The Purple Rose of Chiropracty
By Madison Marbury madisonmarbury@hotmail.com
A can of spinach, a Sunday matinee, a precocious kid and his desperate aunt


March 31, 1944

"C'mon, Aunt Polly!" the little boy said, tugging at her canary yellow skirt.

"Hold your horses!" his aunt scolded, wearily. Polly was already tired, and
her frail arms struggled to hold the brown bags of groceries that would have
to feed the two of them that week. Timmy scampered ahead into the matinee
theater, flailing his tattered little cap in excitement.

Polly sighed, smiling slightly as the boy disappeared from view. He doesn't
even know how bad it is, she thought. I've lost my job at the bank, we're
living on the thin silver he scrapes up from being a newsboy, and he still
thinks every day is a Sunday matinee. Part of Polly wanted to be like that, to
recapture that part of her where fairies turned teeth into cash, fat men
dropped presents beneath tree, and good conquered evil just because it should.

It was bad enough a young twenty-five-year old like her had to raise her
brother's boy all on her own. But now that bastard of a landlord, the sweaty
and bald Mr. Kibbleman, was upping the rent, when he knew darn well she
couldn't afford the old one. And the way he was eyeing her when she pleaded
for some other way to pay him... ugh! She winced at the memory. She certainly
hadn't meant THAT way! She had a fiancée overseas! Her Johnny, her Johnny, her
one and true Johnny, cold, miserable, lonely in some battleship, deep in the
heart of the Emperor's Pacific. Oo, how she wanted to take out his picture and
stare at it, longingly. But her load made such moments impossible. Shifting to
get a grip on the bags, she grunted, and shuffled into the theater.

"Hurry hurry!" Timmy said from their seats. He was waving his hat over her
chair. "The cartoon's starting!"

"Oh, hush!" Poly scolded, as she sat. "This is no way for a young gentleman to
behave!"

Timmy pouted, and took a bag of groceries from his aunt. "I saved you a seat,"
he protested. "And lookit, Dave behind the counter snuck me a bag of popcorn."

Polly gasped. "Timothy Ray Thomas! That's stealing!"

"Not if the guy who paid for it returned it."

Polly gave a wary look at the bag of corn, then at Timmy, who was already
chomping a handful.

"S'good," the boy said. "Salty."

Polly sighed, and reluctantly grabbed a kernel. Oh well, she thought. At least
it's food, and they certainly couldn't afford to turn any of that down right
now.

She turned her distractions to the cartoon. It was one of the violent ones she
didn't care for very much. Honestly, what was the world coming to when
Hollywood had to glorify some goonish sailor who was always getting into
fights? It was hard enough raising a precocious boy these days without him
getting any ideas from these films. She winced, as the big fat ugly sailor
brought a crowbar down on the skinny one with the big forearms. Two "No Sale"
signs popped up in his eyes. The crowd in the theater laughed, but it made
Polly mad. What are these people thinking?! Don't they realize the heartache
caused when some cowardly thug sneaks up on someone with a lead pipe and
shatters their skull? And these people were laughing. Incredible.

Now the fat guy was really wailing on the other one. The cartoon's narrator
was anxiously describing the action. "Each punch is like dynamite!" the
narrator would say, and sure enough, the fat guys' fist suddenly looked like a
stick of dynamite, which exploded when it landed. Polly had seen just about
enough.

"You shouldn't be watching this," she scolded Timmy.

"Shhh!" he responded tensely.

"Don't shush me, young man!"

"But Aunt Polly, Popeye's getting smeared!"

"Yes, just like he always does."

"This is different!" Timmy spurted. "There ain't no spinach!"

Apparently in this plot, the fat one actually had a brain in his head. He
realized that since spinach was what made Popeye strong, he could beat him up
by destroying all the spinach in the world. It was a silly little plot point,
but it sent an awkward chill up Polly's spine. The idea of destroying an
entire race of vegetables just because it was inconvenient seemed... well,
evil. Evil in a very non-cartoonish way.

The fat man kept on beating the smaller one. His victim was bloodied,
unconscious and helpless, and still the blows continued. It made Polly flash
back to when she was twelve, and a gang of neighborhood toughs completely
destroyed her older brother while they held her arms behind her back and made
her watch. "Dumb micks, stupid micks, die micks!" the words started coming
back to her. Polly couldn't watch it anymore. She turned her head as the
narrator desperately cried, "Is there a can of spinach in the house?!"

Before she knew what was happening, she heard Timmy cry, "I've got a can of
spinach for ya, Uncle Popeye!"

"NO!" Polly lunged too late. Timmy had gotten the economy size can of spinach
out of the grocery bag, the dented can she'd gotten for half price, the one
that she was planning to get three meals out of, and hurled it towards the
screen. Polly jumped from her seat and ran after it. She used the rows of
seats as stepping stones, and maybe the heads of one or two consternated
customers. She had a good bead on where the can was headed, and was sure she
could get it and run back to her seat before the usher saw, and threw them out
of the theater.

The can squibbed and tumbled, as it fell to the stage with a clank, and
bounced towards the screen. Determined and scared, Polly clambered up the
stage, and made a desperate lunge with her long skinny arm to catch the can
before it hit the cloth screen and tore it- the last thing she needed was to
be charged with replacing a movie screen!

She stretched out her arm, stretched, stretched it like rubber, and... yes!
Yes, just before it hit the screen, she was able to grasp the can firmly in
her hand. Polly breathed a sigh of relief. Everything was fine now. It had all
happened very quickly, she could return to her seat quietly and maybe
everything would be as normal as it was before this happened.

Then, as she took a step off the stage, she realized: her hand wasn't coming
with her.

Polly's brain couldn't process this at first- her hand wasn't moving? No, her
hand was moving, but it was holding that can of spinach, and THAT wasn't
moving. That didn't make sense. The can was up in the air, what could
possibly...

Polly looked at the screen. Clutching the other end of the spinach can, with a
firm and desperate grip, was the cartoon sailor.

"Oh sweet lord in heaven!" the cartoon's narrator suddenly said. "Someone ELSE
has got hold of Popeye's very own spinach!"

The sailor's head warily pivoted towards Polly. A chill went through her
spine- cartoon characters didn't LOOK at you. She couldn't even call it
looking at her, his eyes were so bloodied and swollen shut. He looked as bad
as her brother after his beating. Polly shuddered- but this wasn't real, she
told herself. I mean, OK, it felt real, but it was still just a cartoon,
wasn't it?

"Excuse me," she said, sheepishly. "Sorry. This is mine."

"HEY!" she suddenly heard a booming voice roar, as a thick, meaty hand grabbed
her by the throat and picked her up. It was the other one. The fat one, whose
mind was evil. Polly gurgled, and kicked her feet as she rose through the air,
and approached eye-level with the bully.

"WHAT'S THE BIG IDEA?!" he boomed, as he grabbed the spinach out of both of
their hands. "Who invited you to this party?"

"Oh no!" the narrator said. "Now Bluto has the spinach! And he thinks that
strange woman was trying to help our hero! What is he going to do now?!"

What he did now was toss Polly up slightly, then slap her across the face
quickly and repeatedly with that steel can of spinach. It was like he was
playing ping pong with her head, and the can was his paddle.
Clunkclunkclunkclunkclunk. It made that dull metallic thunk as it dented
itself, and pretty Polly's fair features, with every blow. Blood flew in the
direction of each slap. After a good amount of this, he withdrew the can and
let her collapse to the street.

Polly moaned. She tried to lift herself on her palms, but it was oh so
difficult. Bluto snarled, as he stuffed the spinach down his shirt and hoisted
her by the collar to see her reflection in a store window. "Look at yerself!"
the brute commanded, shaking her. "Go on, look!"

Polly tried to move her swollen eyes, but could only get them to open a slit.
What she saw made her cry. Her beautiful Irish face was gone. Her fair and
pure skin was a monstrosity of scratches and welts and blacks and blues. Her
hair was straggly and bad. Her head was barely supported by her weak and
aching neck. Her tears got in her cuts and stang. "That's whatcha get fer
meddling," the bully crowed. Suddenly he hosited her behind his back, and
tossed her slightly up in the air. "That and THIS!" he declared as he walloped
her fifty yards down the block. Polly's limbs limply trailed her as he stomach
collided with an overturned apple cart, and she collapsed over it.

Basking in his dominance, the fat bully strutted over to his other foe, the
battered and spent sailor, and picked him up in one hand like a rag doll. Next
to the apple cart was a steel street light. With his free hand, the bully bent
the pole as if it were wire. It made horrible crunching and screeching noises
as Bluto wrapped it tightly around the scrawny sailor man. Popeye's
unconscious head hung freely like a punching bag over the cart. With care, he
held Popeye's chin up with one hand, and flicked Polly's skirt over her back
with the other.

"Tell me this isn't happening in a children's cartoon!" said the narrator.
"Not even HE would-"

"Shut up, ya nosy natterer!" the bully bellowed, unzipping his pants. "They're
both going to get it good and hard, and ain't neither of them gonna be the
same afterwards!"

And with that, Bluto became an obscene and violent piston. He grabbed Polly by
the hair, and yanked her painfully up as he thrust himself into her. Then, on
his way out, he slammed her face hard into the splintery cart, and butted his
head against the bridge of Popeye's nose, which exploded in a red hemoglobic
spray. The theater audience variously cringed, hollered, threw up or fainted.
But still Bluto continued. Smash, screw. Smash, screw. Smash-

"GET OFF MY AUNT POLLY YOU CREEP!" Timmy hollered. He bounded onto the screen
like a tiny comet, and cracked the bully across the back of the head with an
empty coke bottle. It shattered into a few thick pieces.

"Why you little!" Bluto withdrew his obscene cartoon member, struggled with
his pants with one hand and held the back of his head with the other. He tried
to chase after Timmy, who led him frantically all over the street. He was on
top of mailboxes, into a store, out an alley, under a crate, but wherever
Bluto saw him last, he vanished before he could get there. It was driving the
bully crazy. He kicked and pounded the empty crate until it was nothing but a
pile of toothpicks.

"Hey Potty head!" Timmy called from behind him. The bully whirled. The boy was
halfway down a manhole, sticking his tongue out at him. Bluto lunged just as
Timmy whipped the manhole cover up to protect himself. The bully collided
head-first with it, to the sound of a resounding gong. The bully vibrated
uncontrollably, as Timmy darted down the hole and put the cover in place.

Bluto shook his head clear, and angrily threw the manhole cover away as he
stuck his head down the hole. He saw Timmy there waiting for him. The brute
growled at him like some kind of feral dog, which made Timmy shudder with
fear. This may be the last thing he ever did... but in one swift motion, he
pulled the bully's hat down over his eyes with one hand, while the other
slipped into the bully's shirt and fished around for... for...

...the last can of spinach.

"Hey, who turned out the lights?" Timmy hear the bully mumble as he struggled
to get his hat off. Like a rabbit Timmy dashed through the dank sewer with his
plundered booty, to the next manhole, where he popped up to see his Aunt
Polly, still lifelessly drooped over the cart, and the sailor, still wrapped
in the pole. I have to get Popeye his spinach, Timmy thought, clambering up to
stand on the rickety cart. The wood buckled as he stepped upon it. Timmy
winced. He had to be quick but he had to be careful. The cart had taken a
beating and wasn't going to support him much longer. He got up on tiptoe,
grabbed the sailor's mouth to open it, reached up to pour the spinach in,
and...

WHAM. Timmy's world fell apart. The bully, upon freeing himself and seeing
what Timmy was doing, picked up the manhole cover and flung it at the cart
with a sneer. The whole thing exploded in a hail of splinters, sending the boy
flying, the spinach twirling in the air, and Aunt Polly to the ground with a
hard thump onto a pile of broken wood and nails. The pain brought her around,
and she rolled onto her back and opened her mouth to scream.

The spinach reached its apex, slowed it rotations, and came to a stop,
upside-down. With a distinctive slurp, the wet contents dropped out onto
Polly's face.

The theater filled with speedy brass instruments blaring a familiar tune.

Polly felt a wet slap to her face as something slimy fell down her mouth. She
thought she was going to choke. As a reflex she just chewed desperately and
swallowed. Whatever it was ran down her gullet, rumbling like a badger down a
hole.

The stuff hit her stomach like a blockbuster bomb going off. Her body snapped
to its feet. All her pain was gone. All marks and cuts and bruises healed. All
fear left her. Her back expanded and her shoulders grew a foot further apart.
Her scrawny arms shot out to her sides, as a rolling wave of musculature
bulged it way down to her fists. Polly scowled in determination, as she gave
her bicep a flex, and up came what she somehow knew was there- a pulsating
mound of inhuman muscle, as big as a short pile of bricks, almost ready to
burst out of her skin.

"Where is that little rapist?!" the new hero bellowed, balling her fists up
and striding towards the bully with her chin forward. "I'll teach him to hurt
a woman!"

The fat bully stood with his mouth agape at the reborn woman approaching him.
He reared his fist back, and let it fly, but Polly caught his wrist in mid
swing, gripped it tight, and adding her own strength to his momentum, drove
his knuckles down onto the rock-hard pavement. The bully howled deeply in
pain. Polly pulled the hand up to show it was crunched, misshapen and
throbbing, which made Polly happy. "Oh, dearie me!" she said triumphantly.
"And I know how much you like punching stuff. Let me help." Still clutching
that wrist tightly in a single hand, she proceeded to slam the hand repeatedly
into the lamp post. Clang, clang, clangclang clangclangclangclang- The bully
cried with every blow, but struggle as he might, he couldn't escape her grip,
as the punches got faster and faster until her arm and his was just a blur,
and the metal began to melt from the friction. The post slowly bent and
collapsed, bringing the skinny sailor back to the ground. Polly let go, and
the bully saw to his horror all that remained of his fist was a smoldering
stump. His eyes popped, and his hat flew above his head and spun.

"Ain't you hot stuff!" the woman snickered. Now she drew herself up, put her
fists on her hips, and stuck her stomach out. "C'mon, you still got one good
fightin' hand! Show me how tough ya are!"

Enraged, the bully reached behind him, and pulled a jackhammer from the side
of the street. Sneering, he switched the contraption on, and its rattling
power deafened everyone in the theater as he shoved the sharp heavy driving
shaft into the tender belly of the defenseless woman. All the patrons covered
their eyes- it was going to be a slaughter.

The second the jackhammer hit Polly's abs, all they heard was a sickening
high-frequency of clanks and crunches. Every blow the hammer struck served
only to bend the shaft of the machine and spew nuts and bolts in several
directions. Presently it simply collapsed into a pile of scrap metal. As the
bully's eyes bugged out of his head, Polly grit her teeth, reared her fist
back, and said, "Not bad. I guess you were hoping for something like THIS!"

She plunged her fists in machine-gun combinations to Bluto's stomach, doubling
him over making him sound like a moaning outboard motor:
"Whoa-bo-bo-bo-bo-bo-bo-bo-bo!"

Polly leapfrogged over his hunched form, and from god knows where, pulled a
rubber glove tight over her left fist. "Now YOU gets it good and hard," she
said, pulling his pants down. "But mostly hard! Mmmmah!"

With that, she unleashed a mighty punch deep through the bully's rectum. Bluto
straightened out in a gutteral howl, as the men in the audience huddled in a
ball in their seats. Polly followed with a right cross to the back of his head
that set him spinning faster than a top. As he spun, Polly used the time to
remove the rubber glove, and shake her hands a bit to keep circulation to her
fingers. She tensed her arms a bit, just to appreciate the highway of deep
veins that enveloped them. Then, with a glower, she twirled her engorged fist
in a lazy circle behind her, and socked that punk so hard it looked and
sounded like dynamite exploding.

The bully flew like a bullet across the block, through the second story window
of a store labeled "Payne and Torrment's Finest Medical Supplies". Polly
trundled up to the door. "I ain't done with you!" she muttered as she went in.
"You and my fists got an appointment or three."

The door closed shut behind her.

Suddenly it was as if an earthquake hit the store. It shook violently, bricks
fell off its façade. The pained moans of the fat bully punctuated the air, as
furniture flew through the windows, and Polly could be heard saying things
like, "Take your medicine," and "This hurts you more than it does me!".

The screen cut away to little Timmy, jumping like a pogo stick and cheering
his auntie on. "That's it Aunt Polly!" he screamed. "Give it to him! He can't
take it! He's a chump, you're a champ! Put him away for good!"

The theater was now beginning to emerge from its stunned trance, as the men in
the audience winced and shrunk a little lower in their seats, while the women
were whooping it up, shaking their fists in the air and shouting
encouragement.

Finally, the audience heard Polly emit a loud, determined, and finally
exclamation:

"WHAM!"

The wall of the store exploded at the impact of the bully Bluto being punched
right through it. He flew two blocks, hit a wall and collapsed. He was wrapped
in bandages from head to toe, arm in a splint, attached to an I.V. in a
wheelchair. All that could be heard over the triumphant brass music playing
over the theater speakers was the bully's sick, defeated groan.

The women in the theater stood as one in raucous ovation, throwing their hats
and in one case, twirling a blouse over her head. Suddenly feeling slightly
embarrassed, Polly sheepishly and gingerly stepped over the rubble she had
created and into the now-bright cartoon sunlight.

"Aunt Polly, Aunt Polly!"

Polly's face dropped all reserve and lit up like a Christmas tree. "Timmy!"
she called. The boy scampered up to his aunt, whooping and yelling like...
well, like the kid he was. In one bound he was in her arms, and she spun him
around as they hugged and hugged and the audience applause kept coming like an
ocean's roar. With each revolution the bright colors around them rescinded and
washed into darker tones, and they left the screen to find themselves standing
as one on the stage.

"You were so great!" Timmy crowed as Polly set him up on her shoulder, just
fitting between her head and still-pulsing bicep. Timmy looked down in awe,
and touched it. "Woooow!" he said as he felt its hardness. "This is the
bestest cartoon ever!"

"You bet it was!" said an excited, raspy voice behind them. It was the theater
manager, his face red and sweaty from the ordeal. "I've never seen anything
like it! I MUST have you! Six shows a week! Plus matinee on Sunday! I'll pay
anything! Anything, you hear! Anything! You heard me that time, right? When I
said I'd pay anything? Because I'm so desperate to sign you up, I will
actually pay you any enormous sum of money you specify! I just wanted to be
sure you heard me when I made that offer. Please say yes or I'll kill myself
right here and now from disappointment!"

The women in the audience, upon hearing that, uttered a unified shriek of
delight. Polly's jaw dropped. She looked at Timmy, whose smile broke like a
wave across his face. "I... I don't know what to say," she stammered.

"YES!" said Timmy, bouncing on her shoulder. "Yes, yes, what you say is yes!"

Polly hesitated, not knowing what she could do to deserve such a new and
wonderful life, but finally she managed to say, "Yes."

The women cheered. The woman twirling her blouse got up on her seat and said,
"Three cheers for Polly! Hip hip!"

"HOORAY!" the crowd replied.

"Hip hip!"

"HOORAY!"

"Hip hip!"

"HOORAAAAAY!"

"Wowie zowie!" Timmy said, throwing his cap in the air! "Aunt Polly, we're
rich! You're the strongest aunt in the world and I love you! You can do
anything!"

That thought struck Polly. "Hmm," she said, a sly smile edging its way to her
face as she checked out her newly colossal thighs and arms. "I really could do
anything, couldn't I?"

She clutched her fist a little tighter, and gave it a little twist. "And
there's one thing I've been wanting to do for a long, long time..."

Three quick knocks came rapping at the door. "Yeees?" came the soft, almost
lilting answer.

The man knocking straightened his greasy tie. "It's Mr. Kibbleman," he said,
bouncing on the toes of his shoes.

"Ooooo," the sultry voice said through the door. "The man I was waiting for."

"Got your note," Kibbleman said. "Good thing you changed your mind, I was
gonna have to throw your stuff out next time you left for dumpster diving, or
panhandling whatever the hell it is you bums do."

"Oh, don't worry," the voice said in a strange tone. "You're not going to be
concerned about chasing after me for rent. Not after tonight. No sir."

"Uh-huh." Kibbleman pushed open the door. It creaked open. "You dumped the
brat, right? I don't want no kids around when I'm doin' it. I'm a sensitive
guy."

There was a pause, as if someone was restraining themselves. "Timmy... is at
the movies, Mr. Kibbleman. I wouldn't want him to see this either."

"Fine," he said, entering. "Get your clothes off and let's get start-"

He never finished the sentence. The door closed behind him. The sound of the
latch locking in place resounded through the silent, dirty halls.