Should the Levee Ever Break, Act 1, Scene 3, Part 5
Mitchell: Good sirs, my word was fair. No discrepancy stains the pages of my ledger. The fifth tier is a sub-basement beneath the cellar floor of the temple’s vestibule. Any woman who is not tagged with the brand of the four usable tiers inhabits the underclass realm of she ain’t. This tier consists of the untouchables, those with whom under no circumstances would one stoop to having any intercourse that wasn’t strictly verbal, and that preferably conducted at a distance.
John: I once knew a librarian who was a lot like that. But having not yet been properly schooled in the hierarchy of your taxonomy, I could hardly be expected to take blame for failing to realize at the time that she was a she ain’t. For if I had possessed such prophetic insight in those moments we spent exchanging perspiration and other vital fluids, I’d have surely turned the lights back on.
Steve: Sir John’s quaint tale speaks to my most salient apprehension. This system is patently subjective. With physical attraction being at least partly in the eye of the beholder, how is the baseline standardized? And, what accommodations are provided for special needs clients?
John: The state sets standards for such things. Isn’t that socialism?
Mitchell: If it’s National Socialism, it’s ok. Be that as it may. When employed by reasonable men in pursuit of profitable enterprise, my rubric proves to be highly effective means to an end and would clearly stand the scrutiny of statistical analysis.
John: And we are reasonable men, after all. I’ll place a marker on a Class B Shedoo and produce my scrip post haste once I’ve examined the wares.
Mitchell: For you, a proper arrangement could surely be had. Miss Bunny Boucher, she’s so wickedly bad.
John: Miss Bunny Boucher? Miss Bunny Boucher? What madness you say? Has your mind fallen fallow; have your wits lost their way?
Steve: I’ve heard of her. Rumor has it she pays her rent each month with a trailer load of confiscated goods, and that she’s as much fun in bed as new underwear.
John: Whatever that means, I mean to have no part of it?
Steve: An acrobat, a ballet dancer and a ventriloquist walk into a barroom…
John: I’ve heard that one before. The punch line is, Remember to leave room for the milk. I got it from an auto detailer at a truck stop outside of Galveston. I was traveling with two gents named Blackie and Luther. They were both better off than I was at the time, though that’s not saying much. [singing]: Take a look at me now…
Mitchell: But gentlemen, we digress from the purpose at hand. And that’s not the Bunny Boucher to whom I was referring. That Bunny Boucher was born Bunny Boucher. The only one I actually know of with the birth certificate to prove it. This Bunny Boucher was born Veronica Chermak. She’s tall and leggy with a body that looks tidy, yet lived in. She’s like a strong rubber band in a tricked out pinball table. She reminds me of that actress Trace Lumbar playing the actress Fern Hall in Iguana Sunset. I remember the trailers: “Her topography leaves no room for global climate change! Her tropics are seductively torrid, while her poles remain perpetually cool!” [singing]: I been from Cottonwood to Rabbit Patch, but oh my lord, She swing her cotton tail like melons on a bungee cord.
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