COIN-OPERATED HORSEY Frank Sinatra goes to the grocery 1973 Frank takes his electric coin operated horsey from the parking lot and sets-it-up in front of his green screen so he can watch the mountains go by, in the background. A kid chews red bubble gum, wears green glasses and her hair is in pigtails. She walks up in her red Mary Jane’s, she wants to ride the horsey. With him. Frank looks at the sunset in-in the green screen, all those acres of grass land, at the donkeys ‘n the field. The mountains pass. Old rocky mountain’s. The little red headed girl climbs on to the painted brown seat, and they laugh together, watching the sunset. And they arrive in time to get something from the store. She gets down off the horsey, and walks into the store. The door bell rings as she enters. He dismounts his horse and rolls up the green prairie, and the mountains and pats the horses head. “Your looking a little rusty their Wilburn.” He takes a good long look at Wilburn, been set here in the parking lot outside the grocer. Like his feet been planted here all this time. He walks in to the store and hears the bell. finds the stores counter and the lights all flickering. “Hello? Anybody here?” Scanning all the aisles, he gets a beer, and some chips, and wanders around o the counter to pay. He waits. No sign of the red head. The signs go out and back on. He notices a lot of dust on everything. “Hello? You’ve got a customer!” He waits. Where’d the kid go? “Hello,” He wobbles to a door that says management only. Opens it to a sofa, and a television show plays. Frank tries to get the attention of the man sitting in the sofa. Slow, and gentle, he sticks a wet finger into the dirty workers ear. Frank’s arm disappears inside of the sofa. Deep in the man’s head. The man focuses his attention to the show. Frank’s hand comes out of the other side of the man’s head and turns around and grabs a broom from the closet. The television makes a series of strange frequencies and pops. And shatters, the man dropping to the floor. Frank horrified. He washes his hands in the maintenance cabinet, in the sink. Colors like purple, ink well, jars of olives all washing away. He scrubs for dear life, watching CATFISH, and marbles, and things like stereo cords and TV antennas and clam chowder, and Madeline makeup as it all washes away from his hands and into the rusted drain. He grabs his bag of chips, a bar of caramel candy, and a twelve pack of beer. He goes behind the counter and takes a package of cigarettes down and stuff s them in his pocket. And leaves the store. “Hey throw me rope would yah, partner! Getty up!” The red headed kid saddles up and Frank pulls out the green screen, so they can take the rocks and crooked water down stream with the fish. “Heehaw!”
Orion (c.1955) Utensils, old demonstration videos of underwater lounges and forks, and knives growing purple urchins, growing from a pair of holes in The Reeling machines pictures of Frank Sinatra flickering curtains— Barely, as the elevator sinks Through the sludge — Zenith television flickers on in the elevator— the door opens — A suited figure named Orion steps slowly into the underwater Lounge— helmet close-up videos show on the Zenith television — on the seafloor abandoned science classrooms under the ocean, grade school equipment floats to the ceiling — tiny carp, and mackerel swim around the grade school — classroom. Octopus swim along the ocean floor— The figure enters from bubbles— sits down on the couch covered with mussels and kelp— The close-up of his mask is showing fully functioning stoves— and oven. A shot of Frank Sinatra making a plate of eggs and a pan of biscuits in the flooded classroom, floating. The elevator doors close, and power lines take the grey box away to the surface slow, Orion the diver shows a Victrola in a mirror spin a museum of dolls and marionette teddy bears from inside. ____________________________________________________________________________ Dolls zigzag through the museums display cases, into cupboards, take stairs into closets, out to the streets, up through the hillside, into neighborhoods— In front of the mirror, the diver has placed the Victrola needle onto the vinyl by reaching his arms into the museum Through the Mirror. Complete darkness between the two televisions woven around— all of the lines of the mirror representing sounds, a convoluted map, drawn up from intersections where, in the total darkness, red lines pulse, roads switch on and disappear— and rain coming through gutters light up a shopping cart placed before a wooden door. Orion is sitting on a bed, blanketed in starfish, when he comes out from the darkness only visible in a sea of dolls, assorted sizes, filling the lounge. Lavender flowers Wiggle from blooms and flow to the beach side— Blue sky comes in a wave, underwater, lava bubbles under a silver and gold boat floating above Orion’s bed. Outside, in the Mist a tightrope. The elevator comes down and stops, opens the doors. Frank walks out, looks at the clock in the science room at the grade school, and sees Orion the diver on the couch, growing starfish from his suit. Frank speaks bubbles, says his pocket watch has been broken for three days— He remembers back to the library. The clocks melting down the wall and onto the shelves of books. The Hourglass at the Museum had been shattered and left in its glass case. He bubbles the words turquoise, watches the Color swirl from his lips, the color bubbles that he pops, neon orange Sun floats, a cloud shaped as a red fox, Tangerine Popsicle, sea foam and avocado trees, between his hair, slow- Frank climbs back in the elevator, and pushes the button marked Museum. The doors slowly let in television screens, large flat screens. He points down to the valley as the elevator ascends, the valley of Television screens, wristwatches, drooling into the sand. He gets to the door of the science lab, and wanders from abandoned classroom to classroom. He thinks of the color phtalo green. Frank begins to sing. In an old math classroom he finds a marionette and it is tedious dissecting its belly to find strawberries stitched inside. Watches shatter, swirling in his mind. A tape recording plays from behind a closet door, owls hang in the rafters, letting out droppings onto the barn planks-- A doll Lays in A pile of forgotten dreams, where venomous spiders make webs around the mouth-- A tape recording plays behind a closet door. Frank Sinatra looks through the cracked pane glass window — the sound of rattling teeth plays from the tape — squids climb down the barn ladder, the doll arises from somewhere in the floor -- “Your smile, it seems perfumed.” The doll takes Frank Sinatra’s jaw into her grasp — his eyeliner drips, he pulls out a bouquet of blue flowers, they walk to a well, holding hands. The doll throws her blue flowers inside, and jumps in the well. Frank disappears to the end of the tunnel, and in the darkness she sees clocks curling. For the first time his body lifts up from the grass, and he floats. A tape recording plays behind a closet door -- A serenade plays to the sleeping birds. Frank flies down the well, sees clocks in cases, drops of water tapping -- The sounds of the clocks ticking rhythmically passed--
Bio: Zachary Scott Hamilton is the editor for Mannequin Haus. His work appears in The modern anthology of surrealism (Salo press 2016)