Conversations With Elmo

     (When my legs returned, I was dressed in chintz and standing in front of ELMO who was holding a school-boy's slate and some chalk.)

Elmo: I want to play schoolhouse - educate me, bitch-knees.

Me: How did we get to this abandoned barn?

Elmo: I inherited it from an ancient great white owl named Crocadock.

Me: Oh I'm sorry he died.

(ELMO doodles idly.)

Elmo: I welcome death's presence, hooker - it is the chapter-gate into a sky-stew where bones become angels wings, and Earth Wind and Fire are there also.

Me: You like Disco.

Elmo: Don't presume to know me.

Me: I wouldn't dare.

(ELMO cracked his slate over my head.)

Sender Josh says:

This is Simon, in costume as Elmo.

Me: Look at this little guy - he is dressed up as you!

Elmo: You're sick and the guy who made this is sick!

Me: Um...?

Elmo: Using your eyeball orbs! Those are cat ears on top of his cat ears. Where did he get those cat ears? Where is the bloody headed cat? Is it in that washer? OH MY GOD CALL THE POLICE.

Me: I'm pretty sure it's Photoshopped.

Elmo: (speaking into a dirty sock) Hello, police, it's me.

Elmo: These chaps here that I'm wearing now are the chaps I wear solely for dancing and the casting of voodoo incantations.

Me: Are you Haitian?

Elmo: That's racist.

(Elmo murmured something under his breath and I woke up I was a pumpkin with a mouth, eyes, and ears.)

Elmo: Now is where you start screaming and screaming and screaming and never stop.

(I being to scream and scream and scream and never to stop. ELMO laughs and dances around me while he is laughing.)

Elmo: Screams are the spirit fluids that make the soil rich!

(He stopped and stomped a foot at me.)

Elmo: These are my clogs!

(They were patent leather navy)

Elmo: Punkin. Let's dance!

Me: I need legs to dance.

Elmo: I will give you magical legs that belonged to an old man who taught me about fatherhood on the railroad.

(ELMO paused to point a sharp claw at me, he sang:)

Elmo: BEEEEAUTIFUL LEEEEGS!

                      Elmo: What's your best kind of clothes?

Me: Pants I guess.

Elmo: You gotta be more specific.

Me: Um, denim I guess?

Elmo: Your problem is you ain't got passion for the right sort of things. You get hot on shit like oatmeal and problems!

Me: I cannot remember the last time I had oatmeal.

Elmo: You all spending your hours gnawing on corn cobs. Why do I waste my limited planetary hours here with you?

Me: What's your answer, is it that much better than mine?

Elmo: Chaps, son! Every day, in every way, I am thinking about chaps.

Me: I have seen you wear pants only once and it just seemed like you were uncomfortable.

(ELMO slaps me in the face.)

Elmo: CHAPS AIN'T PANTS. You want me to hit it back into you along with the sense you lost while buying bulks greens at Wal-mart?

                                Elmo: That dateline is a fucked up show.

Me: Well yeah, it's tough, but people do really bad stuff sometimes.

Elmo: But only for pretend times, not for real.

Me: Uh, no actually - that show Dateline on I.D. it was a record of something that actually happened.

Elmo: Get out of town with that!

Me: Nope. It's true.

Elmo: That guy told that other guy that he was ghost and to murder his wife and leave her in a barrel just outside Waffle House and then raccoons got into the barrel and ate her and it was REAL?

Me: Yeah.

Elmo: Oh my god!

Me: I know.

Elmo: Do you know him?

Me: What?

Elmo: What was his name, Barnaby? Arturo?

Me: I think it was like, Tom.

(ELMO wanders off and starts going through the junk drawer in the kitchen.)

Me: What are you looking for?

Elmo: White pages. I gotta talk to this guy.

Me: I think he's probably in jail.

Elmo: Do we have the jail white pages?

Me: That's not a thing that exists.

Elmo: Why you gotta make things so much more complicated than they ought to be, weirdo?

Me: The fact that there is no white pages for jail is in no way me complicating things.

Elmo: Great! This is juuuust great! Now I gotta go put on my tiniest of all the leather pants, and fill the chopper with gas, and go on the internet for flying directions to prison!

Me: You don't even know which prison he's in.

Elmo: I GOTTA SEE THIS GUY.

Me: Hey look - this girl I know named Laura did this draw of you.

Elmo: What the heck of a kind of shit ass shirt is that which I am wearing there?

Me: Oh. Well. It just says you love me.

Elmo: Don't love you , don't wear shirts - it's common knowledge from science that I gotta rock my nips or else all of fluids will dry and I will leave no rightful heir.

Me: I don't think boy cats have nipples.

ELMO: YOU WANNA ARGUE WITH THESE ROCK HARD TANTOS?

(When I come to, I sitting tied to a chaise lounge in a room where seventeen TVs are playing.)

Elmo: Hush now, plush, and don't struggle but your ear fell off, okay?

Me: WHAT?

Elmo: There was a terrible infection, and Enos Carolina, well, she telegraphed me -

Me: That's not a thing anymore dude -

Elmo: She telegraphed me that I should inject you with antibiotics but I didn't have any so instead I kept licking your ear to heal it with my spit.

Me: And that didn't work?

Elmo: No. So I ate your ear.

Me: That is different than it falling off.

Elmo: I'ma loose you now -

(He untied me from the chair.)

Elmo: Because I know how much you loved your little baby-shaped hearing meats, I bought you seventeen TVs and had a pyramid built in your honor by seventeen men from Guatemala.

Me: That's generous.

Elmo: I can be generous or I can be tricksy. No one really knows from time to time what will emerge.

Me: This is true. How did my ear taste.

Elmo: At first I was like "Oh man this ear, it's terrible," but later when I was sleeping and I felt it dancing belly welly wild inside my parts I thought this is a succulent indeed and I could hear it crying when the acids ate it.

Me: Let's. Let's just watch TV for a while.

Elmo: Fuck no! I wanna be a pirate!

(I had been running from Elmo for close to 6 hours when he cornered me in an alley behind a Quizno's.)

Me: Dude! I really don't want to get my ears pierce!

Elmo: Girl you know how to hustle that meat! It's like lamby shanks running raw! Excellent running, I am going to teach my new wife how to run like that.

Me: Wife?

(Elmo put his fists on his hips.)

Elmo: Yeah, I renamed her Enos Carolina, and she agreed to wait on a widow's walk outside of Ontario for me forever.

Me: When did this happen?

Elmo: Just now! On my Bluetooth device!

(Elmo tapped his ear, and then began to jog in place.)

Elmo: I also got some sneakers!

(I looked down to see he was wearing over-sized, white, sneakers.)

Me: Is that Velcro!

Elmo: Of course! You think I'd tie myself up with those laces? Can laces do this?

(He bent down and scritch-scratched a beat with his Velcro.)

Me:....I guess not?

Elmo: Damn straight -

(Quickly he lashed out and jammed a sharpened nail through my earlobe. I screamed, and screamed.)

Elmo: Stop screaming, I'll spit on it and you will be fine. Later I will sing to you only songs by Donovan.

               (We were in Wet Seal and Elmo had been getting his flirt on with the senior-most cashier who was telling him all about her life.)

Wet Seal Lady: I have a brother named Chad.

(He was playing with the fringe on her leather vest, sleepily.)

Elmo: Me too madame!

(He fell asleep for a second, but then woke up snorting and they both laughed while she scratched his ears.)

Elmo: Well I guess we are pretty much in love now!

WSL: Ha ha - what? I have a boyfriend, his name is Tom!

(A cloud passed over his furry face.)

Elmo: Is it Tom Petty?

WSL: W-what?

Elmo: Is he the artist of such recordings as Don't Come Around Here No More?!

WSL: No! He's sixteen! He works at the Wawa!

Elmo: That shit ain't no store! It's a sound babies make, you think I'm slow like molasses that is not from Boston?

(Nervous, WSL addressed me.)

WSL: What's he talking about?

Me: I'm not getting involved.

Elmo: Damn straight! Does your boyfriend Tom got magical abilities? Is he under three feet tall? I REST MY CASE

(To emphasize this argument, he did rapid soft shoe.)

WSL: Wow!

ELMO: Tell me all about your dreams!

WSL: I wanna be in charge of the Claire's across the way but they already hired someone.

Elmo: Whelp, sounds like someone's getting their ears pierced as research and then traveling through time and also this someone is not a cat or a lady who works at Wet Seal.

(Elmo finished his Brandy Alexander and then decided we should go to the mall.)

Elmo: Name you your two top favorites of mall type activities.

Me: Um...

Elmo: You think too much and don't talk enough! Speak words!

Me: I like the perfume store?

Elmo: You are like a little pear-shaped wonder. Where you get a notion to be fond for aromas?

Me: I don't know.

Elmo: Bitch that was rhetorical! Now ask me what my two favorite things in regarding to mall types activities -

Me: Okay - what are your -

Elmo: ORANGE JULIUS AND WET SEAL.

Me: Orange Julius, huh?

(I bought us each a large orange julius and this seemed to put him in good spirits.)

Elmo: This shit is delicious! It is like what I best an angel's teat would be like - a male angel.

(Elmo hits mine out of my hands and it spills all over the floor.)

Elmo: Now yours tastes like floor. LET US GO TO WET SEAL!

Me: Are you going to try on tube tops?

Elmo: Don't get smart with me cheddar danish - I got a plan, and that plan may involve gettin' my woo on with the senior most Wet Seal saleslady and filling her belly with all of the O.J.'s she can handle 'til she's juice drunk and ready to tell me how best to get the stank out of some leggings I have had for a time.

Me: Have you tried washing the leggings?

(While I was left bound and gagged, Elmo pretended to host a cooking show in the kitchen of this house we had broken into.)

Elmo: "She woke up a month later, bound and gagged in the kitchen of a house that belonged to Richard Pryor."

Me: Where am I?

Elmo: Casa de Pryor bitch. I found your notes inside of your mole skins.

Me: Moleskin.

Elmo: You been making me out to be a damn fool.

Me: I've just been writing down everything you've said!

Elmo: Your argument hold some water I guess. The truth is that paper offends me and also I think you might be obsessively in love with me and that makes me nervous.

Me: Are you going to untie me?

Elmo: Nah, not yet - I gave you a significant amount of the coolant that is used to make freezer keep peas as rough as pebbles and one of the effects is that it can make you knocked kneed and wily.

Me:....okay.....

Elmo: Right now Ima make a peanut butter sandwich and a brandy alexander and see if I can summon up some Pryor Ghosts in this manse - "Elmo left the room to go make a sandwich and also a cocktail..."

(We stopped outside of a pizza place. ELMO put the truck in park and slipped down from the seat. I quickly followed.)

ELMO: I haven't eaten food in eleven days.

ME: I know for a fact that isn't true.

ELMO: Incorrect. I have been fasting for eleven days as it says to in the bible that I have.

ME: You're religious.

ELMO: Sometimes.

ME: You're breaking your fast with pizza?

ELMO: "And verily did Jesus say, hand tossed deep dish thin crust and anal leakage-"

ME: I will wait in the car.

ELMO: "and neither shall you partake of the flesh of the emu, for the emu is in trangression with the meteroid Helen - the fierecest of all meteoroids and also Jesus's possessive ex-girlfriend."

       (We had driven on some time in silence. The sun was setting. Elmo began to speak.)

Elmo: Whatchu thinking 'bout?

Me: Nothing really.

Elmo: Now ask me what I am thinking 'bout.

Me: What are you -

Elmo: Chocolate bars. Life. The farcial nature of the gods. Also thongs and the men who wear them.

Me: Do you know a lot of men who wear thongs?

Elmo: I knew a man who wore a thong...once.

Me: Do you want to talk more about that?

Elmo: No.

Me: Okay.

Elmo: His name was Juan Carlo and he first appeared to me in a dream. When we met in life on a steam ship approaching the Suez canal it was like my destiny had been realized.

Me: That's really beautiful.

Elmo: Later in the aft-chamber he ripped the corset from my nubile form and boned me, boned me hard.

Me:....

Elmo: That is a sextion of the erotica for sexually frustrated teens I am writing.

Me: Do you mean section?

         (Once Jason calmed down, Elmo leaned back towards him.)

Elmo: Hold the wheel -

Me: I can't drive -

Elmo: I ain't asking you to, honkey!

(I held the wheel as requested, Elmo removed Jason's wig-gag and began eating it, Jason kept crying.)

Elmo: Sometimes I think, that of all the cravings, the only things worse than a craving for the knowledge of what ants think about, is a craving that I get for the smack of wig hair on the roof of my mouth meat.

Me: That's weird.

Elmo: Who asked you? You smell like a jizz-filled toaster strudel.

Jason: Whoa.

(Elmo stopped short and opened up the door and kick Jason out of the car.)

Elmo: Ain't no one gonna talk to my boob-havin' lady companion of letters that way! Get your ass over to 1-95 and find yourself a Roy Rogers!

Jason: I hate Roy Rogers!

Elmo: Dance with the womenfolk ain't yours, and you summon a fate surrounded by descending shades of beige-ass contemplation, diet coke, and chicken fringers, hombre.

(We left Jason to consider his fate and drove off down the road.)

Me: Thank you for defending my honor, Elmo.

(He batted at a loose string dangling from the velvet padding on the roof.)

Elmo: Love's a cold war, lady fair.

          (Elmo hopped out of the truck and crouched down to pat Jason on the back.)

Elmo: Man, you hearing these heaving-type sobs, whitey?

Me: Are you addressing me?

Elmo: Get your foolish ass out here and fetch me some twine from the security guard man inside.

Me: I don't think the security guard -

Elmo: Write me a sonnet about your thoughts and maybe also nature and the night stars later, foolish fool -

(When Elmo became redundant I knew it was no time to cross him. I went inside. Strangely, the guard did in fact have twine.

Elmo took the twine from my hands and began binding Jason's limbs.)

Elmo: (singing) Ima sing a song, a binding song, about how I hog-tied my friend and uterus-brother-type-guy. Ima sing a song, a Jason song, and then I'm gonna do him like I would an uppity homeless pig maaaaaaan.

Me: Why are you tying him up? Is he okay?

Elmo: Some ornery bastards such as calicos think that they can fool you with their tears. But I know the mark of the beast when I see it.

(ELMO kicked Jason in the abdomen.)

Elmo: Your salt sways me not, troll fucker!

Me: Did that guy really fuck trolls?

Elmo: Let's eat his wig hair.

Me: We are going to get arrested.

Elmo: Don't you know I run this world?

       (We pulled up outside of a local news affiliate in the suburbs of greater Detroit.)

Me: We going on the news?

Elmo: I'm amish. I don't believe in face eating technology. Or outer space.

Me: I think maybe you might be confused about your religion.

Elmo: Also we believe our blood is weightless and that angels weep pre-cum.

(Before I could respond, this one cat walked out of the locals news affiliate's office on two legs wearing a white blond wig.)

Elmo: JASON! How are you? How is your wife? How is your butt?

Jason: It's hard to walk on two legs.

Elmo: You are such a card.

Me: Who is this guy?

Elmo: This is Jason! I think our mom was the same mom. Jason, show her your itchiest part!

(Jason started cry which made him lose his balance and fall on all fours. Elmo just looked down at him from inside the pickup.)