Screw Danielle Steele, I've got Jerry Hager & a big bag of Bugles

Not having time to keep up with my waxing [philosophical] lately. I have been encouraged to reveal an excerpt from a piece of fiction I've been lax in continuing. I could set it up but I think it may be more interesting without knowing what in the hell I ate the night I had THIS dream.

So here it is for all to enjoy - excerpts from Jerry Hager's romantic novella, The Legend of Demeanto Saylike.


All in the compound of The Abbey emerged from their dormitories & helped decorate & light candles & place eucalyptus pot pouri. They sang joyous, lively songs as they arranged laurels over the leopard skin mantle & scattered iris petals at the main gates. When they had finished they stepped back & looked at what they had accomplished & they saw that it was good.

They gathered in circle, holding hands around the Tower Of The Lonely Hearts Search Light on the Western Lawn of the compound. Then in song & jubilee they continued to celebrate their achievement with dancing in the main courtyard. Glorious. From the elevated reclaimed stone patio on which was kept a jasper-ornamented wet-bar of Burmese Teak, this crash of rhinoceri resembled the commotion & disarray of the pushing & shoving & leaping of a celebratory mosh comprised entirely of The Muppets. Or perhaps a more distinct image would manifest itself by picturing the silhouette of The Fat Albert Gang falling down some stairs. Each dance was different from the next but the sum of the parts, the movement, direction & timing of each constituted the larger, junky machine - like a human, ill-maintained, rattle-trappy still.

There was one dressed in a tie-died Mexican pullover wearing a goatee & glasses under a curly brown & grey mop similar to Al Jaffee's. His jig featured a bouncy, clanky, quarter-note, vertical jump with his chin at a 45 degree angle - his arms stretched heavenly with hands & palms revealed vulnerably toward the star-filled Northern sky.

Oh & then there was the skeleton of a man that supported his tie-died shirt not unlike a wire coat hanger crowned at the hook by a three dimensional Styrofoam bust of John the Baptist. This hoofer had more of a strut; a march in place that included alternating swings of elbows upward in a satisfied-with-one's-self manner.

Completely introverted, the next hoedowner - truly with the body of a Dr. Seuss character, clad in hemmed denim shorts under a skin-tight tie-died T-shirt (to use a French term) adorned at the top by the most bold yet rigid-less turkey-neck the commoners had ever seen & a mullet that, honestly, was disorienting to see - was clearly the most talented figurante present. With her sway left to right, boogie on one foot & then the next, each time while outwardly with a swishing motion, presented her tooth-white Reeboks she kept at the end of her extensive shanks...

...As the time came for the impending visitor to arrive, the thick, industrial stone & brick walls were sweating with tension. Magdalene could be seen floating from room to room with a glow about her, warming the the darkened halls. She was a sight to see. Beautiful, yet frightened. Fierce, yet vulnerable. The residents scrambled via servants' passages in order to spy the fair Belle in each new chamber. Clumsily falling onto one another, clamoring for the best glimpse of this angel in polyester. She was just... enchanting.

Then... the fateful sound. It came quietly at first - almost instantaneously freezing all action in the compound. Everyone halted & listened with every inch of their skin, like deer sensing that they might have heard the sound of a Skoal can lid being snapped shut. Then again. Rapping from the front gates came wafting over the peach blossoms that draped the knees of the fierce looking main hall. Taken as the cue this announcement was meant to be, feet could be heard stampeding into unnoticeable crevices. The entire compound was, within seconds, as a ghost town, save for Magdalene & the two mimes, who doubled as Belle's personal... eh... 'Mimes In Waiting' - the near-riot dissuaded.

As she caught herself mid-faint, Belle, almost as if with her last breathe, barked in hysteria, impatience & despair to the mimes to "Answer the call of destiny - It's rapping at our humble door." They scampered to do so without scoffing; the urge to roll their eyes on this particular occasion didn't even enter their miniature, silent minds.

The heavy doors swung left then right. Pouring in from the humid night, the fog felt to the mimes as a cool blanket of joy. "HE is before you," they heard as clearly in their minds as they had heard the Abbott snap them into action just moments before. They watched as HE stepped onto the blue night grass. HIS eyes searched the compound for a mere moment then settled gently on the darkened, quivering, magical figure of Magdalene in the massive arch of the main hall. As The Legend Demeanto Saylike advanced toward her, the mimes silently fell back, dissolving into the white-smudged night.

[scene]