Hammond
B-3
by Dennis Must
Westley and I
told several of our friends that Uncle Mark was a
lion tamer, but were loath to say Aunt Agnes took
her clothes off at the Elks Club.
“Does he shit like an elephant?”
Shoes Calucca asked.
It didn't matter what anybody thought.
Though it was unseemly what Father's
sister, Agnes, was doing--acting out her dreams in
front of lavender velvet curtains (something you might
see lining a display casket), yanking onto to those
dry rot rags with one hand while peeling off her sequined
bra and panties with the other, clicking her higher-than-a-sixteen-penny-nail
heels to the tune of Alexander's Ragtime Band . .
. and finally, the denouement--a vaginal opening disguised
by what looked like husband Jimmy McIntyre's brush
mustache, and breasts that hung off her bony chest
like musket balls in anklet socks. But it didn't seem
to matter to the inebriated, corpulent Elks.
“Hello, Aggie!” they huzzahed.
Each got as close to the apron of the
stage as space allowed, hooting and hollering while
Aunt Agnes strutted stage right and left, shoving
her ass out just inches away from all the bulbous
noses and lecherous mouths, then stopping, freeze
frame, sticking her head between her legs and trying
to get their attention with winking. But the Elks
kept looking at her ass.
“Fucking men, you're all the same,”
she spat, and lifted raffle tickets for the nightly
$50 draw out of the spinning cage, and one by one
drew them up the inside of her thighs and Jimmy's
brush, tossing each newly-scented ticket out into
the crowd, yelling, “EVERYONE GETS LUCKY TONIGHT.”
Until some surly bastard from back the
room taunted: “Agnes, how 'bout fucking the Donkey?”
And now the crowd whooped louder. Like, Jesus Christ,
yes, what a grand idea.
“AGNES, FUCK THE DONKEY!”
they chanted.
She feigned disgust. The cries become
more insistent. She feigned shame. This didn't work
either. Finally she laughed, threw up her hands in
surrender and cried out to the top of her lungs, “Yeah
. . . I want to fuck the Donkey!”
A vamp rose from the old man at the
Hammond B-3. Agnes holding out one hand as if she
were about to introduce a partner in her act, a spotlight
focused on the velvet curtains, directly at stage
center. The circle of light, the only illumination
in the house, was perhaps a foot wide. We heard bestial
noises that grew louder, and by Jesus it did sound
exactly like a braying jackass. The patrons, these
old Elks, were all now standing, clapping and chanting.
The jackass sounded exorcized, pitiful
high decibel braying noises as if somebody backstage
were shoving a hot poker up its backside. Suddenly,
on the circular spotlight, slowly penetrating the
curtain appeared to me what could only be a donkey
cock. The men laughed uproariously. They abandoned
their chairs and began shoving up against the small
stage's apron, three deep, egging Aunt Agnes on.
“Fuck the Donkey, Agnes.”
“Fuck the Donkey.”
God, I thought, her saintly mother who
daily attended St. Josephs just a couple doors down
from this BPOE, the spit of a woman who played the
numbers each morning after Mass, saving her winnings
to put favorite son, Raymond, through Saint Benedict's
Seminary . . . .
I mean if she could witness daughter
Agnes about to engage in this bestial act, all the
suffering she did to have her flesh and blood fornicate
with a Donkey? It had all gotten so confused. Monsignor
Raymond in splendiferous garments raises the Host
to the flying buttresses, while Agnes lifts her ass
to an unseen beast behind the curtain? In the first
instance the parishioners bow and recite Hail Marys;
in the latter, they quiet to a whisper as the Donkey
enters Madame Agnes who closes her eyes, beatifically.
A hush fell over the wall-eyed men.
The Hammond organ's motors had been
extinguished. Even the bartender who's seen the act,
stirred. Suddenly the character who suggested it in
the first place cried out once again.
“Take it all, Aggie! By Christ,
take it all!”
Aunt Agnes, still bent over, her face
to the crowd, raised a hand, supplicating, “Patience.”
Finally with one last effort she leaned in heavily
with her tiny frame to the thing penetrating the curtains.
There was a moan, an audible moan, as if the Holy
Ghost himself had spoken, like somebody backstage
had clubbed the ass mightily in its head, followed
by a high pitched braying.
“HOME!” shouted several men.
Then the movement began in earnest.
Aunt Agnes moving forward and back like a yard bitch
in heat. I turned away. Looked up at the proscenium
arch. An elk head cast in plaster with archaic symbols
surrounding it looked with approbation down on the
fraternal goings on. The curtains shook in wild erratic
motions; was the jackass having a cardial infraction?
But I'd already figured out the scam.
Weren't no donkey back there giving it to my old Aunt.
It was one of Uncle Jimmy's friends. She was getting
it alright. Everybody there knew that. Except maybe
Ronald Whiteside, the town idiot who was an honorary
Elk. Everyone else knew one of Uncle Jimmy's gambling
creditors just got paid.
When the men began to return to their
seats, I looked up. Aunt Agnes lingered on the stage
smiling at them all while she took her time picking
up her clothes. Nobody any longer give a shit. Several
had gone over to the bar. Only idiot Ronald watched
her every last gesture before she disappeared from
the boards.
Fucking actors, all of them--Uncle Raymond,
Aunt Agnes, and Uncle Mark. Every last one of them
was in the theatre. Sleight of hand. Why was our old
man so different?
Westley went the following Saturday.
“Did they do the Donkey Show?” I asked.
He explained the procedure; a repeat performance.
“Funny,” I said, “Aunt
Agnes gets to dance and Jimmy McIntyre won't have
his arm broken.”
Monsignor Raymond would lift the Host
to the mouths of the penitents until he contacted
Parkinson Disease. But Agnes wasn't going to be doing
the donkey much beyond sixty. Uncle Mark, I suspect,
would agree that old men don't put their heads inside
of a lion's mouth. Beasts are no respecters of old
age.
