been set straight before in my life. Standing there, unnoticed in that dingy, disgusting, smelly room in a white nightdress with rose petals scattered and stuck to my body and hair, I was confused, for it was simply a flash of a second ago that I was lying on a forest floor somewhere in Pennsylvania. Now, I was here, witnessing a bullshit, homeless comedian – if you could call him that – try to win a bunch of stubborn beholders to raise their raw hands and smack them together in appreciation.
The puppet suddenly stared off from the stage light and its eyes glinted an utmost blue. The little boy puppet looked straight at me and without the ventriloquist speaking for him, he said, “Daddy didn't do it.”
Why, he couldn't have been talking to me. My father was dead. Of course he didn't do it.
My tired eyes scanned the small crowd. There was a brooding, metallic woman standing beside the door, almost ready to sprint from it as if the ventriloquist was just too horrible to bear, a disgrace to her, her saggy eyelids grasping glaring, fiery balls directed at the stage. She was the best dressed woman in the room with rubies dangling from her earlobes. Everyone else seemed to be wearing rags. I saw women in dirty wife-beaters, short skirts and heels, and I saw hoop earrings, I saw glitter and bruises. On others I saw long nails and handkerchiefs and peacock feather petticoats.
This was an assortment of thieves, a brothel, a pit for the undid. I was lost in a world of beggars, gypsies, criminals, prostitutes and fortunetellers. Ventriloquists. Palmists. Cabaret dancers. Yet this small cavern, oasis, was filled with the scum of New York who did not fit in big city halls, and they were a tribe. Perhaps I could call them something like a family of streets-people.
When I looked back to the ventriloquist, having lost his cheap words somewhere in the grassy fields and forests between my ears and my brain, I saw myself up there on his knee, my chin detached, telling the crowd dirty jokes. I saw his cold, skinny, reassuring hand up the back of my dress, settling behind my stomach. Jack saw success in me like nobody else had, and I was simply a tool for his stardom, like I had been before.
I was ugly. I always was. I was a simple puppet in the game of trouble. Watching as the mechanical me stood up from Jack's knee and bowed, I wondered: if Jack's hand ever disappeared off my backside, if he ever let me slip away, would I crumple to the floor and be cast aside like a broken plaything? If I had strings, would they be laced in his chalky fingers, and would they tear? Would I become the saddest, most mangled marionette that anyone had ever seen?
Marionette: noun. Puppet. A small figure of a person operated from above with strings by a puppeteer.
—
“ET MAINTENANT – le ventriloque!” promulgated the top-hatted Master of Ceremonies at the bottom of his crisp, deep baritone voice, jutting his large stomach out in the fluorescent stage light and holding his arms wide to the tall, skinny, nervously wagging man at his left. The previous act shuffled off the stage, a gaggle of cabaret dancers in knocking heels and bands around their thighs. The fat clown waltzed off, following the last woman's behind, and the resonance of his hard footsteps on the hollow board stage rang against the small walls, accommodating the dozen's pierce of stilettos.
The skittish man briskly walked up in a pinstriped suit holding dearly a dirty, childish puppet dressed just the same with a nutcracker mouth mechanism. He settled down on a stool and the stage light hastily adjusted to his tall stature, having cut off the top hemisphere of his dark, greasy mop of hair. The ventriloquist cleared his throat timidly, a small kitten with a shy hairball, and let his hand crawl up the puppet's backside as he set it down on his right knee. His eyes twinkled in the faces of the spectators before him.
“I am,” he mumbled from a thick pair of lips into the bulky old radio style microphone, propping his chest up as if he himself were on strings, “Jack Twist.”
With another cough, he shut his lips tight together and began to speak. Jack Twist the Ventriloquist moved the puppet's mouth in time to the words like a sick metronome.
“Hello, madams and beldames. Fellers and folks. Ladies and lovers. Gents and blokes,” the puppet said, muffled as the phrases came from the side of the ventriloquist's mouth, “Me, here? I'm Peter Pestles, town drunk, and my pal here Jackie is a right ol' pervert – you could imagine where his hand is right now.”
The crowd murmured quietly with coughs and gags. Jack looked uneasy. His marionette was a mistake, misconstrued, malefic.
“You see, I was a sittin' at o' bar a few nights ago, tolerance real high these days, gotta drink nothin' but the best. I was a' one tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor!”
I watched from the sidelines as Mr. Twist crashed and slowly began to burn, half expecting the homeless portion of the crowd to lean forward and try to warm their cold fingers to his flames of disaster. I didn't know what I was doing here, in a small bar in an underground society in New York. I don't think I ever did.
Tiresome topics tangoed with my mind. Did a puppet ever die? Was it ever embarrassed? Could it feel? Did it like being used?
Did I? Did I like being used? Would I ever? I was art. What could I ever think of myself?
Perhaps I asked for trouble or perhaps it simply trailed along after me like a lost, sick, ugly hound, but I had never been set straight before in my life. Standing there, unnoticed in that dingy, disgusting, smelly room in a white nightdress with rose petals scattered and stuck to my body and hair, I was confused, for it was simply a flash of a second ago that I was lying on a forest floor somewhere in Pennsylvania. Now, I was here, witnessing a bullshit, homeless comedian – if you could call him that – try to win a bunch of stubborn beholders to raise their raw hands and smack them together in appreciation.
The puppet suddenly stared off from the stage light and its eyes glinted an utmost blue. The little boy puppet looked straight at me and without the ventriloquist speaking for him, he said, “Daddy didn't do it.”
Why, he couldn't have been talking to me. My father was dead. Of course he didn't do it.
My tired eyes scanned the small crowd. There was a brooding, metallic woman standing beside the door, almost ready to sprint from it as if the ventriloquist was just too horrible to bear, a disgrace to her, her saggy eyelids grasping glaring, fiery balls directed at the stage. She was the best dressed woman in the room with rubies dangling from her earlobes. Everyone else seemed to be wearing rags. I saw women in dirty wife-beaters, short skirts and heels, and I saw hoop earrings, I saw glitter and bruises. On others I saw long nails and handkerchiefs and peacock feather petticoats.
This was an assortment of thieves, a brothel, a pit for the undid. I was lost in a world of beggars, gypsies, criminals, prostitutes and fortunetellers. Ventriloquists. Palmists. Cabaret dancers. Yet this small cavern, oasis, was filled with the scum of New York who did not fit in big city halls, and they were a tribe. Perhaps I could call them something like a family of streets-people.
When I looked back to the ventriloquist, having lost his cheap words somewhere in the grassy fields and forests between my ears and my brain, I saw myself up there on his knee, my chin detached, telling the crowd dirty jokes. I saw his cold, skinny, reassuring hand up the back of my dress, settling behind my stomach. Jack saw success in me like nobody else had, and I was simply a tool for his stardom, like I had been before.
I was ugly. I always was. I was a simple puppet in the game of trouble. Watching as the mechanical me stood up from Jack's knee and bowed, I wondered: if Jack's hand ever disappeared off my backside, if he ever let me slip away, would I crumple to the floor and be cast aside like a broken plaything? If I had strings, would they be laced in his chalky fingers, and would they tear? Would I become the saddest, most mangled marionette that anyone had ever seen?