Удушье (Choke)

A little milkmaid I know named Ursula catches my eye, and I shake my fist in front of my crotch, giving her the universal sign language for hand job. Blushing under her starchy white hat, Ur­sula slips a dainty pale hand out of her apron pocket and gives me the finger. Then she goes to jerk off some lucky cow all after­noon. That, and I know she lets the king's constable feel her up because one time he let me sniff his fingers.

Even from here, even over the horse shit, you can smell the reefer coming off her in a fog.

Milking cows, churning butter, for sure you know milkmaids must give great hand jobs.

'Goodwife Landson's a bitch,' I tell Denny. 'The minister guy says she gave him a scorching case of herpes.'

Yeah, she's a Yankee blue blood from nine to five, but behind her back everybody knows she went to high school in Springburg where the whole football team knew her as Douche Lamprini.

This time the nasty wig stays in place. The colonial governor gives up glowering at us and goes inside the Customs House. The tourists wander on to other photo opportunities. It starts to rain.

'It's okay, dude,' Denny says. 'You don't have to stand out here with me.'

This is just, for sure, another shitty day in the eighteenth cen­tury.

You wear an earring, you go to jail. Color your hair. Pierce your nose. Put on deodorant. Go directly to jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect jack shit.

The Lord High Governor bends Denny over at least twice a week, for chewing tobacco, for wearing cologne, shaving his head.

Nobody in the 1730s had a goatee, His Governess will lecture Denny.

And Denny will sass him back, 'Maybe the real cool colonists did.'

And it's back to the stocks for Denny.

Our joke is Denny and me have been codependent since 1734. That's how far back we go. Since we met in a sexaholics meeting. Denny showed me an ad in the classifieds, and we both came to the same job interview.

Just being curious, at the interview, I asked if they'd hired a village whore yet.

The town council just looks at me. The hiring committee, even where nobody can see them, all six old guys wear those fake colonial wigs. They write everything with feathers, from birds, dipped in ink. The one in the middle, the colonial governor, sighs. He leans back so he can look at me through his wire-framed glasses. 'Colonial Duns­boro,' he says, 'doesn't have a vil­lage whore.'

Then I say, 'Then how about the village idiot?'

The governor shakes his head, no.

'Pickpocket?'

No.

'Hangman?'

Certainly not.

This is the worst problem with living history museums. They always leave the best parts out. Like typhus. And opium. And scarlet letters. Shunning. Witch-burning.

'You've been warned,' the governor says, 'that all aspects of your behavior and appearance must coincide with our official pe­riod in history.'

My job is I'm supposed to be some Irish indentured servant. For six dollars an hour, it's incredibly realistic.

The first week I was here, a girl got canned for humming an Erasure song while she was churning butter. It's like, yeah, Era­sure is historic, but not historic enough. Even somebody as an­cient as the Beach Boys can get you in trouble. It's like they don't even think of their stupid powdered wigs and breeches and buckle shoes as retro.