El Dupree, Selected Works, Volume 3 Alf the Poet, Editor Terry Smith, from El Dupree and the Aztec: The corzappa's leather grip was sticky against the soft skin of his hands, hands that were more accustomed to handling the rich cloth of the matadors' capes, than to wielding a 2-pound corzappa. But this was reality in the blazing sun. The deed it was done. Though Little Pockets had been expected only to drop the signal cloth which would set El Dupree and the Aztec racing to grab the corzappa, the unthinkable had happened instead. As though a gazelle, Little Pockets had moved to the corzappa, reaching it only a split second before the lean Aztec, and in an arc movement like the great wagon wheels of San Mujami, the corzappa cut the air and stung the head of the Aztec, dropping him like an insect. El Dupree, having been somewhat slower, halted as best he could, stumbled forward, then backward, then to the side, then dropped his proud butt into the dust. El Dupree pushed up the brim of his sombrero, wiped the stream of sweat from his brow, and squinted up at the skinny, trembling boy holding onto the leather-wrapped iron core implement. "Boy," said El Dupree. "Numero uno, gracias for you bravery. Numero dos, ju can geeve me the corzappa now, eh?" And El Dupree extended his hand to receive the weapon. But Little Pockets was no fool. He noticed the bunch of vinyl head sacks bound to El Dupree's waistband, and thought to himself, "I am young and quick. He is old and fat. I am standing and he is sitting. I am swift like the gazelle. I have the corzappa." El Dupree had a sinking feeling, like back when the Garcia brothers had caught him with their sister Juanita. Lindsey Durway, from El Dupree Haiku: Dust and corzappa That old humiliation El Dupree is back Terry Smith, from Delray Brings It Home: As is common for moments following great battles, this moment extended itself like the great spreading palm fronds of Mejave Mai. And if not for the beating-heart urgency of Little Pockets, the moment might have gone on forever. Little Pockets gazed upon the lean Aztec's crumpled form, then turned to El Dupree, who still had not raised his proud butt from the dust. Was this the proper instant? To speak now? Speak the truth? Let words fly into the stinking dust? All of these things squirmed in the mind of Little Pockets like eels in the eye of a submerged horse's head, or like a scorpions dancing on a hot rock smeared with pepper paste, or like the hands of a peasant priest groping for pusitanos in the bowels of a prize pig. And while the mind of Little Pockets flamed with these images, the mind of El Dupree went into a period of slow idle, of slumbering lethargy like that described in the Tablets of Grande Juan as "el sloth y refresco." But before El Dupree's eyelids dropped completely closed, Little Pockets threw back his own tattered serape exposing the birthmark upon his bony chest, the mark of the three-legged burro. Stunned, El Dupree's mouth dropped open and he extended his hand to the skinny seraped boy who stood so proudly displaying the mark cherished in El Dupree's family for as long as the fat man could remember. Tears came into the older man's eyes as he realized the identity of this marvelous man-boy. Si, it was Delray Dupree, the one, the only, the lost son of El Dupree. Alf the Poet, from Pepito's Revenge: Pepito had been warned. In such sweltering heat, it was doubtful that anyone could survive that penetrating odor. As El Dupree waddled along the dust-covered streets of Los Burros del Diablo, picking absently at a boil, he was overcome with weariness, with sadness, with sheer stupidity. Where was she? Why did she always come so tantalizingly near only to slip away, spitting lustily in his face? Where the fuck was that bar that served the fine arroz con zapatos? Suddenly, with terrifying and uncharacteristic sharpness, The Wide One realized his mistake. Too late. Pepito struck quickly, tearing his way free of the #11 vinyl headsack, in which he had been trapped for so long with nothing but old memories and the stench of his hated patron. He lunged for his captor's unprotected, eternally glazed eyes. But just short of his target, inches from liberation, he slipped on El Dupree's rounded chest, on the slime of a thousand bad burritos, and fell with a liquid crunch to the street below. "Yust you vate," belched The Bulbous Warrior, sitting heavily on Pepito's back. Even so, the long trip south had only just begun. David Coffey and Lindsey Durway, from El Dupree Outwits the Sisters of Mercy Yet Again: Walking along a crowded sidewalk a wanderer noticed an old man with a bottle in one hand and a wooden bowl in the other, sitting against a wall and shouting, "Alms for the thirsty!" As the wanderer approached, the man took a long drink and repeated his plea. Reaching into his pocket, the wanderer pulled out a coin and placed it in the bowl. Instead of the usual response - thank you, bless you, or mere silence - the man peered up and said, "Remember one thing, boy. Zen is not a philosophy. Zen is not a religion. Zen is just a damn attitude." The wanderer laughed and said, "Thank you." El Dupree overheard this exchange from the other side of the kiosk. In a flash he was upon the old man, hands moving too fast to see. In the time it takes most people to bat a fly away from their brow, the Oily One had bound the old man with at least 30 feet of dirty polyester yarn. With the old man's arms helplessly trussed in the awkward web, the dribbling bottle hanging from the old man's unwashed left hand, El Dupree proceeded to produce from the bounteous folds of his serape a half gallon can of Yellow 77. As he poured the contents of the can over the old man's head, he laughed, loudly enough to be heard by every shopper and vagrant on Old Del Reyes Street, all the way down to the cannery, "The Bastard of Coconino! I have you at last!" Brian Rice, untitled: El Dupree came upon a small boy bawling dismally in the lee of the old cantina. "Weep not, kid," declared the malodorous drifter, laying a crusty hand on the lad's shoulder. "What are you, a fairy?" The boy responded warmly to this display of tenderness; he snuffled and wiped his nose on El Dupree's sleeve. "Why were you crying, boy?" "The new teacher slapped me for no reason!" "No reason?" "No reason at all! I walked into the schoolhouse for the very first time, he asked me my name, I told him, and then he slapped me." El Dupree, his conscience hardened by years of roaming the desert plains, began to smell a rat. "What is your name, little snotty one?" "Prohibido Fumar." El Dupree sighed wearily and raised his hand to slap the boy. In mid-stroke, however, he halted the swing of his arm as a sudden realization of the transitoriness of life washed over him. This adorable young boy, it occurred to him, would one day be dead. So instead he extended the hand to the boy in a gesture of comradeship. "I am pleased to meet you, Senor Fumar. My name is Manuel Transmicion." The boy smiled broadly, slapped El Dupree, and ran away, sowing mirth across the sun-parched land. El Dupree rubbed his chin pensively.