MODELING MONSTERS 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fb_0LzBv894

“Have you ever done this 
work before. Professionally?”

“I wouldn’t say professionally.
But I’ve done it for…profit.”

—Truman Capote, "Unspoiled Monsters"
Answered Prayers The Unfinished Novel
__________________

Blanche was still in her wheelchair
somehow she’d survived Bette Davis

Baby Jane had shoved her down—
all the way down the fuckin’ stairs

Blanche survived though and
plastered the bitch with her .45
___________________

So that now she was on her own
running Hollywood Unspoiled Monsters Inc.

She’d interview young prospective Hustlers
it be quite a lucrative Sunset Blvd racket

Crooked as the crawling cigarette smoke
exhaled from her moldy mildewy mouth
_____________________

She be the genuine thing though, honey
the most successful businesswoman in town

She had about as much shame as a cockroach
grilling her prospective employees mercilessly

Her voice was rather teacup-timid dontchaknow
but her cobalt eyes steely as a gangland hitman
__________________

“Now I’m gonna roll you some clean dice, honey”
she said sipping her extra-dry martini 

“Most of our clientele are middle-aged fags into
offbeat nasty sex of one fuckin kind or another”

“I can dig it,” I said, since I was hard up for money
pulling out my schlong all butch 10” of Paradise
_____________

“Dear me,” Blanche said, “If only I were younger!!
before Bette Davis did me in, Rats for Supper!!!”

“Now then, I don’t wanna be de Inquisitor, honey…
what would you like to know about de business?”

I wondered if she be the power behind the throne
after all most Hollywood brothel keepers got paid
__________

Like most sex-café Grande Dames just fronts
for the usual Mafioso Las Vegas entrepreneurs

I shrugged knowing the dice was all fixed anyway
knowing most Answered Prayers usually get pukey

But I dreamed of being another Robert Blake
playing my hero unspoiled monster Perry Smith
_________________

I figured the same old director’s couch routine
worked for all de great RKO film noir actresses

Surely I be gettin a break someday and Voila!!!
I’d be a star in some scandalous new Neo-Noir flick

Worming my way up thru Blanche’s connections
avoiding de dark Sicilian Spiders weaving de Web
___________

“I’ve got just the right client for you, kid…
I can tell you got Neo-Noir Negritude possibilities”

It be true cause my mama she be high yellow
my family tree down there be butchy beige 

I prided myself with my mulatto Mandingo heritage
I be Zimbabwe uncut with a nice big pink head
_____________________

Blanche tore off the sheet of note pad, rolled it up
And tossed it at me, saying “You be perfect, honey.”

“Mr. Jones be his pseudonym but he be like one
of our most valuable and wealthy clients…”

“He be Size-Queen, of course, but he also be de
usual delirious Delta Bourbon Dinge Queen…”