Larry Rapant

As a Stream

My fondest memory from grammar school is of when I was chosen to act the part of a stream in the fall play. I played the stream of unconsciousness. I remember a number of precocious little girls lifting up my rocks to see what was under them and the teacher making them do it over and over until they got it right. Sometimes during these rehearsals I overflowed my banks when I wasn’t supposed to, and I made up excuses like “I’m improvising, Mrs. Rosedale; it just felt right to me!”

She would smile sweetly; apparently she had always wanted a pet stream when she was a little girl.

Other times I dried up completely, a stream with stage fright. And, from the wings, kindly Mrs. Rosedale would whisper me something to babble.

The drowning scene was my favorite. It was written that little Betsy Granger, whose nipples had begun to fatten prematurely, was supposed to pretend to slip on a banana peel -- which was really Timmy Sandstone, a homey of mine -- and fall face first into the frolicsome stream, where she did struggle mightily while my waves lapped at every curve of her little red riding character and Mrs. Rosedale shouted encouragements like: “Feel the part, Larry! Get longer! Make her nice and wet!”

One day I started nibbling on Betsy’s knoblets, upholding the meetness of my innovation by calling it the natural behavior of my aquatic creatures. Mrs. Rosedale was ecstatic; she said I had found my true calling in life, and she wrote those little fishies right into the script. “Bass or trout, Larry, what do you think?” she asked. “Whatever, Rosie baby!” I declared; “I will perform it swimmingly either way!”

Being only ten, I had some difficulty with the tragic ending of the play, during which I was asked to pose as troubled water. Mrs. Rosedale came up with an ingenious solution to this problem. She climbed up into the rafters high above the stage and, just out of sight of the audience, opened the curtains on her well-developed bottom in order to stimulate within her favorite little pre-pubescent stream the necessary turbulence and turgidity to enhance and bring the climactic scene to life.

We ran for ten solid weeks to packed houses, and my stream was called Brando-esque by the critics.

Unfortunately for my acting career, Betsy Granger’s boobs developed rapidly from bit parts into full grown Dolly Partons, and I had to marry the tart at sixteen, taking a job selling popcorn outside a theater to support her one-a-year maternity habit. I made my bed, and now I have to lie in it, come hell and high water.

Fifty-nine years, forty of which have been spent devoted to writing, and it all comes down to the question: have you included enough fiber in your diet for the day?! I have published in the usual places that an asshole publishes: letters to the editor, men’s rooms, freight cars, tree trunks--and now I am seeking a little dignity before I die. I make sure that I have a glass of Cold Duck nearby at all times just in case.