A toothbrush clogs the drain . It
must have belonged to an ogre. Dudley can't see his face in the mirror.
Fresh paper lines every drawer. On his easel pinks as pink as infant lips,
puckering mouth, breathing bye-bye like the vanishing leopard. Beneath
the underwear a 1955 Marilyn Monroe calendar. He was 13 when he targeted
the calendar in his neighbor's garage--not quite a year after he bumped
into Marilyn Monroe, the day she kissed him. (And killed herself.) At her
naked feet
a brittle rose is pressed. He used to ask his friends what they thought
she was doing: performing a cannon ball dive, smelling her armpit on a
trampoline, swimming sidestroke in a satin sea. Down below, Mister O'Gatty
catches the lifeguard attempting to stagger to his room undetected. I was
asked if I wanted a room here, but the demands of poverty and
anthropological curiosity stretch only so far.The drunkard jerks to
a halt, facing away with a hidden snarl. By the time he looks at O'Gatty,
Chester Godfrey's rage is masked in servitude. I want the pool opened
this afternoon, Godfrey, and I want you on duty. Sober. Do you understand
me? Rude and queer is the answer he hears, and then a scream shivers the
bones of the Blue Motel. Who can paint with all this noise?
"The sky is
blue, the grass is green,
and that's the whole
problem."