Called “one of the innovators of the short short story” by Publishers Weekly, Peter Cherches has published three volumes of short prose fiction with Pelekinesis since 2013, most recently Whistler’s Mother’s Son (2020). His writing has also appeared in scores of magazines, anthologies and websites, including  Harper’s, Bomb, Semiotext(e), and Fiction International, as well as Billy Collins’ Poetry 180 website and anthology. His latest book is Things (Bamboo Dart Press, 2023). He is a native of Brooklyn, New York.

Reading Tonight

One afternoon I was walking down East Fourth between Second and Third when I saw the sign, in front of KGB, the literary bar that has been an East Village institution for decades:

READING TONIGHT, 8PM

Kathy Atker

Peter Churches

Bob Holdman

            The first thing I noticed, besides the fact that I’d been unaware of any such reading, was that all the names were misspelled. Then it struck me that Kathy Acker has been dead for about 25 years. She was one of the literary superstars of the downtown scene in the seventies and eighties, and she made herself the center of her own transgressive fiction. Somehow our paths never crossed beyond our work appearing in some of the same magazines. What was going on? I had to come back and catch the reading, with some of my books, just in case I was really expected to read.

            I returned to KGB that evening at 7:30. It’s a pretty cramped, claustrophobic space, and I wanted to make sure I got a comfortable seat. I was one of the first people there, but the room started filling up, and by eight it was quite crowded.

            Someone I didn’t recognize welcomed the crowd and introduced the first reader. “I’m pleased to introduce one of the legends of East Village—and world—poetry, let’s have a big round of applause for Bob Holdman!” He pronounced the d in Holdman.

            Bob Holman I do know. We’ve been friends since the early eighties, when he was director of The Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church. We even shared a gig at The Mudd Club, Bob as “Panic DJ” with his musical collaborator Vito Ricci, and me with Sonorexia, the avant-vaudeville band I co-led with Elliott Sharp.

            The reader came up to the mic. He looked like Bob, he dressed like Bob, but something was off. It clearly wasn’t Bob Holman. When he started reading he had all Bob’s moves, his exuberant way of drawing in an audience. It was very convincing. But it wasn’t Bob Holman. It was a Bob Holman impersonator!

            Is that what this was about, a show of literary impersonators? Who knew there was such a thing.

            After a bunch of poems, the fake Bob Holman turned on a boom box that had a musical backing track, to which he performed his Panic DJ rap “Rock and Roll Mythology.” When he finished he thanked the audience to resounding applause.

            “Our next reader,” the announcer said, “is a man of many talents, or at least two. He’s been tickling readers with his hilarious short stories for decades, and he’s also a pretty good singer. Please welcome Peter Churches!”

            There was a pause. Nobody came up to the mic. Was I really supposed to read? At least 30 seconds passed. People started whispering. Then he finally made his way to the mic.

            Peter Churches, my impersonator, didn’t make any introduction, he just launched into his first story, as I usually do.

            “I picked up the latest Paris Review. To my surprise, upon perusing the table of contents, I discovered that the issue featured a story by the neighbor. Who knew he was a writer? And not only a writer, but in The Paris Review, a journal I’ve tried unsuccessfully to break into for forty years. I did come close once, though.”

            He sure looked like me. He had my prominent cheekbones, my deep-set eyes, and the same pattern of baldness as me. He was wearing half-frame readers, as I do for readings since my cataract surgeries.

            He had all my mannerisms down. The deadpan delivery with a simmering threat of mania, my practice of looking directly at different audience members while I read, and my easygoing between-stories banter.

            He read a number of my stories, and then he ended his set with an a cappella rendition of my lyrics for Thelonious Monk’s “Little Rootie Tootie.”

            “Attila the Hun is licking my telephone,

            He’s having such fun he thinks it’s an ice cream cone,

            I wish he would run and leave my poor phone alone—

            He swallows the dial tone.”

            Peter Churches got an even bigger ovation than Bob Holdman. He was a damn good singer.

            I had to talk to this guy. I followed him as he walked away from the mic.

            “Excuse me,” I said to him.

            He looked at me. “Wow, you’re Peter Cherches,” he said to me.

            “Yes, and I really need to talk to you. Can we go outside for a few minutes?”

            “Sure,” he said.

            If I had to miss Kathy Atker’s set, so be it.

            We walked down the stairs to the street.

            “First, let me tell you, that was a fantastic impersonation you did of me.”

            “Thanks.”

            “And look at you. You could be my twin. How do you do it?”

            “Well, it actually requires lots of makeup. I use putty to build up my cheekbones, eye shadow to give the illusion of your deep-set, piercing eyes, blue contacts since my eyes are brown, and my barber shaves the middle of my head to match your baldness; he also dyes the sides gray—I’m only 27, after all.”

            “Sounds like a lot of work. Is it really worth it? I mean, can you really make much of a living as a Peter Cherches impersonator?”

            “Well,” he said, “like any business it has its ups and downs, but I really do it more for love than money. Plus, with you there’s the music angle, and because of that I get a lot more gigs than I would if I had chosen to impersonate a non-singing writer like Paul Auster or George Saunders. As a matter of fact, an agent who saw one of your music gigs just offered me a week at the Sahara in Vegas. I’m going to croon your songs with an 18-piece orchestra. It’s not a bad life.”

            He was right. It’s not a bad life, my life. I just wish I had it.