INSTALLMENT ONE: “I’d Like To Buy a Vowel”
A horse smoking a cigarette.
That, they say, was the simple, perverse, convoluted idea that turned Morrisburg, Iowa upside down on the morning of March 10th, 1985.
No one saw it happen, most likely because it never actually did happen, but to the 39 citizens of Morrisburg on that date in 1985, a horse did indeed smoke a cigarette.
"I reckon I'll be fixin' the leak in ol' Donnel's trough today, Miriam," Lou Brien wheezed, soon afterwards coughing up what appeared to be a combination of tar and blood, a gut-splattered road, not much unlike the weekly news story - a semi tipped over. Someone died. The story only carries through the TV far enough to hear the newscaster say, "A semi-." Then, Pat Sajak's contestant tragically reports, "I'd like to buy a vowel."
Lou smiled, now thinking about the hot titties of last week's Wheel of Fortune contestant. He felt himself rise with pleasure as he recalled the blue spider veins on her bosom growing from her low-cut, matching blue dress.
"What are ya smilin' about, you dumb oaf!" Miriam said, returning from the pantry. She was carrying a pack of Marlboro Reds (Unfiltered), something ordinarily too strong for a woman, but definitely not for herself. She had heard Lou's remark about the trough. Over the tiresome thirty years of their marriage, she had grown unresponsive to Lou's lofty ambitions. To her, he was about as likely to fix that leaky trough as their horse Madelyn was to smoke one of her Marlboro Reds (Unfiltered).
Casper, the basset hound, soused into the room carrying the newspaper. He spat it onto the table, smeared the saliva into the paper with his paw to pat it dry, then looked up at Lou, who was now giving himself a brief, indiscreet testicular cancer self-examination. Disregarding this, Casper went on to say to Miriam, standing at the counter with her cigarettes, "Looks like new neighbors movin' in across the street."
Miriam gave back an acknowledging nod, then said to no one in particular, "Mmmhmm," as she continued to ration her cigarettes out like pills. She came to an abrupt stop, placed her index finger to her chin, turned around, made a rather pregnant pause, then said, "We bes' fix the trough or they'll think we're trashy! Oh! Lou, what if they raise pigs too?! Do you think the misses gardens squashes? She had better not think she'll beat me in the butternut squash competition at next year's state fair! I wonder if they have chil'ren! Ooh, what if she's young? Do you think she's prettier than me, Lou? Do you!"
Casper lowered his head onto the table, covering his eyes with his ears.
Lou, of course, did not hear Miriam. In his mind were visions of Tanya, the blue-dressed babe, solving the puzzle in his pants.
INSTALLMENT TWO: “Your Waxy Butter Feels So Good”
“Abraham Moses Jellyroll Morton, you get your heiney in this house this moment, young man!”
Crell Morton stammered, as she churned butter. Abe, a social pariah of a nine-year-old, blew his nose in a “rebellious” rebuttal, then ran off behind the hen house to masturbate.
Abe, as one could clearly see, had already sold himself short on intelligence. The hen house was momentarily nothing more than a wooden frame, lacking walls, and even though you needed a microscope to see his microbe of a penis, you could see his hand yanking it all the way from the Brien farm, 20 miles down the road.
And so, it happened.
“Smut! Complete smut! It’s like they’re raisin’… raisin’ sex over there! It’s like a farm of sex… a sex farm! That’s what it is! A pure sex farm!”
“Ah, so that was Spinal Tap I saw mowing the lawn over there earlier,” Casper muttered, as he passed Miriam in her rocker.
Miriam’s eye twitched as she lit a fresh cigarette. “Chil’ren these days… all they knows how to do is… what’s Spinal Tap?”
Sally Morton was strolling down the dirt trail, coughing, as Miriam blew a tornado of second-hand smoke down the driveway towards her, uprooting flowers and bringing flight to the cardboard whiskey boxes by the side of the road.
“You act like you never smelt that splendid particular, child!”
“Excuse me, but what?” Sally spit back.
“Marlboro Reds make a fanciful smell, young lady; you get over here and try one now.”
Sally was awestruck. She was eighteen and had just moved to Morrisburg from a neighboring town, Midville. Although Morrisburg was only nine miles from Midville, Morrisburg had its own unique culture completely unlike Midville’s, where you spoke midwestern “genteel” and fed your dogs Samuel Adams instead of water.
With her hands trembling in her pockets, clasping a loose pea coat button and a ginger ale bottle cap, Sally approached Miriam’s rocker and pulled an unlit cigarette from her clutch. The white of the cigarette was faded yellow from leftover Cheeto residue on Miriam’s fingers.
“T-Thank you, I think,” Sally stuttered.
“Where you from, girl? I reckon you’re one of them.”
“One of whom?”
“Ooh, smart girl from the city. Talk all nice, whom. You new ‘round here?”
“I… my family just moved here, down the street. We’re from Midville.” Sally was still holding the unlit cigarette, not sure what to do with it.
“What ya mama’s name?”
“Crell, Crell Morton.”
“You gots a daddy?”
“Yes, but he isn’t home yet. He’s in Dubuque meeting with his agent.”
“His agent! Lawdy, what he, an actor of some sort? Gonna shoot a moving picture with some big name, layk Buster Keaton?”
“No, he’s a nature journalist. We moved here to start a new farm. He wanted inspiration from the gazelles out by the lake. We didn’t have that in Midville.”
“He be not likin’ those gazelles soon ‘nuff!”
“What do you mean?”
“They noisy sons of bitches!”
“Oh, hmm.”
“Ain’t you gonna smoke?”
“I don’t really smoke.” Sally twirled the cigarette once in her hand, and then looked over at Miriam who was grinning with enormous black splotches covering her small, decalcified teeth.