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Inside The Bird Cage Saloon
~~~
I cut a few corners & there I is ~ in front of the Bird Cage Saloon ~ Harley Davidson steads parked at the curb, homeless men in the park across the street vacantly spying on Whiskey Row. In the middle of this grassy shady park across the street looms the stoic courthouse of Yavapai County. This is the same courthouse square where somebody is rumored to have filmed a scene or two in yesteryear's cult-classic, Billy Jack. And here I is ~ on the other side of Montezuma Avenue ~ standing forlornly before the Bird Cage Saloon ~ craving so badly to go anywhere except inside. I shrug, cough-up some old-man phlegm. I gracefully sail the spittle into the gutter. And, specially for the homeless audience across the street, I sneak into my performance a sharp secret-agent move to the right, and then, a sharper, swifter, secret-agent move to the left. And thennn ~ I enter.
He is wearing clown shoes ~ a dead give-away that this is the clown who was handing out loaded derringers to children on the street & whom I stalked up the alley behind the Bird Cage Saloon. These clown shoes are about 12-inches longer than regular shoes. And they flop around like what I imagine backward beaver tails look like on freshly shot specimens.
I
probably would not have noticed anybody wearing such shoes except as I
push the door open & casually saunter into the infamous drinking
establishment, my leg gives out & I fall to the floor. This is not
part of the plan. Must be some kind of ceasement of circulation.
Whatever cool I possessed is now shattered glass. However, I have
noticed those clown shoes. I most likely would not have noticed them if
I had not fallen. While lying on the floor like a jelly fish, I happen
to note that a feller sitting at the bar is wearing them. Scuffed up,
flippy floppy, hilarious clown shoes.
Another feller, this one with outrageously long hair, a steel guitar, and a big grin, comes up. He gives my leg a couple kicks in the calf. This gets the circulation going again & I am grateful. When, with one hand, he yanks me up onto my feet, it dawns on me this guy looks a lot like Ted Newscent ~ the famous rock n' roll daddy & gun yo-yo ~ yes, this guy is the spittin' image of Ted Newscent ~ he who is so often publicly flamboyantly hostile to the U.S. President.
And the guy sitting at the bar, presently in a regular business suit & the extremely extended clown shoes that, I presume, he forgot to switch after niggling thru the back door moments earlier ~ he looks a lot like ~ no, it cannot be! He's peering point-blank at me like I'm a target. The hefty fellers around him with bulges in their coats could quite possibly be ~ yes, they are ~ they are his bodyguards. A chill runs up my spine. This man is the National Rifle Association big-talk man, Wayne Peeintheair. He is, in no small way, publicly hostile to the U.S. President too.
And, alas, I am one of the White House's favorite secret agents!