Father thinks he looks too stern
He's very conscious of not being stern
He frequently asks the children--
"Am I too hard on you? Do you feel I'm hard on you? If I am, just tell me, and I'll stop. Here, take some money. Go get a tattoo. I just want you to live, all right? Live!"
But since he says this to them
While they're sleeping
It's possible they do still find him
To be stern
If he were ever around
They might have very definitive opinions of him
But luckily, he's not
And so they call him That Man
'Mother,' they say to Mother, 'When will that Man be home? The artist is coming to paint our portrait, and we'd like to make sure That Man is in it so people won't think we're bastards.'
Mother thinks her breasts are too small in the portrait
It's because she slept with the artist
Before he began painting her
And when he begged her to run away with him
She rejected him
And so he gave her small breasts
Even Little Ellie noticed it
'Mother,' she said, 'Why did he draw you like a boy?'
Mother gives Little Ellie a cookie to shut her up
And this is why she'll one day become obese
Because everybody silences her with food
And eventually she'll grow to like food more than anything
So she'll talk even more
And this will make her both obese and annoying
And so she will never be loved
Mother always tends to sleep with the help
It's a Montgomery family tradition
That the lady of the house
Has affairs with as much of the staff
As humanly possible
Father's Mother behaved in such a way
As did Father's Father's Mother
And so on, and so forth
And because the Montgomery wives
Always tend to have large breasts
And voracious sexual appetites
The butlers and gardeners who work at the Montgomery estate
Always seem terribly reluctant to leave their jobs
Junior thinks he looks too happy in the portrait
He wants to be a miserable artist
Like the one who painted the portrait
He read in a book once
That miserable artists never have to shower
Shave, or be faithful to their wives
And to Junior, this sounds like bliss
He was the one who contacted the artist
On the basis of the Montgomerys being a wealthy family
Who needed a family portrait
'But,' Mother said, 'We usually wait until the eldest daughter is married off before we get ourselves painted!'
Then everybody looked at Old Ellie
Who was trying to conceal her latest face wart
By painting it black
And calling it a beauty mark
'On second thought,' said Mother, 'Why don't you just go ahead and call that artist, Junior. No time like the present. We could all be dead tomorrow if that jealous gardener shows up here again threatening to take his own life if I don't...uh...well, it's lunchtime! Where's the cook?'
Junior studied the artist
His mannerisms
His way of speaking
How he held a paintbrush
While painting a mustache
On Mother
'Shouldn't you be painting on the canvas,' she asked him, but Father shushed her
'We don't want him to think we're stiff, stern, rich people, do we?' said Father, smiling at the artist, who had just made love to Mother no more than an hour before, and still smelled like her perfume.
'Kids,' Father said, 'Does anyone want a pony for their birthday?'
Junior was sorely disappointed in the artist
He didn't smell
He was clean-shaven
And he mentioned something about going to the bank after the portrait was complete
To open a checking account
He was not at all what Junior anticipated
And so Junior spent the whole day frowning
But in spite of that, the artist painted a giant smile on his face
Because he thought that was how the Montgomerys would want to remember Junior
But, as it turns out, a smile was the last thing that would remind them of Junior
And looking at him in the painting was like looking at a stranger
Instead they had a photo of him in Florida
Once he became an environmentalist
In it, he was frowning
While a crocodile lurked behind him
Knowing that the crocodile ate him
A few moments later
Didn't stop Little Ellie from having the photo enlarged
And hung in the hallway
Of the Montgomery Mansion
By one of the tall servants
That she would later make love to
Old Ellie and Little Ellie looked like twins in the portrait
Even though they were a decade apart
Perhaps the artist assumed that because they had the same names
They were simply fraternal twins
When really, Mother and Father just ran out of ideas
The artist compromised when painting them
Dimming Little Ellie's beauty
And enhancing Old Ellie so that she became plain
Rather than frightful
Both girls were delighted
Old Ellie for obvious reasons
And Little Ellie because her sister was delighted
Besides, Little Ellie thought, one day I'll be obese and unloved
And the only people who will sleep with me
Are the servants I pay
So why bother having a glowing image of my youth
To look back upon woefully?
Little Ellie was a very practical little girl
When the portrait was done
It hung in the hall for a day or so
And then Mother had it moved to the kitchen
Then to the shed in the back
Then sold to a museum in Germany
Where they collected portraits of rich white American families
Art critics still flock to that musuem
And marvel at the portrait
The same way the Montgomerys marveled at it themselves
They'll try to decipher what's going on in the portrait
What could these odd people possibly be thinking
Why was the Father holding out a handful of money to anyone who would take it?
Why was the Mother a young boy?
Why was one of the twins eating a cookie?
Why was the son so filthy?
Why did the other twin have a giant black dot on her chin with a hair coming out of it?
Why was there a gardener lurking in the back with a machete?
No one would ever know
But Little Ellie
And every time she'd try to discuss her family with anyone
Somebody would hand her a cookie
And that would be that
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