This is something I've posted before, but I think it somehow got deleted from my site when I futzed around with it recently. Anyway, this is the origin story of Mr. Cash Brulee, blind entertainer extraordinaire:
A lot of people ask me, Cash - how did you lose your eyesight? Go blind? Become enveloped in a world of darkness? Enter the abyss? Come to dwell evermore in shadow? I encounter a lot of very poetic people. Well, this is a story I have always been very reluctant to tell - after all, my blindness is part of my mystique. Why toy with that mystique by revealing the origins of my most noteworthy characteristic? Well, thankfully, the story of how I went blind is pretty fucking amazing.
When I was a little boy, growing up in Baton Moines, Louisyoming, my father and I had a weekly tradition that we called 'Chinese Food and Zoo Sundays'. That has a nice ring to it, right? At any rate, every Sunday, my father would take me to lunch at a Chinese restaurant called 'Whang Family Lucky Dragon Seven Golden Treasures Palace Two', and then we'd go to the Baton Moines Zoo. The original 'Whang Family Lucky Dragon Seven Golden Treasures Palace' had burned down following a freak dumpling explosion. Heh, it was literally wonton destruction.
Now, at the time, my father made his living handcrafting designer shoulder bags for men out of cactii. Like those messenger bags that are so popular, but made of of cactii.They were beautiful, these cactus manbags that he made. Big spiny satchels for men that had been handcrafted out of only the finest, thorniest, spiniest of cactii. A lot of guys liked them because they were slightly painful to wear, and people usually steered clear of you. Plus, if the bag tore the resulting ooze was good for the skin. My Dad had a little cactus manbag boutique called 'The Thorn In Your Side' - it was one of those stores that was on the second floor of a strip mall, right above a travel agency called No Hassle Tours, which was a travel agency dedicated to catering to straight women who wanted to go on all-gay men tours so they wouldn't be hassled. It was a pretty popular travel agency until a competitor popped up who specialized in catering to straight men who wanted to pretend to be gay men so they could go on all gay man tours with the goal of hassling straight women who had chosen to go on all gay man tours so they wouldn't be hassled by straight men. They were called You Know You Want It Tours. And then there was the travel agency called Jesus H Can I Just Have Mai Tai without all This Fucking Sexual Espionage Tours, which specialized in catering to gay men who were tired of straight women and straight men posing as gay men joining their tours. My Dad's shop used to be a comic book shop, and my Dad painted the inflatable spiderman that was hanging out of the window green and glued thumbtacks facing out on it, so it really did kinda look like a cactus.
Dad only sold one or two of these bags a week, so to supplement his income he would sell knives and medical supplies, mostly hypodermic needles, door-to-door. So, he would usually be walking around with a big cactus manbag full of knives and hypodermic needles. Anyway, on the particular, fateful Sunday that I'm talking about, we had just finished lunch, I had had the Chicken with Cashews - and had eaten all of the chicken but none of the cashews and had built a little cashew igloo as kids are wont to do. A cashewgloo. At the end of lunch, I asked my Dad "Dad, can I carry these chopsticks around in my hands for the rest of the day? Just carry one chopstick in each hand - like this - and wave them around willy nilly as we walk around the zoo?" My Dad said, "sure", and we marched off to the Baton Moines zoo, me waving my chopsticks around just willy nilly, weaving in and out between my fathers legs, periodically ducking to avoid my Dad's big spiny cactus manbag full of needles and knives that was swinging at his side.
The Baton Moines Zoo is huge, and there was always some new habitat or exhibit to check out. It was probably best known for the Tiger that lived in the rocky enclosure that had, until a tragic gate malfunction, been the penguin habitat. Before that, it was best known for the same tiger in the swampy enclosure that used to house the flamingos. Basically, this tiger was now living in an enclosure that was four habitats away from where it had originally been housed. Everyone used to place bets as to where the Tiger would migrate to next. The panda exhibit or the petting zoo. At any rate, we got to the big bamboo gate of the Baton Moines zoo that day to see a big sign advertising that day's special exhibit - it said, TODAY ONLY, PORCUPULT EXHIBIT - LIVE PORCUPINES HURLED VIA CATAPULT!- and then a smaller sign under that: OPEN ADMISSION. And then an even smaller sign under that SORRY WE ARE OUT OF GOGGLES.
I perked up and as I ducked beneath my Daddy's cactus manbag I shouted "Daddy please can I go see the Porcupult Exhibit?" And I marched around his legs with my chopsticks, waving them this way and that with little regard whatsoever as to where I was waving them."
My Daddy said, of course not! You may not go see the Porcupult exhibit, an exhibit in which live, terrified porcupines are hurlted at the audience via catapult.
Daddy please! I shouted, and marched around his legs with my chopsticks, my Daddy's knife and needle filled manbag swining this way and that around my head. Please! I want to go see the porcupult exhibit!
Meanwhile in the background, an announcement came over the loudspeaker - "please be on the lookout for the flying face snakes - they've escaped from their tank and they are so named because they can fly and prefer to attack faces."
My Daddy didn't hear the announcement either - he was busy trying to corral me as I ran around his legs with my chopsticks - "No you may not see the porcupult exhibit, an exhibit wherein startled, scared porcupines brimming with defensive quills are loaded into the medieval war device known as a catapult and then hurled at the audience - and do you see the sign, they're out of goggles!"
Daddy Please, I shouted as I dodged his cactus manbag and waved my chopsticks around.
"Repeat, beware the flying face snakes" came over the PA system again.
No, you may not!
Please!
Chopsticks!
"Facesnakes!"
Manbag!
Porcupult!
Please please please!
NO! Finally my Daddy got so mad and frustrated that he hit me upside the head and I went blind.
The End.
Posted on November 19, 2006 |