The International Writers Magazine: Random Fiction from Dreamscapes

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A Gazelle is an Antelope • Daniel Thant I suppose the only real coherent thought in my mind was an image of Fred picking up the twenty and rolling a cigarette (Fred carries around his own little packet of specialty tobacco, and frequently runs out of papers), and smoking the twenty, making a point of lighting the end with Gaga’s snot on it; and that’s when I fell and hit my head on the toilet rim, and everything went blank.

It had always struck me as being kind of an odd nickname—Gaga—but also a logical takeoff on her real name (Gigi, which is not, as it so happens, in fact her real name), plus her usual state of being, which I suppose you might describe as enthusiastic.

Later, people told me I had already begun urinating when I lost my equilibrium, and the stream of urine flew up against the wall and continued straight up into the air like a fountain, and my skull bounced off the toilet rim and landed roughly on the floor, and with my arms and legs all shot out in different directions I resembled . . . well, nothing anyone has ever seen before. Probably just some clumsy drunk, passed out on the floor and taking a golden shower. Maybe a combined marionette and fountain, dropped by its careless controller and left to drown.

When I finally came to I was smoking a cigarette, and I lay there staring at the little burning device wedged between my index and middle fingers, wondering what it was. At first I thought I was involved in some kind of voodoo ritual, and I looked around queasily, half-expecting to see little piles of sticks and stones, bottles of parrot’s blood, perhaps a doll with pins in its head. All I could see was the color avocado green. I was surrounded by avocado green, with no texture or variation. Then my hand moved shakily but steadily in the direction of my face, and I winced, expecting to be burned, and I felt the strange device make contact with my lips, and my lungs inhaled the vile smoke, and after a moment expelled it, and I felt dizzy, and yet calm.

A gazelle is an antelope, said a voice.

I inhaled the smoke again, this time with greater confidence, and sniffed at the unpleasant odor emanating from my clothing. I noticed scars on my hand, and recalled a conflict of interests, and punching through a car window. It might have happened last night or ten years ago, assuming I was at least ten years old. Or no—an infant could not muster the strength to punch through a car window, so it would have been more than ten years ago. And I felt much older than ten, anyway. And a scar is a healed wound, not something as recent as last night. Assuming last night was not so long ago. I might have just roused from a coma, of course.

So, what? said a different voice.

I’m just saying it’s not much of a compliment. Not as much of a compliment as you think it is. You think gazelle—most people think gazelle—and they think what? Graceful, sensual, luxuriant animals, grazing the savannah. This is what they think. I’m saying it’s a synonym for antelope.

The car had been a 1965 Comet, with a high-gloss midnight-blue paint job, and I had been angry, so angry I felt like I needed to punch through its passenger-side window. And my hand had immediately started bleeding, the blood dropping to the ground in great fat droplets, then pouring freely, spattering like a Jackson Pollock painting, and still my rage had grown. My blood burned Victorian red and my eyes bulged and I reached into the hole in the window and retrieved a black cat. The name of the cat was Hours, and she mewed loudly, and howled, alarmed by all the violence.

The story of the cat’s name has to do with a girl I once knew. She lived down the beach from my great-aunt, and one summer she took my virginity. We lay there beneath a rotting pier and discussed pet names, and she insisted that the only good name for a cat that had yet to be used was Hours. I asked why she thought it was such a good name, and she turned her head and looked into my eyes, her searching gaze almost worried. Why, don’t you think it’s a good name for a cat? she asked.

© Daniel Thant November 2004
dbechlem@iusb.edu

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