> PARENTAL ADVISORY: There are good things and then there are bad things.

the fantastic life and suicide
of mister mary holiday

-- May 14th, 1996 --
``Mary Establishes a Disconnection, Part I of II."

The stylish Romantic Eleven poetry cafe stood atop a particular hill in a popular little section of San Francisco. It looked like a terribly romantic battered shack that lots of poor people could have easily starved to torturous deaths in over time; but like most things in San Francisco, this was just an illusion. It would have been a nearly flawless one, too; one of absolute poetic discontent, angst and artistic despair, had the place not been enormous, covered with garish stained-glass windows and equipped with valet parking. Outside in the stillness of the early evening it was almost entirely empty and quiet. A sharply dressed valet stood stiffly on the expensively weathered porch as he watched Mary Holiday struggle furiously in the street with his hat. He'd watched the entire thing so far. The hat appearing, spinning into a whirlwind of surrealism, and a thin man rising out from under it. The valet was breathing deeply like his new wave therapist had instructed him to whenever he was faced with such things. It wasn't helping much. "No!" he heard the hat yell crossly. "Go to the parking lot! Get the mission finished and get back IN here!" Mary grappled with it and seemed to be trying to drag it up the drive-way. "I just have to go inside a minute," he said in a strained voice. "It'll only take a second!" "Ah," the valet began carefully as they approached. "Park your... er... hat... for you, sir?" Mary looked down at the hat which he was wrenching tightly in his hands and then he looked back up at the valet. "No," he said finally and brushed past him through the front door. "You ALWAYS say that!" the valet heard the hat yell from inside. "It'll only take a SECOND! GOD! YOU EXPECT ME TO BELIEVE --" "Shut up!" This "shut up" was followed by a sharp crack sound which in turn was followed by a dull thump sound which the valet correctly guessed was Mary falling to the floor after slamming himself in the hat -- and head -- with his cane. When the door had shut itself and the anxiety slowly turned into questions, the usually mild-mannered valet tore off his name tag, stole the first yellow car he saw and took off to Mexico. There was a poet already on stage when Mary walked in. The hat had calmed down and was now brooding morbidly atop his head. The audience listened to the poet's words as intently as their hardened, bitter and unimpressible poet facades would allow. They were all fantastically dressed and a gray cloud of heavy cigarette smoke hung like a sad ghost over them. The man on stage looked like he was in his early twenties. Mary observed that he spoke a little too passionately and with a little too much confidence that what he was saying to a room full of people didn't in fact suck. Mary respected this courage and self-confidence, but at the same time he hated the poetry and wished he'd shut up. "Wake not, fair dreamer!" the poet shouted. "Stay asleep, cradled in the fair bosom of night and ether..." Cradle this, Mary thought as he looked around for a seat. He found one at a table next to a young woman and put himself in it. She was watching the poet on stage with a pained sympathetic look. Mary watched her cringe a little bit at every pretentious phrase. And there were a lot of them to be cringed at. "For how very like a vision she is in life..." Mary bored quickly of the poetry. He turned to the woman. "You know him?" he asked curiously. She raised her eyes to meet his stare. She seemed startled by him for a second but then straightened, glanced towards the stage and then back at him. "And how very like life she is in dream and vision..." "He's, ah, my boyfriend," she said softly, looking around to make sure nobody was listening. Mary thought this should probably change his perceptions. He turned back and watched the poet for another little bit, considering each word again. "Do you... like it?" the young woman asked carefully. "With dewy eyes and full heart brimming, hoping for the most succinct glimmer of chance..." A short, grubby waitress appeared at the table with a drink Mary couldn't remember ordering. She assured him there was no alcohol in it, so he accepted. When she was gone, he looked the young woman in the eyes again, the poetry still floating dumbly through the cafe. "Of mystery and devotion..." "God no," he said. He took a sip of his drink. The young woman flushed red and looked away in embarrassment, then slowly back at him. She seemed to notice something even stranger about him for the first time. He knew what it was, so he smiled at her, continued sipping his drink and tried to listen to the poetry. "On the horizon by leaps and bounds the dark steed O Death came galloping... Galloping o'er hills, o'er dusty ground. and through the cold night's bitter sting!" "It's nothing like that," said Mary restlessly. "Pardon?" said the young woman. "I said it's nothing like that. Death. He's a really boring guy in a dark suit." "Oh." The young woman went back to stirring her drink. "He's kind of short," Mary said wistfully. "Unimposing." "Riding hither.. thither, hither, cracking through the desert plains, came Death! Came Death! Phantasmic lure a clinging, like a mantle seeking gain upon his bony wraithlike frame!" "I think you should need a license to write poetry," he continued a little too loudly. Other people in the cafe were beginning to notice him now. "There should be a big advisory board set up by the government that censors all bad poetry and makes sure only good stuff gets through." The young woman gave him a horrified look. Mary returned the look with a tight smile. "I know," he said enthusiastically. "It'd be great. I think more people should have their freedom of speech taken away. I firmly believe that more people should shut up." He cleared his throat and pointed at the stage. "Like your boyfriend for instance. He has nothing to say." "Dare not to speak her name or call to her in your folly, for she will vanish like the mists of mornings, fading into memory like a silk tablet." "See?" said Mary, pointing at the stage. "What the hell is that? Who gives a fuck?" "Oh, and I suppose you have something to say?" snapped the young woman defensively. "No," said Mary. He sat back and stared into his drink. "I'm the worst of all, actually." She stared at him, puzzled. "The worst? What do you mean?" "With scythe in moonlight bright a'glint, for me he came, for me he came!" "Yeah. The worst. I just go around pissing everyone off." Mary waited an acceptable length of time for the young woman to ask why he did that and continued even though she didn't. "I think more people need to be pissed off. Your boyfriend's not a very angry guy now, is he?" "Oh, how long since the days when he held her tender in his arms, before, before the hour she died..." "Well," she said, "no. No, I guess not." "Split from my corpse a soul on wings, and pulling tight the horse's reigns, inviting me, oh Death did hark, to tangle hands in its silky mane..." "I can tell. He'll probably be writing poems about sweaters soon. The kind with zippers in the front." "Oh, gentle flight into the dark," enthused the poet climactically, "protected by Death's caging arms! To the sky, embark! Embark! Mortality's escape from harm, whilst to the moon we raced to meet... Onwards to celestial heights, thundered on the mare's hoofbeats.." He was met by the exact amount of applause that would convey the audience's feelings of resigned and tired superiority. "Thank you," he said into the microphone and then exited the stage. Mary excused himself politely from the young woman and walked up through the crowd. The next poet, a balding middle-aged man in a red sweater slowly edged away as Mary approached. He climbed up onto the stage noisily, over expensive amplifiers and occupied tables to get up there, knocking over many people's drinks and causing a general stir. He stepped up to the microphone. "Hi," he said into it. His voice echoed blankly around the room. The crowd watched with a shocked and reservedly appalled air about them as Mary nonchalantly reached in and pulled a piece of badly torn and crumpled paper out of his pocket. He spread it out on the podium and looked up again. "Uh," he said. "I wrote this earlier." He cleared his throat. "I call it 'Mary, Your Enemy.'" He read it. I found him tricking Angels, And making friends with boys-like-you, He had kick-ass Hair, and skin like Teeth, And Everyone loved to watch him Lose. He explained his name was Mary, And that he'd come from Outer Space. Just to Waste a little Time, And to Save the human race. He said, "I'll stand on every corner, On Every End of every street... Because I've come to sell you quarters, For a thousand bucks a-piece." "You MAKE no SENSE!" cried the Audience. "A thousand dollars for twenty-five cents!? You must think us much Too Dense, To figure out what we're up Against!" Mary smiled, "Alright. Okay. I don't like Money anyway." But you could tell he wanted Something. In his eyes, their eyes were Nothing. "I'll give you all the gift I've grown; the Guilt of thinking Twice.' The Angels looked a little cheated, But the boys... a little nice. He said, "Every Girl and every boy, That goes up to hug the Paranoid... Will either help them get Destroyed, Or go away with Brand-New Toys!" The Audience stared and STARED and stared. And they were Scared. and they were scared. "WE DON'T UNDERSTAND! WE DON'T UNDERSTAND! KILL YOURSELF! AND ALL YOUR FANS!" "WE DON'T UNDERSTAND! WE DON'T UNDERSTAND! KILL YOURSELF! AND ALL YOUR FANS!" Then I made mine forward, To thicker, Closer parts of crowd. Because I couldn't stand MYSELF, I had to TEAR HIM DOWN. "EVERY GEEK MACHINE!" I yelled, "IN THEIR SIMPLISTIC FUCK-YOU BLISS! WILL LOVE YOU AND WILL LEAVE YOU WHEN YOU TREAT THEM ALL LIKE THIS!" "And if I ever GOT MYSELF A YOU, I know EXACTLY what I'd do." He spoke my way, no smile, no laugh, Just "I think you do too." The crowd was getting nervous, As I watched him fake surprise. And what I saw was black... And what I saw were eyes. I had to HIT him, KICK him, KNOCK HIM DOWN, and drag him to The City. I SMASHED him into Pieces, Then I told him he was pretty. He stayed alive on Sugar-Bread, And sweets I'd buried in the ground. He asked if he could leave, But I said 'Love, that's not allowed.' He said he didn't mind, And that he'd "lived" in Places Worse. He said he'd need some crayons... He said I was a jerk. I made him Things for Fourteen Years, We talked of Death and Art, How to build a Prophecy, How to tear the world apart. Twenty-eight ways to make Jesus cry, I was in love, and so was I... I learned a few things about Little-White-Lies, I was in love, and so was I. Then once upon a Midnight dreary, He was sad, but I was cheery. He said he needed stars and fame, But I just laughed and called him names. He said "I am Rubber and you are Glue, And what bounces of me, sticks to You, And though my Good Times here are through, I hope all of your Dreams come true. And I hope you're mauled by Giant Bats, And thrown into a Sea of Cats, And angry people Break your knees, And laugh at all your Tragedies, Until you cry, until you wail, Until you get yourself Impaled. On something bent, on something sharp, on Something Scary in the Dark." "So you can live your life unhappy, You can live your life in fear. I don't mind. I don't care. It's on your time. I won't be here. "Out of all the world's most sad advice The only I've said more than twice, Is never laugh, And never smile, And here's a bag of suicide." My stomach dropped as my organs fell, And the hard floor cracked my spine. I gasped him one last question, Did he always talk in Rhyme? "No," he said, a Calm Girl, As I smoldered on the Floor "I fucking hate poets." When Mary finished the crowd sat there in stunned silence. It considered the poem and searched itself for a reaction. It took about a minute and a half to decide exactly how offended it should actually be. After all, it did rhyme quite nicely. An unhappy discontent grumbling sound stirred its way around the room as Mary watched expectantly from the stage. This was exactly the reaction he was hoping for. The poets, the literary and intellectual elite, began throwing ashtrays at his head. One hit Mary solidly in the middle of his forehead before he could start running away. He fell to the ground, bleeding and moaning to himself as angry poets, livid with poetry and bloated self-images, clambered over tables and amplifiers and grabbed at Mary's feet. He kicked them. A lot. He swung his cane wildly and kicked, jumped to his feet and sprang through a curtained exit to the right. He ran over some crates, coat-racks and poets, several people doing a lot of fashionable drugs and some managerial staff, then he was out the back door and into the parking lot. He struggled furiously with his hat, trying to stretch it down over his head. "No!" said the hat. "I'm not saving you! Not this time. No way. Finish the mission and maybe we can talk." Mary could hear the poets coming. He slammed the door shut and looked around frantically. "You JERK!" he yelled as he jumped over a railing. Deep into the parking lot he ran as the mob of poets burst through the door and streamed out of the building behind him. He slid down on his knees, scraping them badly, and crawled desperately around looking for a blue Toyota Camry, license plate number "VTW 368." He found it over near the road, pulled his cane out of his hat and carved the words "YOUR MOTHER LOVES YOU" into it with its sharp end. "Your motor loves you?" said the hat. "It says mother! Now shut up and let me in!" Mary stood up and braced himself, the poets saw him but he was already feeling saved. He felt the hat tugging teasingly on his head. "Oh I don't know," it said warily. "I think maybe you should... Hmm. What should you do? I think maybe an apology--" Just then, Mary was hit by a really big car. His body slammed against the windshield, rolled off the hood and fell onto a parked car. The approaching mob of poets continued to scream hateful things at him which Mary thought in the back of his mind would have been more effective if they rhymed. He tried to regain his balance and run down the street but before he could get his legs working he was suddenly hit by another really big car. He reeled forward and his hat flew in a separate direction than his body, he tumbled over a bridge, dropped nearly fifty feet, and landed on his back on somebody's roof. "Ouch," said Mary as dust cleared. "Ouch, ouch, ouch." The poets threw sticks and rocks over the side of the bridge. They were all missing Mary and he felt a contented smug feeling wash over him. He would have given them a coy little wave if the roof hadn't collapsed just then. Mary then found himself in the middle of an understandably shocked family's kitchen table. So he gave them the coy little wave and realized it probably would have been more effective if he hadn't been lying on their turkey. "Hi," he said slowly. "I'll just be, uh --" He leapt off the table, ran upstairs, found a bathroom and locked himself in it. He barricaded the door shut, avoided the mirror, kicked out the tiny window and jumped through it, which, he would reflect upon later as a somewhat of a "bad idea." It wasn't so much the fact that he landed in a neighbor's pool and was immediately attacked by a large dog named Matt that liked a refreshing swim in the evenings. It also wasn't so much the fact that as he climbed out of the pool the dog tore at his legs leaving gashes that would take months to fully heal. But after he had crawled out of the backyard and slowly up the hot gravel driveway, gasping for breath and bleeding and wishing he was alive so he could wish he was dead; he reached the end of the road and passed out. As he lay face down on the scalding hot pavement and blood poured from his head and face and hands, a little girl patiently rode her little orange tricycle over his head, ringing her little tricycle bell the entire way.

"I honestly don't see why you don't just punch him," said Maxine to the bunny. They were seated at a bar in one of the hat's many neon drinking establishments. They had been there for quite a long time already. Maxine sat at the far end with twenty shot glasses just to her left, some full, but most empty. The bunny was sitting next to her. He was drinking mineral water and enjoying himself. He liked Maxine. "I could never do that!" he was saying. "He'd do horrible things to me!" Maxine made a face at him. "He does horrible things to you now!" she said. The bunny stared down into his drink. "I just," he said. "I just... couldn't do that." "You should. It'd shut him up, the pompous bastard. I had this supervisor once... he never left me alone." She took a hard drink. "Every time I got through with inspections and paperwork and all that crap, he'd keep piling more and more on. It was dreadful. I couldn't take it." "You hit him?" the bunny asked softly. Maxine smiled and slammed her glass cheerfully down on the bar. "Right in the mouth. POW!" She made a little gesture to illustrate her fist connecting with the supervisor's head, which was her other fist. "You did that?" Maxine held her hand out, palm down. "See this?" she said, pointing to little white scars on her hand and knuckles. "Wow." "And those are just his bicuspid marks. His molars are up near my elbow." The bunny took a long drink of water. "I got suspended," she said reflectively. "Six months. Today was my first day back, you know, and I'd honestly tried very hard not to hit anyone for about..." She checked her watch. "Three hours. And then I got taken hostage. Now I'm drinking with a six-foot bunny. Fabulous." Maxine lit up a cigarette and took a long, soul-filling drag. She offered it to the bunny, who accepted. He then remembered his manners. "I really should apologize for the, um." He gestured in the general direction of the control room, hoping that might cover it. "Don't worry about it," said Maxine with another lit cigarette hanging out of her mouth. "I was going to take an early lunch break anyway. There would have been a lot more paperwork because that idiot killed that guy --" "I'm really sorry about the murder, I --" "You apologize a lot," said Maxine dryly. The bunny sighed. "There's a lot to apologize for around here." "It's not all your fault," she said sympathetically. "I can't say I really blame him for it either. I probably would have killed the kid too." She stared into her drink pensively. "Ever killed anybody?" she asked the bunny. He looked surprised and blinked hard. "No!" he blurted out. "No, no. I've never..." Maxine smiled at him affectionately and slid a glass across the bar. "You need to loosen up, rabbit." The bunny watched the glass closely. Thick brown liquid and shiny ice cubes. "Drink it," said Maxine. "You'll thank me later. It stings your throat, hurts your eyes, makes you fall down, vomit all over yourself and you wake up in pain the next day." "Sounds like poison." "It's called alcohol. Ever had any before?" "No," said the bunny uncertainly, turning the glass around in its paws. "No, I don't think so." "It'll take the edge off." "Of what?" "Whatever."

Mary hated nature. He hated nature and he hated God. If there had to be an order it would be God first, nature second and mouthy hats a close third. He was walking down the middle of a long, deserted road, trying to stay balanced on the straight yellow line. The sky was growing darker by the minute and he wasn't at all sure where he was going, but he figured this direction was as good as any. He began to plod. He was very depressed. He was very depressed, and his arm hurt and his forehead was bleeding and his left ankle made it difficult to walk without limping and swearing sadly every time he had to use it.
"Leave it all and like a man, come back to nothing special, such as waiting rooms and ticket lines, silver bullet suicides, and messianic ocean tides, and racial roller-coaster rides and other forms of boredom advertised as poetry." Leonard Cohen.
His ears, having adjusted to the quiet, now picked up all the cricket noises and scurrying and shuffling in the forest surrounding the road on either side. Only four cars had passed by him so far and none had shown any sign of stopping except the last one. Mary had laid down in the middle of the road and the lights streamed up from behind him. He could tell when they noticed him, because they stopped. And then carefully drove around on the shoulder of the road. He was going to get up and do something mean, like jump on the car's windshield and make terrible faces at the driver, but he was very tired. But another car was coming. The headlights cast Mary's long, angular shadow out on the pavement before him. He could see the jagged hair, the disturbing lack of hat, and his cane as he hobbled along pathetically. Surprisingly, this car didn't go around. It pulled up beside him and he heard the window roll down as the car crept along beside him. He looked over and was surprised. Then he got in.

©Copyright 1996, Brad Turcotte