Blue Bottle Tree , livre ebook

Blue Bottle Tree


Beaird Glover
Copyright © 2018 by Beaird Glover
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Edited by Shayne Leighton and David Rochelero
The Parliament House
www.parliamenthousepress.com
Contents



1. Seven: Penny Molests her Clarinet

2. Penny: Penny Langston Freaks Out

3. Seven: Seven Envisions Killing A Rabid Child

4. Penny: Whippoorwill Wish Me Luck

5. Penny: Spirit in a Bottle

6. Penny: Knight in Shining Armor He was Not

7. Penny: From the Conquered Summit of The City Dump

8. Seven: Seven Desires Penny, And Oddly, Her Mother

9. Penny: Penny Fries a Bigger Fish

10. Seven: The Lunchroom Lady Sighs

11. Hoof: Not Just a Narcissistic Guy

12. Seven: My Soul? Dude, I’m Not Even Religious

13. Seven: Seven Dies

14. Seven: Under the Dome of a Blue Kiddie Pool

15. Penny: A Man in the Sea of Boys

16. Mad Dog: Mad Dog Sings

17. Seven: Seven Digs

18. Penny: Chasing Penny Crazy

19. Penny: Like a Christmas Caroler at a Black Mass Orgy

20. Penny: A Glass that Once Held Fine Wine

21. Penny: He Sprayed His Hoof with Glass Cleaner, Flossed Between His Toes

22. Seven: Meow Said a Cat

23. Penny: Ting-A-Ling, Penny

24. Penny: Goat Made the Gumbo, But Rabbit Eats It

25. Hoof: Fly High, Thunderbird. Fly!

26. Seven: Frog and Toad’s Revenge

27. Penny: The Toads Forgive You

28. Penny: If the Fields Could Talk

29. Penny: Don’t Stir Up Dried Cowshit

30. Penny: That Time …When I Was Dead


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The Parliament House
Seven: Penny Molests her Clarinet

W here are you now, whippoorwill? Wings cut the sky faster than eyes can see. It’s probably not even a whippoorwill. Probably a bat. Gone in the cave where it’s cool, where it’s dark—to get away from that clarinet music, which is not even music. It’s practice-music. It’s what high school girls play in high school band when they aren’t very good at it. Tomorrow I’m going to steal that clarinet.
And the fact that I would have to, Penny Longstocking …the fact that it has come to this, is frankly embarrassing. For you. Would it really kill you to take a minute out of your tediously boring life to come up here and chitchat with old Seven from time to time?
I hang out in a cave, by myself. Yes, I’m very cool and freaky like that. But that doesn’t mean a person can’t get a little lonesome now and then. It’s not like I’m desperate. You should really be a little more thankful of the respect I show by not bothering you. So considerate of your boundaries, and I’m a very nice guy who leaves you alone because you are so busy doing stupid stuff. 
I’m sure you have plenty of company at home and I know you have a whole table full of giggly girls to prattle with at lunch every day. Did you ever notice that I take my lunch outside? No? Oh, gee, Seven, I never noticed. Why do you do that? Because it’s more comfortable to eat lunch alone outside than in the lunchroom. Or with Mad Dog, which is worse. Oh, you see me now. Praise be, to all the sweet angels in heaven, for Penny Longstocking has favored me with a wave. Wait a minute. Two waves? Three? Penny, have you lost your mind? 
She’s swatting a fly. Wow, I didn’t even get the wave. I waved back and she didn’t notice. Am I invisible up here? So, you may not realize this, Penny Longstocking, but some people have to go back home to their mother who hasn’t gotten out of bed in three days. And the next time she does she’ll probably be possessed. What? Voodoo soul possession is not a thing in the Longstocking household? No? Well, it’s stuff like that, that a person likes to shoot the breeze about with a friend. Everyone can use a little company sometimes and I’m not a total recluse. Mysterious loner dude, yes. But actually I’m very friendly, as you well know. 
Okay, and now you’re leaving. Not even a nod. Soon enough I’ll go back home where my mom is either not speaking to anyone, or else raving and going totally nuts. And my grandmother will be communing with the animals. 
Whippoorwill. Whippoorwill. 
Oh, great. The bird heard me thinking. Thanks, whippoorwill. You’re in the cave. Yes, right, time for me to come back in. I heard you. Good point. If I study Penny Longstocking all day, she’s going to think I’m a perv. I’m not really alone, am I, whippoorwill? I’ve got a bird to keep me company. Most people aren’t so lucky. You don’t have to wear used clothes, do you, bird? Penny Longstocking never wears used clothes either. Her father is a lawyer. My dad was sent on a secret mission to die. My grandmother sells potions to hoodoos who come in from out of state. She’s apparently very good at it. And when they can’t afford it, she gives the stuff away. So I wear used clothes. How are you going to tell Penny Longstocking stuff like that? No, whippoorwill, we keep those things to ourselves. I feel like I want to tell her. Like we could be best friends. But for her sake, I can’t. She’d probably have a heart attack.  
And there you go again— whippoorwill, whippoorwill. Just when I was thinking about you, I hear you urging me on. Sure, whippoorwill. Tomorrow, I’ll steal that clarinet. Then she’ll have to come up here. 
I think my grandmother sent the whippoorwill. Actually, I know she did. Do you have that, Penny Longstocking? Surprise, no. Animal spirits do not abound in your vapid Penny Longstocking life. 
We could make out sometimes too, just for a change of pace. Not like nonstop—occasionally would be nice. And you will never admit it, as I know, but that time in the snow was not just the tequila talking. Sure, you had never tried tequila before, and yes it is unusual for there to be a fifteen minute blizzard on the day after Thanksgiving. It was otherworldly. It was the most real thing that had ever happened in my life and it was a careless, forgettable fling for you. Don’t lie, by saying nothing. You were melting in my arms and kissing me like you really meant it. Like you had been in love with me your whole life, and the snow, the beautiful snow on the day after Thanksgiving—that happened for us . And now you’re leaving. No, actually she’s not leaving. She’s going to molest that clarinet again, like she has nothing better to do. 
My mother used to play clarinet. She’s good. She’d say, “I’ma go Louisa Armstrong on you now—look out!” Her name is Louisa. She’d take off with a string of notes up one, two, three octaves and then back down again with a squeal and a honk. Very jazzy. She said jazz was born of Voodoo music and she knew some of those songs too.
Our family tree is very complicated, and once I asked my grandmother why I don’t look black. All the Voodoo and we’re descended from Marie Laveau and all that, but I don’t look black. Why not? And this is the way my grandmother talks, she said the Mississippi River is made up of the whitest snow from mountain peaks and the blackest mud in the South, from clear underground springs and rain that washes smoke from the sky. Pick up a handful from that mighty river, she said, and you can see your reflection in it. That’s you, you a handful. The river, that’s all of us. Why don’t you look black? Boy, you can’t see past a handful. 
Under her tree, Penny Longstocking plays the clarinet—badly. Not really terrible, but she’s a long way from being a professional. She tries. She practices nonstop because she wants to keep first clarinet. She’s in this smoldering competition with Velvet West, who is also a senior. I’m a junior. The two of them are rivals. Penny recently beat Velvet out of the first chair clarinet seat, which is a very big deal. 
So, she practices under that big magnolia, the same place and same time every day, in order to protect her place at the top. She even wears long stockings. Her name is Penny Longstocking, but she actually wears them. Today they’re white. Sometimes they’re cream colored. She picks newspapers from the trash so she can sit with her shoes off and not get the stockings dirty. Only the shoes know if the stockings have holes, I’ve heard my grandmother say. But I’ve actually seen them, and Penny Longstocking’s stockings do not have holes. 
Penny Longstocking really works hard at playing that clarinet. But despite having long fingers, she must not be able to stretch them out to all the right places because she still gets a lot of squeaks. Velvet West never gets squeaks. Her tone is as sweet and pure as an angel’s harp—a shocking contrast to her reputation. So it was a big surprise to everyone when she blew it in that audition for first clarinet. She never misses notes like that or gets screeches. She must have been nervous because she was awful. Soon the