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CHARACTERS
in
(presented more-or-less in
the order of their appearance)
Page One
The Ups and Downs of Skeeter Kitefly
Skeeter Kitefly's Sugardaddy Confessor
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Skeeter Kitefly's
Titular Assets
COMPACTIFICATION
behind the scenes
RoBynne O'Ring's
GRUNTS OF
PASSION
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TO BE HONEST
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Last Updated
August 05, 2018
H. Huffman
The narrator: an asthmatic sculptor in wood of "laddered" (surrealized) relief panels.
Called "Aitch" by Rozay,
"Dwarf" and "Pugsley" by Cassandra, "Herkimer" by
Bonnie Pattering, "Babe" by Cranky Lynnette, "Hoffmonn" by Tattoo
Rula, "Honey" by Judith, and "Last of
the Red Hot Chiselers" by himself.
I’d like to think my reflection resembles Humphrey Bogart, but know it looks more like Buster Keaton. In his talkie phase, when the bottle started taking its toll ... Both men had the onscreen attitude that the world is full of traps and snares, so better be on your guard. Wary and ingenious. Bag of tricks kept handy. This is an outlook shared by many shortish men. I think Bogart was 5'8½", Keaton 5'6"; I myself am 5'7¼". (When asked, I round it to 5'8" for simplicity’s sake.) We were all three cleancut-looking in our several youths, too; then “blunter-hewn” in middle age...
Judith Formi (née Judi Dahl)
A passenger on Huffman's bus who (unwittingly, at first) becomes his latest model. Sales rep for the Formi-Dable art supply firm, and its boss's widowed daughter-in-law.
Called "Joo-Girl" by her late husband; and the Sleeping Lady, Nodding Lady, Waking
Lady, Young Empress, "Alice," and "Dee" by Huffman.
Muffled up in a navy overcoat and headscarf. Only her face on display, but that alone is worth today’s fare. Even at this untimely hour, underneath fluorescence. A fair complexion with a moving expression: nod. Nod. Nod. Lips slightly parted. Brows slightly bent. A literal Land-of-Nodder, ticking off items in a checklisted dream. “Yes, we can take care of this; yes, we can handle that too.” Self-assurance. Affirmation. Even a trace of sang-froid, in keeping with the climate and those bluish dabs upon her closed lids...
Others Aboard the #104 Express Bus
Noisemakers, cellphoners,
headphoners, and ghoulish rubberneckers.
Up here I am resting my eyes. Or trying to, despite the caterwaulers in back. Some acoustic warpage causes their clamor to scrape the length of the bus, straight into my ears...
Gagarin (Big Gag) Campbell
Manager of Selfsame Artist Materials in
Jackdaw Square: Huffman's dayjob boss.
If Johnny Cash had a beerbellied nephew with a hipster goatee, that nephew would be a dead ringer for Gagarin Campbell, Selfsame Manager. “Big Gag” we call him. As in “What’s the?...”
Vashti Rodilard
Succinct
co-worker of Huffman's at Selfsame.
“Custwan syoo,” announces Vashti.
“What?” I say.
“Yerdme!” she replies.
There is nothing mushmouthed about Vashti Rodilard. She simply brusks everything she utters, abbreviating what she doesn’t minimalize...
Other Selfsame Employees
Squat Kid, Thin Chick, Weird Hair Girl, The
Warbler, and Schlitzy in Receiving.
The adolescents who unpack and barcode the merchandise, maintain the shelves and bins and racks, assist customers on the floor and ring them up at the register—they come and go in great transient quantities. I seldom bother learning their names anymore...
"Stu" (Saphead)
A starveling artist pretending to be a
Selfsame customer.
“But what brand do you think I should use?”
Customers may be always right, but that doesn’t mean they can’t meet with sudden unexpected fates. How ironic it would be if “Stu” tripped and fell into a bin of palette knives...
Geraldine Crouching
(Rhymes with "whooshing," not "slouching.") Huffman's agent, exhibiting his work at her gallery on Shoveler Street.
Called "Catapult Woman" by Huffman.
Geraldine Crouching came to FigFest trusting to “serendipity,” in search of a Wholly Unexpected Find. Those were among the very words she used (and she used very many) to describe All We Ever Look For, tap-tap-tapping it with her tinted pince-nez...
George and Myrtle McRale Wilson
Huffman's landlords on Green Creek Lane in
Zerfall; Mrs. McRale owns the Old McRale Place.
Mr. Wilson is a master plumber nearing retirement, so we don’t have the drainage problems suffered by others in lowlying Zerfall. Even so, Mrs. Wilson is out scrutinizing the bog that once was and might again be her garden...
Cy and Mona McRale
Mrs. Wilson's late parents, who had a
ranch south of Schraube Reservoir. In her final years, Mrs.
McRale lived above the Wilsons's garage in what is now
Huffman's studio/apartment.
The outhouse is long gone. As is the barn: it burned down years ago and Cy McRale, they say, was never the same afterward. After he died and his widow Mona got too infirm, the Wilsons sold most of the acreage and converted what was left to this little timeshare on the prairie...
Dr. Harvey (the Friendly Ghost)
Huffman's psychiatrist in Chicago back in the 1980s, who spent more time arguing about movies than analyzing Huffman.
Also called the F.G.
Aha! went the shrink, if I must watch movies instead of engaging in Real Life, why not do it surrounded by Real Live people in a theater? Because then I couldn’t hear myself think, I replied...
Ralph
Geraldine's wispy-pale gallery assistant.
Even after a decade’s acquaintance I have never heard Ralph say anything aloud. He murmurs a lot in Geraldine’s ear, like Leonardo in the old Clyde Crashcup cartoons...
Just-Hatched Chick
Receptionist at the Crouching Gallery.
Only one on duty is Just‑Hatched Chick. (Feathery yellow hair, tendency to cheep...)
Bram Taggart
Sculptor who shows at the Crouching
Gallery, specializing in shattered glass.
I do not go inside. Bram Taggart’s one-man show is currently on exhibit: broken light bulbs turned into effigies. Feel no need to look at these a second time...
Four Vietnamese Girls in Chinatown
Who eyesnag Huffman:
especially the shortest/ hottest one ("Shorty Hottie") who has the hiccups.
Teens by the look of them, dressed for April despite the February wind. Allowing midriffs and rumps to run free in lowride jeans; garish-colored pantybands on proud display...
Antonio of the FigFest
—i.e. the annual Figurative Festival at the Cairney Academy on Julius Avenue.
He and I traded occasional remarks while Nina gradually undressed in the bathroom. “She’s just a wee bit pococurante,” Antonio confided. “Nina darling! Did you fall in or what?...”
All We Ever Look For
Huffman relief panel that won the FigFest's
Bronze Figleaf (over twelve years ago).
A female nude, scrupulously detailed, recumbent on a couch; a queue of male mannequins, each bearing a lighted candle, filing into the bedchamber; with the head of the line climbing over the nude’s footboard...
Edgar Clint ("Double-Bag Eddie")
Geraldine Crouching's number-one client:
heir to a formaldehyde fortune.
Edgar Clint collects anything remotely erotic, from underground comix (hence his byname, “Double-Bag Eddie”) on up. A dealer’s dream: Eddie gets suspicious if the asking price seems too low...
Io MacEvelyn
Artist who shows at the Crouching
Gallery, and contributes occasional criticism for the local
press.
As she illustrated in her essay “Shameful Subject,” which just happened to get published in the Sunday paper the week my first solo show opened. I didn’t commit the spiel to memory, but its gist was that women ought only to be sculpted, painted, photographed, what-have-you’d—by other women. If done by men, it causes subjugation and degradation...
Ben Szilnecky
Rumormonger who shows at the Crouching Gallery.
And every time she charges this, Ben Szilnecky the pencilnecked painter hastens to relay it to me, unasked, in his bizarre Budapest-by-way-of-Tennessee-Williams accent:
“Ay-utch! Hoff yuh herdt the lay-uttest? Lemme tell yuh somesink—”
(Try to avoid him...)
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