Reviews re taking the day off today. Instead I’m presenting two related stories one now and one later on today.
And this means that most of you can skip them and just move on. It’s not that I don’t think you’ll be interested but more that you won’t know what to make of them. They are stories written for friends and intended to pretty much amuse them. Randi, Eden, Nate, Hubert, Shelly and Bully are contributors to Unseen. Pink Bunny is a friend from online who posts to twitter as a bunny, Kitty Pryde is John and Randi’s cat. Liz is the infamous chanteuse Liz Whittemore. The references are to people and things that make sense (sort of) to them. Though if you’ve read any of the previous stories I’ve posted over the years you’ll know that the inclusion of angels makes perfect sense. It’s a mix of reality and flights of fantasy.
The second story is what was, in theory, happening when these events were going on. It’s tangentially related and more insanity.
And now a little nothing written to amuse friends in the holiday season.
It was partly Hubert’s fault. He had been emailing back and forth with Kitty Pryde, Bully’s feline sidekick, discussing all of the great things to do in Brooklyn for the holidays and he mentioned Bela Tarr’s seven plus hour Satantango was playing Christmas Eve at the Nighthawk Cinema down the street from the Bully Building. Unfortunately autocorrect changed it to Santa’s Tango so Kitty thought it was a seven hour holiday dance movie. Kitty then sent out a notice for a girls night out and everyone went to spend Christmas Eve watch some dancing.
The multi-hour bleak look at life was too much for everyone.
Kitty and Pink Bunny retreated to the bar and were downing margaritas. Shelly was sound asleep in the back row of the theater. Randi, Eden and Liz wandered off to god knows where giggling like little girls. Marshall was the only one to come out reasonably okay since she was too young to drink, she stayed home and played checkers with her brother and watched Klaus on Netflix.
Kitty was feeling rather depressed since she had arranged the night that had fallen off the table. Pink was doing her best to keep her spirits up and kept feeding her fruity drinks.
“We should wake Shelly” said Kitty “She likes fruity fish drinks”
“Let her sleep” Said Pink. “”She’s been working hard making sure Bully stays out of trouble so Santa brings him something”
Kitty drank a bit more.
Pink watched her friend. She felt bad that her friend was feeling bad because the night went banana shaped. She ordered some tuna canapes figuring it was going to help her friend feel better but Kitty hardly touched them.
People came and went while Kitty sulked.
Pink excused herself and went to the ladies room. She whipped out he flip phone and called Marshall.
“Hey cutie-how goes” she asked.
“good. I’m letting Bully win. What’s up? Movie not what you expected?”
“Not really. Listen, did the ladies go back there? They wandered off a bit ago and I don’t know where they went?”
“They aren’t here. I mean they could have gone to the Bully cave, Eden always liked the sound system down there but I don’t hear any music”
“Okay.”
“I’ll let you know if they show up.
“Thanks”
Pink flushed for no reason and headed back to her friend. The tuna was gone, as were all the nuts and the chocolate pretzels.
“Easy killer” pink said sliding in next to her friend” you don’t want to lose that girlish figure.”
Kitty laughed. Pink hoped that was a good sign.
Kitty opened her mouth to say something but nothing came out because there was a big commotion coming down the hall. Voices, musical notes and glowing.
Pink groaned, she knew that light and it wasn’t always a good thing….
Through the door crashed five angels, three women and scraggly looking author. The angels had instruments, the women had big sticks and the author had beard and moustache.
Randi, Liz and Eden stepped over to their friends. “Ladies meet the angels.”
The angels bowed and said hello in thick Irish tones.
Kitty and Pink said “hello”
“And of course you know Neil” said Eden.
Pink jumped down and gave Neil a hug. Neil hugged her back.
“good to see you” he said.
“Its been too long”
“It has”.
Neil leaned down to Pink “why am I here?” he asked.
“Beats me” She replied. She looked up at the three ladies. “What is all this?”
Pink noticed the angels were setting up their instruments.
“A Punk Irish Angel Folk Band” said Eden.
“ They don’t look particularly punk” slurred Kitty who had wandered over to the band.
“You should see where we’re pierced” said one of the angel’s with thick Irish accent.
“More to the point do you know what it takes to pierce an angel” said another with an equally thick accent. “The pain and suffering would curl your hair”
Kitty paused.
And then with a “Three Two One lets Jam”, the angels started off on bouncy reel. It was, as you might expect a heavenly thing. No one who heard it could not be moving.
Liz moved to the bandstand and started to belt out an Irish punk folk classic
Randi leaned down to Kitty, “you wanted to dance so we found them playing outside the park and invited them to come and play.”
People started coming out of the theaters and the ushers were dancing. Actually before long everyone was dancing.
The manager half wandered, half danced over. “What is all this?” he said indicating the angels and the dancing.
“Angels” said Randi.
“I can see that. This is movie theater….”
“Not any more. At least not tonight” said Eden as she adjusted her crown, and step danced to the bar.
The manage shook his head and just went with it.
Neil looked around. He felt out of sorts. “ What am I doing here?” he murmured.
“Dancing” said pink as she took his hand and began to move him around the floor.
Randi took Kitty’s hand and the started to move around the room.
Kitty’s mood brightened.
By the time the third song had kicked in the movies continued to run but no one was watching. Everyone was dancing
Everyone except Shelly who was still curled up in the back of the theater for she was a really tired little otter.
I should point out that somewhere along the way Santa slipped in. No one was quite sure where or when but he was there a good long while blowing sax. At one point he stepped off the miraculously appeared band stand to dance with Kitty. As you probably figured it was a tango.
Somewhere just after dawn, when the sun wasn’t quite up Shelly woke up. Looking around the theater she wondered where everyone had gotten to.
Shelly stepped out of the theater. The hall was eerily quiet. There was no one around.
She knew something had happened since the lights were on, but what?
She moved slowly down the hall waiting for something to jump out at her.
A line of glasses and bottle of champagne started in the floor. Shelly decided to follow it. It lead to the bar…
Slowly opening the door she expected to find a scene of carnage but not what she found….
Bodies everywhere. It looked like a dance party had exploded and bodies were everywhere. Shelly was worried that they were dead but then she heard the sound od Pink Bunny snoring and she knew everyone was sleeping.
Shelly waded into the room. Who were all these people? Why were there angels on the bandstand? More to the point what the hell was Neil doing here?
Unsure of what she should do she stepped outside and called Nate. Nate was a minister and he’d know how to handle a room full of sleeping people and angels.
“Nate?”
“Shelly? Are you okay?”
“There’s a room full of people and angels and I don’t know what to do.”
“Who are the people?”
“Eden, Pink, Kitty, Liz, some people from the neighborhood and Neil”
“Neil? What the hell is Neil doing there?”
“ I don’t know. We went to the movies last night, I fell asleep and when I woke up I found a room full of angels. What do I do?”
“ See who wants to get pancakes and go to the diner. Just be sure to call Bully and John….”
“And Marshall”
“And Marshall. When they’ve had coffee you can find out what happened.”
“Okay. Thank you”
“Merry Christmas. Shelly”
“Merry Christmas Nate”
“And take a picture- I need to see this.”
“Will do."
Nate hung up
Shelly snapped a picture. Then said “ Who wants pancakes?”
The angels stood up and indicated they were in.
Slowly everyone else slowly got to their feet and said they were in too.
And with that everyone filed out of the Nighthawk and headed down to the Purity Diner. The angels playing Christmas tunes as they went.
As they walked Shelly called Bully and he said he was in and that he had something really cool to tell them.
And it wasn’t long before the party continued as everyone from the Nighthawk met up with everyone from the apartment and half of Park Slope at the Little Purity Diner for a big Christmas Day brunch that lasted until late in the evening with no one going home and everyone just hanging out with all their friends… even Neil who final understood why he was there.
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