A play in three acts
Tony Nasone (with great enthusiasm): Do you want to see a really big zombie?
Sylvie St. Cyr: Bless you! Is it the zombie that ate my credit card? Do I need to be stoned? All right then, I have nothing else going on. (Calling the Gardener) Jesaru! Jesaru! (Enter Jesaru Durango) Ah, good! Jesaru, I’d like to bet on a stale piece of bread. Do I need a prescription?
Jesaru (To the audience): How am I going to fork this horse? (To Sylvie) Yes, but really, I’m not interested in your hallucinations, Madame. I don’t mean to funkify you, but I’m a rational frumper, therefore an anarchist. I’ve had enough family disturbance—I’m full as a tick. (In a sing-song voice) ‘On the bench the goat lives, under the bench the goat dies.’
Sylvie: Bravo, Jesaru! What a sensational concert!
Jesaru: Thank you, Madam. It’s the fastest machine in the world, but the conductor is a mutton puncher.
Sylvie (To Tony): No, not this evening. I don’t want a blood transfusion. Another time.
Tony (To Jesaru): Although you are not at all my kind of jamoke, I want you to execute a saltation for me. Why don’t we take a little trip to Stridentopolis and check in at the Saco Vacío Grande?
Jesaru: I may can do that, but not too much gunpowder in my tea, please. I don’t mean to be an addle-pot, but I’m a lot like your wife. I like to watch, but not to get in on the act.
Fred Ferraris' work has been published in periodicals, including Bombay Gin, Cafe Irreal, Cold Mountain Review, Orbis, Stand, and The Worcester Review, in the anthologies Prayers For A Thousand Years (HarperSanFrancisco) and Ginosko Anthology 2 (MadHat Press), the chapbooks Marpa Point (Blackberry) and The Durango Chronicles (Blue Marmot Press), and a full-length book, Older Than Rain (Selva Editions).