kenneth gaburo
PENTAGON/Y (---concerning guns and cock-fighting) ¹
for solo reader
PART ONE: AGO
NOWTHEN,
:I fessup shame for having had a gun when I was a kid.
I remember hurting Marion who I liked a lot with a
beebee from that mean toy, Some mucking fessUP
I must have been an anthropologist then:
---I could not get it up to do you know what to her
(we were after all only nine or ten) so there was all
of that fore stuff with playing guns by you know who,
who couldn't get it up, hardly knew where to find it,
but who, even so, fessedup to the Father---
(Actually I was only trying to find out if what
I was doing was jerking off having heard the fellows
in the elementary school locker room talking about it
one day and so I ran home and tried it in bed with the
sheets pulled upover me but nothing wet happened so I
wasn't sure if I did it and became afraid that I wasn't
natural and ran to where)
---WHO admonished me for jerking off anyway,
calling it "solitary vice"
saying to me behind a dark curtain:
”shame, shame on you"
(emphasizing the distance between us),
"keep your hands off the trigger"
(neaning: don't massage your clit), and
"don't play with your fore-"
(meaning: a plea for circumcision), or
"rub-",
(meaning: to not get-skin close).
WHO then said:
"just piss and get off it
don't even shake it and
when you go to bed keep your hands on top of the sheets",
(meaning: cover it up), and THEN,
absolving me of my sins, WHO muttered something about
"nocturnal emmissions"
"it's natural that way"
"wet dreams", so-to-speak;
I know now,
but only wondered then,
if it is true that the gun shoots itself,
having yet had no experience with that either.
But there was no answer to that one as WHO'S Father's little
door,
behind the dark curtain, closed his "peace be with you my son",
and the Ahmen I was fessing up to---
(being a natural thing I suppose)
:wanting so to get near someone
that, I finally did with a beebee.
Not come fluid.
But with AGO/ddamf-uhcking beebee.
And not mine at that:
(who says)
:some gunfucker made it and I (only) used it? How unnice
it was when I lost my innocence and found out how it really was.
Imagine if she had a beebee up her you know what
because some gunfucker made it
and I (only) used it.
How's that for group sex?
Up your giggie siggie!
And bigbucks.
But, on, oh, that poor you know who.
Why should I have ever thought of such a thing?
Surely I didn't:
(But what possessed me to have one?
What possessed me to point one at her you know what?
What possessed me to pull it off?)
NOW,
YOU KNOW WHAT I'VE BEEN THINKING
POSSESSION POSSESSED ME:
GUNS POINT COCKS
POWER COCKS GUNS
GUNS POWER COCKS
COCKS POINT GUNS
BANGO!
THAT'S WHAT.
(Actually if you have one you gotta try it out
you just itch to get it off;
and I found it impossible to keep my hands on top of the sheet-
coversup,
even though,
being resourceful,
I did rub it nowandthen by pulling them eversosoftly over it,
backandforth,
meanwhile excusing myself since there was no direct contact)
THEN,
---but,
being only nine or ten I still couldn't stand the smell
of sorting out all of those dirty sheets,
blankets,
and clothes,
hour after hour,
in my father's laundry:
trying to breathe as little as possible;
sorting out the smellings into big bins;
separating the unclean colored ones from the unclean white ones;
bagging each into huge nets, which,
after having been washed,
wet-weighed 60 or so pounds,
My uncle Johnny,
the hunter, one of five brothers who also worked there,
was responsible for showing me the ropes, more or less:
first how to dock-unload;
then how to bin-dump;
then how to sort-out;
then how to net-up;
then how to name-tag;
then how to cart-load for pushing them to the centrifuge,
which was for forcing all the water out.
(he used to call me "sonny")
Then one day it was time to learn how to use it.
The washed had to be loaded very carefully into the centrifuge,
or the machine,
when operating at full speed,
would wobble so badly would lose its balance so wildly,
that it could,
so he said,
actually spin off its course.
But I could never load the nets;
Right
They weighed a ton to me,
and always cut into my fingers badly,
being so course and wet as they were my fingers
being so sensitive and so un-calloused as they were.
The first time I pushed the button
the centrifuge began to move.
But then,
almost at once,
it made an erratic surge in my direction.
it got me in my you know whats,
knocked me down on my you know where,
my you know where slipping some distance backwards on the wet,
soapy floor with the rest of me still attached,
more or less bango.
Wrong
But(t)
Johnny,
the hunter,
stopped it dead in its tracks,
and with a smile, muttering "sissy",
pulled out all the nets with admirable ease;
and again,
smile-muttering "this is no job for a piano-player",
proceeded to teach me,
in true Socratic fashion,
how centrifugal force works---
(Actually it didn't matter that I missed
right. ?)
:It didn't matter
that I didn't think
of you know whating her
in her you know what
with a gun.
It didn't matter:
(Wrong
Bucks and beebees mattered and all in the name of sport-loves
and raw games to the man who made the beebees who bucked the
beebees to the man who bucked the beebees to the man who bucked
the beebees through all the middle men markups to the man who
bucked the beebees to some consumer.
But I (only) dispensed
some shots at Marion's innocent you know what
without ever asking her
because I liked her.
Was it really a sign of affection?)
---As it turned out,
there used to be an unattached kitten that hung
out in the laundry.
So,
in a flash,
my uncle Johnny,
the hunter,
picked up the kitten,
stroked it saying "sweet pussy" to it,
then loaded it in the empty centrifuge,
closed the lid,
pressed the button and got the fuge "purring" so-to-speak;
possessing it all the while (I could tell he loved the force of it),
with his hands holding onto the perimeter standing next to thuh,
pushing his pelvis so naturally into thuhh,
moving his head distancing himself (I could tell) from thuhhh
so-shining,
so-sweetly gyrating casted-steel shell.
I think something happened between his legs
as the centrifuge responsibly slowed down to his button push.
THEN:
He opened the lid,
pulled out the damp fur pelt,
held it for a moment in front of me at arms length,
then,
still breathing heavily,
threw it into the dryer.
He could tell it drove me sick,
but smiled,
saying sincerely "see, it all comes out in the wash"---
(I must confess I didn't quite understand the significance
of this then,
since my sheets were yet-unstained,
so I thought)
:her almost-mutilated
you know what
just got that way
because of ago/ddampf-uhcking gun;
because of a free-floating
self-made dildoe of steel
which turned itself on and off so naturally;
except (perhaps) for a little help from some bumblebee who also,
innocently enough,
got in the way of the trigger;
stuck,
making its sweet pot of honey,
there:
(Actually appearing,
she said:"no, no, don't")
:but then I was happy to have it.
There were so many tin cans
and rusty brake drums
and steel oil containers
and all sorts of scrap metal hanging out in the junkyard
nearby:
(Actually facing me,
staring at me
she pleased:"please don't!)
:some still new enough to be glistening in the sunny light
in the hot summer air I was beginning to get real good at
loading the empty chamber and
closing it and
cocking it and
stroking it and:
(Actually she pleaded
"please don't",
even though she liked me I could tell)
:I could tell I was beginning to love the power of it:
(Actually "please",
then quickly turning her back to me)
:as I held its hard
(to me!)
:hardShiny surface in my hands being so-attracted to thuh:
(that's why I missed her you know what)
:standing behind thuhh:
(BANGO! rear-ended)
:pushing my body so naturally into thuhhh:
(and I,
bullshitting, I know now,
with my tongue-come,
afraid,
said:
"Actually I'm sorry")
:moving my light-struck eyes without Jerking thuhhhh:
(surely she couldn't have wanted one up her anywhere,
now could she?)
:hearing the so-shined,
the so-sweetly gyrating:
(there was no permission
no agreement
no talking about it)
:steel-casted:
(Actually "please don't' was her only defense)
:zinging pellets:
(she cried and ran away)
:making:
(screaming)
:contact!:
(BANGO!
Actually only then did I see the blood spurting from her.
Even so,
I couldn't imagine how such a thing could effect her life
being only nine or ten
as I ran in the other direction to hide behind a tree;
to jerk off;
still dry)
---then again to the laundry to sort out some smells
having at the moment nowhere else to turn;
to Johnny,
the hunter.
WHO wouldn't say much about it except that I hadn't "practiced"
enough.
(Now I wondered what "enough" was)
WHO, being resourceful,
(I know NOW!)
THEN tried to bribe my piano teacher
to not teach me anymore,
to save me from becoming a fruit so-to-speak;
but she had the courage to say she couldn't do that.
Although I didn't know it at the time,
he wasn't much with words,
even though his favorite expression was:
"do as I say, not as I do".
Now it could have been the other way around.
I don't remember for sure.
But,
it came from him;
from the man who bought it;
from the man who gave it to me;
from the man of few words who said sincerely:
"this will make a man out of you".
It came from the man who gunbucked from the man who gunbucked
from the man who gunbucked from all the middle men who gunbucked
from the man who gunbucked made it who gunbucked to the man who
gunbucked to the man who gunbucked to all middle men gunbucked
markups to the man who gunbucked it to the hunter who bought it
who gave it who said nowthen:
"keep it clean,
be resourceful,
and it will always work for you".---
NOW,
YOU KNOW WHAT. I'VE BEEN THINKING
THERE IS THIS HUGE CORPORATE BROTHERHOOD
OF ANONYMOUS GUNFUCKERS,
BUT THERE'S ALWAYS SOME WHO
BEHIND EACH AND EVERY SMELL.
BANGO! THAT'S WHAT!
THEN:
(I ran back to the tree being more afraid than anything else)
⁃ --being afraid of losing my fingers---
:being afraid of having deeply hurt her:
⁃--being afraid of wanting to please him---
(being afraid waiting for the wet to come.
Not yet.
Nor weeping.
Just afraid.
(Thereby excusing myself from any foul deed)
:being only nine or ten:
---being not-yet
unpossessed---
(end part one)
¹ PENTAGON/Y (---concerning guns and cock-fighting) forms part of
a massive theater entitled THE SCRATCH PROJECT: ACTS, 1982-7. AGO
is the first of ten texts for solo reader which comprise PENTAGON/Y.
Gaburo comments:
"I believe violent acts are crimes against all life. There is no
plea powerful enough to justify them, or to expect forgiveness for
them. I saw Marion only once again, and the hunter many times (be-
fore I got wise). In each instance, what could possibly have been
said that would have mattered? The acts, certainly mindless in the
light of their damaging consequences, happened. Nothing could undo
them. Forgetting is impossible. Due to such mindlessness, agonies
born of 'unforgetting' are sustained by those affected. I hear
them everywhere. In AGO a stage is set for what follows during the
course of PENTAGON/Y.
11.23.86
AGO © Kenneth Gaburo 1986 published by permission