CHARACTERS YOUNG MAN

            [A young man, center.]

YOUNG MAN: Ran her debit card for purchase

Flaming haired young thing

tats on the side of her face

and spikes up and down her ears

Ran her debit card for the purchase

Her books: Ditta Von Teese

and the newest young adult Twilight schlock

I’m unfazed, how Portland ubiquitous

Ran her debit card for purchase

Thin waif, seemed tall but must have been the heels,

pale against her black tank top

Ran her debit card for purchase

Pretty tough but pretty and the look seemed to fit her

and she was comfortable in it― Some aren’t

The confidence might be what made her… well…

“Please enter your PIN”

(Not your PIN number―that would be Personal Identification Number-Number BTW)

She leans over the counter now close, into my… area

Holding the pad (not many do)

Mentions (like many do) that the keypad was unusually loud

(It does have an annoying little “beep!”)

There’s reason for that:

And I give her my patent one liner:

“Yeah, but during Christmas in here?

You can’t even hear it.”

She looks at me quizzically, lets that sink in,

I smile, she coyly volleys a smile back:

And. There. They. Were.

Full reveal, there they were:

Fangs

She had Fangs

Pearly white and brilliant against blood red lipstick

She had Fangs

Made her entire mouth gleam red and full

She had Fangs

About a half an inch long. Bicuspids. Canines?

I don’t know I’m not a dentist,

And I wasn’t about to go Google it either because I was too busy

  being stunned into zombie like silence.

Fangs. This is new.

Of all the tats spikes henna piercing scarring branding and kidyounot

  even devil horns,

Of all the book stores in the city your insecure show-your-

  independence-body-mutilation had to come into Powell’s

Forget that. Of course she would whatwasIthinking

In the seconds seemed like minutes seemed like hours—

I was trying to think… fake or grinded or implanted? Or maybe…?

Now starting to, really becoming conscious of how:

“Stirred” I was.

Stirred was I.

Deepdown. Deeep doowwn

Abdomen.  Thighs.  Loins.

Seen women with Fangs in the movies hundreds of times

but see real ones Grotesquely beautiful ones up close

You suddenly realize the allure

I was turned on and off simultaneously

My Catholic physiognomy simultaneously made me believe yet

  crushed my instinct Yin yet Yang

Simultaneously

I don’t really know what I’m saying.

Basically, to be base, my John Thomas didn’t know whether to pull a

  Frampton Comes Alive or shriek and shrink into my pelvis: “Closed… But Please, please, please, call again.”

Because frankly what if her mouth came anywhere near my…

Oh god:

And She knew it: What she was doing

She’d seen it before And she liked it. What she was doing:

She had fangs.

I guess that’s why you’d get Fangs.

And like a zombie automaton mouth agape, staring, I put the receipt

  in the books the books in the bag put the bag in her hand and then

  stopped, we played a little tug of war, she raised an eyebrow and I

  said:

“I’m sure you’ve um.

Been asked. But… um,

I guess what I want to inquire is um—

Why?”

“Why?” She says “Why? That’s new. Usually I get ‘how?’”

No, I’m just like, ya know… Why?

And she says “Well, I guess, so I can do this:

            [He hisses, loud, like cat, teeth bared and evil.]

Oh. And I let go of the bag.

And she smiles again.

And as she leaves, as she struts, as she moves across the store

she keeps her eyes on me… all the way, out… the door.

And then… in the window, because I’m still watching, she pauses and

  she does…

            [with index finger, a come hither motion]

…this.

Well, I’m on the clock, working, but hey I also got a girlfriend and

  that didn’t stop my ass either.

I darted “Takin’ a ten!” To whoever leaping the counter

Through the door the crowds

Out past the spare-a-dimes,

The Beevo kids trolling for pot

The Greenpeace voter registration clip board-ers

She was already shakin’ her can clear down Burnside.

Far and weeeeeee

Her face, turns back with a smile

And I almost get hit by a truck and I look back up

and she’s even farther, down past Broadway

Turn back and smile

I look both ways and look up and she’s past Big Pink,

Turn back and smile

And I’m running now, and coughing and hacking and she’s like Fucking Peppy LePew springing along,

Da-dup Da-dup

I’m almost to where she is and she’s farther away,

Like she stretches time, like a space jump, 

Past the old Theatre Paris, Voodoo Doughnut, Berbatti’s Pan

And I feel like I’m slogging through heavy mud

And bums with cans

And tourists and Old Town pushers:

“What do ya need bro? What do you need man?”

And my feet are weighted with lead now and my joints feel rusty, Then I catch sight of her heading back toward the Burnside bridge! Our eyes meet and she’s gone as a streetcar goes by, I dash and dance

  and ache and the streetcar is past and

There it is: Another Full Reveal

The glorious Saturday Market, In full tilt

Throngs of undulating crowds and oh shit.

The music and the noise and the guy juggling garbage cans and

  cleavers and shrunken heads and oh Christ I’m never ever, ever

  going to find her and there she is! In the booths! and I run and it’s

  patchouli and pot and stinky candles and bam I run smack into the 7

  foot tie dye guy and I smell the wet leather and Birkenstocks and I’m

  high and I can’t fucking get through all the strollers! My God! The

  strollers and the strollers! The kid’s got legs! Let the kid walk for

  gods sake! Why won’t the kid sleep at night? because the child’s

  been in your damn stroller all fucking day! He’s atrophying for

  God’s sake and how does that stroller even fit in your car!

And There she is! Oh my God! By the Handmade Organic Hemp Dream Pillows, (I could really use one of those) and she’s licking her

  lips now and her eyes gleam like that yellow reflection your

  headlights catch—and suddenly she’s a pussy cat raccoon a opossum And she’s gone and I trip over the Cat in the Hat accordion player, Jew’s harp, ukulele, banjo and the violin player is playing the same

  damn Irish jig over and over again BADLY and (take me to the

  bridge, where is that confounded bridge) and there!

She stands among the glass blown bongs and she slowly melts into

  mist and is sucked into the carb of the tallest sweetest bong surely

  used by the girl with kaleido-Lennon eyes by the turnstile and don’t

  call me Shirley. And there! She’s hanging by her skin in Dean’s

  Original Ear Nest in Gory Jesus Christ Pose earrings piercing her

  entire body blood running down her face and her breast and her

  nipple and she’s smiling

(And dipshit clipboard guy asks me if I have a few moments for the

  “ethical treatment of people who need my money” and I take his

  clipboard and toss it across the cobblestones)

And there she is!

In the elephant ear booth and I stumble to her and she’s in a red

  checkerboard apron with her hair up sugar and powder on her cheeks

  and nose and she’s cute and I say “there you are” and she says “first

  an elephant ear” and I look down and she’s really handing me an

  elephant ear ripped from the side of an elephant’s head, blood and

  flies, and hay, and black curly hair and she laughs at the sky and her

  Fangs are bared and the sky’s all purple there were people running

  everywhere (and why no Prince T-shirts? They’d sell better than

  Neil Young for fuck sake)

And I step back

And fall ass over teakettle into the Skidmore Fountain and the taste of

  the water is McMenamin’s Hammerhead Ale which I believe is an

  IPA and a horse is licking it from my face and some ancient English

  bobby on the horse taps his billy against the fountain and says:

“Sir? Sir? You there! The fountain is not for bathing in I’m going to

  have to ask you to leave Huphup cheerio”

And there’s a beat a beat a beat

I look across the silent market where all the crowds are gone now and

  the Nike urban tumbleweed plastic bags blow across the tracks but

  there’s no wind

And the bobby is now on a people mover and he quietly slides across

  a vacant Waterfront Park and there’s nothing, nothing

And she stands in front of me now

And the quiet of the Willamette is lapping against the retaining wall

And she’s closer now,

And the Rose Festival Sailors are saluting me,

As she’s closer,

And the strippers on the Morrison Bridge throw roses in the waves

As she puts her lips to mine,

And she’s got fangs

And reaches into my hair

And she’s got fangs

And The Couv is burning to the ground in the distance

And she’s got Fangs

And she pulls my head back and sideways and I see through her red

  hair an image, a man’s face,

And I lock on the eyes of a Plaque of Bud Clark

And I reflect his sweet curly mustached St. Nick smile as I now look

  up to the clouds the lovely ubiquitous clouds breaking open a drizzly Portland ubiquitous rain and her ubiquitous Fangs pierce my

  ubiquitous flesh.

And after my ubiquitous Portland nightmare of the ubiquitous

  vampire girl, I reach and put a hand upon my tender neck

And I feel the two bumps

And I feel light headed

And in the mirror I sure look pale…

Like I’ve seen a ghost

And the wounds are fresh

And I think to myself…

Well. That’s new.

            [smiles]

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