Mrs. Zanzibar's New Peacock Hat

Doug Donnan

donnan.doug@yahoo.com

(Comedy)

*A special tribute to James Purdy & Flannery O'Connor

"Mrs. Zanzibar's New Peacock Hat"

by

Doug Donnan

"Well, it's rather hard for me to discern the way it rests atop your head and what not," Mr. Zanzibar declared to his imposing and

posing wife as though he was only just now seeing her for the very first time as she stood there both proud and portly in front of the full

length floor mirror in the narrow hallway of the apartment.

"What could you possibly mean by 'rests'?" Dolores Rae asked as she tried to disengage herself from her self-admiration whilst she

primmed at her new, peacock hat festooned with all of its wild, meandering purple-plumage. 

He stood off some distance from her as if he might be sidewalk supervising or simply surveying some remote construction project in their

steamy Hoboken New Jersey neighborhood. He put his right index finger and thumb up under his doll-like mouth in a decidedly curious

consternation.

"Well it wasn't my intention to cast any kind of aspersions dear," he tried as he bent his head to the side slightly to see if a different

angle of parallax perspective might help.

"You made that snide comment as if the very sword of Damocles were hanging right over my own head."

He puzzled some at this rather enigmatic declaration by Dolores Rae. He wasn't quite certain if he was now supposed to go ahead with

his hat analysis or not.

"It's just that it seems to be somewhat oversized for you honey lamb. I mean what with a person of your stature and all."

"I told you never to call me that again. Don't you remember Farrel? And just 'what' do you now mean by my 'stature'?

"I'm sorry dear. It just slipped out. I meant... a person of your... 'position' in things," Farrel tried in awkward recovery. "It's rather difficult

to see your limpid azure eyes and entire facial surface with the feathers hanging all over and about the way they do."

She seemed to sag somewhat at these observations by her diminutive husband. She turned into the mirror again and studied the spreading

plummage of the hat as if she were somehow mystified by its purple presence there on her tufted nest of dry, obsidian black hair.

"So, what you are really saying to me Farrel is that you don't think the new peacock hat fits 'me'... 'any' way that you look at it?" she

inquired as she pushed her hammy fists into an akimbo position on her bloated hips.

Mr. Zanzibar ogled the breadth of Dolores Rae as though he were totally aghast at her very massive presence in front of the

narrow hallway's full length mirror. His puckish mouth formed a tiny circle not unlike the entrance to some vacant backyard birdhouse. It

appeared now as if there were two of her before him there in the dim, moted amber light of the hall.

"Perhaps we can return it to the little second hand shop and get one in a 'different' size. Maybe a different style of hat altogether

Dolores Rae," he tried as he slowly stepped a kind of sand crab-like sideways movement backwards into the parlor.

"Return it!" she bellowed as if something had just then struck her hard in the middle of her mountainous back. "It was the only one

they had there at the Fleetwood Flea Market remember? The woman with all that long red hair said that this peacock hat was truly unique...

a one of a kind!"

"Well, of that there can be no doubt. It is 'that' indeed," he almost snickered, but held it down. He proceeded with his surreptitious

crabbly exodus for the sanctity of the den.

"And just where do you think that 'you' are retreating off to?" she more or less asked aloud this question as if she might be announcing

something of great note or importance over a sports stadium's public address system.

Farrel halted at this inquisitive annunciation from the two Dolores Raes in front of the dusty mirror. He felt in his vapid, hapless

heart the apprehension that a skittish midnight deer must feel trying so desperately to simply cross the road or cement turnpike for its

very salvation.

"Why I thought we might just enjoy the radio for a time dear. It always seems to satisfy you so as you lounge in your gray, highback chair

with the fluffy cushions and gaze out the bay window."

"Hmm..." she made this little buzzing noise as if she might be studying her possible options or courses of action on how to deal with him.

There was a sentient pause now between them as though time itself may have actually stopped or frozen. In fact the Zanzibars themselves

now appeared as if they were somehow transformed into display manikins at some antique or curio shop. Dolores Rae still wearing the

ridiculous purple plumaged peacock hat.

Then, suddenly:

"For the life of me Farrel, I don't see any rhyme or reason in you," Mrs. Zanzibar blew out in exasperated disgust. "Would you have me

just walk in and sit down with you and pretend like I don't care about the new hat or all the other things in life that concern me so?"

"I tried to be... objective dear," he responded with both palms up as though he might be checking for impending inclement weather. "I

truly don't think that we should dwell on a thing like this Dolores Rae. Quite frankly, I don't see what all the fuss and consternation is all

about. After all honey lambkins it's only just a--

"Don't call me that!" she screeched out as she whipped off the hat and sailed it right at him. A few feathers were stripped away as the

hat flew past the ducking Farrel and on into the radio parlor. "Now look what you've caused me to go and do," she divulged as she

stepped away from the mirror and became but one Dolores Rae Zanzibar again. She loped over and past him right into the parlor.

It appeared to Farrel Zanzibar that she had transformed somehow into something dark and ominous as she brushed past him.

"I'll just turn the radio on for you then dear," he offered feeling somehow now absolved from his disrespect and dispassion towards her.

Her dogged ambulatory struggles, eventually, got her over to her sad, plush highback chair by the window. She fairly plopped down into

its threadbare arms as though she were Sisyphus himself finally, resolutely giving way to the dead weight of the massive, cursed stone.

She sat there now completely indifferent to him in the pathetic, dusty accoutrements and surroundings of the parlor. Her gaze eventually

ventured down to the now disheveled peacock hat as it lay there on the faded Persian carpet with its broken purple-straw wingish brim.

She stared down at it as though it might be some malicious rodent or other domestic pest.

"That will be fine Farrel my little lamb," she replied vaguely as if at that very point in her melancholic life nothing could possibly make

any difference one way or the other. "That will be just fine."

Farrel Zanzibar crept around as might some small, furtive insignificant animal of the woods. He made little hushed noises under his breath

as he clicked on the power to the wood case radio box.

_____ End _____