The First Black Eye Of August
AAARGGHH, MATIES. GATHER ‘ROUND. The tale of me eyeball is not fitting for a man of my stately standing on land nor sea.
It’s the dreaded Periorbital Hematoma. A black eye. The left one. It’s a doozy. I look like I just finished 15 rounds with Mike Tyson or an unstable ex-girlfriend. From the Socialist wing of the Democratic Party. I’m thinking of shopping at Bob’s Quality Pirate Supply & Emporium (a subsidiary of Amazon). I need a quality leather eyepatch. Accessorized thusly, I could more easily explain to people when they ask: “Hey. What happened to you?”
Off-handedly, I’d recount, “Saloon fight with the city government of Chicago. The slimy barnacles are currently sleeping in Davy Jones’ locker, in the murky bottoms of the Lake Michigan...”
It’s not even September 19th, National Talk Like A Pirate Day, and I find myself exclaiming, “Aaaaarrgghhh!!”
I SHOULDN’T FEEL BAD — Many important historical figures look quite dashing in a pirate’s eyepatch. / illustration, courtesy of The New Smithsonian Museum & possibly Craiyon.com
I bumped into a friend. She asked, “What happened to the other guy?”
Indignant, I replied: “Singular? ONE other guy? Not six, seven nor eight? Three or four dozen, if we’re talking Democrats?”
I fell. I was watering the South 40 of Scared o’ Bears Ranch. The hose ruptured, exploding right darn off the spigot. We’re not on the stingy local water company. Due to Global Warming, the provider for regular citizens mandates that residents are only allowed a miserly 1.024 pints of H20 pressure every half-hour. The Water Company’s policy is designed to attract midgets to our formerly riparian Santa Clarita Valley in Southern California because it doesn’t take long for them to rinse off in the shower.
At our homestead, when you open the valve to our generous underground reservoir, enough H20 blasts out to douse the Pacific Palisades Fire in 3.78 seconds. So. The hose breaks. I do the Johnny Weissmuller breast stroke, swimming upstream on a wave not seen here since the Great St. Francis Dam Disaster of 1928. With the strength of Hercules, I manage to fight the cobra-like snake of a garden hose and turn off the valve. I’m standing a yard deep in mud, water and floating drowned animal carcasses. Battling an entire pack of swimming snakes, I managed to float to dry land. Once there, my ankle gets entangled in either a 50-foot long green water moccasin, or, the hose. Over I go. Breaking my fall, I use the least important part of my anatomy — my head. A knee, two hands, two wrists and the top rib right above my heart all chipped in to cushion my landing.
As I approach middle age, I’m always struck by how darn cute I am. Now, I look like the last five minutes of a horror movie where the monster gets blown up by Army guy bazookas and there’s a close-up of the monster’s head, melting in slow motion.
The worst part? The question that arises from moms and well-wishers — “You poor thing! What happened to you!?”
“Tripped on a garden hose …” does not seem like a swashbuckling answer. I am the last of a dying breed — The Manly Man, just oozing with the precious liquid of Toxic Masculinity. I need a better story, for the movie rights alone, other than a shrug and sheepish, “Ha-yuck, I’m clumsy.”
Dear John Boston —
I’ve got one for you. How about you tell your neighbors you earned your near fatal head wound and black eye the size of a Texas T-bone, trying to foil Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass from chainsawing the last oak tree in SoCal and the 100-ton mighty flora fell on your little pumpkin head?
That City of Los Angeles. It’s an oakless bastion of rat-B-word communist monkey business and systemically endorse black eyes, which are racist. And, yes. We Democrats do feast on our own, especially in an election year.
Just trying to help.
— Your fan,
Gavin Newsom, Governor, California & Proponent for Lifelong Reparations For Owwies & Black Eyes
Geez. Thank you, Gavvy the Gavigator. Big fan of you, too! Your scenario paints my injury in a more noble and community service light.
SYMPATHETIC BLACK EYE SUFFERER — and California’s Democratic presidential hopeful Gavin Newsom recently confessed to identifying as a having not one, but two black eyes. “Today, black eyes and racism are the number one issues facing America, but not California in that we successfully cured the malady.” Critics quickly pounced, noting, “If Gavvy cured black eyes, how come he’s got one?” / image courtesy of B.A.T.B.E.V., or, Bay Area Trans Black Eye Victims or maybe Fox News…
I could say I got my Ring Magazine cover face after defending the honor of my hometown of Santa Clarita. I could claim I got into a fight at the irreputable Mayor Ernie Villegas’ Topless Saloon & Grille. Ernie’s the former mayor of Fillmore. The fight started when a squadron of illegal aliens were boasting that neighboring Fillmore’s homeless criminal illegal aliens were better than Santa Clarita’s homeless criminal illegal aliens.
ACTUALLY, BLACK EYES RUN IN MY FAMILY. — Here’s a recent photo of my kid brother-like substance, Joe Peters-Boston, who suffers from self-inflicted Periorbital Hematoma. / courtesy, Boston Museum of Art
There’s a lot of Where’d You Get The Shiner? alternative universe story lines available.
I could claim I saved the local Canyon Theatre Guild’s school Marm (the fetching and talented Mrs. Ingrid Boydston) from a runaway burning Calistoga wagon, although, I happen to know the local fire department has had more than a few cautionary conversations with Mrs. B about piloting a madcap Calistoga wagon through town, engulfed in flames, without the proper permits.
Maybe I’ll just pick on a random, unsuspecting optometrist from Palmdale. It’s sort of the West Virginia of Southern California, only with less teeth. I’ll post a close-up selfie of me and my Homerian shiner on optometrist’s internet Yelp page. You know. The site with all those reviews and comments from grateful customers to acrimonious cranks? I’ll add the note:
“Cripes. And this guy, Dr. Seymour Butts, has the NERVE to call himself an optometrist! I’m giving him one star. I wish I could give less. Horrific experience in his office. Went in for a routine eye exam for contact lenses and look what he did to me … (•. – ( ”
I could lie. I could claim I landed a new job as the starting middle linebacker for the Los Angeles Rams. This discoloration is just the eye black all us NFL players use to reduce glare. When someone asks why is it only applied under the one eye, I’d just point out that, at my age, I’m getting forgetful.
Sigh and oh well.
I’ll just pretend I’m Jack Nicholson and it’s perfectly normal to wear sunglasses indoors.
Look on the bright side.
You know what they say in the Bible, Matthew 6:22. To paraphrase — let thine eye be singular …
