Paragraphs

Brousseau's Balderdash #2: The Hand Of God

In Which We Learn God Is Left Handed

By Matt Brousseau

Sport. The great equalizer. The opiate of the mass of the massive masses. The physical activity causing millions of people to simultaneously sit and stare and eat and burp and have a heart attack.

Soccer. The sport known as football by the majority of the anatomically correct world (mon dieu, France). America already has a football and it’s named football. We call it this because the unspoken understanding is that punters and field goal kickers are the most important players.1

But soccer! But non-American football!2 An English invention, as much as “kick a bloated bladder” is an invention. But no! England was responsible for the spread of a consistent structure of rules. This is their most important export since tea and resistance to the crown.

It’s resistance to the crown that brings us to our current balderdash.

Read More

Dispatches From Hello

Sometimes when I lay in bed I'll wonder what life would be like if we didn't kill all those pigeons. Then I'll remember that, eventually, something else would have killed all those pigeons. And that makes me smile. Blame humans. We took one for the team. Well, a lot of ones. But for the team. Well, our team. But a team. Team.

———

After Eddie died someone told me that people die twice: first when they physically die and then again when we forget them or something. I don’t know. I wasn’t really paying attention. I was too busy trying to remember where we left Eddie’s corpse.

———

I heard that most stars are visible because they’re exploding. That was pretty comforting because when our sun explodes and kills us all, at least some being in another galaxy that will be able to look up and say, “Neat,” or use it to guide their ship to conquer some alien land. I think we all could appreciate that.

———

Marge never understood when I told her a stitch in time saves nine. Then again, Marge never had any arms so a lot of things were lost on her, like baseball and sign language.

Writing Angry

by Matt Brousseau

      Eventually I decided to no longer write with anger. It used to happen a lot. I'd sit down, imagine someone knocking over one of my potted plants, and I'd start punching a wall. I'd punch in Morse code and my stenographer, Maury, would stenographize. It was a strenuous process. I'd punch. He'd write. I'd bleed. He'd call the hospital.

Later we put out an ad for a junior biographer. At first he documented our lives, but once he figured out the odd weeks he just assumed the evens. It wasn't that colorful, but what would you expect? For fun we’d dress up as WASPs and see who could sweat through their linens first.

We paid for the biographer to take an EMT course. It helped with the bandages. And every couple days he'd work a car crash. It's a lot easier to write a story with good inspiration. I can't remember how many car crashes I've re-enacted with my fists. I guess I could count the essays, but some of those are probably doubles. And I know at least one was inspired by a pigeon I hit with my bike.

Read More

Ditty Word Ditty

by Matt Brousseau

“I love you,” she says. “Let me count the ways..."

“Seven,” I laugh.

She gives me her dirtiest look, the one that poisoned the fish. Or maybe it just broke the filter. Either way, super dirty.

I ask, “Six?” She moves to high-five my face.

I duck and pick up our cat. He’s been coughing all day. Our eyes meet. He gives me a look that says, “Meow.”

Shuffling around the carpet I find my shoes. The cat’s hair stands on end. I open the bedroom door and rush out, both of us receiving a static shock from the doorknob. The cat meows and jumps to the floor, coughing four times, then following my electric wake.

I exit through a front door, forgetting to open the screen door. An important lesson about screens is learned. Blood rushes to fill the newly formed gaps in my skin.

Three seconds later she arrives with a two-handed shove. My body exits the house without opening the door. My mind, confused, stays inside to wait it out.

“Are we out of cereal?” It asks.

My feet answer by running to the car, the soft grass unnoticed until my toes hit the gravel driveway. Blood teams with rock dust to fill the newly formed cracks in my feet.

I open the driver-side door with my hand and open my head with the driver-side door frame. My mind returns as blood leaves my temple. “We’re out of cereal,” it says.

The cat jumps into the passenger side window. The soft thud reminds me to roll the windows down. They squeak as they fall. The cat meows as he lands, this time inside the car, this time with a look that says, “Meow?” I win our staring contest when he coughs.

My shopping list lays on my dash. I look at it as I turn the key in the ignition. “Buy Gas.” The engine starts. Then it purrs. Then it coughs and dies. I look at the cat. He smiles. Then he coughs.

I move to exit the car as she arrives. “And one more thing,” she says, her fist aimed at my head. I turn and my chin cushions the blow.

Abandoning the car, my face cushions the gravel driveway for my skull.

Somewhere a cat coughs.

My mind mumbles, "Blastoff," and exits.

Brousseau's Balderdash #1: The Babe Calls His Shot

"I tried to capture the spirit of the thing." - Dickie Dunn, Charlestown Gazette

It’s that time again for the spring training of professional baseball players in these United States. And I’d like to honor such a rare occasion with a baseball history lesson.

A Charlie Root Whodunit

by Matt Brousseau

George Herman “Babe” Ruth Jr. called many shots in his life - most prolifically after games, at some speakeasy where he nightly force fed himself a lifetime’s worth of animal anus (“hot dogs”), and threw down enough alcohol to blind a small midwestern high school before romping off with as many women as could fit on or around his penis. There are no descriptions of Ruth’s penis, so I’ll take a thesaurus and presume it was vaingloriously garrulous and unstoppably poisonous.

Read More