Symploce (sim’-plo-see or sim’-plo-kee): The combination of anaphora and epistrophe: beginning a series of lines, clauses, or sentences with the same word or phrase while simultaneously repeating a different word or phrase at the end of each element in this series.
I am an ochestrator.
I am a schemer—always setting things up to my advantage. But I think I’ve lost sight of what my advantage is. Last week, I glued my father to his dining room chair. My plan was to yell something rude at him and run out the front door. I yelled “I hate you, you arrogant onion breath!” I ran for the door. He stood up with the chair glued to his ass and waddled after me. My little brother, Dad’s little dupe, tripped me. Dad took off his pants, shedding the chair, and pulled his belt out of the loops. He said to me “Good try son” and he started whipping my little brother for betraying me.
This was my life.
I am an orchestrator.
Yes indeedy-do. I wanted a girlfriend. ZZ Top had given me a plan: “Every girl’s crazy about a sharp-dressed man.” I was going to get “sharp dressed” and stand against the wall across the food court from the ladies room at the mall. Solely catering to women, it was a conduit of females who were primed to be crazy about a sharp dressed man. I was wearing rough-out cowboy boots, denim stretch pants riding low on my hips, a snap shirt unsnapped half-way down my chest, dark glasses, and a Chicago Bulls hat. Then, my high school art teacher walked up to me. She said, “How much handsome?”
This was my life.
I freaked out. Clearly, she didn’t recognize me and thought I was some kind of male prostitute! I told her I charged $6.00 per hour. She laughed and gave me a twenty-dollar bill, and suggested we use her car down in the parking garage. I was panic stricken and ready to run. So I ran.
Two cops blocked my way. My art teacher sped off in her Subaru. The cops had on vests that said “Police” and “ICE” on them. They told me to stop or they would shoot me. They said I was wearing Venezuelan gang regalia, specifically, a Chicago Bulls hat. I told them I was a fan. They did not listen. I was arrested and sent to a detention center in South Beach, Miami. I was issued a Speedo swimsuit, an olive drab T-shirt and a pair of flip-flops. ICE had a portion of the beach cordoned off with barbed wire. We spent most of our days there making sand castles, swimming, and playing volley ball. To keep us hydrated they gave us big drinks with brightly colored umbrellas in them. I was half-drunk most of the time, fooling around with girls on the other side of the barbed wire fence, subtly exposing myself and singing the Harry Belafonte banana song. “Day O!”
Then one day, I saw my art teacher. She was waving at me and pointing to the far end of the fence. We met there. She pulled on the fence and it opened like a gate. I slipped through and we ran to her car and jumped in. She told me she wanted what she had paid for, and to get to work giving it to her. Then, she recognized me as a former student, screamed, and nixed everything. She told me she would drive me back to New Jersey for $200. I agreed and we sped away.
This was my life. A broken record playing “People are Strange,” getting stuck on a scratch on “strange,” playing it over and over until I slap the record player.
We got back to Linden safe and sound. One thing was for sure: I didn’t want to go home. My art teacher graciously let me stay with her. I was a high school dropout, so my prospects for employment were limited. My art teacher paid me $50 per hour to model nude for her. I had turned 18, so it was legal. One day she asked me if we could model nude together in her bed for an extra $25. I was confused, but I agreed to do it.
One thing led to another and we got married. We have two children who are the direct result of our modeling nude together. They are named Cyan and Magenta.
This was my life.
Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).
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