Joe Wenderoth
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The first parade of Petique Fo’ Sho’
is known as The Shoes Of The Children. The Shoes Of The Children has two components:
the first is the mass of all the town’s or the city’s Ripe Children, who parade
naked, except for their shoes, and dance together as they proceed; the second
is a mass of small groups of Tenant-drummers known as Humans, which accompany the Children and provide them with rhythms
to move forward in. Humans are made up
of anywhere between three and six drummers; there should be at least one Human
for every twenty Ripe Children, and no more than one Human for every ten Ripe
Children. Humans wear shoes and pants,
but no shirts.
Humans that are entirely male are referred to as Empty Packs; Humans that are entirely
female are referred to as Cave-Light. Humans that are both male and female are
referred to as Titty-Bars.
Empty Packs are very rare. Titty-Bars are somewhat more common. The great majority of Humans are
Cave-Light. It is possible to celebrate
The Shoes Of The Children without Cave-Light, and some
towns will no doubt have to do so, but such towns will be filled with a feeling
of disappointment, a feeling that The Shoes Of The Children could be nicer than
this.
During The Shoes Of The Children,
Ripe Children must ingest one hit of ecstasy one hour before the parade
begins. This should be, ideally, the
first hit of ecstasy the Child has ever taken.
Humans may take whatever they like.
Children, Tenants, and Landlords, too, may take whatever they like
before they gather along the parade route to absorb the delicate shy beauty of
Ripe Children moving joyfully toward their first view of Agony. The parade’s spectators are not allowed to
touch the parade or to interfere with it in any way save one: it is permissible
to shout out the Petique-word of a Ripe Child. To perform such a shout is understood as an
effort to call attention to the beauty of the Child. Such a calling brands the Child with the word
that he has chosen—faintly, faintly—and awakens in the Child the exquisite
pleasure of the branding process, a process which is always going on all around
him but so very rarely concerns him.
This is the Child’s initiation into the sphere of worded bodies and the
Agony that sustains them.
At the end of the first five The Shoes Of The Children, the shoes the Children have worn are
removed and kept in storage by the town.
In the sixth year, Ripe Children choose the shoes they will wear from
the store of shoes possessed by the town.
If any can be found that fit reasonably well, the Child wears them and
then returns them after the parade. If
none can be found to fit the Child, the Child will bring his own pair and
thereby increase The Shoes Of The Children his town
can be said to celebrate.