Bream Gives Me Hiccups (20 page)

MANAGEABLE TONGUE TWISTERS

Peter Johnson selected a group of jarred spices.
If Peter Johnson selected a group of jarred spices,
How many jarred spices did Peter Johnson select?

How much lumber could a woodchuck discard
If a woodchuck could discard lumber?

Sally peddles fish exoskeletons down by the beach.

Fuzzy Wuzzy had been a bear.
But he was bald.
So, if this was the case,
He couldn't have been very fuzzy, right?

Moses thinks his phalanges are perennials.
But Moses is wrong.
For no one's phalanges are perennials,
Like Moses thinks his phalanges are.

One smart fellow,
He thought he was deserving of this title.
Two smart fellows,
They also thought they were deserving of this title.
Three smart fellows,
They all thought they were deserving of this collective
designation.

Red-and-yellow leather.
Red-and-yellow leather.
( “ )

New York is different.

Elizabeth Botter paid money for margarine.
But the margarine
For which Elizabeth Botter paid was tart.
So Elizabeth Botter paid money for some superior
margarine,
And it made Elizabeth Botter's
Once-tart mixture good.

My mother coerced me to destroy my Mars-brand chocolate candies.

James bifurcated corn,
Although I don't really give a shit.

I scream.
Then you join me.
Pretty soon we all find ourselves
Shouting praises for frozen custard.

IX.

WE ONLY HAVE TIME FOR ONE MORE. . .

WE ONLY HAVE TIME FOR ONE MORE

Thanks a lot! You guys have been a great audience! Buffalo is truly one of my favorite cities. We love coming through here and stopping at the best music venue in town, the Rotting Tree! Unfortunately, we only have time for one more song.

I wish we could stay here rocking and rolling with you guys all night, but for a variety of reasons, we only have time for one more.

Our bassist Steve Barron's got two kids so he can't stay out too late. I know what you're thinking: “Steve has two kids? Last year when you guys played the Tree, he didn't have any.” Well, he had twins. First time out of the gate and he winds up with two. If that isn't a real baptism by fire . . . go figure. The man is fertile.

And Mark Platt, our fiddle player, has a blister on his
thumb the size of—I kid you not—a small golf ball. Every note he plays is a kind of hell for him. So that's another reason we can only play one more song.

Dan Simmons, our drummer, actually doesn't know any more of our songs. Sammy Marber, our previous drummer, left the band due to “creative differences” (a.k.a. he's an ego-maniacal psychopath with a coke problem) and Dan hasn't bothered to learn the whole oeuvre. So if we played any more songs, it would basically be without drums.

As for me, I wish we could play all night. I got nothing else going on. I kind of gave up my life for the band. I write the songs, I'm the lead singer, and the band is named “Peter Jaworski and His Band” and I'm Peter Jaworski. I've really struggled to create a full life and it gets lonely, if I'm being honest. I go home to no one. I eat TV dinners. Lots of Netflix. It's not glamorous. And my life has become so narrow that I don't really have any new experiences to write about. That's why you guys heard three songs about how fast my Honda Accord is. The first two were kind of interesting, but that last one was hackneyed. I get it.

Anyway, we also only have time for one more because Jojo, our mixer, has a gambling problem and apparently has to Skype with her bookie. The whole thing seems irresponsible, but the truth is, she's pretty good at mixing the music and we really don't pay enough to get anybody better.

Then there's the whole issue of the unions. Listen, I'm as pro-union as the next guy. My parents were teachers. But if we go a minute past eleven, everyone goes to time and a half and I get docked.

And Pinkie on tambourine actually has a date. Can you believe that? Look at him: he's got that patchy beard and he's like five-foot-nothing, but for whatever reason women seem to like him.

I'm also getting the sense that some of the roadies don't love Peter Jaworski and His Band the same way I love Peter Jaworski and His Band. I asked Dwayne Beemer if he liked a lyric I was tooling around with last week—“Your love is like sandpaper in my veins”—and he looked at me like I was the dumbest person in the world. And now I have his judgy face emblazoned in my mind when we play “Sandpaper Blood.” I understand he may be a little disgruntled—he does carry the amps for a third-tier emo-grunge band in the Lower Great Lakes region—but he could show a little more tact. I have feelings too, Dwayne Beemer.

We also only have time for one more because Teddy Faour has reservations at the Chophouse, Aliya Coleman bought a Wi-Fi pass that expires at midnight, Shepherd Brennan needs to wash his hair, and Rory Thompson has GERD.

These are just some of the reasons that we only have time for one more.

So without further ado, our final song. Ladies and gentlemen: “Matte Black Honda”!

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thank you to my wonderful editors Peter Blackstock at Grove, Susan Morrison at the
New Yorker
, and Chris Monks at
McSweeney's
for encouraging me to value (respectively): brevity, maturity, and not making every story about a nine-year-old boy harrowing. Thank you also to Judy Hottensen, Deb Seager, and Morgan Entrekin at Grove, David Remnick and Emma Allen at the
New Yorker
and Dave Eggers at
McSweeney's
for your extraordinary institutions and the honor of being included. Thank you to my tireless agents Simon Green, Michael Kives, Craig Gering, and Olivier Sultan, who ensure that more than just the people on this page read the stories on the other pages. Thank you to Jean Jullien, who is funnier without words than most are with. Thank you also to Lee Gabay, Jim Beggarly, Anna Strout, Gabe Millman, Brian Westmoreland, and Mia Wasikowska. Finally, thank you to my supportive family, who never seem to exercise their veto power even when the joke's on them.