Here is a short piece from 1969, from an upcoming Collection of newly edited essays, poems and short stories by Jonathan Shaw. Stay tuned for more, which we will be posting as we dig them up from the catacombs.
PITTSBURGH ZOO-
The rains fell with blue force outside the aquarium. Down the street, Jeff and Howard were driving at breakneck speed through Mrs. Bender’s living room, chasing a spider whose web still danced like snow in the attic.
“I remember the old days when this hotel was really fashionable,” said someone.
“Yeah,” came the answer of a forlorn wind, toppling trees and crewcuts in the night. “This place has seen better days, that’s the truth… When Eisenhower visited here, this place really came to life.”
“Yeah, the old Eisenhower days,” someone said. ”All that stuff. Those big gala receptions in the lobby, and all the young women would come cheer and fling their Tampax after him like flowers when they wheeled him to the elevator in that big bathtub.”
“Oh my God, yes!” Howled the wind. “That great red, white and blue
bathtub of his, filled with his hairless chest and Coca Cola and air bubbles…”
“And remember the somnambulant pilgrimages?” someone said. “The newspaper tried to keep it hushed up, but everybody knew there was something fishy going on. Late at night when everyone was sleeping, scores of housewives would slide out of bed and crawl out of the house sighing and moaning. And they would slither along, dragging themselves along by their hands under the full moon and across the golf course towards the hotel like zombies, wearing nothing but silk negligees and leopard skin panties… and little red, white and blue buttons pinned to their bleeding breasts that said ‘I LIKE IKE…’ Remember? And in the morning there would be that big trail of slime across the green, as though a giant snail had passed over it… Boy! That sure was something…”
“Yeah,” said the forlorn wind, “I remember those days, but it all seems a little vague now come to think of it… I wish I had a foghorn inside to keep all these memories from colliding into each other all the time…”
“A foghorn in Pittsburgh?” the trees snapped back.
Crewcut lads marched down the street with briefcases.
“GOOD LUCK!” they sneered.
In the morning the newspapers shouted, “THREE TON SPIDER RUNS AMOK!”
Some people couldn’t believe it.
Back at the zoo, the fish cried until their white bellies floated on the water’s surface like apples at a fair.
Nobody came to see.
Copyright Jonathan Shaw 1969, 2009.
surreal… nice job.