RING AROUND WITH ROBYNNE
The St. Mintred Medical Center squats, grim and grimy, atop Widdershins Hill, which once commanded a fine view of St. Mintred Bay and now overlooks a host of intervening smokestacks. There are bowers and enclaves of well-preserved Victorian architecture to be found nearby; but Widdershins Hill is mostly inhabited by crazy-vagrants, and a security escort is recommended after visiting hours. >>>

PANDORA'S BOP
Cars inched along Pabst toward freeway onramps, to join the factory workers streaming out of Prithee Motors, Importune Transport, Point Beseechment Shipping, Cadger Cargo Delivery, and Panhandle-Grattiss Aerospace.  TGIF was nowhere in the atmosphere—displaced, perhaps, by the sour metallic whiff known as “St. Minnie’s Bouquet,” that intensifies throughout the week and is especially foul during Friday rush hour.  The drivers got to inhale it (along with a hundred unfiltered Marlboros) while they idled at stoplights, hurling honkish remarks at each other and passers-by.  A bile-green Subaru blocked one intersection; from its occupant came a whistle as Skeeter went hightailing past. >>>

THE DEMON BAG LADY OF SKEET STREET
“I need a new poke, and you’re coming with me!”

Peyton rounded up the usual objections.  He’d just gotten home from his dayjob, still had his nightly quota of ellipses to put down on paper; no, he couldn’t possibly go shopping with Skeeter this evening.

But “Aw please!” she would entreat, batting those apricot eyelashes; “Won’t you be my sugar daddy?”  To which appeal, of course, there could be no denial—or even resistance—as he found himself being reshod, rejacketed, and herded out the door. >>>

INITIALLY ILLUSTRATED
When Skeeter the Sophomore was merely 15, she pledged a sorority (actually more of a skag-gang) called the Buzzettes, whose sense of togetherness ran toward sharing packs of smokes while hanging out with overboard dudes in underslung cars. >>>

SPOOKACIOUS
Where could such a road lead in the end but to morgues and corpses?  Skeeter had no problem dealing with the diseased or infirm, but getting involved with The Dead—to the point of slicing them open and groping inside—was just too utterly spookacious.  Like being forced to assist your mother in disemboweling a raw Thanksgiving turkey:  GROHsss.  Skeeter preferred ham anyhow; it came decently outfitted in tin and was such a yummy shade of pink to boot.>>>

THE CENTER OF ALL EYES
Guess what:  You’re taking me out to dinner, and it better be somewhere ultra-air-conditioned and the drinks better have plenty of ice.  I’m in the mood for Mediterranean tonight, but not the usual pasta-with-cheese-on-top.  Anyplace around here sell gyros?  Those are so good, I love lamb and pita bread though I prefer to call it “pocket bread” ‘cause that sounds cuter—like it’s made from nuts dug up by little squirrels.  I love squirrels too, but would never ever eat one, so don’t even think of suggesting we go to a Creole restaurant, even if you are French— >>>

LITTLE ARTFUL ANTICS
“Hi hi hi, and thank you for that applause, considering I haven’t done anything yet except appear before you as my knockdown-gorgeous teenage self [pose].  My name is Skeeter Kitefly, and speaking of famous tennis players, I was up extremely late last night (whoooop)— >>>

PIZZAZZ
So what shall you listen about tonight?  My sister keeps wanting to know why I keep coming over here, and what I’m up to and what you’re up to, and getting all exasperated when I act hush-hush secretive about it just to gnarl her.  Sadie being a redhead, you see, she’s extra gnarlable; the redder the hair, the quicker to anger, in my experience.>>>

TITULAR ASSETS
“Whoever can this be?”  …Well of course I know it’s you.  Why else would I have dialed your number, said “I’m here—talk to me,” and hung up?  What do you mean, “Why don’t I just call collect?”  You know how I like to hear my phone ring. >>>

TEETOTAL
Hi.  I’m not going to ask you “How are you?” tonight.  Every one of the however many muscles that are supposed to be in my body are aching right now.  Okay then, “is” aching right now.  Yes, even my tongue-muscle—you want me to hang up this phone, Mr. Smartyass?—Be nice; I’m in pain here. >>>

BREAKFAST OF RUNNERS-UP
(Yawn.)  Morning!  If it is, still.  I’m “borrowing” one of your T-shirts, if you don’t mind.  Hey, don’t you have any red ones?  Well snort!  I guess I can make do with off-white.  Yours are nice ‘n’ roomy on me, at least, and long enough to Preserve My Modesty, which sounds awfully oldmaidish and pickleminded when you think about it.

(Let me know, by the way, if you find where I slung my underpants last night.) >>>

VERISILLYMISSITUDE
Isn’t that Kathleen Turner chick in this movie?  What a bitch.  Oh I hate her...  Whaddaya mean, “Why?”  Didn’t you see her in Body Heat, or The Man with Two Brains?  She’s got the classic, coldhearted, deepthroated evildoer-with-a-clear-complexion role nailed down tight, all right. >>>

BURSTING UNMENTIONABUBBLES
Hi, it’s me!  I bet you’ve never gotten a call from the Secretary of Commerce Suite at the Casa Hoover Casino Hotel (just off the Las Vegas Strip) before.

What?  No I am not broke!  What a thing to suggest—I’ll have you know RoBynne and I are positively flush and not down the potty, either.  And here I was calling to say how much I miss you, but since you’ve ruined that mood let me cut right to my Big Exciting News which is Big and Exciting so believe me— >>>

FLAGRANT FOUL
High on a hill in an Eldorado, late one summer in the Derelict Days of ’74, little Kelly Rebecca awaited her passage into conjugal womanhood.   Her heart was filled with romance, her lungs with demonweed, her stomach with partly-digested popcorn (she and Frid having gone to see Their Movie, Blazing Saddles, for the third time)—her ears with Roberta Flack on the Caddy stereo, and her haltertop with nothing at all as it dangled from the Caddy gearshift knob. >>>

BACK AND FORTH
—damn it .   Anybody’d think you were 15 instead of three times as old and six times as halfwitted.   She’ll take one look at your old-goatishness and run like a... whatever goats prey upon.   Children’s nannies in Tin Can Alley.

Now then.   Less than 3 hours to get ready.   Wash yourself clean.   Re-scrub and re-scour your surroundings.   Maybe you’re not in the habit of shaving on Saturdays or splashing on Skin Bracer, but time enough to do both.   And to air out the place.   And to camouflage the futon with magazines, so it looks more like a large low coffee table. >>>

LA GATITA Y EL CARNIVORO
That night I anticipate what the future might hold.   Contain the urge to hone and strop every chisel in the toolrack.   Even if Judith does decide to model for me, what are the odds it could pan out as well it did with Stormin’, or Josephine, or—

Miranda Parales.   Who merengue’d her way through Selfsame Art Supplies one remarkable summer, almost a decade ago.   Still living at home, just graduated from Bonum High, now attending a Barbizon School—not Rousseau and Millet’s, but a be-a-model-or-just-look-like-one factory.   Confident that wealth, fame, and sophisticated romance would all soon be hers.   Which might have been more credible had she not looked like a cartoon gatita, all frisk and pounce and scamper. >>>

BOLSTER, NOT MOLEST HER
There is a significant percentage of women who, when they hear you are a sculptor, immediately start to wonder just how graceful and gratifying you could make a statue of them look.   Some will demand to find out right away; some prefer to hint and fish and angle you into asking them.   With the latter, a certain amount of bait-hooking is done by both sides. >>>

JETTISONING VIRGINITY -
At age 13 I wasn’t so intent on understanding women as I was on feasting my eyes while pressing their flesh.  Of course I never got beyond fantasy with my young art teacher, Miss Pankiewicz, who engendered quite a few; nor with any of the girls in her class or eighth grade generally.  But I did gain a handhold on sculpting in clay, with most of my early productions happening to resemble boobs.  (I ended up adding two eyes above the nipple and a fishtail in back to make them look more like bass or bluegills.) >>>