Takes away Sweaty’s accolades, beats him incontrovertibly, wins own fan base, disappears
Sweaty Tank Top, publisher of What’s Off magazine, Kyiv’s weekly English-language entertainment rag, having convinced himself somewhere in his past that he is a writer and poet of some depth and profundity whose efforts in Wales to get his works published had been unfairly foiled by prejudiced, entrenched, narrow-minded and uncomprehending forces, is once again on the low platform stage of a basement bar in downtown Kyiv, reciting his poetry – feeling quite comfortable with the audience he’s convinced he commands, believing himself a personage of some significance and weight. Believing that this audience will warm to and be deeply moved by the words of the poet. Believing he is influencing this audience – psychologically, emotionally, and quite possibly hypnotizing them into dopey-eyed and blubbery-lipped submission to him on a more primal level, like a Jungian collective micro-cephalous, thereby extending a Machiavellian control over their alcohol-dulled minds. Believing… oh, believing many things, perhaps, but… little does he know…
Outside, Bret Boner lurks, slouching despondently under the weight of his Media Man cape, looking for a job. He’s not answering his phone: It’s his travel agent, wondering if Boner can use a super saver ticket back home. But really, that’s neither here nor there.
Meanwhile, O, idle reader, as this story magically unfolds before you, we at Kyiv Unedited bring you in on the action as it occurs – using the technique of in medias res, as discovered by Homer, thereby believing our poetic license is backed by strong authority dating to the very beginning of Western literature. Thus, at this precise moment Sweaty Tank Top recites:
… no rubbers, and the kitchen sink clogged after it was hogged, and there were holes in the wall, unexplained, meant for my fall, for which I paid, until the feeling waned, not to get laid, but getting to the core, not to bore, with false lore, on top of a new door, which was neither-nor, bought and broken, like a whore, or minority token, so I’ll give you more, ‘cause it didn’t work, making me too sore and spiritually poor to roar, so I felt outflanked by unseen forces, like a jerk, failing college courses –
… when an energetic voice from the side interrupts:
So you tell everyone you’re a poet,
Monstering your ego through a vain ass
Bestriding a captive stage in this bar
From which with stench and bilge you deign oppress
The Common Everyman having his drink,
A tiny pee-pee dingling from your groin
Somewhere in your pelvic cavity loin,
Bellowing your fantastic delusions
Like a mad cow lowing in moo-distress…
This is Steve Kowalski, largely unknown, and his sudden burst upon Kyiv’s poetic basement bar scene stirs a commotion: drunks sit up in their seats and grow alert, as if the spell of Sweaty’s song over them has been broken; some wobble onto their feet, and swaying, begin to point excitedly at Kowalski, hitting each other accidently but unapologetically in the face; a diminutive ferment swells like a wave from one end of the bar to the other, culminating in a small, though still uncertain, outburst of cheers and applause.
Patron Who Knows Something About Literature: Hey, do you think that’s better than Sweaty’s stuff?
Y.I. MacGuffin, an Englishman and Subject of Her Majesty’s Crown, Who Knows Everything About Literature, But Keeps a Low Profile Out of a General and Naturally Occurring Disinterest, answers coolly after taking a long unhurried draft of hot stout: I say, indubitably, old chap. Bad blank verse beats good slam-rap any day. Here-here, tallyho, and all that…
Lupa Mazuga, a very tall, typically good-natured, and intelligent Polish-Canadian, who is inexplicably enamored of Andrew Plumb, is outraged. He says: Hey, who is that asshole?! He’s not on the card. This is completely unauthorized. I’m going to go up there and beat his fucking head in!!!
Meanwhile, Sweaty’s face melts like Swiss cheese into rancid butter and curdling milk under the broiling heat of gluttony. Sweaty breaks into a visible sweat, but he refuses to turn toward his rival. Gulping, he dares to continue:
…but never mind, for I’m not blind, enough to see, it’s me, that is, what gives, what lies, what dies, what lives, that this place needs order, from border to border, living on a central street, where small-dicked cars meet, to race, way out of pace, and place, an illegal disgrace, the opposite of grace, making life a danger, bad for a stranger, but I’m a Kyivite, an expat of height, and like Ayn Rand, I demand a –
… but then Kowalski:
A complete idiot straining to shit
The presage of cesspool wastage that bloats
Huge, growing flatulent and distended,
Then blows talentless disorders like gas
In an unending gruel of malodor
Making you look like a frog growing sick
And then like the putrid mud under him,
Face molten and filled with volcanic holes
O, poor underappreciated sod,
Mug drooping to the neck like wrapped-around
Scarecrow sackcloth tied to a rot-beam spine,
Dull and listlessly swimming booze-gorged eyes,
Your puckered mouth, like a troll’s rear sphincter…
The bar’s in an uproar. Mazuga lunges toward Kowalski, who disappears through a wall.
Mazuga rages: There’s no way that asshole’s going to win a poetry contest against Andrew Plumb! Andrew Plumb will fucking crush him! He’ll kill him! He’ll mop up that fucking stage with him! He’ll kick his fucking ass! Andrew Plumb is God!!!
Rattled, Sweaty Tank Top now sits at the bar, gulping down whiskies, while the fallout provoked by Kowalski’s explosive appearance unfolds on the stage:
Jim Kickshitz: But I’m a writer – and I finally want to read my owl poem: Once, in a lone, dark wood, there was an ow –
Josh Davies: Oh, no you don’t, son – I’m a writer! I spitefully run a number of websites in revenge against every publication in Ukraine that’s ever fired me.
Axel Fishburger: Ha, ha, ha!!! Don’t make me laugh, old man! You, a writer?! Ha!!! You’re barely an editor. I’m the writer! I’ve (self)-published a book that –
Welsh Losser: Well, nyug, I’ve (self)-published a number of books by now, both fiction and non-fiction, and more are undoubtedly on the way, and I –
Zippy Zamazda: Well, uh, while I’m technically a journalist and editor, I harbor realistic hopes of one day being a writer, and am currently planning to begin a nov –
The Ferret: Heh-heh-heh – I’m not a writer, and I don’t care to be. In fact, I think poetry’s shit. What I am, see, is a hard-hitting oligarch journalist, who –
Boss Lard: Well then, you have no business being here, because if anyone here’s a writer, it’s certainly me, with more (self)-published fiction and non-fiction books than I can even remember, and more than all of you saps put together!!!
William Bill Publowsky: Um, I’m a writer… No, seriously; I really am…
But Lupa Mazuga yells: What about Andrew Plumb!!!
A pall of silence drops over the bar…
Filed by Jack Step (as retold based on inside sources, or Dirk Dickerson), July 18, 2013