quarterly journal of poetic and visual art
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Mannequin Envy quarterly journal of poetic and visual art home - submissions - contact |
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Fall/Winter 2009-10
Jennifer VanBuren Mannequin Envy in memory of poet and artist Douglas Gamrath
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Charles P. Ries Summer 2009 LOS HUESOS (the bones)
Winter 2006 BELOW THE FLOOR I live in the basement My ex-wife lives one floor above, My possessions are ideas. The shadow side of home sweet home, c2005 Charles P. Ries "Your daughter's started her period!" 10 + 1/2 years is too soon. Of course I don't know about it. My mind works on an impromptu ole'dad-soft-shoe When I get home I hug her
Bill the Mink “Fuck like a mink?” Just ask me. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard this term thrown about by people who have no clue what “fucking like a mink” is all about. But I do. I was there. I have witnessed the pure unadulterated glory of feline fury in the breeding arena. Even before I knew how to do the wild thing or received the mandatory Birds and Bees Lecture, I had observed thousands of matched pairs duke it out. It wasn’t fucking, but a prelude to high fashion. We needed our breeding females to give birth in May and early June. Because gestation took eight to nine weeks, we had no choice but to begin breeding in the meanest and sometimes coldest month of the year—March. Each day would bring a new flavor of bad weather: sleet, snow, rain, and the relentless northeast winds that blew off Lake Michigan. Thus, in the worst weather month of the year, the annual rite of Breeding Season was held. We had over 1,200 matches to facilitate. My father had methodically charted out who the breeding pairs would be, making sure successful matings of the prior year were repeated in order to optimize size, quantity and quality. My father, three brothers, and I, along with the deft-handed and cheerful Marvin, plodded through the rain, sleet, and snow in search of fertility. We were nature’s little matchmakers. We’d lug our furtive lovers from cage to cage, doing our best to encourage romance and making sure there were no pretenders. The process was simple. We’d invite a male mink into a carrying cage and walk him to the designated female. And we’d keep careful watch. Once the deed was done, we’d open the pen top and the triumphant stud would hop back into the carrying cage and be returned home. There he’d relax, have a bite to eat, and then go back to perform his sacred duty. Most females were cooperative. The seasoned ones had the mating ritual down pat. So for them, we would introduce first-year-breeding rookies and allow them to fumble their way to glory. To the uninitiated first-year females, we introduced our seasoned veterans to make sure all went without mishap or surprise. It was all quite routine. We would freeze our nuts off waiting for them to get their balls off. But inevitably, there would be ten to twenty females who took no interest in their suitors. These furred first-year virgins would try to rip our good-natured breeding males from limb to limb. It was not a pretty sight. The males would beg us to come and get them before their breeding day was over. Many a gallant and determined suitor had to be withdrawn from the field of battle bitten, humiliated, and nearly emasculated. Whoever said breeding was easy never fucked a mink. So as the season wound down we were left with the challenge of breeding these hard-to-get young vixens. We have all seen the individual or animal who rose far above a particular sport or vocation. The Michael Jordan, Shamu, Itzak Perlman, Bill Gates, and Secretariats of the world. Those phenoms who are not only good at something, but seemingly born to do it. Designed by God for one sacred purpose—a purpose, whose importance is known only by God, but whose glory is viewed with awe by each and every spectator. Riesville had such a mink. Bill’s challenge was great, but so too was his ability. Given the task at hand, any thinking mink would have run as far and as fast as his little legs could carry him. But not our hero, not our Bill. This fool rushed in where other mink feared to tread. We’d drop Bill into these dens of certain destruction and time and again he’d exude the enthusiasm of a mink half his age. Our trained mink-handler ears could almost hear Bill say, “Love will find a way, fellas! Come back in thirty minutes.” He always made good on his silent promise. We’d return with hope in our eyes, and sure enough, Bill had delivered. Unlike most breeding males whose shelf life was three to four seasons, Bill brought home the bacon for ten long seasons. I’m not sure what the equivalent of human to mink years is, but I guess it meant Bill was fucking his way around our mink yard well into his nineties. Even as he slowed down and no longer timed his love leaps as he once did, he still hit a few out of the park. And when he could pounce no more, we enshrined him in a corner pen where the sun shone and a westerly breeze gently blew past him as he snoozed and reflected on the glory days of his youth. We’d give him a bit more feed, freshen his water more often than we needed to, and otherwise pamper and venerate this master of love. And unlike his contemporaries, we let him die a natural death. The good Lord finally took our Bill from us just a few days after we celebrated his thirteenth birthday. Although he had fathered over 856 children, most of them couldn’t make his wake, as they were attending operas, black tie balls, and ballets as someone’s coat. But my brothers, Marvin, and I were there. We gathered around his cage and sang the old mink a rousing chorus of “For He’s Jolly Good Fellow.” We carried his cold, lifeless body to a shady little spot near the carpenter shop and laid him to rest. We were unusually sentimental for a bunch of minkers that day as we gathered around our hero’s tiny grave, each of us sharing his own silent thoughts with our departed friend. As a lasting memorial we placed a small wooden marker over his grave that stated the simple truth about Bill: He Fucked Like A Mink. Charles P. Ries
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