Midnight Pudding - Joe Cervelin

JOE CERVELIN is reading at
InsideStoryTime this Thursday,
November 20th, 6:30-8:30pm, SF
Weekly's 2006 Best New Reading
Series. Event will be held at Cafe
Neon.

Around Halloween, just when he thought
he wasn’t getting through, he caught
references to his class discussions in their
video comments. He was touched. The
phrases lit his guts: Wolverine that shit.
Another Hansel and Gretel sitch. Goliath got
whupped. Go tell your Grendal motha that!
Whatever Macbeth witch #2!

The best was when he told them about
Bluebeard – the whole here’s the keys for the
weekend, darling, you can explore any room in
the castle, the garden, the theater, just don’t
use this one key in this one room, yet curiosity
gets the best of our damsel and she peeks
downstairs, the door creaking so loudly her
hubby must have heard it at the other end of
town, and in shock she drops the key on the tile
into the blood and beads and diamonds and
powdery petals of his past wives, piled to the
chandelier, the ones who looked before, and
she can’t get the rusty blood off the tip,
scrubbing it in the sink, peering out the window,
until guess what, there’s ol’ Bluebeard, trekking
up the winding road, carrying roses.

During silent written response time, the ladies
threw up their hands. They said they wouldn’t
be having that with Blueballs or whatever the
idiot’s name was, chuckle, chuckle. “Hell no.”
They pivoted their fingers in the air and wiggled
their necks. “Can you say, ‘intimacy issues!’”
While it was an old story, he appreciated their
desire to whoop Bluebeard’s ass, really.
“That’s a rather proactive approach.”

Excerpt from "Pandora's Boxing," Fourteen Hills
vol. 14.1 (December '07). Check out the whole
short story here.

The Beach as Office is now
available in Bay Nature magazine.

Courtesy of Joe Sorren