"The Devil and Rusty Pliers"

[Adjusts mic, speaks to audience]

Thank You!

I’m the Writer Rusty Pliers.

[Reads from script]

Uh. Gee, I hope I can read this.

I spilled some salsa and guacamole on it while I was rehearsing this afternoon…

[Lift patch and look?]

Spilled a margarita on it, too… somewhere…

[Lower patch]

Then they asked me to put on my pants

and leave the aquarium!

[Pause]

So I didn’t get a lot of rehearsing done.

[Long Pause]

I hope you enjoy it.

[Relax… Deep breath… Be Rusty]

Tonight’s story is entitled… 

“The Devil…

and Rusty Pliers”

[Prologue]

“How about proposing a toast, Rusty?” asked our host.

“Sure,” I answered. “I’d be delighted.” 

I stood and raised my glass. 

“May you be in heaven,” I said, winking at the hostess, “half an hour before the devil knows you’re dead!”

The dinner guests tittered at my remark. 

A remark I’d learned in Ireland, by the way, where they’ve had a preoccupation with the devil for centuries.

They asked me to propose another toast and we tittered a little over that one too.

Then another toast.

And another…

[Pause]

Anyway, after the party I was heading home on my Ducati 900 motorcycle when instead of going around this corner like I usually do… I went straight ahead… flying through the air like Evel Knievel … 

Until I smashed into a bridge abutment and was killed instantly. 

[Act I]

I awoke in hell standing before the devil.

He was seated behind an ornate desk made from human bones. 

“Hello, Rusty,” he said agreeably. “Welcome to hell.”

[Reflective, to audience]

Funny, but he didn’t look anything like I expected he would. He looked kinda like Leonardo DiCaprio.

[Pause]

Not the hairy revenant Leonardo…

… but the well-dressed Leonardo from the golden globes.

[Pause]

“Smoke?” he asked, gesturing to a cigarette box.

“Am I?” I answered looking around to pat myself out where I might still be burning from my crash and fall into hell.

Otherwise, for a dead guy, I didn’t feel too bad.

“I mean tobacco,” said the devil with a smile.  

“Sure,” I said, taking one. “Can’t hurt me now, can it?”

“Hell… no!” he agreed with a laugh. He had nice teeth, proving what I’ve long suspected… that hell is full of dentists.

“How about a drink to go with your smoke?” he asked and like magic a gin and tonic appeared in my hand.

“Yes please!” I answered and thought to myself that maybe hell wasn’t going to be too bad, after all.

“Excuse me for asking,” I said, sipping my drink. “I’ve made that corner a thousand times. Why not tonight?”

“It’s just like they told you in Sunday school, Rusty,” he answered. “Everyone’s days are numbered… 

[Sinisterly]

…And everyone will be judged.”

[Pause]

“I don’t remember Sunday school too well,” I said, meaning I didn’t remember ever going to Sunday school… but I didn’t mention that.

The devil just looked at me and smiled.

“Enjoying your smoke?” he asked.

“Yes,” I answered. “It’s been awhile. I quit in 2010.”

“I know,” he said. “And what for? You died in a motorcycle crash! Hahaha!”

“Yeah,” I answered a little peevishly. “Funny.”

“C’mon, Rusty!” laughed the devil. “You’ve been on the highway to hell since you were twelve-years-old! I always figured you for a guy who could take a joke.”

He laughed again and in spite of myself I began to laugh a little, too. 

After all, what does it matter how we die?

It’s how we live that counts!

[Act II]

“Well,” I asked. “Now what?”

“You choose your hell,” he answered.

“Choose my own hell?”

“Yes,” said the devil proudly. “Your own personal hell. One of hell’s finest achievements. Cuts down on complaints and saves a buttload of red tape.”

“Careful what you wish for, eh?” I said.

“Exactly!” answered the devil. “Or as we like to say around here… Hakuna Matata!”

[Aside]

You have to say this for the devil, I thought, he really seemed to enjoy his work. 

[Pause]

“Here,” he said, indicating a blank sheet of paper before him on the desk. “Sit down and write me a 500 word essay on what your hell should be.”

“Awww!” I whined. “An essay?”

“Better get started,” he advised. “You’ve only got an hour. There’s some liquor in the cabinet. Help yourself.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Will my spelling …?”

[Harshly]

“Don’t worry about the damned spelling, Rusty!”

[Softer]

“Write something from your heart…" 

[Softer still]

… or better yet… from your soul.”

[Slight pause]

“My soul?” I asked.

“From the soul of Rusty Pliers!” he laughed. 

“No cheating!” he added and whoosh! 

He was gone.

To be continued...

Arthur’s Mighty Zen Pt 2

Part 2

A few days later I found out

It was Arthur

Who saved my foot,

Not the doctors.

Instead of cutting it off

Like they’d planned 

When they first saw

What a mess it was,

They changed their minds pronto when 

Arthur used his shall we say powers of persuasion

To convince them of the wisdom 

In doing otherwise!

“Or else, pal!” added Arthur threateningly

As he raised his mighty fist.

Boy! You should have heard Arthur 

Give the doctors a piece of his mind!

Said the boys who’d helped 

Get me to hospital that day.

Funny, but now they were proud 

Of the terrible gang boss they once feared.

Oh! The contradictions of life!

Anyway, they told me all about it.

“Arthur was never 

More magnificent!” they bragged.

“You should have heard him curse!

The bleedin sawbones wasn’t ready 

For a bleedin bastard like our Arthur!” they laughed.

“And within seconds they was 

Shifting their asses good and proper

To save you and your bleedin foot!”

Then, with a rare sense 

Of respect they added,

“That Arthur! He sure showed them!”

Arthur visited me in hospital 

Every week that summer.

One time I asked him why 

He was so tough 

On me in the beginning.

“The men had to see 

That I showed no favorites,” he answered,

Only with more curse words.

Then he looked directly at me 

From under his massive brows, and slowly smiled.

“And I wanted you to learn,” he added,

“To stand on your own two feet.”

Then he roared with laughter!

“Shhhh,” hissed the nurse

Who’d come running.

“Quiet! This is a hospital!”

“Shit!” answered Arthur, a little embarrassed. “Sorry.”

Like all healthy men, 

Arthur despised the hospital.

And I think he was a little

Intimidated by the nurse, too.

I know I was.

“Well, take it easy, mate,” he said. 

Then he left.

Next visit Arthur brought me books to read.

Which surprised me because

Before the accident 

Arthur used to make fun of me 

About my reading,

Calling me a bookworm 

And an egghead, etc,

Only with more cursing.

So I asked him why.

“I never finished grade school,” he said quietly.

“So I don’t read too good.”

He looked me in the eye and added,

“I was afraid you’d laugh.”

Oh! The similarities of life!

I’d feared him for his language.

He’d feared me for my learning.

He never mentioned saving my foot.

When I tried to thank him,

He told me with a laugh 

To shove it up my ass!

“Them dumb doctors!” he spat.

“They don’t know shit!”

Then to change the subject 

He cursed doctors ferociously

For about ten minutes,

Hardly stopping for breath.

I listened in awe.

He’s been dead a long time,

Arthur the gang boss.

Killed in an accident 

A few years later

When a Caterpillar D-9

Ran off its own tracks

And tumbled down an embankment.

Arthur was standing at the bottom

Of the embankment, 

Urinating against a bush.

They say he never knew what hit him.

But I wouldn’t know.

I’d already left by then

To begin my journey as an artist.

Sometimes I wonder where Arthur is now.

I hope he’s happy.

And not squashed too flat

By the bulldozer to enjoy the afterlife.

Because I owe him a lot.

A lot he wouldn’t want, probably.

And instead of sentimental horse shit 

Like saying you’re welcome,

He would probably suggest 

Most strongly that I shove it!

Way up where the sun don’t shine!

So from the year 2016,

Arthur, you son of a bitch,

Wherever you are, 

From the bottom of my heart

As I stand upon my own two feet,

One of which you 

Jumped into a shitty ditch

In order to save…

I thank you!

I love you.

You big son-of-a-bitch.

Arthur’s Mighty Zen

When I was a lad,

It seems a thousand centuries ago

But really it was 1969,

I began my working life

At the bottom 

Of a road construction ditch.

I was a navvy.

Better known today 

As a manual laborer.

I shoveled the shit 

That had accumulated within the ditch.

From the bottom of it 

To the top.

And sometimes vice versa.

Our gang boss was named Arthur.

He was the toughest boss there was!

He was feared by all,

For he could be a violent man

When he felt he’d been disrespected.

Or when the men slacked off too much.

Or if he just happened to be feeling that way.

Yes! He was ready with his fists!

His language was fierce too,

The most ferocious at the depot,

(And although I’m tempted for old time’s sake)

Too ferocious to repeat here.

Adding to his reputation 

As one tough son-of-a-bitch gang boss 

Who didn’t take any crap 

From anybody!

A reputation of which he was proud.

When I first began working 

In the ditches 

I was sixteen-years-old.

Still a schoolboy really.

I hadn’t spent much time 

In the company of grown men yet,

And hadn’t begun to understand their ways.

So I was afraid of Arthur.

He detected this, and seeing the men saw it also,

For he was very observant 

And always conscious of being the boss,

He treated me with extra hostility,

As if to break my spirit

And bend me to his will.

To show me who was the boss.

And he made sure the men saw it!

“Watch out for Arthur.”

They warned me.

“He’s a mean one.”

Then one day while 

Shoveling you-know-what from the ditches,

I was struck in the foot with a pick.

It bled terribly and hurt like hell!

The pick had stuck in my foot

And wouldn’t come out,

Much to the amusement of my workmates

Standing in the muddy ditch with me,

Who didn’t immediately comprehend

The severity of the situation.

I didn’t either, never having been struck 

In the foot with a pick before,

And I laughed and pointed, saying,

“Somebody take a picture!”

And other witty nonsense

As my boot filled with blood.

Not Arthur, though.

He understood right away.

And he did something about it!

He jumped into the ditch,

Pushing the other workers aside,

And hoisted me out.

Then without removing the pick 

He applied a tourniquet above my ankle

With the sweaty bandana from round his neck,

After ordering one of the men to fetch 

His goddamned truck and be quick about it

So he could take me to hospital.

That’s when I passed out.

I awoke in hospital.

All clean and warm and dry.

My foot throbbed a little.

But otherwise I felt fine.

“Bless you,” I said to those 

Around me dressed in white, 

Feeling very grateful

To the doctors.

They just smiled and took my pulse.

“You’ll be okay, you little shit!”

Said Arthur when he came

To visit me the next day.

He didn’t say anything else

About my accident,

And when I tried to say something

To thank him for his help,

He wouldn’t allow that, either.

“Shut your freakin cake hole,” 

Was how he put it.

Only with more curse words.

Way more.

“Forget it!” he added.

Then he left.

To be continued...

Never Get Off The Merry-Go-Round! (Pt 4)

What our friends didn’t understand was that Suzie and I felt we had nothing to lose. 

After all, everything we owned fitted into just three suitcases! 

Suzie’s eyes sparkled with excitement at the idea of America. She liked to travel and see new things. That’s why she became a travel agent. That, and to earn enough money to eat as I’ve explained. She had tremendous curiosity about the world and was remarkably free of emotional tethers to places and things. 

Suzie was a wanderer. A true free spirit. A rock-and-roll angel.

“We’re not waiting for our ship to come in, Nicky,” she’d said a few weeks before, when we told Nick and his wife of our decision to leave New Zealand. “We’re going to swim out to it!” 

We talked it over with them. That’s when I first saw the look from our friends. The look that said you’re crazy to go and try animation in America! Making cartoons? You’re barely eking out a living now, how will you survive the mean streets of New York City? 

In his youth Nick had done some O.E. (Overseas Experience) in the States, so he understood its allure. He and Suzie had worked together for years in the travel business too, so he understood her pretty well. He even understood me to some extent. 

Nick was good with people. 

It was animation that he couldn’t understand. He’d watched me work at it obsessively over the years and never seem to get ahead. Which was true, we weren’t very far ahead, as far as money and things of that nature. But we’d seen the world a bit and done a few things, Suzie and I, so I wasn't concerned about how far ahead or behind we were.

It helps tremendously in life to be young and stupid, sometimes. 

Nick turned from me and embraced Suzie. They were special friends, he and her, she having worked for him from the beginning and helped to grow his travel agency in downtown Onehunga.* 

“Keep the home fires burning, sweetie!” laughed Suzie in he musical voice. “Shame. We’ll be back before you know it.” 

She kissed Nick’s cheek, leaving a smear of lipstick, before adding, “I just want to look at America and take in the sights. It ought to be fun!” 

“Keep in touch, Suzie,” said Nick. “The place won’t be the same without you.”

I could easily believe that. 

Suzie laughed again and Nick couldn’t help but join her. 

Suzie’s laughter was like champagne, bubbly and bright and hard to resist.

I tugged her arm.

“C’mon!” I said and we began to run for gate seven.

*Pronounced "Oh-knee-hun-gah." 

Never Get Off The Merry-Go-Round! (Pt 3)

They announced our flight for the third time.

“Time to go, Suzie,” I suggested.  

“Just now,” she answered. Which if you know a South African means in a second or a minute or an hour or a day. If ever. Suzie cared little for punctuality, that must be said, but somehow it only added to her charm. 

“Keep your flaps down, dahling,” she added with a laugh. “Or you’ll take off without the plane!”

“I’m just excited, I guess,” I said.

Excited and a bit afraid. America was a hugely daunting idea. Would we succeed? Could we find work as artists? 

Would we crack the big time?

(Whatever that was.) 

Yes! We had talent and an innate belief in ourselves… and we knew how to work hard. 

What else does one need?

Except of course the most important element of all;

Dumb Luck. 

Suzie was a haute couture clothing designer and, because designing clothing is sketchy income at best, she was also a travel agent. 

I was a film animator. My income as an animator could also be described as sketchy, but that would be exaggerating my income considerably. 

We’d been together a dozen years, through thick and thin as they say yet everything Suzie and I owned was packed into just three suitcases, and was stowed in the belly of a Boeing waiting at gate seven. 

Proving, I suppose, that it really is Art for Art’s sake in this material world. 

“Good luck, mate,” Nick said somberly as he gripped my hand. 

Nick was one of our oldest friends. He was the last to see us off, the others having drifted off or left by way of setting an example when they heard the public address blare out;

“Would Mr and Mrs Rusty Pliers PLEASE REPORT to gate seven IMMEDIATELY!”  

As he shook my hand Nick wore a serious expression, which gave his face an odd look. He wasn’t usually so grave. Looking at him, I was more than ever convinced he believed Suzie and I had made a horrible mistake and were doomed to failure in America. 

America, the hard place where we’d end up like every artist that ever was or ever will be ends up… to lie upon a filthy mattress in some slummy hovel, too weak from hunger to rise, and stare with bitter irony at the unrecognized masterpieces painted in my own blood hanging on the damp walls all around— and with my last painful breath receive the cruel enlightenment to reflect back upon my life and wonder; 

“Where did I go wrong?”

To be continued...

Never Get Off The Merry-Go-Round! (Pt 2)

   Our flight was announced over the public address system. 

Don’t worry, it being an international flight, we had plenty of time.

“I love you, dad,” I said as I hugged him goodbye. 

Funny how hard it is to say sometimes.

“God bless you son,” said my dad.

“Thanks, dad,” I said, feeling uncomfortable as I always did whenever my dad granted god’s blessings upon me.

As if my dad could tell god whom to bless. 

“I’ll pray for you every night,” he added.

“Okay Dad,” I said. “If you want to.”

My father and I had never agreed about religion.

He had a very strong dose of it. 

I did not.

“Prayer works even when the person you pray for doesn’t believe,” he said good-naturedly for the ten-thousandth time. “God has a plan for you Rusty, even if you don’t realize it.”

“Okay, Dad,” I said, feeling uncomfortable as I always did whenever he started telling me that god had a plan for me. 

I like to make my own plans.

“Take care of yourself, son,” said my dad, changing the subject. “I know you’ll be fine.” He knew enough to stop pushing the god thing after a few minutes. We must have argued about god since I was eight-years-old. He never stopped trying, but search my heart as I may I just couldn’t feel it like he did. He smiled and looked me in the eye as he’d done since I could remember, so I knew something was coming. 

“Here,” he said softly. “I want you to have this. You never know what might happen…” 

He placed a golden ring in my hand. 

“This was your mother’s wedding ring,” he said. “I gave it to her over 35 years ago. I’m sure she’d be happy to think you have it now. It’s pure gold, if you ever need to er, hock it or something…”

I didn’t remember seeing the ring before. I was young when my mother died. I didn’t remember much about her at all.

“Thanks dad,” I said. “I’ll keep it safe and carry it for luck.”

“There’s an inscription inside,” said my dad quietly.

I lifted the ring to the light and read it.

“Rosella and Johnnie,” I read aloud. “Three, fifteen, fifty-two.”

“The day we were married,” said my dad.

“I know,” I replied. By a remarkable coincidence, I was born a year later, on the exact same date.

At least, that’s what they tell me. 

I was very young at the time, so I’ll have to take their word for it.

I hugged my father again and it felt good.

Sure, we disagreed about things sometimes, things big and little, but there was plenty of love and respect to make up for it.

Goodbye we said, good luck, and we hugged again.

Then he excused himself and left with my stepmother.

After waving them goodbye, the rest of us retired to the bar.

We enjoyed a drink and a laugh as our friends wished us bon voyage and happy landings. 

One by one we bid our friends adieu.

They’d still be here tomorrow.

Not us.

We’d be on the other side of the world.

To be continued...

Never Get Off The Merry-Go-Round!

Auckland, NZ, 1987 

“Goodbye,” I said softly, hugging my stepmother.

“Take care Rusty,” she said. “Good luck.” 

I’d never lived under the same roof as my stepmother, my dad married her when I’d already left home, but we were friendly enough.

“Thanks, Jenny,” I answered. “See you in a few years.” 

That’s what I believed, that I’d return to New Zealand after a few years away. We’d done it before a couple of times, my wife Suzie and I. We’d gone off for awhile to Africa in the seventies and Australia in the eighties, but always we’d come back.

If you’ve lived there you’ll know… New Zealand is a difficult place to stay away from. 

Nevertheless most Kiwis in those days went out to see the world. They probably still do. New Zealand being a small country made of islands in the South Pacific ocean, you have to go overseas to go anywhere. 

New Zealanders even had a phrase for it; 

“Getting your O.E.” 

Overseas Experience. 

Now we stood in the Departures Lounge of Auckland International Airport, embracing family and friends before we boarded our plane to go and do it again. 

America this time. 

New York City, where we had chums upon whose couch we could crash. 

I watched Suzie hug my father goodbye. She’d lost her father tragically when she was very young, and I think she loved my dad all the more for it. 

But it wasn’t all lovey-dovey between them, not in the beginning. When I first started going out with Suzie my father was disappointed I’d taken up with a girl so much younger, and while I was still legally married, too. 

He’s quite religious and he hoped that I would return to my first wife and the baby and do the right thing (as he saw it). But I was past all that before I’d even met Suzie. He blamed her anyway, as if she were some Bathsheba who with her sensuous charms was luring me away from the straight and narrow.

“My dad’s religious and sometimes he’s got some crazy ideas,” I said to Suzie when he refused to have anything to do with her. 

“The stupid old fart,” I added with a laugh. 

“Shame,“ she said. Which if you know a South African means almost anything. It could be shame you got fired from your job, shame you won a million in the lottery, shame the baby looks so cute. 

“Oh well, that’s his problem,” she added, and immediately forgot about my dad and his problem. She laughed and said nothing more. She was wise that way and besides, Suzie was never very good at being angry or holding a grudge. 

Turns out my father wasn’t very good at it either, because within a few months his heart softened. All it took was a chance meeting in Albert Park. He and Suzie met by accident in the botanical garden and I suppose, surrounded by all that beauty and believe me the gardens of New Zealand are extremely beautiful, they inadvertently shared a smile or a gesture that said life was too short to stay angry with each other.

I imagine that’s what happened. I know them both pretty well and I can visualize it that way. Suzie has very expressive eyes that have a way of inviting you in… 

I wasn’t there. I was in Milford Sound on a video shoot. 

My father, caught by his good manners, invited Suzie to tea in the cafe a few steps away by the fern garden. 

“We talked and talked,” said Suzie to me on the telephone that night. “Why didn’t you tell me your dad was such a sweetie?”

“Sweetie?” I asked. “My dad?”

She must have got the wrong dad, I figured. 

But no, it was really him. He called me that night also. 

“Why didn’t you tell me about her, son?” he asked me. “She’s terrific!

To be continued...