by Marcus Jonathan Chapman
Did her milkshake bring all the boys to the yard? That’s what Milton wondered in his cell while two feet away from him, his celly took a shit. What was her milkshake? He knew, instinctively it was metaphorical language for the way she moved her ass while dancing. That invariably, those movements suggestive of animals presenting themselves for fornication would bring all the boys out to “play,” so to speak.
But why milkshake? Was it simply because of the word “shake” before that white silk that dripped from utters? Was the word yard to imply that the boys were in prison? So starved of female interactions that a simple shake would bring drooling “boys” from their cells to her side? Or was the emphasis on boys? That the yard was attached to a school and not a prison, making her statement more literal. That didn’t make sense, why use a word like milkshake to describe her dance, just to turn around and be literal about the school setting.
Milton scratched his nose, perhaps it was the waft of fecal matter, like the sudden chill of a ghost passing through the living, or perhaps he was reminding himself that he thought too much.
“Hey, you ever think about how dinosaur bones are gasoline?” Milton looked up at his celly, who often began think deeply while in his thinker pose.
“Um, no, I think about different shit.” Milton chose not to clarify that there was no pun intended. The pun being that shit referred to his milkshake conundrum rather than to the little brown bun coming out of his celly. And at that point, that little brown bun was making his nostrils scream.
“huh.” His celly began to wipe. Milton looked toward the bars of his cell. “It’s crazy how the death of some ancient creatures fuels so much of our lives.”
Milton thought his celly had a point but chose not to acknowledge it, they had plenty of time to build a deeper relationship.
“Hey, do you still drawer?” Milton winced at his celly’s pronunciation of draw. He pronounced it with an “R” rather than stop speaking after saying “draw”.
Milton turned back after the sound of the flush to answer.
“Yeah, I will once I get my pencils back.” Milton said, laying down in his bottom bunk, his head as far away from the toilet as possible.
His celly hopped up onto the top bunk.
“G’night, Milton.”
“Goodnight.”
Milton began drifting off, thinking about gigantic reptiles roaming the earth. Herds of triceratops, if they were called herds, keeping packs of Raptors at bay with their tri-horned faces. Stegosauruses whipping Tyrannosaurus Rex’s with their spiked tails. Woolly mammoths sinking in tar pits.
Milton’s celly pulled him out of the tar pit of sleep, one in which he was more than happy to sink. He was singing again, the same song as always.
“My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard
and they’re like, it’s better than yours
Damn right it’s better than yours
I can teach you, but I have to charge.”
Whilst making a living... 