Frank Zappa - Hunchy Punchy [Capitols Lumpy Gravy]

Zappa's story reads like this:
It has been raining all night. A black car is driving through the damp woods. The wind is blowing and it is chilly outside. We can hear the rain. We cannot hear the car.

There are two people in the car. One of them is dead. He is 19 years old. We can see what is left of his eyes. It is as if some strange, soft instrument had struck them, causing the eyelids to become translucent and gray and swollen. We can barely see the pupils beneath. His name is Bernie and he used to work on a farm.

It is very late. The silent black car finds it way through a maze of hastily planned streets in a tract of new homes. The Cinderella Gingerbread Wonderland Estates are all empty. The little plywood curlycues on the eaves of each dream castle are splitting and peeling. The stingily spaced nails that hold them on are bleeding rust. The windows are mostly broken. The tract is held together by chicken wire and cheesy strands of cotton string and screaming neon pennants ... in every direction from one to another and up and down and sideways: little plastic triangles on those marvelous never-rot cables, from house to house, providing God knows how much necessary structural support.

The silent black car stops at a turquoise house on the corner of Wanda Parkway and Thornhaven Court. The driver gets out and walks slowly to the door of the turquoise house. It is still raining. He opens the buckled plywood door and turns on the living room light. We can see from outside that the turquoise house is furnished. The driver beckons from the doorway. Bernie gets out of the silent black car and walks up the path to the door, carefully avoiding the muddy spots between each uniquely wonderful, hand-cast, circular concrete stepping-stone. We hear some frogs and the rain.

By the light of a lamp shaded like a covered wagon with a bucking bronco painted on the shade, we see the grim face of the driver clearly for the first time. He looks like everyone's personal image of their father when he gets mad. He speaks: "Bernie ... why'd you run away, son?" Bernie doesn't look at him. He shuffles his feet a bit and looks around the room at the furniture ... through his translucent bulges. He seems to find things just as they were before ... the naugahyde vibrator chair, the three color reproduction of the Grand Canyon in the embossed maple frame over the brown sectional with metallic threads that used to get caught on the buckles of his jacket, the walnut step-end tables with the old magazines and doilies and the Kleenex box with the matching mahogany low-boy coffee table with the contrasting doilies and book matches from all over in a little brass silent butler. He gets up and goes into the kitchen, silently thinking to himself (and hating to admit it) that it felt good to sit in the old green platform rocker again, but he knew he needed a Coke.

"You want me to really louse you up, kid? What I did to your eyes wasn't enough for you? You got any idea what that thing could do to your mouth if I used it on you? Why'd you run away, son?"

Bernie nervously gulps his Coca-Cola. It foams within him as he turns to
answer, "I dunno, dad ... I just dunno. Why'd you have to go and use that thing on my eyes? They hurt sort of ... and I feel weird all over." Another hearty snort of his beverage and Bernie continues, "How'd you find me?"

"Don't ask me questions! I'm askin' the questions! Tell me why you'd run off like that! Wasn't this a good enough home for you? Everything in here: brand new ... we never had brand new stuff before we moved in here! I work my butt off at that place for the government and get enough money to buy all new stuff ... new house, new furniture, portable record player ... everything like we never had before ... and you go work on a farm!"

"I had to, Pop. I missed things they used to be when we lived in the country. I missed the animals and everything. I wish you'd never taken that job in the Alabama plant ... then they never would of transferred you here ... and I never would of had to run off and get caught ... and never of got my eyes hurt. Did Mom buy an baloney this week?"

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Frank Zappa
• capitols lumpy gravy
• rock
• jazz
• blues
• lumpy gravy
• orchestal