A Frank Farce Or A Day In The Life -- Part Three

After the zooming of the ride, that seemed to take days, finally became slower, the images in his mind now danced here and there, then settled like a butterfly on a flower.

Frank was in a garden; a very rich one, full of flowers and trees, and there was the buzz of insects and a flock of optical birds fluttered from his brain, and began an elegant, incomprehensible conversation! Everything had the look of a Stanley Spencer painting!

Beyond the garden he could see the sweeping dunes of a desert, that seemed to go on forever. He heard a voice that put notes in the air, and coming towards him was a smiling Opal, in an almost transparent, multicoloured, flowing dress.

'You came Frank!' she said.

'Have you been waiting for me? He replied.

'Oh, yes Frank, I've been waiting so long in this beautiful garden, but I knew you would come.'

'I missed you Opal... will you stay here in this garden? And could I stay, too?'

'Yes, Frank, this place is forever! Because it is written, and can't be unwritten.'

Frank took her in his arms.

But suddenly, he heard a strange beating noise like the flapping of a giant bird swooping down on them! He opened his eyes and the garden and Opal were gone!

Frank was back on his bed! And the noise was coming through the wall from his spare room. It was the sounds of two people grunting, panting, and banging against the wall, in the last throws of making time in the next room. Frank listened angrily until they had finished, too paranoid even to bang on the wall and bawl them out.

He got up and realised his trip had levelled out a bit. Though, everything was still strobing, he was able to get himself together enough to think about the situation. He didn't know how long he'd been lying there.

He got up and looked out the window. It was now dark, and the clock in the square said it was 10 o'clock. The sound of the party had intensified. There were leaps of laughter, and the doorbell was ringing every couple of minutes, and each time, he heard someone expectingly mention Opal's name.

But he knew it was too early to be her. When she had rung in the morning, she was in Amsterdam, and had said she wouldn't arrive before 11 O' clock.

He stepped out of his room into the now crowded hall. There stood Cass and Mice looking as out of it as him, with eyes as black as woodpecker holes!

When they saw him they both smiled with a full knife draw, and Mice put his arm around his shoulder, squeezing him. 'Nice party Frank!'

'Yeah, Frank, good idea,' added Cass, passing him a giant spliff.. 'Did you indulge in the jolly juice?'

'Sure, Was that your stuff? asked Frank.

'No, the shrooms were a gift from Fox.'

He suddenly smelt bread baking! He wandered down the hall to the kitchen, where he found a lot of funny looking faces, one of which was Sandra's. She was serving up slices of freshly baked buttered bread, and sausages. 'Playing Mother Courage as usual,' thought Frank. She sat him down in front of a giant, cartoon looking plateful, which he ate heartily with crab like hands. Everyone was talking; mostly inaudible, with their mouths stuffed!

Finished, and feeling a little more himself, Frank wandered into his studio, which was full of more people looking zonked! Some were dancing, some talking and laughing in groups, some sitting on the floor or standing against the walls, as if supporting them.

His canvas on the easel had been pushed into a corner, and he saw that his sheets of papers now had footprints on them.

Sometimes after people had greeted him, he heard himself reply, but then he wasn't sure if he had actually said anything! 'I am the Walrus,' sang Lennon.

Fox had found Opal's book and was going from room to room reading the story 'Indigo Blue' in a loud sonorous voice, and a satyriasis leer on his face.

'She stared at her raised shaved mound in the mirror, her fingers played across its smoothness. She had spent the last week, with him, and had found a new appreciation of her own body; its curvaceousness, its power of attraction! She thought of the poses she had held, and the things he had done with his brushes! She looked around the studio at the many images of herself. Her large intelligent grey eyes staring back at her. Her honey he had mixed with with her lipstick to depict the exposed rosebud between her open legs. She ….'

Fox wandered nonchalantly out again.

Frank stood before his canvas, drawn by its silence. His mind simply sank into it, as there was nothing on the surface to hold him back. One little dot – a squeak of a mouse in a quiet room -- could have held him back. All this commotion around him, yet, he was unable to bring it to a single gesture. His mind went back to the morning when he had been so lost; before his big idea from nowhere had struck him. Now his idea seemed so shallow, and without reason. This whiteness now seemed to reflect his exhausted brain. 'Another fucking day of shite!' he whispered.

'Well anyway...,' he thought 'Opal will be here soon!' The thought of her engulfed him again! Her whole being, her tenderness, her free spirit, her lovely body. She would sooth him, she would be his, no matter how long it took to get rid of these people. She would be the best consolation to his disappointing day.

Frank went over to his bench, and pulled himself up to sit on it. He was still wearing his splattered multicoloured, overalls; 'appropriately psychedelic,' he thought.

Grooder, the cello player from down the Scene passed by the open doorway to the hall carrying his cello, and a few moments later Frank could hear his mad improvised strains coming from one of the rooms. The light in the hall seemed to be flashing. A ball bounced by, a troupe of dollified girls, he had never seen before, stepped by in their high heels which forced them on to their toes and pushed out their breasts and bottoms out, and caused them too strut like horses.

Fox strode into the room again still reading aloud from Opal's book:

'She stood before the full-length mirror admiring the sudden protrusion of her buttocks and her high pointed breasts, and her flat belly. She had never felt so confident of her body. She admired again a close up portrait of her face he had painted – the livid reds of the face painted with her menstrual blood mixed with his own sperm, as a symbol of conception! She thought of the days and nights of their love making, the reading of Anais Nin and Henry Miller and how all this had given her a new intimacy to her new roll as muse. She felt she had gone beyond mere sex object and would...'

The doorbell rang.

'She's here!' he heard someone shout. And the commotion of the party suddenly came to a climax, as the echo of her name rang out in all directions through the apartment. The next minute, she was there, tricked out in a blue and very mini-skirt! She cat-walked in through the door, looking tanned, and even more beautiful than he had remembered her!

He felt a sudden swell of feeling in his chest. Her grey eyes, that shone like stolen jewels, buzzed the room like flies, then fixed on him. She smiled and rushed to him, flinging her arms around him, she planted her lush red lips on his open, surprised mouth!

Her mouth felt wonderfully wet and warm. Then she buried his head into her thick smooth hair, and held him there. Frank clung tightly to her warm shapely body.

People had gathered around them.

'Welcome back Opal!' Frank finally said.

Everyone joined in welcoming her loudly.

'Oh, Frank!' She said, 'I can't believe you did all this for me. I really didn't expect it....I don't know what to say...'

'Say nothing, honey, you don't know how much everyone has missed you!'

..Again a chorus of voices began agreeing with him.

..'Well, I'm sorry it's not for long, everyone... I'm flying to Ireland tomorrow evening!'

The crowd gave a big disappointed 'Ohhhhhh!'

'Frank I want to introduce you to someone.' She turned around to look for someone. A tall dark haired man stepped forward from the crowd.

'This is Tony, Frank; an old friend.' Frank shook hands with him.

'We bumped into each other again this morning in the airport. We haven't seen each other for more than what, three years, Tony? And he's invited me to his place, near Sligo, where we can borrow a horse and caravan from a friend of his for two weeks! And I wondered, Frank, if you would let both of us stay tonight?'

Frank's heart had fallen to his feet, and was pumping like a fish out of water!

'Sure!' Frank heard himself saying.

Thanks!' said Tony, smiling. 'Opal has told me so much about you, Frank. She told me your life is like a piece of art!'

Frank forced himself to smile, and he cast a weary eye over to his silent canvas.

The crowd at the instigation of Fox, who took the lead, broke into the Scene's favourite party-song: 'The Hole in the Elephants Bottom:'

I wanted to be on the stage,
And now my ambitions I've gottem!
In my grey pantaloons I'm the rage
I'm the hole in the elephant's bottom!

Now the fellow who plays the front part
As an actor he is simply rotten

Through bad beer he does nothing but fart
While I play the elephant's bottom.

Now the eyes they are made of brown glass
Ventilation's completely forgotten
But you'd be surprised at the wind that can pass
Through the hole in the elephant's bottom

The manager said 'That's all wrong!'
As they sit in the stage you could spot 'em
So I use a telescope now
Through the hole in the elephant's bottom.

Last night I had some bad luck,
The manager said I was rotten!
Cos I happened to get my head stuck
Through the hole in the elephant's bottom!

My friends all think I'm a wit,
In their seats in the stalls I can spot 'em!
And I wink at the girls in the pit
Through the hole in the elephant's bottom!

My landlady packs up my meals
One day I went out and forgot 'em
So now every day she feeds me with buns
Through the hole in the elephant's bottom

A lady she chased after me
She said “You're a star, I can spot 'em”
I said “No Lady, thanks, I'm not Douglas Fairbanks
I'm the hole in the elephant's bottom”

Now I don't have to learn any words
There's no script to get quickly forgotten
I just sit in the back shoving property turds
Through the hole in the elephant's bottom

Now one night we performed in a farce

And I stuffed up the bottom with cotton

, But it split and I showed my bare arse
Through the hole in the elephant's bottom

Some may think that this story is good
And some may believe that it's rotten,
But those that don't like it can stuff it right up
The hole in the elephant's bottom.