Bananaman
It was a banana sort of day. Arthur stumbled upon this conclusion weeks later, long after his masterpiece was rained on and had melted away into the gutters by the sidewalk. Arthur was a sidewalk chalk-drawer. He loved sprawling on the pavement in the plaza, scribbling frantically for hours, and returning home, covered in patches of colored chalk dust, to Lolly.
It all came to an end on the banana sort of day. No sooner than Arthur had completed covering the entire plaza with a wondrous panoply of Arthurness did the sky dribble down rain. It was sadly humorous in the way that stick-‘em-up robberies held at banana-point were sadly humorous.
Arthur knew that it was the nature of sidewalk drawings to be transitory, but it was his masterpiece. Where could he go from there? He vowed never to draw again, and banished his chalk-making supplies for the kitchen as Lolly watched with concern.
Viv lived down the street from Lolly and Arthur, above her condom store. She was concerned as well. She thought Arthur might do something ridiculously unstable, like walk the earth in search of himself. Viv liked Arthur the way he was, and she liked him better with Lolly. What would Lolly do without Arthur? Who would she feed? Arthur going on sabbatical just wouldn’t do.
Viv conferred with the dominatrixes who visited her store periodically. They all agreed he was a sweet boy, endearingly clumsy and emphatically good for their Lolly. Perhaps Viv could give him a job? Viv already employed a fair number of the dominatrixes at the cash register during the week. What could Arthur do?
While the dominatrixes discussed the issue amongst themselves, Viv slipped in the back room to think. It was there that she encountered the banana suit. It had been at the store for years – it must have been intended for some unwholesome purpose.
Arthur was summarily hired as the condom store’s bananaman. His job entailed holding balloons and signs and standing around a lot, giving condom demonstrations (which he usually fouled up) to the uninformed, all the while wearing the painfully conspicuous banana suit. It occurred to him that he should feel monstrously embarrassed about the yellow uniform instead of merely awkward. He began to feign more embarrassment than he felt, lest he be looked upon askance.
And then one day, the awkwardness disappeared. Phallically perched on a banana crate in front of Viv's store (which was doing a brisk business), Arthur suddenly felt as light as the bunch of balloons he held. Grinning, he swiftly executed a condom demonstration on a banana for a crowd of gawking teenagers. In his bright, yellow suit, he was the bananaman, the pride of Viv’s condom store. He loved his banana!
Before the banana suit, Arthur would fall asleep at night to the sound of Lolly breathing and dream almost exclusively of her. He dreamt of her whole and happy, curled up peacefully in beans, floating in bubbles, and comfortably cushioned by albumen in eggs. He dreamt her safe and undisturbed by the world’s filth.
Lately, though, his dreams had taken an odd turn. For a few days, there was a macabre series of Lolly waddling about in an egg suit, holding his hand. Now, his subconscious self sent him nightmares. Arthur would awaken every morning with a shiver, recalling sleep’s latest monstrosity: the image of himself in the banana suit hovering over a cereal bowl, and the impending advancement of the knife.
Lolly was inclined to perpetuate Arthur's fascination with Bananaman, despite the nightmares. She was certain they would stop once he had gotten used to the banana in his personality. She knew he loved being the Bananaman. Arthur was still apt to be furtive about it, tucking bits of his alter ego away when it threatened to emerge, eyeing the suit longingly when he hung it in the closet for the night. It was only a matter of time before he adjusted, but Lolly wished Arthur would hurry up. She enjoyed his new phase. Lolly thought that the best part of bananas was unpeeling them.
Arthur insisted that liking the banana suit must make him mad, therefore, he would go to the park where the mad people lived in order to congregate with madness. Lolly shrugged as she packed her camera equipment, telling him again he wasn’t mad, only slightly misaligned. She kissed him on the nose and tangoed with him in a lascivious manner before skittering out the door for work. Arthur set off for the park bouncily. Ah, the freedom of madness! He wasn’t a social misfit, he was merely insane! He found it a liberating excuse.
In order to acclimate himself a bit better, Arthur brought a handful of benignly grinning balloons. They weren’t all that necessary, though. Arthur was already beginning to feel quite at home in the park. It was populated with all sorts of frenetically colored blurs. Juggling unicyclists whizzed by whilst bobbing to the music of various accordionists.
Off in a more subdued area of the park, a slight movement caught his eye. A large oak tree appeared to be pelting children at the playground with acorns. “Madness!” Arthur whispered eagerly. He wandered closer and peered upwards.
Arthur saw a small, dirty boy scrambling amongst the branches.
The boy called himself the Greenman, and looked to be about eight or twelve or sixteen or six hundred. He was an ornery little thing, which Arthur mentioned tactlessly, but the Greenboy shrugged and attributed it to his age. His hair was a mass of knot and bugs, and he could nimbly maneuver his way in and out of tree limbs, beast-like, his tail trailing behind him. Arthur suggested that the boy come down so he wouldn’t have to yell, but the boy refused. He chose instead to perch on a tattered couch which had been tied, impossibly, somewhere above Arthur’s head. It was his throne, he roared, and he was the king of the forest.
“Stand beneath me, peasant,” the Greenboy commanded airily. “I shall give you a gift.” Arthur eyed him dubiously. The boy looked disgusted, but tossed him an acorn anyway. For a brief moment, the child was a little boy and an old, old man.
The Greenboy gestured vaguely in the direction of the park. “We all have our delusions, Bananaman,” he said with a wispy smile. Then, without warning, the boy leaped up and chased Arthur off, all atwitch.
The Bananaman fled, loping easily towards a group of pleasantly messy degenerates more his own age. He spent the rest of the day babbling to them as they bobbed in close proximity to the ground on pairs of barely perceptible wings.
Later that evening, Lolly showed Arthur a collection of photographs she had taken of things that probably, in all likelihood, did not exist. But there they were, all the same. Arthur thrillingly decided that everyone was delusional, with varying degrees of normalcy mixed in.
And Lolly? She just wanted Arthur to be himself. She had accepted all her delusions years ago.