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American Dream, Plan Ω

Michael Brockley

    The last time you saw her she wore a yellow sundress and introduced you to the man she planned to marry after his residency in the university town that honors Hoagy Carmichael. You ordered a tenderloin as big as your head with a side of onion rings and a colossal pickle off a stained menu in the diner where she worked. Framed and autographed black-and-white glossies of black-hats Jack Elam and Strother Martin hanging on the walls. Villains Luca Brasi and OddJob. She paused between refilling water glasses or sweeping the floor to speculate on the motivations of henchmen. Hench she called them. Burly guys who wore dark t-shirts with a Sluggo name or cryptic number printed across the chest. Igor. Borg9. A reversed seven. Sweat stains under their armpits. When you’re in Henchieville, she said, Never trust the stooges. And keep the femme fatales dead center in your rearview mirror. She hummed Carmichael melodies while she worked. “Rogue River Valley” while refilling the salt-and-pepper shakers. “A Woman Likes to Be Told” during those rare afternoons when she drew the short straw to Windex the gallery. “When Love Goes Wrong” at the conclusion of your chats, after you reminded her she resembled the latest woman to exit your one-trick-pony carnival. On those Saturday afternoons in a city famous for its painting of a man-sized turtle leaning against a pub’s’s brick wall, she gathered scraps of stray sunlight into the fabric of her sundress and pirouetted about the cafe in that graceful waltz petite women draw upon as they occupy themselves with glamorless chores. While she was flirting with lone wolves who chugged espressos before embarking on their evenings with Jack Daniels, you wrote notes about her henchmen lore in the margins of your sidekick poems. As well as fragments of the lyrics from “Moonburn” and “Heart and Soul.” She advised you to want more than what a woman named for a river could deliver. And was too eager to remind you, No one visits The Henchmen Hall of Fame.

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