Read Online The Prisoner of Vandam Street by Kinky Friedman - Free Book Online
Authors: Kinky Friedman
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wouldn’t have been standing at the kitchen window with a pair of ancient opera glasses hovering just above my beezer. But there I was. And there it was. A small square of light in a world of darkness.
“I can’t believe it!” I shouted to the cat. “This little booger really works!”
The cat’s interest seemed mildly piqued. At least she seemed curious enough to jump off the desk and hop up beside me on the windowsill. Coming from a cat, that’s quite a vote of confidence.
The square of light was apparently an apartment or loft in the building across the street which I’d always taken to be just an old warehouse. People who looked at my building, I reflected, very possibly just took it to be an old warehouse. Yet, beneath the facades, behind the exteriors, under the waves, between the sheets, inside the hearts, where nobody looks is always where the real show is taking place. I had no idea what time it was or what day it was. All I knew was that it was dark outside and it was late and there was a small table inside the lighted square with a vase of flowers on it.
“Looks like Still Life with Woodpecker, ” I hazarded, in a rather half-hearted effort to keep the cat in the game. Mentioning a bird usually helped, but I could see that her interest was rapidly waning.
The fact is, my interest was waning, as well, until the woman came into the frame. Indeed, before I saw her, I’d gotten bored and had shifted my attention to a cat going through a parked garbage truck. You’d think my cat, who lived, relatively speaking, in the very lap of luxury, might have some little degree of empathy for the stray cat poring over the garbage. This was not the case, however. The cat saw the other cat, gave a slight mew of distaste, hopped down from the windowsill, and immediately redirected her attention to her own anus. Socially speaking, I was somewhat disappointed in the cat. Maybe there were some Freudian aspects to the situation that I was missing. I didn’t want to go crazy thinking about it. Maybe a cat licking her own anus, another cat going through a garbage truck, and a vase of cut flowers in an empty apartment was all there was to life.
It was while I aimed the opera glasses one last time at the vase of flowers that I saw the woman enter the picture. She seemed to adjust the flowers slightly in the vase, then she walked over to the window and appeared to be gazing down on Vandam Street, possibly waiting for someone. She was not scantily clad or anything like that. She was wearing a dark house robe, or it could have been a kimono. Her hair was long and dark and cascaded down to her shoulders which, like the rest of her figure that I could see, seemed trim and lithe. She looked quite beautiful with her arms held together under her breasts in an attitude of wistful waitingness, almost the stoic pose of an island maiden standing on the shore, longing for her sailor to return. Maybe it was the malaria talking, but I had to tell someone what I felt for the girl, so I tried again to engage the cat.
“Look at this beautiful young woman,” I said. “She’s a modern-day Juliet waiting for her Romeo.”
The cat never had cared much for the classics. Nor did she appear to ever evince much sympathy for the underdog. For those reasons, and probably many others, she continued to callously lick her anus.
“Stop licking your anus!” I shouted.
The cat did not stop. The woman, I noticed, had given up, for the moment, looking for her lover. She walked back to the table, sat down in a chair, and put her head in her hands, remaining frozen there in what seemed a heartbreaking tableau.
“Young love in the city,” I said.
The cat evidently did not care a flea about the troubled lives of the people in the building across the street. She shamelessly continued her previous activity.
“Stop licking your anus!” I shouted.
The cat stopped briefly, then she started up again. I put down the opera glasses for a moment, puffed
“I can’t believe it!” I shouted to the cat. “This little booger really works!”
The cat’s interest seemed mildly piqued. At least she seemed curious enough to jump off the desk and hop up beside me on the windowsill. Coming from a cat, that’s quite a vote of confidence.
The square of light was apparently an apartment or loft in the building across the street which I’d always taken to be just an old warehouse. People who looked at my building, I reflected, very possibly just took it to be an old warehouse. Yet, beneath the facades, behind the exteriors, under the waves, between the sheets, inside the hearts, where nobody looks is always where the real show is taking place. I had no idea what time it was or what day it was. All I knew was that it was dark outside and it was late and there was a small table inside the lighted square with a vase of flowers on it.
“Looks like Still Life with Woodpecker, ” I hazarded, in a rather half-hearted effort to keep the cat in the game. Mentioning a bird usually helped, but I could see that her interest was rapidly waning.
The fact is, my interest was waning, as well, until the woman came into the frame. Indeed, before I saw her, I’d gotten bored and had shifted my attention to a cat going through a parked garbage truck. You’d think my cat, who lived, relatively speaking, in the very lap of luxury, might have some little degree of empathy for the stray cat poring over the garbage. This was not the case, however. The cat saw the other cat, gave a slight mew of distaste, hopped down from the windowsill, and immediately redirected her attention to her own anus. Socially speaking, I was somewhat disappointed in the cat. Maybe there were some Freudian aspects to the situation that I was missing. I didn’t want to go crazy thinking about it. Maybe a cat licking her own anus, another cat going through a garbage truck, and a vase of cut flowers in an empty apartment was all there was to life.
It was while I aimed the opera glasses one last time at the vase of flowers that I saw the woman enter the picture. She seemed to adjust the flowers slightly in the vase, then she walked over to the window and appeared to be gazing down on Vandam Street, possibly waiting for someone. She was not scantily clad or anything like that. She was wearing a dark house robe, or it could have been a kimono. Her hair was long and dark and cascaded down to her shoulders which, like the rest of her figure that I could see, seemed trim and lithe. She looked quite beautiful with her arms held together under her breasts in an attitude of wistful waitingness, almost the stoic pose of an island maiden standing on the shore, longing for her sailor to return. Maybe it was the malaria talking, but I had to tell someone what I felt for the girl, so I tried again to engage the cat.
“Look at this beautiful young woman,” I said. “She’s a modern-day Juliet waiting for her Romeo.”
The cat never had cared much for the classics. Nor did she appear to ever evince much sympathy for the underdog. For those reasons, and probably many others, she continued to callously lick her anus.
“Stop licking your anus!” I shouted.
The cat did not stop. The woman, I noticed, had given up, for the moment, looking for her lover. She walked back to the table, sat down in a chair, and put her head in her hands, remaining frozen there in what seemed a heartbreaking tableau.
“Young love in the city,” I said.
The cat evidently did not care a flea about the troubled lives of the people in the building across the street. She shamelessly continued her previous activity.
“Stop licking your anus!” I shouted.
The cat stopped briefly, then she started up again. I put down the opera glasses for a moment, puffed
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