Category Archives: isocolon

Isocolon (i-so-co’-lon): A series of similarly structured elements having the same length. A kind of parallelism.

My ears. My feet. My dick. I was trying to figure out how to prioritize my body parts. I had double-crossed Alfonso LaGuardia. I ran numbers for Mr. LaGuardia before the state of New York put us out of business with scratch-off lotto tickets with stupid names like “Gold Pot” and “Pirate’s Buckles,” We used the last three numbers of the number of stocks sold every day on the NYSE for the winning number. The number published for us in the evening edition of the “Daily News.”

Back then, I was desperate for money. My daughter needed tuition to go to Rutgers in the fall and I needed a new Cadillac to replace the rusted hulk that mine had become. The tires were bald, the seats were torn and it smoked like a fog machine. I had a reputation to keep up as a “salesperson” for Mr. LaGuardia. Running numbers was an art.

It was bookkeeping intensive. Keeping track of the slips was a huge part of my job—making sure people didn’t try to rip me off and I had included everybody that made a bet. I had 100 “bookers” working for me who sold bets on street corners all over New York. I collected their daily takes out of a sleazy hotel that was populated by whores and drug dealers. I was on the third floor. Sometimes, I’d have a line of bookers snaking down into the street. I packed a .45 in case anybody tried to rob me (which was at least once per month). I had a suitcase that I carried all my stuff in—including the money. I would deliver the money to Mr. LaGuardia at 10 Pm every day. Sal would count it out and give me my cut.

I was going to fake a robbery and keep all the money for myself. My own son, “Scimunito,” ratted me out. He was a total idiot who didn’t look at the big picture. He thought he would ingratiate himself to “The Boss” if he turned me in.

Mr. LaGuardia called me into his office: “Your own son has betrayed you. I must teach him a lesson. After I amputate your ear, I will deep fry it and feed it to him, telling him it is Calamari. Then, I will reveal the truth, that it is your ear. This will teach him a lesson he won’t forget. Every time he sees you with one ear, he will remember, and it will torment him.”

Mr. LaGuardia listened to my explanation for what I had done. He took my ear, but he let me keep the money. He understood my plight. He was a sensitive man.

Now, I sell condos in Miami. I had a prosthetic ear attached. I make a good living but I am still estranged from my son who manages a bowling alley in Weehawken.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).

The Daily Trope is available on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

Isocolon (i-so-co’-lon): A series of similarly structured elements having the same length. A kind of parallelism.

I came. I saw. I ran. I didn’t conquer. I kept running until I couldn’t run any more. I had seen the Monster of Morristown. I ran to Convent Station and hid in my uncle’s back yard, in the pine trees. I felt something under my butt when I sat down. It was a bottle of Canadian Club whisky that my uncle had buried in the yard. He had bottles buried all over the place because my aunt would not permit him to drink. He had a map of where the bottles were hidden. It worked well for him, except in the winter when he left tracks in the snow and the ground was frozen. When snow was forecast deep enough to cover his tracks, he would take his BernzOmatic torch and a garden spade out to one of his buried bottles, and, using the torch to thaw the ground, he’d dig up the bottle. He was my hero.

I’d never had a drink before. I was 15. I cracked open the bottle and took a drink and another drink, and two or three more drinks. I felt great. I hoisted the bottle and sang “Wheels on Bus” and burped really loud. That was a mistake. A loud burp is the love call of female attracted to the Monster. When I heard a return burp, I knew I was dead meat. When he found me and saw that I was not a potential mate, he would eat me. At least, that was what I was led to believe by my big brother.

“Morristown Monster” was the nickname of the greatest bully on earth who played tackle on my high school football team. His family had emigrated from Belarus. His name was Rimsky Trollinski. He weighed 300 pounds and was 6’4” tall. He smelled like a dead animal. The weirdest thing was the tattoo on his forehead that he received at birth. It said “медленный” which is Russian for “slow.” He received the tattoo because he scored lower than 30 out of a possible 100 points on the National Infant Intelligence Test administered to newborns, by the Belarusian government. It is very sad because it visibly marks him for life as dull witted depriving him of a college education and a good job. He told people the tattoo meant “gifted” but he was going to have it removed when he turned 18.

Rimsky was chasing me because I knew what his tattoo really said in English. Suddenly, Rosemarie Pinzy stuck her head into the pines where I was hiding. She was a cheerleader. She told me she had followed me hoping that, together, we could “lure Rimsky in.” You see, sho loved Rimsky and wanted badly to hang out with him outside of school, and maybe, have a romantic experience. She asked me to belch again. I was pretty drunk, so I complied. Rimsky answered with a return belch from about ten feet away. I tried to get up and run but Rosemarie sat on me. “Make another belch,” she whispered fixing her hair. After I belched, she got off me and I started crawling for my life. I heard Rimsky ask her “What you want?” Rosemarie said, “Take a look at this big boy.” Rimsky started making intense grunting sounds as I crawled out of earshot.

I was saved. I slept it off in my uncle’s gardening shed and the Morristown Monster never bothered me again. Rosemarie had tamed him with love and understanding, and something that made him grunt. Rimsky had his tattoo removed in his senior year and stopped farting loudly in the lunch room. Morristown High had become a better place.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).

The Daily Trope is available on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.