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
_____
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