Writers and Musicians of Note: Beware Initial Impressions
As the jive of the juke box infused the Double X Aburdist Cafe, AA Milne and BB King sat regally down for drinks at a long table, joining their colleagues CC Ryder and DeeDee Ramone, co-sufferers of lower class cases of b.o. and v.d.
"Where's ee cummings?" sang JJ Cale, who loved the place for its offbeat embrace of musical and literary cross-fertilizations -- not to mention the alphabet soup of celebrity initials splattered across the bathroom tiles.
"Search us," ZZ Top nodded sleepily, sunglassed heads bobbing in unison.
As usual, O. Henry, the testy short story writer, gnawing on a chocolate bar of the same name, was ejaculating in the general direction of U Thant, the X-director-general of the U.N.
"I can assure you, U, I am not guilty of conceiving that filthy ‘Story of O.’ And, by the way, why is there no one here with the initials F.F, G.G., H.H. or I.I.?"
At the head of the table, producer Norman Lear was madly pitching Edward Lear, the emperor of nonsense, to compose a musical comedy based on King Lear staged in a Leer jet.
The French feminist waitress, who happened to be named Gigi, piped up: "How about O.J. in the part...?"
"How 'bout me?" interrupted B.B. King, waving a BB gun that could pass for a .22.
"Chubby chance!" retorted Fats Domino, jamming another checker in the juke box and selecting the greatest hit of UB40.
"Who asked you?" shot back Lee Harvey Oswald, representing people famous for having three names.
Puffing on a Camel in an adjacent (John Wilkes) booth, T.E. Lawrence tapped his dusty crop on the humped back of his distant cousin D.H. Lawrence, suffering the terminal stages of TB, and both coughed simultaneously.
"Remember when we used to identify American presidents by their initials? FDR, JFK, LBJ. Not any more. Is it a CIA plot?"
Hearing no satisfactory answer, T.E. Lawrence, an Irish-blooded Middle Eastern terrorist/assassin of high principles and low sexual sadomasochistic tendencies, now well past his primer, surrendered to an explosive mood.
"Sex in the Arab world is a landmine of an issue, don't you agree? Maybe if their women used IUDs, their men wouldn't plant IEDs..."
Oh Oh.
Initially hesitant, the feminist waitress snapped, and the snappy dialogue was exterminated by a descending DDT cloud of political correctness. Everyone finished their cups of T in silence.
Peer pressured to pick up the tab, ee cummings, an impecunious poet hounded by the IRS, dipped an index digit in the HP sauce and scribbled an I.O.U. on a napkin monogrammed with his initials.
"What does it mean in terms of eternity?" wondered the obese Maitre D, Zero Mostel, who double-bolted the doors of the Double X Absurdist Cafe, stuffed himself into his Infiniti, and shrank into a tiny dot on the horizon.
Toronto, 2018