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One Percent of What the Limey Didn't Know
by Cesca Janece Waterfield I am a man, he announced, lowering a glistening black top hat from his crown to bow deeply; I am a man who seeks evolution. He worked, he said, to develop the spheres of intelligence, humanity, and eros. You may call me EvilMo, he granted. She said her name was Scout, she was pleased to meet. After she left, he stood alone in his kitchen: Fuckin hayseed. He screwed his mouth in a twist, bit into an ice cube. Who's that other Alabama scribbler? He tried to remember. Some Indian? Nothing came to him, so he shrugged. Books are for the fine silhouette they cut. Libraries exist merely for the recall of data so that an appearance may be made, so that an impressive fact may be sent "effectively" 'cross the room in spite of the dearth of understanding in its utterance. Literature? Only pity and lust-for-self bring forth questions: Questions like, Why me? Why won't somebody take me home? Chewing over the chasm he saw between what he "deserved" and what shiite gobbled him up in spite of his scrupulous behavior... Contemplating a final leap into the abyss that swam toward him across the channel of a Lee-Enfield gun barrel, he suddenly recovered, guffawed contemptuously, and emptied a tumbler of Beefeater's past his lips before muttering incoherently between them. He reached for his cane and hat. You enjoy being an American Southerner? he'd once said, putting on his haughty hair, leaning over to pick up a single one as it fell. He stared at her aghast. I don't associate myself as such, beyond my vast research into the Civil War. He lifted his chin to address the case of French bullets… Ew… Frenchies… and then stopped, lit by an idea: But you know… It had happened. He'd experienced a second thought: I do like a moustache. He was on the move now, giving it real deliberation: I would like to be that famous guy...? He tried to remember. Reliably, infamy and notoriety comprised a dual ferry in his mind, and brought forth the name: Kit Carson! Yeah! I would like to be Kit Carson ninety nine percent of the time. Most of the time, all she wanted was a good time, he would later tell everyone who was tired of listening. He groused past the neighbor's pool, glancing in: She only wants drunks and wannabes. Knuckleheads, panheads, ninety nine percent of the time. But that one percent, he couldn't get his mind around it.
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