ISAAC, THE LIVING SKELETON To your side, you hear a man’s deep whisper, “Slowly I turned… inch by inch… step by step….” A scream interrupts him, and a roar of laughter pulses through the shadowed hall. Following the commotion, you move to the next stage. A bone-thin man moves across the stage, and sits upon an overstuffed, threadbare armchair. A battered violin is propped against the chair’s side. The audience starts to dissipate, and you realize that you must have just missed his performance. Relaxing, he reclines lazily, and as the light falls on his face, you come to realize that he is truly skeletal: a thin membrane of skin covers most of his body, but in many places, bone is completely exposed. He winks at you, and chuckles at your obvious discomfiture. The sweet smoke from his cigar touches your senses, and you hear the soft clink of the ice as he swirls the bourbon in his tumbler. “Late for the show, are ya, friend? I’ll tell you a quick one, and then you’d best skedaddle. I have better things to do than sit here and be gawked at all night.” He takes a swig from his tumbler. “A man goes to a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist says, ‘I think you’re crazy.’ The man says, ‘I want a second opinion.’ The psychiatrist shrugs and says, ‘Alright, you’re ugly, too.’” His attention is diverted by a scantily clad woman in the audience beside you, and he leers at her. “Hello, nurse!” he growls, and leans towards her lecherously. “How’s about you come back to my dressing room, and I show you my stamp collection?” Bourbon, black tobacco tar, dry bone, bay rum aftershave, and sleazy cologne.
