Rockefeller
Center
by Albert Russo
I hope I’ll never get
the idea of killing myself, coz I’ve read
that more and more teenagers go bonkers the
minute their boyfriends leave them. If ever I
should have a lover - he’d better behave,
coz I don’t see myself falling for all that
schmaltz some of my classmates indulge in - you
can be sure that I’ll be the one to decide
whether he’s worth it or not, and since I
have inherited my mother’s felinist
genes, if he tries anything funny with me, he’ll
be flying out of my door, pronto presto and
without any apologies. That will be the day when
I commit hara kiri for a bozo.
The Christmas tree at
Rockefeller Center just bowled me over, it was so
tall. Then too, everything around it looked
splendiferous - gee, I’m bowling myself over
using such sofistickle words -, the
multicolored illuminations, the frozen cascades,
the bronze dolphins and the statues of angels,
flanked by the two rows of luxury boutiques whose
window displays were beautifully decorated. In
Paris it’s the Champs Elysées which I
prefer during the holidays, with all its trees
lit up, but it’s not nearly as exciting as
this. And on top of it all we could enjoy
watching the people skating on the ice rink,
either solo or in couples. The mere thought of me
in their shoes gives me goose pimples, coz at the
least shove I’d sprawl on the ice like a
pancake with mulberries, all black and blue, too
ridiculous for words, so I don’t even try.
When my uncle was a student,
he would go to the rink in Central Park, twice or
even three times a month in winter, with his two
cousins who loved it even though they skated any
old how and had the grace of two squinting gnous
- he showed me some pictures. Poor Unky Berky, he
would dread the exercise on account that he
couldn’t keep his balance and didn’t
know how to put the breaks on, so that he would
provoke mayhem among the skaters who happened to
be in front of him. They were mad as hell and
called him all kinds of demeaning names, which
his cousins thought quite funny. I have the impreshun
he didn’t fancy them that much, coz they
forced him to do many unpleasant things,
supposedly to teach him some of the American ways,
specially since they thought he was a little
sissy. So, whether he liked it or not, he had to
watch them play handball with their school team
on weekends or stick for hours in front of the
television to watch baseball, of which he never
learned the rules. Neither have I, and American
or not, I can’t stand it; football I find
even worse, with them players so beefed up they
look like helmetted orangutans overly padded on
their shoulders and their behinds like they’re
wearing ten layers of Pampers. Hubba hubba Hop!
They grunt like oversized baboons.
Excerpt
6 from ZAPINETTE GOES TO NEW YORK by Albert Russo
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