Cappuccino Chronicle: One

“You don’t die with the dead.”
“You are so cheesy. Where did you come up with that lame lyric? I bet you heard it in a Spaghetti Western.”
“No it was not a Spaghetti Western. It was in some lame Turkish movie script I came across on the web.”
“Aha, so you admit it is lame.”
“No I don’t admit no such thing. Some of the lamest scripts have the best lines.”

Chucky transitioned into one of his forgettable imitations of Clint; “C’mon make my day!”
“C’mon snap out of it Chucky. I tell you that my dad died and you give me cheesy Clint imitations.”
“Wait a minute. Clint isn’t cheesy.”
“I know he isn’t; it’s you who is cheesy.”
“Sorry, Cappuccino I can be insensitive sometimes…. especially when I am so full of cinema…”

“How did he die?”
“I don’t know. I did not see him.”
“I was told that the Coroner declared it ‘death by attrition resulting in offensive decomposition of the body.’”
“They buried him in a mass grave at the municipal dump.”
“I have only one memento left from him; this tattered manuscript.”

“Hold it; hold it; wait one frocking Romero minute! Who are we talking about here?”
“They don’t bury people, not even mares, at the municipal dump; even if they are zombies.”
“Zombies are real people who happen to be dead.
“They rise from proper graves, you know… Not from garbage dumps.”
“Here you go again talking movie crap.”

“I’m talking about Kahve, you idiot. Dead; butchered by villainous treachery, I’m sure.”
“Look at the splatters of blood on this manuscript.”
“He must have been attacked viciously by an evil swashbuckler.”
Chucky snapped out of his zillionth moment of embarrassment and slid right into a Scaramouche imitation.
“You may turn your back on Scaramouche, my lord, but surely you will not run away from Andre Moreau!”

Then he snapped back to reality just as seamlessly; “Kahve was a four legged, wet nose. He was not your dad.”
“He was too.”
“No he was not.”
“Yes he was. He adopted me.” Chucky looked at me with that familiar gleam in his eye.
This was the telltale sign that he was to come up with a movie script line that fit the moment. So I cut him off.

’Kahve and I became very close after my mom and I were confronted by him, many moon ago.”
“You know canine are very sensitive to the full moon, so ‘dad’ and I always went by the lunar calendar.”
Before Chucky could even get a gleam in his eye, I continued.
“That day, I was wearing my neatest outfit and brand new leather sandals.”
“I can still remember the chickadee-clacks of my heels, my rosy cheeks and my taffeta skirt.”

“Then out of no where appeared Kahve.”
“I said to my mom ‘Mommy what’s wrong with that dog? It has crappy hair.’”
“My mom said ‘That is not hair dear, and she is not crappy.’”
“Then one thing led to another and Kahve growled at my mom … come to think of it was more like a slurp.”
“Then my mom took out her cell and Kahve high tailed it from there before she could say animal rescue.”
Chucky sounded puzzled. “That does not sound like an auspicious encounter. How come he adopted you?”

“I don’t know, why and how but the next time I saw him I was being harassed by Expres-son.”
“You mean Lard-ass Express.”
“Yes, that’s him. He added a “–son” after his name to make it sound chic.”
“Despite his pretentions, he was nothing but an obnoxious lard-ass. (I suppose he still is.)“
“He kept bothering me every time I had to walk to the bus stop alone.”
“Until that day when Kahve showed up.”
“He put his paws on Expres-son’s right shoulder and gave him a quick squeeze of the jaw.”
“You can never imagine the trepidation this caused him. At first he had no idea what had happened.”
“Then he turned around only to see this mangy mutt staring him down with two paws on the ground.”
“… his shoulders pushed way down and his wet nose savoring the fear emanating from the lard ass,”

“That was the last time Express-son bothered me and the first time Kahve rescued me from threats.”
“He was always there like, like Steward Granger or Errol Flynn …
Chucky continued “ .. Tyrone Power, Burt Lancaster, Basil Rathbone, Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. and Jr.,.. “
I had to stop him before he relapsed into his usual cinemalitis ailment: “yes, yes we get it.”
“So that’s how he adopted me.”

“You mean you never signed papers and such.”
I looked at him with marginally feigned incredulity; he got my point.
You see Chucky is a cinema buff. He can be dense when he is in a trans, but usually he is pretty smart.
He wants to be a film critic someday.
In order to advance his career opportunities he is even willing to call himself a “movie” critic.

Since 4th grade he has been spotted coming out of movie theaters at times when he should be at school.
Alone!
Some thought he was a perv. The reality is that he is a cinema-perv;
Once he convinced his mom that school was open on President’s Day.
Then he went to attend the premiere of “President’s Day,” since there was no school.

He asked me if he could look at the manuscript I inherited from Kahve.
He told me that I should try to turn some of these chronicles into movie scripts.
Coming from him, even though he is not a film critic yet, it felt good.
Having found several meters of discarded cellulose acetate among coke cups and popcorn boxes, earlier on…
We called it a day, as we quietly left the dumpster area behind the movie theater.

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