Saturday, January 26, 2013

TRICYCLE CITY: Robotski and Renfro

TRICYCLE CITY

For those just tuning in, Tricycle City is name for the community of (living) Toys that live in the walls of my building.  For those 80's NERDS out there (who think everything is a "WHAT-DOES-THIS-REMIND-ME-OF contest), this might make you think of The Littles (a cartoon), which was a lot like The Borrowers (a series of books).  But here, in Frankie's Apartment, in the semi-magical, electromagnetic, sort-of-in-a-wormhole SIXTH BOROUGH, there are LOST or ESCAPED TOYS that have set up lives for themselves in the walls of Mr. Parfenix's endlessly confusing building.  I have made friends with my Toys (always a capital T), but other people in the building think they're pests. That's why the Melter Brothers Toy Extermination Company does so well here in Zaghaven.

Meet Robotski and Renfro.  They used to help me with my musical co-op BANDY: dropping 808s on the
one, rewinding Tascam Cassettes, making bleep melodies.  Renfro was actually called Ren-4 but I
wrote it down wrong once and the name stuck.  Rubbish loves to jump on a typo and turn it into its
own real word.  Robotski and Renfro are counterparts, like C3PO and R2D2 were, but now that we're
safe here in 2013, we can say that they are partners.  Gay Robots In Love.  I was the one who married them,
in a lovely ceremony on the roof of one of my dollhouses.  They've set up a nice little life for
themselves down in the basement, beyond the boiler, where it's nice and dry.  Robotski had serious
problems with the humidity in their old apartment behind my bathroom sink.