Friday 15 June 2012

fj sketch #6


the men at the dogfights abhor good lighting. all they care about is sound and silhouette. the men at the cockfights, they want to see the feathers casting shadows, angle of each peck. blood on the beaks. at the dogfights, it’s all about barks and growls, yips and howls, the chanting, the cheering. big doug is the onhand vet. the city department of controlled activities turns a blind eye as long as there is a vet onhand. big doug is very good, has saved at least three chickens, four dogs lived to yelp another day by the spiked fences beneath the dental repair school, he is also a bouncer, keeping those like filthy jerry, or phillipe the sexy, from entering and scaring away the respectable types. rumors had it that jerry had spent a year filing and stapling for an architectural firm, paid in vanilla wafers and poker chips, and these are the types of people who give underground animal death rings a bad name. big doug knew the men who came in, whose hair gel doubled as cologne, whose swagger turned to a stomp, whose girlfriends lingered in the back and pretended it was a movie, except for loose mary, who shouted herself hoarse at the scenes unfolding. they all knew—big doug, harold the handshake—who was and wasn’t wanted here, loss of animal control like greek tragedy in another language.

_____________________________________________________

this is part of an ongoing series that should be wrapped/booked pretty soon. not sure if this segment will go in the final product, partly because I'm not sure how well it stands on its own. thoughts?

in other news, Sounds of Youth I Haven't Re-Filed*:


*i still like this a lot. perhaps not with the monolithic "best _____ of ____" that I did, but such hyperbole is best left to youth and music writers.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

I think it works as its own thing. But I'm also curious to see some of the other pieces. It's interesting to me partially because it seems like it's veering slightly in a different direction than the things I mostly ready in writers' group.

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

Sorry. *Read* in writers' group.

graham said...

Thanks, Leigh. I've got about 10 of these now, about Filthy Jerry, but am only at all happy with maybe half of those. This one slides slightly into the "unhappy" category, but what else I come up with will help the context.