A day in the life of Purplehead

It's late Sunday when I wake up and it's just one more rainy day in April. I'm alone at home, my wife Emmaretta is visiting a fortuneteller in a city far away, an old lady named Anya, known as the gypsy. Actually I'm too lazy to get up, I'd prefer to have breakfast in bed now, but I have some fools coming over for a party tonight. So I have to move my butt and prepare some food.

I start peeling potatoes for the fries when the door bell rings. It's a buddy of mine.

I say: "Hey Joe, I'm so glad that you're here." He asks: "What's going on here? Why are you wearing that stupid apron"? "I'm having a party tonight and I could use your help in the kitchen", I reply. He's laughing: "No no no, it's the unwritten law that men shouldn't be working in kitchens." I beg: "c'mon, please, no one came to help me, it's all up to me. I can't handle it". He says: "Alrighty, for some beers I'll help you, but I'm not responsible for the results." I'm relieved. "Hallelujah, thank the Lord", I'm thinking, "together we can work it out".

Joe follows me to the kitchen and, after we have a beer, he picks up a knife. Although it seems like he never before touched one, he starts peeling potatoes. All of a sudden he screams and there's blood running from his finger. I take a look at the wound and it looks like the cut runs deep. "Yeez", I say, "looks like you cut your fingers to the bone!"

Fortunately, my next door neighbor is a doctor. So I call him up. "Hey Cisco, my friend cut his finger badly. Can you come over and check on him?" "Sure" he says, "I'll be there in a minute". After looking at Joe's finger he says to me: "Man, are you blind? That's nothing. I'll put a band-aid on it and after another beer it will be soon forgotten." "I'm sorry Cisco, I though it was worse, but thanks a lot" I apologize.

Great, now all the kitchen work is up to me again.... I send Joe to the living room with another beer, telling him to watch TV.

About ten minutes later he yells: "Somebody is knocking at your backdoor!"

"Hush! Pretend nobody's home", I reply. "Too late, he already saw me", Joe said.

I answer the door and find Ted, the mechanic, my car dealer, along with his two wild dogs.

I had dropped my car at his place for fixing. I know, I didn't pick it up for weeks, I just can't pay the bill. But why didn't Rosemary, my mother-in-law, pick it up like she was supposed to? Man, that guy has a bad attitude, yelling at me like a mad dog: "You bastard, who do you think you are? Your piece of shit is blocking my place for weeks now and you refuse picking it up and paying me! Either you show up with 1000 bucks right now or I'll burn the damn thing! And all that oil that it lost, I tell you, you will personally lick it up from my ground!"

"A thousand bucks?" I ask. "You must be crazy. You're a real bloodsucker! But anyway, I will pick it up tomorrow, I just can't do it now. And now piss off and take your dogs with you!"

I go back to the kitchen to finish the stuff for the party and I put the roast beef in the oven when the phone rings. It's my sister Lalena calling. "Hey brother, I'm sorry I couldn't come over and help you with the party." - "Yeah alright, but hold on a second, Sis" I say, "I have to turn the oven down." - "You know", she says, "since I can't show up tonight, we may as well discuss this now: you're still holding this old photo album with all of our pictures of home. I thought you were giving some to me. And also the black and white wedding photo of our grandparents. What about that?" - "Yeah, yeah, don't hold your breath about that, you'll get them", I answer in a hurry. "I gotta hang up now, my guests are already coming. Call me again tomorrow." - "Yeez, do I never get my freedom today?", I think, while I'm looking at my driveway.

There's a brand new Audi A 200 pulling up. Off come Mitzi Dupree and Mary Long. Did I invite them? I'm not sure. Well, Mitzi, who is an ex of mine, is a real hard loving woman, always telling me that I'm a hard loving man, but that's bullshit. I'm as easy as can be. It was all her fault. Anyways, I'm positive I didn't invite Mary. She is a really strange kind of woman. One of these tough fighting feminists, you know? I suspect her to be a dyke anyway....

Before I can do anything about it, Joe lets them both in the house. I think: "great Joe, don't make me happy today at all, you dummie." Well, too late, they're in.

"Hi Honey", Mitzi whispers, "how are you?". I say: "I could wring that neck of yours for bringing Mary here. What were you thinking?" . "Well, I didn't know you hate her that much. I'm sorry. I had a bad day today and she was coming over to take care of me. My house was broken into and somebody stole my guitar. My favorite one, the nice blue Ernie Ball one, you know? I'd pay a 1000 dollar reward for that thief, dead or alive. They even opened the birdcage and the bird has flown the coop. So I was happy to have Mary around to comfort me. That's why I brought her over. Please let's not argue about this. Why don't we play a little bit of solitaire on your computer, like in the old days, before the other guests come."

"Alright, why not", I say. But we don't get much further than the second game because all of a sudden all the party guests show up at one time, like they had agreed on it. First are John, Jan, Steven, Rodger and little Jan, arriving in a little van. Right behind them there's Tony, in one taxi with Eddie, Pete and Ronnie in his company. Micky and Bernie with the next taxi, they even brought Cliff, Steve and Andy with them. Well, there are about six more cars arriving, but I don't want to bore you with the details. Just, everybody came. The party is already going wild, dancing the Purpendicular Waltz, when another car pulls up. It's a '69 Chevy. All black, even the windows are darkened, no headlights on, and out gets a guy dressed all in black with a black hat on and a pretty young blonde in his arms. "Hmm, was he invited, too?", somebody asks. "I guess so" somebody else replies and everybody walks back into the house. I welcome everybody at the door and I think my party is complete now. But wait a moment, I haven't seen Collin yet. I ask the crowd if anybody knows where he is. Heads shaking and shoulders shrugging everywhere. Only Rodger seems to know something. He says: "I heard he's not feeling well. He might not come". "Too bad", I say, "he's always the most important part of our parties. And nobody else but Rodgers knows anything?". No reaction from anybody. "Hmm, strange" I think, but we're moving on. The party's boiling when the DJ is playing the Resurrection Shuffle. My friend Tony shows up in pyjamas, taking over the keyboards and pretending to be Ashton. Nice attempt though, but you can't copy THIS great man.

I start getting exhausted, so I walk out to the yard, taking a rest, just watching the sky. It's a really cold black night tonight, but I'm enjoying it. All the stars are visible, and I'm happy everybody is having fun at my party. As I'm looking at my garden's fish lake, I realize some smoke on the water there. I start panicing. I know that a lake can't burn, so it must be coming from the house. I yell: "There's a fire in the basement, everybody leave the house, please!"

All the guests run out of the house, most of them jump in their cars and leave right away.

Steve, Cliff, Andy and me take a big fire extinguisher and we go down the basement. The smoke is coming out of the rehearsal room. We open the door and see the fireball raging. The Marshall is burning! Cliff walks right into the fire and shoots the whole load of foam at it. "Be careful, man" I yell, "these flames might just take your life. They don't need any time to kill you". But, before I even finish my sentence, brave Cliff has already extinguished the fire.

He says: "You know, sometimes I feel like screaming with you. We just bought that new equipment and there it goes. Some idiot must have left it on stand by, but any fule kno that you can't do that. Was that probably you?". "Hmpphh..."

We go back to the house and realize that everybody has left. So again it's just the four of us left 'til the end of the party, kinda like always.

"I'm so glad that this day is over, Lady Luck was not smiling on me today. I'm so screwed up, feeling like a living wreck. Fixing all that damage at the house will be a nasty piece of work. I think we should go to Rosa's Cantina and have a dozen beers before my wife's comin' home," I suggest.

So we call a taxi and go. When we arrive at Rosa's, we find the bar closed. "Alrighty then. In that case, drive us to The Spanish Archer instead", I tell the taxi driver. "Where's that at?" he asks. "Just around the corner, it's that bar with the guy holding a bow, sitting on a red painted horse in front of their door," I explain. "Oh, yeah, that one you mean. No problem."

We enter the place and find it pretty empty. Only a few people at the bar, so that's were we end up. Next to us stands Steve, the aviator. Just landed from his recent flight. About three months ago he married that woman from Tokyo, Akimi Fugimoro, or something like that, and he got her pregnant already. Respect. He has a weird looking drink sitting in front of him, so I ask him: "what the hell is THAT?". He says: "It's their newest creation. They call it "Stormbringer". I only know it contains vodka, lots of lime, a bit of mandrake root and only hell knows what else is in there. But it gets you shitfaced in no time. You want one?".

"No, thanks, I better stuck with my beer". Standing next to Steve is Paul. He's an original. Being 86 years old, he comes to that bar every day with his little doggy, named Lady, who has a twist in the tail, and he's having his two glasses of red wine. Every day. An amazing person, looking no older than 60, you wouldn't believe him.

While I'm chatting with them, somebody is tapping on my shoulder. I turn around and look into Susan's face. We've known each other for a long time. I realize that her eyes are all red, looks like she was crying. "What's wrong?" I ask her. "Well, my husband Louis, I call him evil Louie, beat me up again. You know that it's not the first time he mistreated me. I can't stand it anymore. I'm so tired of his wicked ways".

I'm shocked. "Oh man, that guy has such a mean streak. I thought he gave that attitude up already. I'm surprized to hear that, still, the battle rages on between the two of you. Why don't you just kick his ass?" I suggest.

"Yes, I guess I will. It looks like you can't do it right with the one you love. Over all the years I tried everything, but it seems like love don't mean a thing in a marriage. Funny, I always thought that love conquers all, but I just can't please him, no matter what I do", she answers.

"Do you still love him?" I ask. "Uhh, let's not talk about love here. That's long time gone". "Well, I know the truth hurts", I say, "but I think you should really leave that jerk".

"Yes, I know. Maybe I should just take his boat, which he suitably named Demon's Eye and sail away on it, maybe all the way to Italy", she agrees, starting to cry again.

While I'm giving Susan a big hug, over her shoulder I see Mitzi and Mary walking in the door. Both obviously loaded from my party. "Oh no, not them again", I think. "That's the last thing I need now." All attempts trying to hide are too late, they already wave at us.

Mary picks Andy as her victim and walks right at him. She's still wearing that strange top, looks like a corsett, black leather with chains and strings. She says: "Andy, honey, this thing keeps on getting tighter, can I ask you to loosen my strings here in the back?". Andy, being a bit shy, fumbles around with her outfit, opens some strings and ties them back up again. "That's better. And here, in front," Mary rustles, "that's too tight, too." Andy gulps and opens that string as well. The result is that the top slides down half way, exposing Mary's breasts. Andy turns all red, his hands are only a touch away from her nipples, and he hurries to push Mary's top back up again. "I'm so sorry", he mumbles. But Mary is giggling and the rest of us are laughing to the top of our lungs. "Hmm", I think to myself, "maybe she's not a dyke. Maybe she's only a bit rough because she's a Kentucky woman. Who knows...."

Then something happened that should have never happened.

All of a sudden the music box is playing "When A Blind Man Cries". Due to the memories, I can't help other than dragging Mitzi to the dance floor. That happened to be our first dance together, years ago. We cuddle up, dancing really tight, and she whispers in my ear: "You're such a smooth dancer. You get me all hot. Guess I need love tonight really badly. Why don't we just leave and go to my place?". I gulp. My lower region is speaking a clear language. I'm about to agree. I think: "Why not? She's a hot piece and maybe I'm a leo, still. Well, at least I used to be one. Although I'm older now, I'm still not a holy man. So what". I'm just about to pull Mitzi towards the back door, when, all the sudden, I hear this echoing inner voice, saying "this wouldn't be right to Emmaretta". After some serious discussion with that voice I say to Mitzi: "In case you forgot, I'm not your lover anymore, I'm married in the meantime."

"But I still love you", Mitzi whispers, nibbling on the lobe of my ear and pressing her body against mine. I'm getting weak again. "I want you back and this time around it's gonna be perfect with us, I know it. I promise to be the woman you always wanted. So, come on, let's leave. Now!". Although it was probably the toughest decision I ever made I say: "Oh Mitzi, I know you better than that. You fool no one, at least not me, after all those years. You just want one man's meat tonight, no matter whose it is. You don't really mean me. I'm sorry, but I'm not available."

You wouldn't believe her after that. She goes wild, pounding on me with both fists like crazy, yelling, and calling me all the names you can imagine. Then she runs out of the bar.

"Phew", I think, "that was close enough" and I'm getting mo' beers with my buddies. We're pretty much the only guests left and I think: "yeez, what a bloody long day it's been today."

We hear the last call of the wild looking waitress. "She's also worth a sin", I'm thinking in my foggy brain, while they're playing the national anthem, which means the night is almost over. The waitress says."Folks, I gotta go soon. So do you. I'm really under the gun to be home on time before my husband returns from work, you know." Andy, all wound up from Mary's charm, orders some rounds of Schnaps, those terrible Highball shooters . Guess that's what killed me that night - I can only handle beer. Anyway, the last thing I remember is that I drop from my bar chair, hitting the ground hard. Then I pass out.

Next thing I remember is Cliff and Andy shaking me like nuts, yelling: "Hey man, get up. Are you okay?" But I'm only able to mumble "Herrre I wannnna lay down, stay down, forrreva. Jusss leave ma herrre". Then I pass out again.

They get scared and the waitress calls the ambulance. I can't move but I hear the paramedic say: "Man, looks like for him too much is not enough. He had to really shoot out all of his bulbs, eh?"

"Bllshsht", I insist. "I'm jsttt finnne." I hear Cliff say: "His wife will be arriving soon. We can't let her see him like this. What can we do?". The paramedic says: "I gave him an injection. If you keep on moving him around for the next 15 minutes he'll be alright and walk on his own again. He'll only have a major headache tomorrow."

Thus happened, and we made it home before my wife arrived. She didn't suspect anything at all, I only had to admit to that fire in the rehearsal room. But she was easy, feeling sorry for our equipment and offering to help me with the fixing. She even made breakfast for Cliff, Steve, Andy and me the next day. What a great wife she is, our lady.....