The Overwhelming Urge

Andersen Prunty

The Overwhelming Urge

Copyright © 2009 by Andersen Prunty

Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-1933929651

www.andersenprunty.com

First published by Eraserhead Press

205 NE Bryant

Portland, Oregon 97211

www.bizarrocentral.com

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written consent of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

Contents

The Chancellor

The Wise Man

The Plath Maneuver

The Murderer

The Animal Trainer

The Bright Side

Gravedigger

The Call

The Johnsons

Prince

Trash Face

Bully

Void

Pimp

Drugs

How the Man Waits for Death

Philosophy

Drive

A Self-Contained Walk

Cowboy

Slab

Fad

Marcello

All About Bucky

Roses

Pointing at the Sun

New Pants

Now I’m Found

Crabs

My Dumb Hair

The Hole

Vagina

Laser

Angst

Black Leather Jacket

Delayed Reaction

A Sandwich in the Park

Ted the Salesman

2/3 Soul

The Joke

Shoes

Anthropology

CTN

Vampire

The Inconsequential Man

Genitalia

The Death of Eric

Frogs

A Fresh Head

The Man Whose Insides Were Broken

Buddy

Breakfast

Lawn Work

Blood

Obsolescence

The Lift

Discovering the Shape of My Skull

The Fancy Hairs

Mister God

Handsome

The Joys and Hardships of Having a Famous Mother

The Thinker and The Fleabumps

Tight

Mobile Desk

The Author

Legless

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The Chancellor

I look up and the Chancellor is standing in my doorway once again. Filling the doorway. This is the fifth night he has put in an appearance and I already know how the evening is going to turn out. He trundles into my room, modeling a pair of skin tight black leather pants, cellulite jiggling wildly as he turns in robust circles of pride. The twin loaves of fat-filled flesh above the waistband bob rhythmically. Aw hell, I wish he’d leave me the fuck alone. Of course he’s going to ask me how he looks, modestly referring to himself as a fat cow, trying to evoke pity, conjure up a compliment. Then he’s going to drag me away from my writing to go watch the hangings at the Dangle Bar, laughing as the accused ejaculate all over the stage the moment the rope snaps their necks, taking enormous gulps of his Bavarian ale and hollering for them to bring out the next one, his gaseous breath blowing off the clinging flecks of foam from his mustache. He’ll turn to me and tell me how some of the hanged are fags, he just knows it. Or he’ll shout, “Don’t he look like somebody who masturbates?!” Yes, of course, whatever, Chancellor, can’t you just leave me alone? I have some writing to do. Feeling a little tipsy, think I’ll just—No, no, you sit right down here. Free drinks! No free thinks! Then we stagger out of the bar and I’m too drunk to even get it up but he insists on buying us whores. The only good thing is that he usually gives me the more attractive one because he likes to watch us while he fucks his. Even though I don’t want to let him watch, don’t even want to be anywhere near him, his power is such that I have to acquiesce. He is the Chancellor. Then we’ll go back to the hotel and he’ll make me read him stories until he falls asleep, which sometimes takes hours. He prefers Bible stories and any children’s books that in some way or the other involve the mother as an integral part of the plot. He’s developed an extensive guideline for this. Then he’ll sleep, occasionally crying out for me to come ‘rub salve on his feet.’ But tonight, to my dismay, he collapses in mid-pirouette. I roll him out of the room and continue writing.

The Wise Man

The wisest man in the world comes to my door. He has a very long white beard and wears a series of richly textured and flowing robes. He, more or less, lets himself in. I know he’s the wisest man in the world and I plan on having him answer some questions.

He strolls to the middle of the living room and reaches down, trying to push my heavy wooden coffee table up against the couch. He labors for nearly a minute.

He looks at me. “Some help?” he asks.

“Oh, of course,” I say and help struggle with the coffee table.

By the time we finish, both of us have worked up a pretty good sweat.

The wisest man in the world stands in the middle of my luxurious white carpet. He looks at me and raises a finger of proclamation.

“These are the days,” he says, “when everything has value.”

Then he squats down a little, grunts, and defecates on my carpet.

“Ah,” he says, “that’s done with.”

Instead of staying in the room to ask him my series of important questions, I quickly go to the hallway closet and retrieve an abundance of cleaning supplies.

I return to the living room. The wise man is gone. He has accidentally stepped into his mess and tracked it all the way to the door.

The Plath Maneuver

Stanley was a poet but his greatest art was his wild enthusiasm for suicide. He tried all different ways and had all kinds of reasons. The vertical slashes on his wrists told me he was serious about it and just happened to always be in the wrong place at the wrong time, which would be the right place at the right time for most people.

One day he came over and his head was blackened. His hair was charred and stuck up in clumps amidst his raw, pink scalp. He smelled smoky.

“What have you been up to, Stan?” I asked.

“I can’t figure out how she did it,” he said.

“How who did what?”

“Sylvia Plath. How she killed herself by sticking her head in the oven.”

“You ass,” I said. “It was a gas oven.”

He laughed at his foolishness.

“Of course,” he said, chuckling. “Of course.”

The Murderer

Heinrich had rented the place at 401 Kenwood for a year. The small house was incredibly run down. The paint was peeling. The pollution from a nearby factory had turned it a dark gray. The windows leaked. Train tracks were fewer than twenty feet behind the house and trains ran all the time. But the things that bothered him the most were the cockroaches. When he flipped on a light, he saw them covering the floor. They climbed the walls and hid under things. He could hear them in the walls whenever the house was quiet. For the past year, he had called his landlord every week, an answering machine answering each time. “Please,” Heinrich would say quietly into the receiver. “Do something about the roaches.”

Over the weeks, his plea was eventually reduced to, “Please, roaches.”

Eventually, he had an idea. He decided to collect the roaches. He used a large trash bag to put them in whenever he could catch them. The effect, he realized, would be best if they were alive but he couldn’t figure out a way to do that. So he saved and he saved. Within three weeks, the bag was bulging. He set out for his landlord’s house, surprised the absentee maggot had actually told him where he lived. The check has to go somewhere, Heinrich thought.

Of course, the landlord lived in a huge clean house in one of the best neighborhoods.

Heinrich rang the doorbell.

No answer. He waited.

He rang the doorbell again and heard a familiar sound. Just someone approaching the door, he reassured himself.

When the door finally opened, Heinrich felt his gorge hit the back of his throat. The landlord was an enormous cockroach. He held a martini in one of his legs and wore a gaudy Christmas sweater, obnoxious green trees knitted into a red background. Heinrich threw the bag of cockroaches into the house and ran away, back to his own house that was, by law, the landlord’s house also.

Three days later he received an eviction notice in the mail. There wasn’t any type of explanation, just Heinrich’s full name and the address, both scrawled out in angry cockroach handwriting.

The Animal Trainer

He must be on some form of disability. Home all the time. He lives across the street and I see him come out of his house with a puppy behind him.

The man walks the puppy to the bank of grass growing on the curb. His pale gut hangs out of his tight and stained t-shirt.

“Come on, doggy,” he says. “Make poops.”

The dog looks innocently at the man. They stand that way for a few minutes, the man as vacant as the dog.

“Come on, make poops.”

The dog stares.

“Here,” the man says.

He pulls down his gray sweatpants, turns his buttocks to the road and squats. A turd slides out, landing on the shaggy grass.

“Do that,” he says to the dog.

The dog sniffs at the man’s feces, hunches his back, crouches, and lays one down.

“Good,” the man says. “Good dog. Good dog.” And he pats the dog on the head, feeding him something from his palm.

The Bright Side

I go downstairs to the kitchen. I have designs on finishing off all those chops. As I pass through the living room, I hear a low moaning.

“Dad?”

The moan again. He must be sitting in his easy chair, sunk down in the dimly lit room so I can’t see him.

“Dad? You feeling all right?”

“God no.”

“Indigestion?”

“Worse.”

“It can’t be all that bad.”

“You wouldn’t say that if you were an antelope.”

I rush around to the front of the chair.

“Come on, now. That’s ridiculous.”

But the words are barely out of my mouth before I see my father. There he sits; a slender, beautiful antelope. He looks very sad.

“Life is miserable.”

He reaches his hooves over to the end table, trying to grab his beer can between the two small things. It slips away from him and foams onto the floor. He leans his head back in the chair and groans again.

“I hope you’re not ashamed of me,” he says.

“Of course not.”

I pick up the beer can and pour what’s left into my palm. I proffer my hand toward my father. As though he can't control himself, he laps greedily at the beer. He politely wipes some foam from his fur with a shiny hoof.

“Better get some sleep,” I say and playfully shake one of his antlers.

In the kitchen, eating my chops, I hear him get out of the recliner.

“Hey!” he calls. “This isn’t so bad!”

I go into the living room.

“Look at this! I can walk on my hind legs!”

He’s drunk, I think. He obviously licked the remainder of the beer out of the carpet. I try not to think about him doing such a degrading thing. Now he’s heading for the stairs.

“You be careful with those stairs,” I caution.

“Oh, I think I can handle it,” he says and twitches his little tail as he shakily climbs the stairs.

I don’t want to think about what he’ll do next.

Gravedigger

Gladys goes downstairs and aggressively taps on her husband’s shoulder. Her husband’s name is Hank.

“You gotta go upstairs and talk to that boy,” she says.

“What’s the little jackass done now?” Hank asks.

“Why, I left him alone for two minutes and he done cut off his balls and glued them to his forehead.”

“For Christ’s sake,” Hanks says. “Let me get my pants on.”

He puts his pants on and heads for the stairs. Gladys calls out from behind him. “And remember to call him Snake or he won’t answer ya!”

Hank gets upstairs and opens the door to the boy’s room. The boy, “Snake,” lies on the bed, wistfully staring out the window, his balls glistening on his forehead. Hank snaps. He rushes over to the bed and begins shaking the boy.

“You listen here,” he says. “If you think you can get away with murder just ‘cause you got them damn leg braces, then you got another thing comin. Get them balls off your head.”

“I can’t,” Snake says.

“Well you better find a way.”

“You try it. They’re glued.”

Hank angrily reaches out and clutches one of the testicles in his fingers. The thing won’t come loose. It just squishes there between his fingers.

“That does it,” Hank says.

He yanks Snake off the bed and throws him to the floor, the boy’s leg braces clattering.

“Get your pants down. I’m givin you the spankin you deserve.”

The boy moans pathetically and frantically tries to crawl to his bathroom.

Gladys comes into the room before Hank has a chance to spank Snake.

“Hank! You cut that out!” she yells.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” he says. He kneels by the bed and begins to pray.

Snake makes it into the bathroom. He finds a razor and slashes at his wrists. The blood courses out and Snake discovers that he can now walk without the aid of the braces. With blood-covered hands, he removes the braces and tosses them into the bathtub. He throws open the door to his bedroom and charges across the room, launching himself through the glass in his window. He plummets to the ground outside. His parents call the ambulance but a hearse shows up instead. Which is appropriate because Snake is dead. He lies in a crumpled heap on the front lawn. A huge man gets out of the hearse.

The man is a gravedigger.

He takes an enormous shovel from the back of the hearse and proceeds to dig a hole in the front yard. Once the hole is deep enough, he nudges Snake into it with his foot.

Snake’s parents stand on the front lawn, crying as the gravedigger finishes filling in the grave. After tamping down the dirt, the gravedigger tips his hat to Snake’s parents and gets back into his car.

Hank and Gladys go back inside the house to begin anew.

The Call

I’m in a room full of people, all of us wearing wigs. I have the nagging suspicion that mine is on crooked and try to adjust it while studying my reflection in the wineglass in front of me.

A man with a crazy mustache has just made an ass of himself by trying out a new style of dancing.

The phone rings from the kitchen and we all drunkenly scramble to reach it, trying to squeeze through the door at once. An older man with a worn-out thin white wig and strange buttocks is the first to answer it.

“Hullo,” he says. “Mm-hm. I see... No... Yes, of course... I understand.”

The man gently places the phone back in the cradle, takes off his scraggly white wig and tosses it on the stove. Dejectedly, he slumps his shoulders and slinks past all the staring eyes. He reaches the door and looks back. On the verge of tears, he raises his hand in a half-hearted wave and leaves the room. We all adjust our wigs and take a deep, collective breath, knowing we’ll never see him again.

The Johnsons

In my search for spiritual enlightenment, I travel to the desert to study a group of people called the Johnsons. Living in total isolation, their village has the look of a suburban street. There are only about sixty of them and none of them have a first name and, since all of their last names are Johnson, the only way to address them is by their street number. I visit 468 Johnson Lane and speak with the man and woman there. All of the men have very thick hair, which they keep heavily gelled and parted to the side. I ask them why there are no children around and Mrs. 468 says, “Oh, they’re really worth too much money to keep.”

“You mean they cost too much?”

“Oh, good heavens, no. We get paid so much for them. The men with the mustaches give us so much money... Well, it’s impossible to resist—look at all the nice things it has bought us.”

The house is nice. It has all the modern amenities. The electricity, Mrs. 468 tells me, is supplied by sorcery. I stay overnight at their house, sleeping in a luxurious bed, and get up the next morning to follow Mr. 468 to work. He dresses as though going to an office—a clean white shirt and navy blue tie, khaki trousers, his hair all thick and gelled. I follow him out into the desert, across a low dune where he is, in due time, joined by the other Johnson men.

They do not speak. They merely shuffle around in the sand, as though the others don’t exist. This continues for a few hours until they decide it’s lunchtime. They pull sandwiches and bottles of water from their baggy khaki trousers. After they finish eating they all begin ridiculing one man. They tell him that his wife doesn’t love him and they all slept with her last night. They tell him that his house looks like a garbage sack. They accuse him of being impotent, flatulent and disease-ridden. They tell him that the only person uglier than him is his wife. Then they pull out barber’s clippers and shear clumps of hair from his lustrous head. They all laugh at this new haircut and circle up around him, chanting, “Flumpy hair! Flumpy hair!”

When lunch is over, they all go back to shuffling around. I start back to search for the village, but I can’t find it. When I go back to ask the men if they could point me in the right direction, I can’t find them either. I stare at the sun and continue moving west.

Prince

Prince sits at the table.

I’m running on virtually no sleep because he’s kept me up with his incessant keyboarding and screeching. He sits complacently at the table, as though nothing is wrong. He is eating a piece of toast. Small flakes of it are caught in his mustache and, as usual, scattered all over the table in front of him.

Prince has been living in my apartment for the past three months and I’ve gotten tired of him. He never picks up after himself. He doesn’t help with the rent. I’ve tripped over his high-heeled boots countless times. He throws parties every time I’m away, people of questionable genital health undoubtedly having sex on my bed.

“You gonna be out tonight?” he asks in a rich baritone, taking a bite of his toast and chewing it slowly.

“Look, we need to talk,” I say.

He stops chewing his toast. A look of hurt glazes his eyes.

“What’s the problem?” he asks.

“I think you know what the problem is.”

He flings the uneaten toast onto the plate but it shoots off into the middle of the table where it will remain untouched unless I decide to clean it up.

He is near tears. He stands up, his buttocks making a kind of squeaking sound as they separate from the seat. I’ve already went through two bottles of disinfectant since he and his buttless pants showed up, turning every chair in the apartment into a toilet seat.

“If you didn’t want me living here, you could have said something a long time ago.”

He runs into his room, buttocks jiggling, and flings himself onto his bed, burying his face in the pillow. I didn’t realize he would become so maudlin. I can’t stand to see him like that. I follow him into the room and sit down on the edge of the bed.

“I’m sorry, man,” I say. “You stay here until you get back on your feet.”

He grabs my arm. “It won’t be much longer. I know you got a lot on your mind. Just please... don’t take it out on me.”

I realize I have been ruthlessly manipulated again. Regretful, I go back into the kitchen and begin cleaning.

Trash Face

My face melts off so I pick it up and put it back on, runny and twisted as it is. Putting on my shoes, lumpy black things that look more fitting for a janitor, I step outside into the fresh, early morning air.

A Boy Scout troop is collecting dandelion specimens from my front yard. Their leader is blowing a whistle and shouting at them to collect more, more! Eventually, they all spot me. One of them shouts: “Oh God, look at that guy’s face!”

The leader blows his whistle furiously and says, “I think it’s best we get outta here.”

A little kid who has been busy urinating in the corner of the yard runs up to me and shoves a wad of grass down my pants before hurrying to catch up with the other boys.

“Yeah!” I call after him. “Well you’re fat!” But he isn’t fat at all. But my face is indeed hideous.

I go back inside, remove my face, and throw it in the trashcan.

Bully

I send an inappropriate story to a boxing publication. Instead of a form rejection the editor sends me a lengthy letter that, in so many words, challenges me to a fight. I crumple the letter up and fling it into a neglected corner of the study but the editor shows up anyway, days later. When I first come upon him, he is leaning against my kitchen counter drinking a glass of milk. He is not at all how I pictured him. Small, thin, thick black-framed glasses covering his myopic eyes. Instinctively, I know who he is but wonder if I should introduce myself anyway. Should I even be polite? Maybe I should be confrontational, openly hostile.

He throws the empty glass onto the floor where it shatters.

“Pick it up,” I say, pointing to the mess of shards.

He spreads his arms out to either side and looks as threatening as his near-sighted eyes will allow. “I don’t even know where the broom and dust pan are,” he says.

“They’re in the closet there.” I point to the closet but he’s already approaching me.

“That’s woman’s work,” he says, quickly smacking me on the back of the head. “You and I both know why I’m here.”

“I never accepted your challenge.”

The man punches me in the stomach. I snatch the glasses from his face. He closes his eyes and blindly grasps for his glasses, hopping up to try and grab them out of my hands. I feel terrible. Like a bully. He collapses to the floor, pounding his hands against the wood.

“If I give you your glasses back... will you go?”

“Just don’t break em,” he murmurs.

“Will you go?”

“Yes. Anything. Just... please... I can’t see without em.”

“Okay.”

I bend down to give him his glasses and he rams his skull into my face. I feel my nose split. Awash with dizziness, I collapse onto the floor. Now he is over top of me, the glasses back on his narrow face, counting to ten. When he reaches ten, he says, “I win.”

“Win what?” I sputter.

“I could tell by your signature and address you were going to be easy.”

“Just get out,” I say, now sitting up and cupping my nose in my hands.

He pulls himself upright, straightens his collar, and leaves through the front door.

Void

I have a bowel movement that lasts for three days. By the time I’m finished—emptied—I’m sweaty, exhausted and famished. No longer myself.

When I go downstairs I discover someone has played a horrible trick on me. They’ve removed every item from the downstairs and replaced it with a cardboard replica. The couch, the refrigerator, the television—all cardboard. Even the carpet has been removed, crayon stippled onto the cardboard, only a simulation of the real thing. I pick up the cardboard phone, ready to call anyone I can think of—I need answers—but, rather than a dial tone, I am greeted with a voice repeatedly asking what I’m wearing. Struggling somewhat, I rip the phone to pieces and toss it onto the floor.

What am I wearing?

I look down at my clothes and see that I, too, am made of cardboard. A terrible shock seizes me. I have to get out of the house. Charging outside, I am horrified to see that it is raining and looks like it has been raining for quite some time. The water sluices its way down the sides of the street, running into the sewer.

Yes. That’s it. If I can get down into the sewer, I can regain that part of myself I have expelled over an arduous three day period. I can reclaim my waste. I rush out to the street, the rain pounding down onto my cardboard flesh. I absorb it, growing heavy and soggy.

I manage to reach the sewer. It is cool outside and a thin mist rises from the slit. I think of a halitosis smile, a diseased vagina. Holding my breath, I enter the sewer. My right arm comes off in the process, remaining on the street.

Plopping down into the sewer, I stumble after the lost part of me, wanting only to be three dimensional and whole once again. Following the tunnel of the sewer, I come to a small door. Hoping it isn’t locked, I pull on the handle. I am greeted by family and friends, everyone I have grown apart from over the past several years, all hunched over in a tiny, brightly lighted room.

“Surprise!” they shout in unison.

My dad steps forward, nervous, smoothing his thin hair with his left hand. In his right hand he holds a box. A present.

“For you,” he says.

“Thanks,” I say, taking the gaily wrapped pink box.

“Go on,” he prods, licking his lips. “Open it.”

Having only one hand, I set the box down on the floor. I try untying the bow but my soggy fingers only bend back. The people in the room chuckle. I hear someone, I’m pretty sure it’s my grandfather, bemusedly say, “He’ll never get that thing open... Not with those fingers.”

“Let me help you with that,” my dad says, crouching down and farting a little.

He easily tears the wrapping off the box, wadding it up and sticking it down his pants. Then he opens the box and pulls out a miniature toilet, setting it beside the empty box.

“Go on,” he says. “Open it.”

I crouch down and try to flip the lid up but, again, my fingers won’t work.

“There there,” my father says, demonstrating a patience he never showed in my childhood, this time only bending over to pull back the lid and reveal the contents to me. I can’t identify what lies inside the toilet.

“Go on,” my father says. “Try some. It’s food.”

I reach into the bowl and wrap my waterlogged hand around something that looks like a miniature baseball hat. I put it into my mouth and cautiously chew. It’s delicious. I can’t identify a specific element about it but it is, without a doubt, the most delicious food I have ever eaten. My family and friends all stare eagerly as I extract random items, all familiar-looking, all completely foreign tasting, and shove them into my mouth. Gradually, I become full. My other arm is back and the rain water is sweat seeping from my pores and I have visions of myself sitting on the toilet and straining, voiding sweat and waste... But that is in the future. For now, I eat. Becoming full. Letting the people around me chatter and fill my soul to bursting.

Pimp

The temp agency wouldn’t find me any work so I decided to become a pimp. Slowly but surely, I built my stable of prostitutes. The money rolled in. It wasn’t long before I started looking like a pimp—wearing a pimp hat, driving a pimp car, even growing a pimp mustache.

One day, one of my more productive prostitutes, Mitzy, came to me.

“You mind if I ask you for a favor?” she said around the three or four teeth she had left in her mouth. Her face was as pitted as a honeycomb and her skintight shorts revealed a tremendously large camel toe. She smelled like whiskey, cheap cigarettes, and death.

“Sure, doll, that’s what this business is all about.” I doffed my fur coat and scratched my balls.

“I got this friend and she like really needs some money.”

“You bring her in and let me take a look at her.”

“She’s waiting out in the car.”

While waiting, I quickly devoured a beef stick and used the oils to slick my mustache. I like to make a good first impression.

Mitzy returned with her friend.

“Mom!?” I shouted.

“Son!” she returned.

“What the hell are you doing here? That outfit is entirely too revealing. Here, put this on.” I tossed her my fur coat.

“Ever since your father walked out, I’ve needed the money. What are you doing here?”

“The agency wouldn’t find me any work. Shiftless crackers.”

“Where did you learn to talk like that?”

“The street, Mom, the street.”

“So, whaddya say? Are you going to lend a helping hand?”

“It’s a rough job. Why don’t you go out with Mitzy tonight. Get a feel for it. See if you like... this kind of work. I tell you what, Mom, I’ll let you keep 95 percent of what you make... If you decide to stick with it.”

A sad wave of relief washed over her face.

“Thank you, Son. Oh, thank you so much.”

“Just get out there and work it.”

Playfully, to show her she’s one of the girls, I gave her a smack on the ass. She blushed and headed for the street with Mitzy.

Drugs

My balls are swelled up. I am in the bathroom about ready to puncture my scrotum with a huge needle, figuring the swellage must be something fluid related, when the doorbell rings. It startles me and the needle flies out of my hands and into the bathtub. “Shit,” I think, “this is going to be really embarrassing.” I rush to find the baggiest pair of pants I can and cross the house to answer the door.

Upon opening the door I am a bit startled to see four men in dour gray suits standing on my porch.

“Mr. L?” the man in the forefront asks.

“No, I’m Mr. C.”

“Is this 2300 Rosewood?”

“Yes it is.”

“I think we need to have a look in your basement.”

“May I ask what for?”

“Hiding something, Mr. L?”

“No, no, not at all, it’s just, well...”

“Drugs, Mr. L. We’ve had complaints of drugs.”

“I assure you that’s ridiculous. You’re more than welcome to have a look.”

I walk them over to the door of my basement, my legs slightly bowed on account of my huge scrotum. A casual glance over my shoulder reveals that they are traveling in a single file line. I open the door and click on the light, standing aside to let them enter. They all go down into the basement. After a few moments, I hear one of them call, “You better come down here, Mr. L!”

I walk down the steps. At first, the basement seems impossibly bright. As soon as I reach the bottom of the steps, I realize why.

The entire floor is covered in marijuana plants that reach chest-high. The ceiling is lined with sun lamps.

“Impressive,” I say, and then, “I know absolutely nothing about this.”

“We’re going to have to confiscate your house, Mr. L.”

There is no argument. Even though I know nothing about it I am clearly cultivating a drug field in my basement.

“Yes, of course. Will you be taking everything else in the house, also?”

“Well, we’ll be taking all of this marijuana.”

“I see.”

We all go upstairs. The man in charge makes a few calls with my phone. The others periodically shoot accusing looks at me as I struggle to move the couch out of the house. This task is made all the more difficult because of my swelling. I get the couch out to the curb and sit down on it, homeless, both my back and my balls hurting immeasurably.

I can’t resist checking on my condition so I stand up and glance down into my pants. Amazingly, my underwear is stuffed with the marijuana leaves. The men are coming out of the house, the man in charge tossing the keys up in the air and catching them. They stand at the curb and make casual chit-chat until a bus comes and they all board.

They come back later that night with their wives, girlfriends and children. The next day a moving van brings all their stuff over. They leave the house every morning smelling like pot. People of all ages visit the house at all hours.

Two days later, the garbage man comes and tells me he has to take the couch. “It’s on the curb,” he says. I reach down into my pants and hand him the marijuana, moist from being in my crotch for days.

“Please, one more week,” I plead.

How the Man Waits for Death

“The trouble with life,” he says, “is that the day’s just too long.”

He does his best to alter this.

He always sleeps until two or three in the afternoon.

He wakes up and makes a pot of coffee and drinks cup after cup and sits on his front porch and watches all the neighborhood kids and their goonish parents going off to their ultraimportant jobs. He smokes cigarette after cigarette.

Then he goes back into his house and drinks a bottle of cheap red wine and watches a movie or reads a book, where days pass very quickly.

After the sun finally sets, he goes back to bed.

He hates to dream because it makes the day seem even longer.

“I want to go to sleep,” he often thinks, “and then I want to wake up.”

This is how the man waits for death to come in and envelope him in its fat black spiderbelly fold.

Philosophy

George walks into the morning kitchen and punches Gladys in the mouth. Her heavily hairsprayed hair goes instantly awry, her false teeth clicking out onto the floor.

“Do you believe in God?” George asks her.

“Well, I guess so,” she answers.

George belts her again, this time open-handed and on the cheek, lighting a flush red painting across her deep wrinkles.

He sits down at the table and takes a sip of coffee. “I guess I just don’t anymore.”

Gladys begins to cry, absently grabbing her crucifix necklace for comfort.

Drive

I go downstairs after knitting a fashionable new scarf. Mother is lying down on the couch, a wet washcloth over her forehead. The living room is in complete and total disarray.

“For God’s sake, Mom, you look mighty bedraggled!”

“It’s your father. I don’t see why he has to be such an envelope-pusher.”

“What now?”

“He’s taken it upon himself to eat all the raisins in the house.”

“That doesn’t seem so extreme.”

“Do you know how many raisins are in this house?”

“Who made this mess?”

“Your father. The beast. The wretched whoremonger. Always looking for more raisins.”

Father comes out of the kitchen, swollen and lumpy.

“You gonna start in on me now, too?”

I shake my head. It’s best to leave him alone when he gets like this. Back in my room, I wrap my new scarf around my neck and lie on my bed. Later, I awake to find my father rooting through the mattress. I pretend to remain asleep just so there isn’t any awkward conversation, knowing he will find plenty of raisins.

A Self-Contained Walk

It is a grainy black and white day.

Mr. Gravel’s small house sits back a long driveway. They call it a lane in the country. He steps out of his house and looks at the low hill horizon. He walks down the steps of his front porch. There is a man with sunglasses on doing pushups in the front lawn. Mr. Gravel pays no attention to this as he heads for the lane. He has to get the mail. The box is way down off the road.

To entertain himself for this long walk, he raises his arms above his head, fingers extended, and begins hooting. He hoots with each step he takes. “Hoo, hoo, hoo.” The gravel crunches beneath his feet.

About halfway down the lane, he gets excited because he can see a large package bulging from the mailbox. He has always been afraid someone will steal his mail. He hopes this is the package he has been expecting.

He breaks into a light jog, his arms still extended toward the sky. Within no time at all, he is at the mailbox, his hands on the thick brown package, greedily pulling it out. Too excited to carry the package all the way back to his house, he rips it open.

He pulls the gun out, letting the bubble-lined paper fall around his feet. He tosses the pistol from hand to hand, feeling its heft. Mr. Gravel smiles knowingly. He is pleased. Placing the cold barrel of the gun against his forehead, he pulls the trigger, thinking that it’s so cold because it’s been outside all day.

His head erupts.

A dying spray of red against the black and white day.

Mr. Gravel’s body staggers before falling to the pavement of the road. The neighbor’s dog, always loose, wanders over and begins licking at the wound.

Cowboy

I approach the three teenage girls and brazenly inform them they can call me “Cowboy,” motioning down to my shiny new boots. They look at each other and begin laughing. They laugh hard enough to make their firm breasts jiggle.

Jiggle.

I try to tell myself that I don’t need their approval of the name change or the new person the name is to represent. I try to tell myself they are ugly but, looking closely at them, I can’t find a single flaw. I begin to cry, loud and gushing. I look down at the ground as the tears roll out of my eyes, splashing the surface of my new boots.

Slab

Ever since he’s started eating on the humans in the freezer, Ross has gained an amazing 150 pounds. He finishes a slab of the human’s ribs and reflects on what life used to be like. He had been a social creature: parties, girlfriends, a good job.

Then one day, he just got tired of it all. He no longer wanted anything more than to kill a few humans and keep them in his new deluxe freezer.

Ross had, on a number of occasions after eating human flesh, tried to venture out into the world but it had become too difficult. The phone calls and drop-ins had ceased shortly after he quit going to parties and the job. After all communication with the outside world had ended it became too difficult for him to go outside. He could feel people staring at his fat, pale unwashed flesh. Ross had stopped shaving and he knew whenever he farted they all smelled the stink of death. People shot him the evil eye. Priests crossed themselves after walking by and none of it meant anything to Ross. He only wanted to eat his freshly prepared meals, wash it down with some tap water and masturbate, the taste of the last bite still fresh on his tongue.

Ross brings himself back into present time and rises from the table, going to the sink and washing his dish. After washing, Ross retires to his chair for a pleasant post-meal slumber.

Then a very strange thing happens.

The phone rings.

At first, Ross doesn’t know what to do.

Then he swallows, takes a deep breath, and goes to answer the phone.

“Hullo,” he says.

“Mr. Ross?” the voice on the other line asks.

“Yes, this is Mr. Ross.”

“Mr. Ross. We know you have a dead body in your apartment.”

“Not true.”

“What?”

“Not true.”

“So you don’t have a dead body in your apartment?”

“No way. That’s illegal.”

“What about a dead cow. Neighbors say they’ve heard you sawin on something over there.”

“Is it illegal to keep a dead cow?”

“If it becomes a nuisance to those around you. Say, are you sure you don’t have a dead body there?”

“No way. That is, I mean, I’m sure.”

“This is Mr. Ross, 311 Purple Rose Street, Apartment 4F, correct?”

“Yes, it is.”

“No dead body?”

“Nobody but me.”

“Well, okay, then... Hey, you wouldn’t tell us if you had a dead body in there anyway.”

“Sure I would.”

“Well, I think we’re going to send somebody over there to check it out.”

“I’ll be waiting for you, Mr...?”

“Black. Stanley Black.”

“Thank you, Mr. Black.”

It was strange talking to another human being, Ross thinks upon hanging up the phone. Well, he thinks, guess I should finish up the rest of that dead body.

It is a lot to eat and his stomach ends up rupturing after the last bite.

The detective who comes over to check out the apartment has been into cannibalism for a little over two years. When he sees Ross’ huge dead body he is both shocked and delighted. He waits a few minutes before calling Detective Black.

“Yeah, Stan, I’m here at that guy’s apartment. No, everything’s clean, checks out fine. I think I’m gonna take off for the day after this, though. All right. Thanks, Chief.”

After hanging up, the detective gets on the phone with one of his cannibal friends to help him drag that bitch of a corpse out to the car.

Fad

Teddy and I are in his blacklit basement, huffing glue and listening to Judas Priest. Teddy turns to me and says, “So, you tried fuckin your mom yet?”

I chuckle. “No. Not yet, Teddy.”

“You think I’m joking?”

“Have you?”

“Oh, yeah. Sweetest pussy I ever had.”

“My mom’s like sixty... and she has that thing on her head.”

“Yeah, I used to think my mom was pretty sick too but, man, that pussy.”

I pretended to think about it for a minute. “No. I don’t think I could.”

“Well, you’re one of the last then. I’m from California and everybody out there’s doin it. You just wait and see. You’ll come around.” Teddy smiled knowingly through glazed eyes that were little more than slits.

“Maybe so,” I said, the idea already seeming less absurd than it once did.

Marcello

I wake up one morning and go downstairs only to realize my mother has been involved in a lengthy and entangled affair with Marcello Mastroianni, the deceased Italian actor. I realize this because he is sitting at the kitchen table in a cozy terry cloth robe, nursing a cup of coffee and smoking an unfiltered cigarette. When I finally bring myself to look into his puffy eyes, he merely raises his eyebrows as if to say, “Well, sometimes these things happen.” Mother comes out of the bedroom and he gives her a playful pat on the ass.

All About Bucky

Bucky had amazing flatulence. He would stroll into a room full of people, get ripped on beer, and let them fly. His friends would make circles around him, slapping their thighs and laughing until tears streamed down their cheeks.

Bucky disappeared one day and it was rumored that he’d got someone’s girl pregnant and the said someone decided to plug up Bucky’s asshole.

I was never Bucky’s friend but I go to a lot of the same gatherings and watch the people whenever someone else gets ripped on beer and starts letting them fly. They still form the circle but the laughter is frantic and near hysterical. Terrifying. And their eyes bulge and their faces turn red but no tears ever come out.

Roses

I wake up and head straight for the bathroom. My bowels are really rumbling. Once on the toilet, I have to struggle more than usual. I have, in fact, left the bathroom door open with the expected need for ventilation. Finally, near exhausted, I have my movement. I wipe but there’s nothing there.

I get up and pull up my underwear and pants. Curious, I decide to look in the bowl before flushing. I am astonished to see that the toilet is filled with rose petals and, standing there in the morning light of the bathroom, I’m surrounded by the smell of the flowers.

I go to work in a better mood than usual.

During my lunch hour, I have to go to the bathroom but someone has made it there before me. I wait patiently outside. A few minutes later, Dan comes out, the newspaper folded under his arm. He looks somewhat guiltily at me, the smell of feces hanging about him like a malicious cloud. I pinch my nose closed with my fingers and mouth, “Pee-you.”

“What,” he says. “Your shit smell like roses?”

I smile broadly and nod my head.

“Yes,” I say. “Yes it does.”

Pointing at the Sun

Lowprice Head gets into his car and takes a drive down to the local supermarket. It is a pleasant drive. Not a day for revelation but a nice day nonetheless. The sky is blue and clear. Not a cloud in it. He sings, “I wear high pants,” to himself and realizes how much he sounds like his father. This irritates him because he does not like his father. He tells himself the rest of the day will be better once he has stocked up on assorted fruits and vegetables.

Suddenly, he is struck with the overwhelming urge to stop the car, get out, and point at the sun for a few minutes. So he does that. And as he stands at the gravel shoulder of the road a black truck pulls up behind his car and a group of three teenagers gets out. They all have a lot of tattoos and wear extremely short running shorts.

The most well-muscled of the three approaches Lowprice and gives him a little shove. Lowprice continues to point at the sun.

“You wanna start some shit?” the muscled guy says.

“No,” Lowprice begins. “I’m perfectly content just pointing at the sun for a few minutes or so.”

“That’s some fucked up shit,” the guy says. “You better stop that.”

“I can’t,” Lowprice says.

The muscled guy tries to force Lowprice’s arm down but it stays, ironlike, pointing at the sun. The heavily muscled youth’s friends begin laughing at his failed attempt to bring Lowprice’s frail arm down.

“If you don’t put that arm down I’m gonna fuck you up real good.”

His friends collectively make a sound like, “Whoo!”

“Sorry,” Lowprice says, continuing to point.

“You asked for it, you little shit.”

He walks around to the front of Lowprice and punches him in the face. Several of Lowprice’s teeth shatter and he collapses back onto the gravel, his arm continuing to point toward the sun.

“All right now,” the muscled guy says to his friends. “I’m gonna roll him over here and when I do that I want one of you to get in the truck and drive over his arm.”

“Right on, Mitch,” one of them says.

Mitch rolls Lowprice over and the guy driving the truck runs over it once going forward and again in reverse. Mitch kicks Lowprice over onto his back so his arm rests floppily and broken on his stomach. “Serves you right, you damn pointing shit!” Mitch screams before joining his friends in the truck and speeding away.

Lowprice begins singing, “I need medical attention,” to himself around broken teeth and a busted jaw. Luckily, he no longer sounds like his father when he sings. That makes it an all right day.

New Pants

Steve and Paul get up off the floor, their faces red and sweaty from wrestling. They are both shirtless.

“Hey, let me try on those pants,” Paul tells Steve.

Steve takes off his pants and hands them to Paul.

Paul slides his pants off and puts on Steve’s pants. He walks around the room and squats down a couple of times.

“Yeah,” he says. “I like these. These fit real nice.”

“Those pants were expensive. I need them back,” Steve tells Paul.

“Fuck you, you little retard.”

“Come on, give em back. They don’t fit you anyway.”

Paul is the larger of the two boys and no, the pants do not fit him very well.

Steve moves toward Paul. Paul punches him in the face. Steve falls to the floor, blood running from his nose and onto the carpet.

“Well,” Paul says. “I’m gonna go in the other room and fuck your sister now.”

Steve figures Paul will have to take off his pants to do that and then he will take them back.

Now I’m Found

Seth is my cousin who came to stay with my parents and never left. He lives in a room in the basement. Occasionally, I go downstairs to bum cigarettes from him. He appears at the door, Metallica blasting in the background, sweaty from intense masturbation. “Pounding off,” he calls it.

Today, I go down to Seth’s room to get some cigarettes but there is no metal and he never comes to the door. I stand there for a few minutes before opening it. When I look inside I see Seth hanging from the ceiling by a belt. The word “Satan” is written on the wall behind him in what can only be sheep’s blood.

Crabs

The khaki pants completely alter his view but he nevertheless straightens his tie in the mirror. “I wish this were a better day,” he coughs. He stands up, takes off his khaki pants and inspects his genitals in the mirror before him. A look of paternal worry crosses his face as he inspects his wicked bad case of crab lice. He has plucked each one of them from his bed of pubic hair and put a spot of color on each of their backs. The little fuckers die off quickly. He has to peg his khaki trousers so he doesn’t lose them as they die. They deserve a proper burial and he’s had a ceramic flowerpot filled with dirt going for quite some time. Since his morning count it doesn’t look as though any of them have died off. “The day is getting better,” he says and pulls up his slacks.

My Dumb Hair

I get in a barfight and am horribly beaten by three men in tight pants. They work me over about the head and neck with a blackjack.

The next morning I have trouble waking up and cough more than usual. I strip off my bloodstained clothes and head into the bathroom. The mirror reveals, amidst my now lumpy and misshapen face, a BB-sized pimple perfectly centered between my eyebrows.

My hair sticks up every which way. I put some water on it to try and get it to lie down. The lumps on my head have caused my hair to go dumb and it hurts too bad to mash down too much. I have been defeated. I have the overwhelming urge to shoot myself in the head.

The Hole

A man receives a call from his sister-in-law. She tells him his brother caught lazy eye at work. Immediately thereafter, the man develops a hole halfway up his forearm. Curious, he explores the hole. Too small to fit his index finger into, he probes it with his pinky.

“I wonder where it leads,” he muses, still digging with the pinky. He removes his pinky from the hole and smells it. The odor is only moderately disagreeable. Something similar to a sweaty navel smell.

The next day at work he brushes some of his arm hair over it and, luckily, no one notices. When he gets home that night, after showering, the hole’s smell wafts up to his nostrils. It smells much worse than before the shower. Nearly pungent. His sister-in-law calls again. This time she tells him his brother’s lazy eye has turned into a cataract.

“I’ve got problems of my own,” he growls at her and hangs up the phone.

He returns to the bathroom and scrubs the hole with great rigor. Finding a sliver of soap, he works this around in the hole until it disintegrates. It doesn’t help. In fact, the man is quite sure it smells even worse.

“Shit,” he thinks. “This is the worst smelling hole I have.”

The next day, fraught with embarrassment, he stays home from work. He breaks apart a stick of deodorant and places a piece in the hole. After a few minutes, the deodorant is gone and he puts another piece in there. If ever his vigilance declines, the hole reminds him with a scent more powerfully chilling than the worst flatulence he’s ever smelled. That evening his sister-in-law calls to tell him his brother went to the doctor. In order to solve the problem with his brother’s eye, the doctor shot it out with a slingshot. Now his eye is fine—better than before, even. The man asks his sister-in-law for the doctor’s name. He calls and makes an appointment.

The next day he goes to see the doctor.

The man forgets to bring his deodorant and the nurse directs him to a room, pushing him into it and quickly shutting the door behind him.

A few hours later the doctor walks in. Upon opening the door, he is visibly taken aback, hours of stink greeting his nostrils.

“My God that’s horrible,” he gasps.

The man points to the hole on his arm.

“Oh. I see. You have a hole.”

He pulls out a cotton swab and swabs the inside of the hole. He pulls it out and smells it, visibly suppressing his gorge and bracing himself on the bed.

“Jesus that smells. Let me write you a prescription for that.”

“Thanks,” the man says. “I’ll be happy to get rid of it.”

“Here’s a prescription for two grapes and a piece of tape. That oughtta do it.”

Skeptical, the man goes to the store, selecting the grapes and tape. He gives the cashier his prescription and medical card. She nods and hands him a receipt, suspiciously eyeing him. Once home, he inserts the grapes into the hole and applies the tape over top of it.

The next morning the hole is gone. The man breathes deeply. He feels reborn.

Vagina

A very lonely man orders an imitation vagina from a catalogue. He sits down on the couch and waits for it. A couple hours later, he hears a sound from the porch. Opening his front door, he sees someone has left a large box for him—it’s roughly as large as he is. He drags the box inside and hastily tears it open. Instead of his fake vagina, he finds a woman curled up in the box, sleeping. At first he thinks maybe it’s just some kind of lifelike sex doll but he can see it breathing. Bending down, he shakes her shoulder.

“Uh, Miss?” he says.

Startled, she rolls over and looks at him. “Oh, I’m so sorry,” she says.

She is dressed enticingly in a very short skirt and clinging t-shirt.

“Well, I guess you know why I’m here,” she says.

“Actually, I’m a little confused. I think maybe they screwed up my order.”

He checks the box for an invoice but doesn’t see one. His address isn’t even on the box. Curious, he thinks.

“I guess you can spend your time thinking about it or we can go upstairs and you can put me to use.”

“I would definitely like that,” the man says. He can’t believe his good fortune. He wonders if the girl is planning on staying, if she really is his.

They go upstairs and, after a few moments, the man gasps in frustrated confusion. He kneels between the girl’s legs, staring down at the complete absence of sex. Like a doll, she is entirely hairless and smooth. He looks up at the girl to meet her embarrassed stare.

“I’m so sorry,” she says. “It was there a few days ago, I promise.”

“Unlikely,” the man says.

“There are other things I can do,” she says.

“It’s not the same,” the man dresses and retreats downstairs, pouting.

The girl comes downstairs moments later, fully dressed. “I guess I should go, huh?”

The man, angry, wants to tell her to get out but, after thinking about it, realizes he is very lonely and, indeed, there are other things the girl can do. Things that would have to be better than using an imitation vagina. “Why don’t you stick around,” he says.

So the girl sticks around for a few days and they perform every sexual act possible. The man is happy and exhausted but, alas, he has to go back to work.

Coming home from work one day, he discovers the mailman delivering the mail. One of the parcels he crams in the mailbox is the vagina. It is without an envelope and looks slightly used. The mailman, unable to meet the man’s gaze, looks at the ground and quickly walks to the next house. The man takes the vagina into the house and gives it a thorough washing. Then he puts it in a box and wraps it. That night, with the girl waiting in bed, waiting for their marathon non-vaginal sex to begin, the man presents her with his present.

“For me?” she asks.

“Of course,” the man says, eager to see her look of surprise when she opens the box.

Once opened, a look of horror crosses the girl’s face.

“I guess you want me to put this on,” she says.

“Then you’ll be complete.”

The girl crosses to the bathroom and comes out with the vagina attached. It is slightly ill-fitting but the man doesn’t really mind.

After that night’s sex, the man rolls off the girl and lights a cigarette. “Fantastic,” he says.

The girl pretends to fall asleep.

The next morning the man wakes up and discovers that he is alone with the vagina. He looks all around the house but he can’t find the girl. He even calls the catalogue company and asks about her but they treat him like he’s nuts. He looks at the vagina and finds it sad and lonely. He places it on the front porch hoping the girl will return to claim it.

Laser

I fall asleep in the yard and wake up with laser beams for eyes. I do not discover this until I tug on my earlobe (a nervous habit I developed in preschool) and the lasers involuntarily shoot out and vaporize a squirrel. Somewhat scared of my newfound powers I make my way into the house. A group of elderly triplets is busy rearranging everything. The house is unnaturally warm. So warm, in fact, that the triplets have all removed their shirts and wear only old-fashioned shorts and flip-flops. They seem, at first, startled to see me, and then continue with their vigorous rearranging. The couch is turned over on its side. The loveseat is half out the door. The television is smashed. The carpet is torn up. Plants are overturned. One of them is in the process of feeding my now destroyed coffee table into the roaring fireplace. That is why it is so hot.

“Stop! Stop!” I shout.

They sweatily proceed going about their business, fiendishly, as if driven by something even greater than destruction. I look at the one in the middle, the one hanging from the ceiling fan, trying to loose it from its moorings. My thumb and index finger clasp my right earlobe and, unhesitatingly, I give it a tug. Twin laser beams shoot out and vaporize the man, leaving the fan at an odd angle.

The other two (twins now, I guess) finally stop their destruction and stare at the empty space where the third one was. The one on the right puts his left hand on his hip and gestures into the air with his right. He says something that sounds like, “Jub,” but maybe it’s just a foreign language.

The one on my left throws up his arms and says, “Jub!”

Maybe the missing triplet’s name was Jub? I didn’t know. The twins proceed to get into an argument in that strange foreign language, anger flashing in their eyes.

The one on the right punches the other one in the ear. He holds his ear, wanders over to the couch and sits down on the section remaining in the house. He sticks out his lower lip, tears streaming down his face.

“You didn’t have to hit him,” I say to the one on the right. “Why are you here anyway?”

He looks at me and says, “I... I don’t understand.”

“Do you think you guys can put everything back?”

“I... I don’t understand.”

Jesus, I think. These people are thick.

Now he sticks his finger into his bellybutton and jiggles it around a bit, looking up at the ceiling as if thinking of something. Then he shakes his head as if whatever he was thinking is wrong. Suddenly, he lurches across the room, throwing himself onto his brother, savagely beating him around the shoulders. Grasping my earlobe, I fire off another laser and he disappears as well. The remaining triplet continues to blubber. I don’t like the sound. I realize I don’t have to put up with the sound and, besides, what is a lone triplet, anyway? I vaporize him. Then I make some coffee and spend the rest of the day putting the house back in order.

That night, I dream the triplets are in bed with me, all shirtless and slippery. They argue in their dumb language and proceed to take apart my dreams—shattering them, rearranging them, shoving them into a fire. When I wake up, I no longer have laser beams for eyes.

Angst

One day, my parents come into my room and tell me exactly what I’ve been waiting all my life to hear—that my real parents were rock stars who died of a double drug suicide when I was two and a half years old.

I tell them to fuck off and go back to constructing my bodily substance mural on the bedroom wall.

Black Leather Jacket

I got a bonus for a year’s work down at the paper factory. It was a big bonus. I wanted to buy something for myself with this money. I went to a department store and bought myself a black leather jacket. First I tried it on and looked at myself in the display mirror. It made me look dangerous and warm. I had to have this black leather jacket. After buying the jacket I still had over a hundred dollars left from my big bonus. I wanted people to see me in my new jacket so I decided that I would go out and have a drink. I went to the G Club. I especially wanted a pretty woman to see me in my black leather jacket and be attracted to my new sense of dangerous warmth. I sat at the bar and ordered a drink. I drank the drink and looked around. A small woman sat in the smoky back corner. She was wearing a thin emerald green dress. I could not see up the dress. She looked neither dangerous nor warm. She looked seductive and cold. I walked over to her, drawing myself down into my new jacket. I asked her if I could buy her a drink. She said that she would rather do something else. I said that we could go back to my place. She said that sounded good. But I’m with my mother, she said. Girls’ night out. She can wait downstairs, I said. I have a couch and television and a dog named Seamus to keep her company. Yes, she said, that sounds good. So we all went back to my house. Me and the girl, whose name was Tracy, went upstairs to my bedroom. She went to the bathroom to insert her diaphragm. She told me, I’m going to go into the bathroom and insert my diaphragm. I said okay. I took off my leather jacket and the rest of my clothes. Then I put the jacket back on. She came out and she was naked. She lay down on the bed. I took off my jacket and hung it on the footpost, hoping I’d used just the right amount of extravagance. I crawled into bed and rolled over between her legs. I’m pretty sure she didn’t come. I rolled off her and lit a cigarette. She said, Well, Mom’s waiting, I better go. I said okay. On the way out she took the leather jacket. When I finished my cigarette I went downstairs to feed the dog and watch television but the dog and the television set were gone. So were the stereo and the silverware. There wasn’t much left in my house. It felt like even the heat was gone. I could have used that black leather jacket.

Delayed Reaction

It’s a good thing Virgil doesn’t react to the knock on the door and squeeze the trigger. Because, well, because his head would be on the kitchen wall. Virgil has to admire the irony. He is sitting in the kitchen with a fully loaded gun resting on his bottom teeth. It isn’t a series of events that has brought him to this. It is a series of nothing. Not even really a series. More like a wave. A giant wave of static nothingness slowly devouring his sanity.

No friends. No conversation. No laughter. No visitors.

This knock on the door is the first knock he’s heard since moving into his apartment two years ago. Roughly. Somewhat bemused, he puts the gun in the refrigerator and walks to the door. Opening it, he is stunned. There are five girls backed out into the hall.

“Hello,” he stammers.

“Hi,” a blond girl in the front says. She looks to be at least seventeen or eighteen. The rest look younger. They all look delicious. “We’re from the Springdale chapter of the Daughters in Christ Brigade. Mind if we come in?”

“No. Not at all. Please do.”

Virgil steps aside and motions them over to the beaten couch. They all sit down in a militant line, their skirts riding up as they cross their legs.

“You ladies care for a drink?”

“No thanks,” they all reply in unison.

“Well, then, I’m just gonna go get myself a drink.”

He walks into the kitchen and stands frozen for a few minutes. He can hear them talking in the other room.

“It’s so bare and... and run down.”

“Isn’t he ugly?”

“My goodness, he smells.”

“What do you think he uses in his hair?”

“Did you see his shirt?”

Virgil looks at his shirt. A few holes here and there. A grease spot or two. Damn, he’s buttoned it up all wrong.

He puts some ice in a cup and runs some water from the tap, walks into the family room and sits in the chair across from the couch. The chair looks like rats have tried to eat it.

The oldest blond who answered the door starts talking but he’s long since lost himself in the blue of her eyes. They sparkle with complete emptiness. Then he looks at her legs. From where she has recrossed them he can see a lingering red spot on one of her calves.

The time flies by and he tunes in to hear her say: “All we need you to do is sign right here and we’ll be by later in the week to drop off some of our literature.”

“Oh, sure,” he says, shaky hands reaching out for the pen and paper.

“Thank you, Mr... Bentley?” She tries to read his signature from the paper.

“Bunting.”

“Thank you, Mr. Bunting,” she says and leads them out the door. The apartment is still filled with their collective scent. It’s light and beautiful. He hasn’t smelled anything like that in a very long time.

Good, he thinks, they'll be back.

Virgil goes out the next day and buys an entire used suit. He is careful to make sure there aren’t any stains or tears in it. He shaves, clips all of his nails, tears the hair from his nose and takes four showers a day.

For the next three days, he sits around in his suit, graying hair combed, and waits for the girls to return.

On the evening of the third day, he hears a knock on the door.

It has to be them. Virgil doesn’t even know anyone else. He eagerly crosses the room and opens the door. There are only three of them this time, but the older one is still there. All of them carry pamphlets and register a look of surprise at the new Virgil.

“Have a seat,” he invites them.

They do so, sitting in the same semi-militant formation.

“Lemonade?”

“Sure,” they say.

Already, Virgil can sense that they feel more comfortable around him.

He enters the kitchen and pours the lemonade, sporting a semi-erection.

As he begins walking toward the living room, he stops, holds his head, and then bursts into flame, the lemonade in the glasses lighting to a boil before the glasses fall to the floor, nothing left to hold them. From his torso up, he has exploded, the rest of him burnt down to a charred stalk.

After their intitial surprise, the girls walk over to his remains.

“Oooooh, are those pieces of his brain on the wall?”

“My goodness, he’s all black!”

“Oh, can you smell the stink?”

A Sandwich in the Park

It is a very nice day, unseasonably warm. Link decides to take his sandwich to the park and eat it.

He finds a row of swings with only one little boy at them and sits down on one of the swings. Link takes his sandwich out of its wrapper and begins eating it.

A glob of oil runs out of the sandwich and splashes onto his shirt. He grabs his black tie and tries to absorb the stain, but the tie only helps to smear it around and make it larger. Link’s face and cheeks redden. A beautiful day has been ruined. It will be hard for him to go back to work with the embarrassing stain. The boy down the row from Link lets himself fly off the swing. He begins walking and, as he passes by Link, the boy glances mischievously at him. The boy notices the freshly blossomed stain on Link’s shirt. The stain has the boy so enrapt that he moves a little closer to Link. He holds out a finger, pointing, and laughs. It’s as though the child can’t stop laughing. He laughs and laughs and laughs, pauses to cough, and laughs some more.

Link draws his hand back, feeling the satisfying weight of the greasy sandwich. He throws the sandwich as hard as he can and hits the boy in the face. A piece of lettuce sticks to the boy’s forehead, grease drips from his nose.

The boy stops laughing and immediately begins crying.

“Damn that sandwich,” Link says, unbuttoning his rather expensive shirt. He throws this at the boy as well, telling him to wipe his greasy little face with it.

Link decides not to go back to work.

Ted the Salesman

Ted the Salesman bends over his papers, greedily stuffing them back into his giant briefcase. He seems incapable of shutting his mouth and his dry lips frame teeth so large and white I almost think they’re fake except for the spaces in between each one of them. His papers are on the floor because I emptied his briefcase when he went to the bathroom. A bathroom that will be sterilized as soon as he leaves.

“Been on the road a long time, eh, Ted?”

“Yes. Indeed. I shur have an ya know whut?”

“I know very little, Ted.”

“People are getting meaner n ruder all the time.”

“People are bastards, Ted. Hey Ted, guess what?”

“Whut?”

“I knocked your briefcase onto the floor. Dug right in there and pulled out all those papers. I had myself a pretty big time.”

“Now why’d you go n do that for?”

“Oh, I knew you wouldn’t say anything.”

“Why’d you figger I wouldn’t say nothing?”

“Because you’re trying to sell me something.”

“Logical, I guess.”

“But guess what else, Ted.”

“Whut?”

“I lied to you. I don’t even own this house. I’m not even supposed to be here.”

“It’s people like you that waste my time.”

“Yeah. But I sure did have fun. If you could have seen me in here, rolling around in all those papers.”

“I woulda whupped yer ass.”

“You know why I did that, Ted?”

“Why?”

“Because I’m one of the dirty bastard people.”

“Figgers.”

Ted finishes gathering up his things and storms out the front door. I watch him speed away, a trail of dust rising up behind his battered car.

2/3 Soul

Fitzwater ties the cat to his ankle and goes out to the curb to get the mail.

“Damn lot of mail,” he says, opening the box.

He pulls out three packages labeled: “1 of 3,” “2 of 3,” and “3 of 3.”

He walks back into his house, unties the cat, and sets the packages down on the table.

Rummaging through the cupboards he finds a stale box of cereal, pours it into a bowl, and waits. There is a knock at his door.

He bounds to open it. Reggie the Milkman stands outside, smiling and holding a liter of milk. The smell of crack still clings to his clothes.

“Do you think it the least bit odd,” Fitzwater begins. “That this is perhaps the only town in the country to have a milkman?”

“Not in the least.” Reggie smiles a rotted smile, handing Fitzwater the milk and staggering back to his truck. Fitzwater pours the fresh milk into his cereal. He puts the stopper into the sink. After pouring the other half of the milk into the sink, he tosses the cat in.

Before eating his cereal, he opens the first package in the series of three. There is a letter enclosed with it. He reads the letter and then says aloud: “Excellent. My soul has finally arrived. I’ve been waiting for this.”

He decides to finish his cereal before trying on his soul. Once finished with his cereal, he takes the bowl over to the counter and gently places it down.

Now, fully opening the package, he pulls the first part of his soul out and puts it on.

“Slightly ill-fitting,” he grunts to himself.

He then opens the second package and puts this part of his soul on. After opening the third package, the usually sluggish cat becomes very excited and leaps out of the sink. Fitzwater has just pulled the contents of the third package out and has time to think, “Oh, a nice pair of boots,” when he has to chase after the cat, boots in hand.

“Get back in the sink, you little shit.” He grabs the cat with one hand and walks it over to the sink. As he starts to toss it in, the cat scratches him and he drops the boots into the milk instead.

“Ruined now,” he says to the cat. “Better set them out for the Trashman.”

He ties the cat to his ankle and goes outside, into the blazing heat of the desert, and places the boots on the curb. It is not the usual day for the Trashman. He will have to go inside and call one.

The Joke

As a joke, a man’s wife serves him with divorce papers. She has them sent, already signed by her, to his place of work. Understanding dawns on him as he reads through the papers. He still doesn’t get the joke so he assumes his wife wants a divorce.

“Oh boy,” he says, placing his forehead against the smooth wood of his desk. The man’s name is John, but everyone calls him Foot because of his condition. He remains with his head down, gently tapping his forehead against the wood. This is completely out of the blue. Just last week, he and his wife took a vacation to the remote island of Gonop. How could she? Why would she? He just doesn’t understand...

Later that day a coworker comes by his office and sees him still in the head down position. “What’s wrong, Foot?” the coworker says.

“It’s my wife,” Foot says, not raising his head.

“I’m sorry. Is something the matter with her?”

Foot raises his head. His eyes are red and watery. “She wants a divorce.”

“Welcome to the club,” the coworker says, raising a fist of solidarity and strolling back into the office.

Throughout the day, Foot’s anger builds. She has no right to do this, he thinks. Not without any explanation whatsoever. That kind of thing just isn’t done. By the time he gets home, he is ready to tell her all of this. He is ready to throw the papers across the room and tell her they are meaningless but, upon opening the door to his house, Foot is once again shocked.

Taking the joke one step further, his wife has decided to sleep with another man. She and her lover are actually in the act when Foot walks through the door. They are on the couch. The man wears a buckskin coat and nothing else as his hips dive vigorously between Foot’s wife’s legs.

“Oh,” his wife says between moans. “You’re home.”

The man continues to pound away.

Foot, still holding the divorce papers in his hands, brandishes them at his wife. “Jesus Christ!” he shouts, strolling across the room to grab the buckskinned man by the shoulder. “Get the hell off my wife!” He jerks the man away. His wife makes no attempt to cover herself. The man only looks emptily at him, absently toying with his huge penis.

His wife looks surprised. “I don’t understand why you’re so upset, Footy.”

“You serve me with divorce papers and then I come home to find you fucking another man. You don’t understand why I’m upset?”

“It was... just a joke,” she says, giggling.

“A joke!” he shouts.

“Yeah,” she says. “Just a joke. Pretty good one, huh?”

The buckskinned man laughs. His laugh is very deep. The laugh of a simpleton, Foot thinks.

Still, a sense of relief washes over him. Sitting down on the couch beside his wife he says, “You mean, you don’t really want a divorce?”

“Of course not,” she says. “I told you, it was just a joke.”

“A joke, huh?” Foot puts the divorce papers on the coffee table. The buckskinned man is edging toward the front door, still naked except for the coat. “What about him?” Foot says.

“Oh, he was part of the joke. That’s Norman. He works at the hardware store on the corner.”

“I thought he looked familiar,” Foot says.

“You just need to lighten up,” his wife says, swiping his arm with her hand. “You’re such a stick in the mud.”

“Yeah,” Foot says. “I guess I can be.”

Norman leaves through the front door and, looking at his wife sitting complacently on the couch, Foot finally gets it.

Shoes

I pull all the shoes from the closet, pair by pair. They are all ridiculously large. I have to leave for work any minute and these fancifully huge shoes are no good. My coworkers will surely notice them as they pick me apart with their predatory stares. Perhaps if I worked with the blind or with clowns... But even clowns didn’t wear those big shoes when they went home at night.

I choose a black pair, hoping they’ll look smaller. Before putting on the shoes, I change into the largest pair of pants I have, thinking maybe the extra diameter of the hems will also make the shoes look smaller. We’ll see, I think. Leaving the room, I try to open the door but accidentally ram it into the shoes. Immediately, I realize things will not be as easy as they once were.

Walking down the stairs, I lose my footing on the third step, tumbling the rest of the way down. I have trouble breathing and my vision is slightly blurred but I must get to work.

Being strapped for time, I choose to go through the park. The morning is clear and the grass smells good but I can’t enjoy it. I have to concentrate just to walk, digging my toes into the bottoms of the shoes so I don’t step right out of them. My attention is momentarily captured by a man’s moaning. The moaning suggests that someone is in great pain.

I see the moaner leaning against a tree. He is a huge man, nearly a giant. Not at all the type of person you would expect to see moaning with pain. I move closer to him, but not too close. My shoes will look smaller from a distance, I think.

“Are you okay?” I call out.

“God no.”

This is not at all what I expect him to say and I am at a loss.

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Not likely.”

This man is very gruff and I think about abandoning his case altogether, being strapped for time and all. He must be in a great deal of pain. He doesn’t even look up, just stays bent into the tree, his back heaving with sobs.

“Are you sure I can’t help you?”

“My shoes!” he cries out.

I move in closer. Elated, I see that his shoes are tiny. Or, rather, they look tiny on him.

Now he’s looking at me and, aware of the feverish excitement in my eyes, he takes a couple of steps toward me but his feet, undoubtedly numb, drag the ground and he tumbles down into the grass. I rush over to his side, using my shoes more like skis, sliding them along the dew-slicked grass.

“Too small,” he grunts through clenched teeth, trying to stand up. “Painfully so.”

“I think I can help you.” I lift a leg and dangle the foot over his head. The shoe falls off and clunks down on his mottled nose. Under any other circumstances this would have been wickedly inappropriate, but the man is overjoyed.

“Yes!” he shouts. “It has happened to you too!”

“Maybe we could swap!” I shout back.

The man hurries to sit up and folds himself over his feet.

“You know,” he says, hurrying with the knot. “I think they were starting to cut off all the circulation.”

“Yes,” I say, kicking the other shoe off into the grass. “I had to flex my calf muscles just to keep them on. Exhausting work.”

I sit down beside him and put the new pair of shoes on. They are stylish as well as correctly sized. We both stand up and walk around, as though we are trying on new shoes at a store, like there are any other choices.

“Yeah, these feel good,” he says.

“Nice,” I bounce up and down a little. “Well, I better be off.”

Anthropology

On a whim, I become an anthropologist. First thing, I go to a primitive tropical island. I get to know the locals, using my newly invented universal dialogue. They seem to be a sublime lot, blissed out by what they call the “Orchestra of the Gods.” This orchestra, the island folk explain, plays weekly in a sort of parade.

The rest of the week, I sleep fitfully and fear that I am coming down with the plague. Finally, the day of the parade arrives. The islanders line the island’s one dirt road and I plow my way to the front, my heart thumping with anticipation. An electric murmur runs through the crowd and I know the orchestra must be coming. Upon seeing them, I am automatically disappointed and enraged. They are a stick orchestra, making no noise whatsoever other than the clicking and clacking of the goddamn sticks. But they act as though they are playing real instruments—blowing into the sticks, strumming the sticks, beating the sticks against the air.

The crowd oohs and aahs.

I want to tell everyone there that this is a farce. But I can’t. I’m an anthropologist. An objective observer. A cultural chameleon. In an attempt to fit in, I unthinkingly hold up a lighter. It is the islanders’ assumption that their pathetic orchestra brought this canister of fire to them. After that, I become a god.

CTN

My girlfriend sits on the couch and begs me come and watch the Craig T. Nelson movie. “He plays a free spirit!” she calls, naked, eating a giant hamburger. Glops of mayonnaise tumble out onto her breasts, slowly sliding downward before dripping from her nipples.

And I am somewhere very far away, fixing a television with a butter knife, slathering love upon a hateful world. Thinking of nothing else to say, I call out: “Just a minute! I have to tie my shoes!”

The movie is a drag, five hours long and all of the dinner scenes are drawn out in painful detail. I go to sleep that night, dreaming of Craig T. Nelson as a sexual shaman, giving my girlfriend lessons in love.

Vampire

Yesterday, I discovered that a vampire lives next door. His name is Bernard Watkins. He wears a host of garish sweaters and a thick, neatly trimmed mustache. I wouldn’t have taken him for a vampire upon meeting him.

I’ve broken up most of the furniture in the house and am upstairs grinding stakes on the lathe. I don’t know how many people in the town he’s already turned into vampires. After grinding all the stakes, I figure I’ll lie in wait, forming the perfect game plan.

Mother calls up the stairs for me to come down and meet the new neighbor. Instinctively, I know she has unwittingly invited the vampire into the house. I pick up a stake and head downstairs.

The Inconsequential Man

Adjusting my ascot and staring outside, I notice a man sprawled face down in the middle of the road. I adjust the ascot all wrong and make a high bleating noise of despair. The maid comes over to help me. Her hair smells like oranges as her deft fingers manipulate the ascot into the perfect shape.

“There there,” she says, trying to stop my bleating.

I gesture outside and say, “Did you notice...”

“The guy out there?” she says. “Yeah, I seen him.”

“Should we do something about it?”

“I don’t see how it’s our responsibility.”

I shrug. She has a point, I guess.

“I’m gonna go clean all them jars,” she says.

I nod. We did indeed go through a lot of jars last night. I can’t take my eyes off the man out there in the road. What could possibly be wrong with him? Was he dead? Did he pass out? Was he drunk? Beaten?

A loud car with flames painted on the side, driven by a guy with a mullet, comes roaring down the road, running over the man. The car does not stop or turn around. I pull up a chair and continue to stare out the window. I bellow at the maid to bring me a sandwich. She brings the sandwich and I tell her I don’t have time, just shove it in my mouth. She goes about it with a bit more brutality than I appreciate and I tell her she’s this close to being let go, holding my thumb very close to my forefinger. She looks over my shoulder at the now pulped man out in the road. “Still out there, huh?” she says.

“It’s fascinating,” I say.

“I gotta get back to them jars.”

I wait for one of the passing cars to stop. None of them do. I wait for someone to show up. No one does. Again, I bellow at the maid, this time for a phone. I tell her to dial emergency. She does this with fingers puckered from cleaning and hands the phone to me. “I ain’t talkin to no cop,” she says.

“Are you aware of the situation on C Road?” I ask.

“What!?” a gruff man shouts.

“There’s a man out on the road...”

“Is this a prank!?”

“No. I’m afraid it’s fairly serious. There’s a man...”

“You got the wrong line buddy!”

“Is this the police?”

“You got that right.”

“Then I have an emergency I need to report.”

“We don’t have time to deal with that!”

“I’m pretty sure he’s dead.”

“Jesus, would you leave us alone!? Take your business elsewhere!”

Then he hangs up the phone. I continue to watch the man. Sometime during the night, the maid tells me she’s pregnant and leaves. She doesn’t come back.

The man stays in the road for days. Eventually two burly old men in t-shirts and sweatpants come outside and gather around the pulpy lump in the road. One of them complains about the stink. The other one tells him he’ll take care of it. Both men depart. One of them comes back about a half hour later with a shovel and a wheelbarrow. He scrapes the man up off the road and carts him away. I wipe the sweat from my brow and call the maid service, looking for a replacement.

Genitalia

I wake up from a twelve day inhalant bender. My room has been redecorated, a giant poster of Kirk Cameron taped to the ceiling above the bed. I have to piss.

I pull the leaves of wilted lettuce off the toilet seat and discard them in the trashcan. I pull down my underwear, the sight astonishing me. My genitals have become a dry, lumpy mass, something only resembling a penis protruding from the mire. I reach down to seize it delicately between two fingers and it tumbles off into the toilet, a spray of urine shooting everywhere.

I decide I never should have rolled out of bed. Reaching under the sink, I grab a can of spray paint, anxious to huff my way back to sleep.

The Death of Eric

Every day, Eric strolls proudly out of his house with a cadre of invisible but beautiful women. Every now and then he sneaks them into a public bathroom stall and makes glorious love to one or more of them while the others watch. He performs all voices with near channel-like perfection, often alarming men in the other stalls. Some of them find themselves enlightened by Eric’s new height of masturbatory zeal.

He takes the women to jewelry stores and asks them what they want, forcing the commission-hungry workers to address their particular coordinates in the air.

When Eric finally dies of a heart attack (he weighed over 400 pounds and everyone saw it coming) no one attends his funeral. The priest blesses him, completely unaware of all the beautiful women standing around him, aroused by his stoic celibacy, each of them looking for something to fill the void.

Frogs

Three white thugs are playing leap frog on the sidewalk in front of my house. It is very late, nearly four in the morning. Throwing on my most intimidating robe, I wander out onto the porch. One of the thugs stares impishly at the two engaged in the game. The one in the black backward baseball hat expertly jumps over the one in the oversized basketball jersey. The one watching grabs his crotch and says, “Oh, man, you fucking rocked that one.” Then he hops up and down and says, very rapidly, “I wanna play! I wanna play! I wanna play!”

“Hey!” I shout from the porch, pulling my robe tightly around my neck. “Can you guys keep it down? I’m trying to sleep.”

The two playing the game continue to leap over one another. The third wheel hikes up his pants and glides over to the porch. “Hey, motherfucker,” he says. “Wanna come down and play some fuckin leap frog with us?”

“No thanks,” I say.

“Hey motherfucker I din’t say you had a fuckin choice.”

“Just keep it down,” I say.

But he is already coming up the walk, approaching me. It doesn’t look so good. “C’mon man, don’ be such a fuckin honkey motherfucker. Me and my homies got us a good game goin, dawg. ‘Sides, if ya don’t, I’m gonna bust yer ass.” He brandishes a shiny gun, held in one of his oversize pants pockets. I guess I don’t really have much of a choice. The other two have leaped nearly to the end of the sidewalk, giggling wildly with each leap and shouting “Fuck!” a whole lot. “Name’s G-spot,” the one in front of me says, grabbing my arm and rushing me down to the sidewalk. I shake my arm away from him.

“You don’t have to grab me,” I say.

“Now get down, motherfucker. I’m gonna fuckin go first.”

I loosen my robe and crouch down on the sidewalk. It occurs to me that I’ve never played leap frog before. What if I screw up and accidentally land on the punk, G-spot?

“Here I fuckin go!” he shouts and leaps over me. The crotch of his pants hits me in the back of the head, thrusting me forward onto the sidewalk.

I stand up, angry. I want to kick him in the back of the head but I’m not wearing any shoes and he has a gun. He’s crouched down, waiting for me to leap. “You almost broke my nose,” I say.

“Don’t be such a fuckin pussy. Come on!”

I rear back on my haunches and attempt to leap over him. My robe gets all tangled and I land on G-spot, rolling off and sprawling half on the street and half on the sidewalk. He lies face down, twitching. The other two thugs come running. “Fuck, dawg, what happened!” Baseball Hat shouts.

I straighten my robe and gesture down at the fallen youth.

“He fuckin killed G-spot!” Basketball Jersey says. “That’s some fucked up shit, dawg!”

It’s possible I did kill him. Luckily, the thugs are distracted by an ice cream truck coming down the road, playing its haunting tune at top volume. I think it’s “Fur Elise” but I can’t tell because it’s so distorted. The ice cream truck, spotting the thugs, comes to a screeching halt. The driver leans out and vomits. “Hey!” he shouts. “Hey! Anybody want any ice cream?” He gets out of the truck, staggering around, falling into the side of it, vomits again, and makes his way to the back doors.

“Aw, fuck, man,” Baseball Hat says, bending his knees and waving his arms in the air. “He’s fuckin wasted.”

“Hey, dawg,” Basketball Jersey says to me. “You got any ho tickets?”

I put my hands in the pockets of my robe. Since I don’t know what he’s talking about, I pretend I didn’t hear him.

“Hey, dawg, I’m talkin to you. You got any green?”

“Money?” I say.

“Fuck yeah.”

“Not on me.”

“C’mon. You get us some cream we’ll forget all about G-spot.”

“I didn’t do anything anyway!”

“The fuck you didn’t. He fuckin sucked at leap frog but you were the one took him down.”

“He almost broke my nose!”

“You ain’t the one that’s dead, motherfucker.”

The ice cream man throws up the door at the back of the truck, grabs various ice cream products and throws them at the thugs before passing out. The thugs gather up the ice cream bars and stuff them in their pockets. “Shit man,” Baseball Hat says, “Let’s take this motherfucker for a ride.” He climbs into the driver’s seat and Basketball Jersey crosses over to the passenger side.

“What are you going to do about...” I begin.

“G-spot?”

“Yeah.”

“Leave him. I guess it serves him right. He’s your responsibility now. Sucks though.”

I look down at the sad youth sprawled on the sidewalk. The two thugs speed away in the ice cream truck, the back doors flapping open and closed. I think about dragging him inside or calling someone. Then I think better of it. Best just to go inside and pretend this never happened. Maybe, if anyone finds him, they’ll just write it off to some sort of gang violence. I go back inside and, exhausted from the leap frogging, fall quickly asleep. When I wake up the house is filled with the pulsing rhythm of rap music. I’m not surprised when I go downstairs and find G-spot in the kitchen, dancing some ridiculous dance and eating a bowl of cereal. The kitchen smells like marijuana, sweat and cheap beer. My soul hurts. I sit at the table and massage my throbbing temples. I feel very white and very old and very snobbish. G-spot’s gun sits on the counter, apparently it impedes his dancing, and I stare at it, wondering how I’m going to get him out of the house.

A Fresh Head

I watch the boy across the street ride his skateboard. He does a horrible job. Every day it’s the same thing. He rides it, very slowly and cautiously, down to the end of the driveway and stops. He kicks it around and maneuvers it with his feet.

I can’t take it anymore.

I stroll over to the boy and snatch the skateboard away.

“Let me show you how it’s done,” I say, even though I don’t have a clue as to how one rides a skateboard. Nevertheless, I put my all into it. I start way back at his garage and take off, full speed, for the road. I get to the end of the driveway and try to flip it back around so that I’m facing the garage. Of course, something goes terribly awry.

I fall off and crack my head on the cement, losing consciousness for a few seconds.

I regain my vision. The boy is hovering over top of me.

“I’m in pretty bad shape,” I moan. “Maybe you should call the ambulance.”

“There’s no need for that,” the boy says. “I’m a doctor.”

“Knock it off. My skull feels cracked and I can’t move my left arm.”

“Really,” he says. “It’s no problem.”

He reaches down and pulls my head and arm from my body, tossing them nonchalantly to the side.

“Just hold on now,” he says, noticing my panic.

Within a few minutes, I have a fresh head and arm. I stand up. I feel great.

“That’s amazing,” I say. “How’d you do that?”

“That’s for me to know and you to find out.”

“Was it some kind of magic?”

“Maybe. Maybe not,” he says. He picks the skateboard up from the road and rides it slowly back up to the garage. From the garage he calls, “You run on back home now.”

I do what he says.

The Man Whose Insides Were Broken

Lloyd was a man of few feelings. Actually, he had virtually no feelings at all. The one feeling he thought he may have was really more of a suspicion. He suspected that, in some way or the other, his insides—emotions, whatever—had been broken. The vision he had of his insides was that of an open piano, the intricate wiring and mechanisms all smashed and cut.

Sitting in his apartment one night, he decided to try and make himself cry. For hours, he played back emotions through years of memory. He would contort his face and make slurpy noises with his mouth, all the physicalities that came with really intense weeping, but no tears would come. The next day, he signed on as a volunteer at a nursing home. Every morning he would drive out to the home and have long discussions with the oldest man there. When the old man finally died, Lloyd stopped going to the home, but he didn’t cry. Didn’t even really feel sad.

He walked in the worst parts of town to get home. One day he was mugged. He thought this should have angered him but it didn’t. He collected himself from the pavement and continued home.

One night, he had a dream. In the dream, he got up from the couch. He specifically recalled that he was headed for the kitchen to make himself a sandwich. Halfway there, he collapsed onto the floor. Blood trickled out of his mouth. He crept to the phone and dialed emergency. A parade of doctors automatically appeared in his apartment. One of them opened up the top of his head and looked inside. “Good Lord, son,” he said with Lloyd's father's voice. “You’re all busted up in there.” Lloyd only looked at him. The next day he woke up and inspected his pillow for blood. For a brief second he felt joy that his internal breakage had not yet made him bleed. It was something, at least.

Buddy

Buddy called this morning, very excited about what he called his “new figure.” I was excited for Buddy. He had been maybe 20 or 30 pounds overweight and, as no one had seen him for a few months, I assumed he had lost some of this excess weight.

I decided to throw a party in honor of his new figure.

“I'm real glad to hear about this,” I told him. “I think everyone should see you.”

A hundred guests must have shown up between 8 and 9 o’clock, all eager to see what had become referred to as the “new Buddy.”

Buddy got there around 10:30. It looked like he had put on 200 pounds. Everyone burst out laughing. They couldn’t control themselves. I laughed too, the gin and tonic I was enjoying shooting through my nose and making my eyes tear up. Festive music came through the house speakers.

Buddy seemed totally undaunted. “No, wait, you haven’t seen anything yet!” he announced with the same enthusiasm I’d heard in his voice that morning.

He stripped off his shirt and glided out into the middle of the floor. As everyone’s laughter died down a bit, the music seemed to get louder and Buddy started dancing, flinging his filled skin in all different directions. He made a series of raunchy faces. Buddy’s new figure made him look too middle-aged and weird to really be Buddy, but he continued dancing, rolling that gut in people’s faces while contorting his own.

It was simultaneous, I think, the feeling that we had all quickly come to hate the new Buddy.

Breakfast

The smell of breakfast fills my bedroom.

I go to the kitchen, my head aching from a three day bender.

Mother is hunched over the stove, working diligently to prepare the meal. My father, a foolhardy schizophrenic, has assumed the role of mad bomber. He is bent over his empty plate, anxiously twisting his crazy handlebar mustache. Quickly, he backs away from the table, crosses the kitchen and goes to the phone.

He has to call in a threat. His voice is vaguely Eastern European.

Mother serves breakfast. The toast is burnt beyond all recognition and the eggs are hopelessly runny.

Agitated, I shove my plate off the table and say, quite loudly, “What is this shit?!”

My father runs back to the front door, reaches into his rucksack and pulls out a black and shiny ball-shaped bomb. He lights the fuse after flicking a match on his teeth and tosses the bomb at me, flashing a dastardly smile all the while. It explodes on the table and knocks me out of my seat. My face is blackened. My hair stands straight up in the air. Smoke rises off my clothes. Mother leans against the sink and cries. Breakfast has been ruined.

Lawn Work

My neighbors offer to pay me for mowing their grass. They have a large riding lawnmower to match their expansive overgrown lawn. Wanting to hurry up and get out of the blazing sun, I hop right to it. It isn’t long until I become distracted by the clouds floating in the sky and pay very little attention to the grass itself. The lawnmower runs up over a giant bump and grinds to a halt. I hop off the gasoline reeking beast, swearing.

Horrified, I identify the bump as the neighbors’ golden retriever, Tammy. Using all of my strength, I force the lawnmower off the mangled animal. Now I’m panicked. I can’t let the neighbors see the dog before they pay me for mowing the grass. I pick the dog up, slinging its matted carcass over my arms, and carry it over to the edge of a vast cornfield where I haphazardly toss it, making sure it is not easily visible.

After wiping my bloodied hands off in the grass, I jog back to the lawnmower and quickly finish the job. I park the lawnmower by the house and walk to the back door. Suddenly, I’m gripped by an overwhelming sense of dread.

Tammy, apparently with one final burst of life, has managed to pitifully pull herself out of the corn, leaving a trail of blood behind her. The MacGregors are huddled around her, pointing down at the gored corpse. I contemplate running but I really need the cash. I contemplate denying the horrible incident altogether but I’m covered in blood. Slowly I walk over to the scene, delaying the inevitable, trying to act as though nothing too serious has really happened.

“Yeah, look, I’m real sorry,” I say.

“Were you ever going to tell us!” Mrs. MacGregor shouts in her snootiest Scottish accent.

“Look, the dog got in front of me. I didn’t even see it.”

“It? That is a living breathing thing... And we loved Tammy!”

At this point, she rushes me. Luckily, Mr. MacGregor holds her back.

“She was old anyway, dear,” he says. “There’s no reason to act juvenile about it.”

She cries onto his shoulder.

He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out his wallet, dragging out two bills and handing them to me.

“Don’t worry about this, kid,” he says. “I’m sure we’ll all look back on this one day and have a good laugh.”

“Thanks a lot,” I say, turning to head for home.

As I’m leaving I hear him ask his wife to go get the gasoline and matches. “We’re going to have a cremation.”

Mrs. MacGregor’s sobs fill the evening air.

Blood

We go see a movie called Bloodfest. The title is horribly misleading and it ends up being a four-hour documentary of people with all different ethnic backgrounds donating blood. Midway through, my date turns and starts making out with the man on her right. I tug on her sleeve and tell her she’s confused. A woman behind us shushes me.

Fatigued, we exit the theater onto the bright city street. From behind my date, I notice a large red blotch on the back of her skirt. I tap her on the shoulder and point to her behind. Lightning fast, she throws a right hook at my face. I stumble backward, lose my footing, and collapse onto the street. Once I can focus again, I look up at her. She has discovered the stain. “Oh, gosh, I’m sorry,” she says before coming over and lending a hand, helping me up. She then sticks her hand down the front of her skirt, bringing it back out and smelling her fingers. “Yep, that’s blood all right,” she says. “Damn, I don’t have a san nap!”

I am briefly taken aback by her crudity until I remember. “Here,” I say, reaching for my wallet. “I've got something.” I pull a pad from my wallet, warm and smooshed. She snatches it away.

“Oh, God, thank you,” she says.

Amazed once again, I watch as she pulls down her skirt and underwear in the middle of the sidewalk. I see an old couple walking out of the theater and I rush to shield them from my date, blocking their view with my expansive coat. “I liked the part where that Cuban fellow has a crisis of conscience when he realizes he can’t go through with the donation because he is getting over a cold,” the old woman says. The man casts a cold, suspicious glance in my direction.

“Hi there!” I shout, not knowing what else to say. He grabs his wife a little tighter and they move closer to the road.

“All ready,” my date says.

Relieved, I put my coat back on. I look at her and shake my head. She has merely used the device to mop up some of the excess blood and now has it fastened to her wrist like a bracelet.

“You’re hopeless,” I laugh.

Walking away, I notice she has hiked her skirt up in order to hide the stain beneath her shirt and now her buttocks are practically hanging out... but I can’t see the stain. I think about letting her borrow my long coat, its hem drifting just millimeters above the sidewalk, and then think better about it.

Obsolescence

I go home for the holidays. My brother and sister-in-law, Tina, will also be there. Rather than barging in, I knock loudly on the door. The door swings open and my girthy mother fills the entrance. I notice she is missing a leg.

“Son!” she says, holding out her arms.

“Good God, Mom. When did that happen?”

“Oh, it was a few days ago. I don’t know exactly how it happened. One minute I was driving. The next minute it just... fell off.” I notice she has also covered a fading black eye with thick makeup. Stitches run just below her hairline.

“Were you all right?”

“Oh, I’m fine. Just a little banged up is all.”

I go inside and discard my bags at the foot of the stairs. I greet my brother and Tina, both of them sitting on the couch, already drunk.

“Where’s Dad?”

“He’ll be along shortly,” Mother says.

I stand around the living room, making small talk with everyone, demonstrating the new pants I’ve created. I hear my father at the top of the stairs. He’s coming down backwards, clutching the banister with his right hand. He reaches the bottom and says, “I guess we’re gonna have to get that thing all moved around now, eh?”

When he turns around, I realize he is missing his left arm.

“Not you, too?” I say.

“Oh sure, just a couple days before your mother. Wouldn’t you know it, I was trying to staple some documents, something I should never do with my left hand, and the whole damn arm just went kerplop. My own goddamn fault, I guess.”

“Maybe so but your whole arm shouldn’t have fallen off. Have you been to the doctor?”

“Of course, but he just gave me some pills and told me I shouldn’t drink so much.”

I stand there, completely puzzled.

“Is anybody else hungry?” Mother asks.

“I’ll help you get everything ready,” Tina volunteers.

Mother hops toward the kitchen. She’s pretty adept on just the one leg. Tina follows her.

After about a half-hour, my brother, father and I all go into the dining room. We begin eating but Tina isn’t sitting down.

“Okay. What’s wrong with you?” I ask, tired of the absurdity. “Your ass fall off?”

“Well, yes...” she says. “I was going to use the restroom and, splash, it fell right into the commode.”

“Did it hurt?” I ask.

“Well, not yet.”

The rest of the dinner is consumed in silence. Once finished, I offer to do the dishes.

“Oh, no, you don’t need to do that,” Mother says.

“I insist.”

“Let one of us get them.”

“You can’t be standing over a sink and Dad, he could barely cut his pork chops. For the love of God, let me do the dishes!”

Just as I’m reaching under the sink to get the detergent, Mother flings herself from her chair, groping for the cabinet door. Under the sink are their missing limbs and buttocks.

“Why are these under here?” I ask, angry. “You people need to get these put back on.”

“Oh, come on, now,” my father says. “We don’t really need them anyway.”

“Were you just going to throw them out?”

“Well, yes,” my mother says. “There’s no sense in hanging on to them.”

I suddenly find their defeatist attitudes overwhelmingly depressing. I have to get out of the house. I charge from the kitchen, grabbing my bags and darting out the front door. They all follow me, standing on the front porch as I get in my car. I start backing the car up and they all shout “Wait!” just before I feel the bump. I look in the rearview mirror. I have, of course, run over my brother’s head.

“Let’s see them live without that,” I think before pulling away.

The Lift

I got mad, went outside, and tried to lift a truck. It was dark. I couldn’t tell what color the truck was. I squatted down and put my hands under the rear bumper and, struggling, attempted to raise the truck above my head. I could only manage to get it to rock a couple of inches. The tires didn’t even leave the ground. With every bit of strength I had I strained to lift, veins bulging in my forearms, cords standing out on my neck. My head felt full of blood, like a balloon, like it could explode any minute. I got tired and, breathing heavily, decided to sit on the rear bumper and rest a little. Already, much of the anger had melted away, replaced with a sense of gratifying fatigue.

A burly man wearing a flannel shirt and a straw cowboy hat opened the door of the truck, climbed out, and came around to the bumper.

“You try to lift the truck?” he asked, staring somewhere just behind me.

“Yeah,” I said. “I didn’t know you were in it. Sorry.”

“Thought maybe you could use some help.”

“Sure. If you could lend a hand... I think that would be a big help.”

“No problem. I hope you don’t mind. Me bein in the truck and all.”

“No. Not at all. Is this your truck?”

“Yep. I was passed out. I don’t like to go home ‘til dawn.”

“Sure,” I said, rising from the bumper.

We both squatted down and put our hands beneath the bumper.

“Here we go,” he said and gave a great heave.

The truck nearly flew into the air, the burly man holding it above his head. I was on his right side and, while I had my hands on the bumper, I didn’t think I was really doing much of the lifting.

“Back down,” he said. His face was red and a trickle of sweat ran down his cheek. “That was a good lift,” he said.

“Definitely.”

“Say, you want to come with me for a pack of smokes. I ran out.”

“Yeah, I guess I could come with you. I have a few things I need to pick up as well.”

“Yeah, okay... You’ll have to ride in the back. I hope you don’t mind.”

“No. Not at all.” I didn’t know why I had to ride in the back. I didn’t see anyone else in the cab. Maybe the man was hiding something. Or maybe he didn’t trust me. I climbed up into the bed of the truck. The man got back into the cab, fired the engine, and we sped off into the night. He drove like a maniac, running lights and hitting cars. I contemplated jumping out if he actually stopped the truck. But it didn’t stop until we reached a convenience store on the outskirts of town. It was one I’d never been to before. Mainly because I had always thought it was abandoned. I couldn’t recall ever seeing a light on inside it and many of the windows were broken.

The man turned the ignition off and picked up a large rock. He threw it at one of the remaining windows and it shattered with a noisy crash.

“The owner gets in there and falls asleep. You have to throw a rock just to wake him up.”

I followed the man into the store. The old man, presumably the owner, was behind the counter, rising from an old Army cot spread with blankets. Blearily, he staggered to the counter and stared out over the darkened store. The only light was that coming from the fluorescent lights from the road.

He gave the burly man a pack of cigarettes and said, “They’re on the house,” turning his attentions to me. I grabbed a blue bandanna and a snorkel—they had such an odd assortment of items. I could have looked around and found more stuff but it was so dark I couldn’t see very well and I had to hurry so the owner could get back to sleep. I threw the items on the counter and he charged me at least five times what they were worth. He didn’t ring anything into a cash register. He just called a number from the top of his head. On closer inspection I noticed there wasn’t a cash register. I didn’t have any cash so I gave him a credit card. He gently fingered the raised name and numbers and looked intently at the ceiling. “That’s a good one,” he said, handing it back.

“May I have a receipt?” I asked, thinking maybe I would put the items on my expense account.

“I need to get some sleep,” the old man said.

“Yeah, but, a receipt?” I asked.

“Too tired,” he said, dropping back onto his cot.

The burly man had already exited the store and sat in the cab of his truck, smoking. He smoked very fast, furiously. A cloud filled the cab of the truck and rolled out.

“I think maybe you should drive,” he said. “I’ll be busy smoking.”

He tossed his cigarette away and lit another one, scooting over into the passenger seat. I climbed in behind the wheel, wondering how I went from riding in the back to driving the truck.

I drove back home and got out of the truck. I assumed the burly man would slide over into the driver’s seat but, instead, he got out of the truck and began walking in the opposite direction.

“Thanks for helping me lift that,” I said.

He turned, a fresh cigarette in his mouth, and said, “That’s not my truck at all.”

I nodded my head as though I understood but I didn’t. I came to the steps leading to my house and stopped, holding the snorkel in one hand and wiping the sweat from my face with the bandanna. I couldn’t remember what inside the house had made me so mad but I felt a sense of dread as I looked at it. There had to be something in there that caused me to get mad and go try to lift a truck. As hard as I tried to think about it, it wouldn’t come. So, not knowing what else to do, I put the snorkel in my mouth and opened the front door.

It all came flooding back but it was too late to turn and run.

Discovering the Shape of My Skull

It is Sunday afternoon, late summer, and we laze on the floor. The sun comes in through the window, splashing across the room in a way that seems very conducive to lazing. Jacinda lies on a fuzzy blue rug in the middle of the floor. I am on the couch, looking at her. She has one leg raised and I focus on the bend of her knee, the way the lower thigh meets the upper calf. I wonder if the crevice is moist.

“I’m bored,” she tells the ceiling in her unidentified accent. I have repeatedly asked her where she is from but she only looks downward and says she doesn’t want to talk about it.

“We could always...” I begin but she cuts me off with a sharp look.

“I’m all sexed out. Besides, it’s too hot.”

“We could turn on the air conditioning.”

“I’d still be sexed out.”

“Okay.”

She lets out a loud breath, an alien version of ‘I’m bored,’ and spreads her arms out to either side—crucified by boredom.

“Or...” she begins. “We could give you a haircut.”

This takes me kind of by surprise. My hair is not overly long but, eager to please her, I rub my hand through my locks and say, “Yeah, I guess it is getting kind of shaggy.”

“Very shaggy,” she says.

“Well then... let’s give me a haircut.” And for the first time in what feels like hours we both move. I slide off the couch and she languidly stands, breaking up the crevice created by her knee-bending. I resist the urge to touch my fingers to that area. “Where do you wanna do this?”

“How about the kitchen?”

“We can’t do it in the kitchen. I’ll think about hair in my food every time I eat.”

“But you don’t cook.”

“Regardless. No. Not in the kitchen.”

“The bathroom?”

“The bathroom would be just fine.”

We go into the bathroom and I sit down backwards on the toilet. She dislodges the mirror from the wall behind the sink, its suction cup popping, and puts it on the back of the toilet. Sliding open a drawer in the vanity she pulls out a pair of black-handled scissors, clipping the air a couple of times to get the feel of them. The sound makes me think of someone waving a sword in the air. I do not like looking at myself in the mirror so I close my eyes, figuring the hair is going to start falling soon enough anyway.

She leans against me, resting her hips against my shoulderblades, and says, “So, how do you want it?”

“I’m not picky,” I say. “Just something different is fine.”

“Okay. Keep your eyes closed until I’m finished. I want it to be a surprise.”

“I was planning on doing that anyway.”

Then she starts cutting. I have no idea of what it looks like or even how much hair she is taking off. Still seeing my face frozen there in the mirror behind my closed eyes, I try and imagine myself with a variety of different hairstyles. Hopefully she doesn’t make me look silly. She gets really into the haircut. Maybe she has found her calling or something. She is humming a tune I can’t identify. Probably some kind of song from her unidentified country. She blows on the back of my neck to get the hair off, never swiping with her hand. I find the tickling sensation erotic. I find the whole experience erotic. Me, sitting there defenseless before her while she yields her blades of steel above my head, her hips brushing against my back, the light humming, the gentle pressure of her fingertips as she bends my head this way and that. And the gentle gusts of her hot breath as she molds me into the type of man she wants to see.

“You can open your eyes now,” she says.

Any arousal I may have felt dissipates completely.

“I look ridiculous,” I say.

“I think you look like a rock star.”

I run my fingers through it, thinking that maybe if I muss it a little, it will look better, but it only makes it look more atrocious.

“No offense but this is the most hideous haircut I’ve ever had.”

“Maybe you think so but it looks fantastic. You’ll see.”

“I don’t know.”

“Trust me.”

“I think I need to take a shower,” I say. “I need to get all this hair off my neck.”

“Mmmm. Good idea. I’m going to go.”

“You’re welcome to join me.”

“No. I think I’d better go.”

I want to ask her where it is she is going to go because, really, I have no idea. She leaves my little apartment every day but I have never been to hers. I don’t even know if she has one. I’ve never asked. I’ve always just assumed she had a place to live.

“Are you coming back tomorrow?”

“Of course,” she says. “We’ll celebrate your new haircut.”

I don’t know what to say to that. I try to smile and tell her I look forward to it.

I go to work the next day. I typically make it a habit to avoid looking in mirrors (the unkempt look is in) and have forgotten all about my haircut from the previous day. I work in a basement office with one other person, my boss, Mr. Gravity. He will not tell me his first name. At work there is a vestibule that promises something greater on the inside but it is just that, a vestibule, a little sitting area with a couple of chairs and a small table with some outdated gardening magazines littering it. When you go through the inside door the hallway goes no further. To the right is my office, my boss’ office—we share. It is really quite uncomfortable. The office contains only one desk and we sit opposite each other on most days. Sometimes he pulls out his laptop, plopping it down on the desk and I have virtually no room to work at all. At those times, I have to scoot my seat back from the table and do my paperwork on my lap.

My job is really quite simple. I work in trash collecting. Not for the city or anything like that. People call the office when they have stuff the city will not take or stuff they do no want the city to take. Then, either I or Mr. Gravity answers the phone. One of us then places a call to one of our collectors. They collect said items and remove them to an undisclosed location. They then mail an itemized list of what was found in the person’s trash and we compile a list of the net worth. I have yet to find a point to this job other than the paycheck.

Mr. Gravity is usually hostile. He is a balding man with an outrageously large mustache who does not know how to speak in a soft voice. Not that he hardly ever talks to me. Usually I only have to endure his voice when he is on the phone, which is quite a bit.

Today, when I get to the office, Mr. Gravity is waiting for me.

“Do you like my new sweater?” he shouts as I open the door.

His sweater is covered in the necks and heads of giraffes floating in a lawn green background. It is atrocious but I say, “Yeah, that’s really nice.”

But he has fallen silent, looking at my hair. His shoulders slump and he moves away from me as if he is afraid. Only then do I remember my ridiculous haircut. We go into the office and he immediately sets up his laptop. I have absolutely nothing to do so I kind of slink down in my chair where he can’t see me over his computer screen and close my eyes for a few minutes of rest.

I am startled awake when he shouts, “I’m gonna take me a little nap!” and slides onto the floor under the table.

Now I don’t even have a place to comfortably stretch my legs. I decide he is probably going to be out for a few minutes so I sneak out the door to smoke a cigarette. I’m still out there smoking when he comes out to fire me.

He doesn’t launch into anything comforting or designed to cover himself in case of some kind of discrimination suit. He just says, “Go away and don’t come back!” And then he clarifies that by saying, “It’s because of your hair. I’ve thought about it and I just don’t like it. I don’t even want to be in the same room with it.”

I don’t know what to say. I don’t know if there’s anything I can say. After all, he’s probably right.

“Get your stuff and go home,” he says.

“I didn’t bring anything. I don’t have any stuff.”

“Then just go home.”

I do what he says, tossing my cigarette butt off into the alley, feeling his eyes bore into my back.

Why had I even trusted Jacinda enough to let her give me a haircut? It’s not like we have known each other that long. I don’t even know where she was born but I am pretty sure she knows just about everything there is to know about me. I never trust anyone with my hair. I guess it is easy to second guess myself walking down the alley after being fired because of that haircut. If I had been promoted, I probably wouldn’t think anything of it.

It isn’t until my bus ride home that the haircut’s power reaches a mythical proportion.

There are two people on the bus when I first get on. At first I think this is odd. I am so used to getting on during the after work rush that it takes me a moment to remember it is before noon and I have just been fired.

The bus makes another stop and a girl gets on. She can’t be any older than a teenager. She looks like she spends a whole lot of time at the mall. Not bad looking but not my type at all. Out of all the seats on the bus, she chooses to sit down right next to me, smiling and popping her gum. I find gum chewing to be a loathsome sport and think it should be banned. She looks at me and smiles something vaguely predatory. Digging in her purse, she comes up with a cigarette. No one smokes on the bus. It is completely forbidden and has been for a number of years so, at first, I think maybe she is just a smoker who needs to cradle a cigarette in her fingers or something to dull the craving. But this is not the case. She blazes up right there, blowing smoke out over the empty expanse of the bus. Second hand smoke is much more repellant than actually smoking. I look toward the bus driver’s mirror, hoping to make eye contact with him, hoping he will notice this girl smoking on his bus. But he is oblivious, leaning over the wheel like a buffalo.

I think it’s the combination of smoking and gum chewing that is really getting on my nerves. Why can’t she just choose one? “I don’t think you’re allowed to smoke here,” I say.

“Balls to that,” she says, snapping her gum and taking a puff of her cigarette. “I’ll do what I want. I’d like to do you.”

“Excuse me,” I say, thinking I’ve misheard her.

“You heard me. I said I’d like to do you. Right here in this seat.” Then she moves her right hand, the one not holding the cigarette, across the seat, allowing it to rest on my crotch.

The idea is so off-the-wall as to be tempting but she isn’t my type and I will not be able to live with myself if I ever allow myself to be seduced by someone like her. And there is Jacinda. I couldn’t cheat on her.

The girl leans over and runs her gummy, smoky tongue over my ear.

“Hey,” I say, trying to push her away.

But she is persistent, practically on her knees. She is grabbing my hands and putting them all over her generously proportioned body but I only feel more repulsed.

“I can’t help it,” she says. “I think it’s the hair. You look like a singer or something.”

That does it. I can’t take it anymore. I shove her from the seat. She goes sprawling into the floor across the aisle. Her skirt pulls up and I notice she is wearing red-striped underwear, like a candy cane. I rush up to the front of the bus. The bus driver, apparently sensing my desire to leave, brakes the bus and opens the door. I rush out of the bus without looking back.

What the hell is going on? I wonder.

I don’t even know what part of town I’m in. This probably isn’t good. It doesn’t look like a very good area. I decide to just start walking and avoid any alleyways or abandoned buildings that look like they might be home to gangs.

After nearly an hour of walking, I reach an area I am vaguely familiar with although it is still a good distance from my apartment. I wonder why the bus driver was even out this direction. It doesn’t even seem like he was going in the general direction of the apartment. Unless I got turned around somewhere along the way, which was a very distinct possibility. I’ve never been very good with directions. Or maybe the same bus didn’t always follow the same route. Maybe the route was different before noon than it was during rush hour. Whatever. There isn’t any point in thinking about it now.

It is early afternoon and I figure I probably have about another hour of walking to do. My feet hurt and I just want to be home, resting on my couch. I wonder if Jacinda is going to be there. I have the revelation that I have to break up with her. At first, I pretend not to know where this notion comes from but it doesn’t take me long to think about it before I realize I know exactly where it comes from. That girl on the bus. That hideous girl on the bus. She liked my hair. She liked it a lot. She was overcome by it. It was enough to make her want to have sex with a complete stranger on the bus. She said it made me look like a singer. Singer, rock star, I figure it’s really all the same. So, somewhere in my mind, I equate that girl with Jacinda and this somehow taints Jacinda. I know I can never look at her in the same way. Not to mention that she is the one who gave me this haircut. She can, to a certain extent, be held entirely responsible for today’s events.

As I am thinking these thoughts, something else occurs.

I am attacked.

It’s not as bad as it sounds, really. It is just an old woman but she is clearly crazy, brandishing a cane. I have always found something sinister about canes like, at any moment, the bearer of the cane could reach out and slap me across the head. This crazy old woman does just that.

“Heathen! Whoremonger!” she shouts.

I can’t even fathom why she thinks her outdated words are insults but I am unnerved nonetheless. She moves fast for an old woman. Almost supernaturally fast. I take off running but I have to go a good two blocks before I am out of her cane’s reach. My back is burning with the swats. I think she caught me on the side of the knee with one of the blows.

On the good side, this run speeds up my arrival at the apartment. Once I have lost the screaming old lady for good, the apartment is only a block away. I get to the door, panting and out of breath, and use my key to get into the communal foyer before walking up the stairs and thinking about how tired and rubbery my legs feel.

When I open the door to the apartment, a comforting breakfast smell greets me. Jacinda stands in the kitchen, spatula in hand, and says, “Eggs. A whole lot of em.”

The kitchen table is covered in scrambled eggs, heaped up, yellow and steaming.

“That is a whole lot of eggs,” I say.

“You bet,” she says. “Nothing is too much for my man.”

I cringe at the thought. Never did I think that phrase would come from Jacinda’s mouth. I see a weakness there I never saw before and I don’t like it. It only reaffirms my thoughts about what I have to do.

“Why are you sweaty and out of breath?” she asks.

“You wouldn’t believe it,” I say only, secretly, I think she really would understand.

“Hmmm,” she says. She looks confused for just a second or two, like she was going to say something but forgot what it was, and then says, “Eggs.”

“I’ve got to do something about this hair,” I say.

“Oh no you don’t,” she says.

“I have to. I can’t live like this.”

Knowing she is going to try and stop me, I charge toward the bathroom, shutting and locking the door once inside. With the door locked, I feel safe. I feel like I can do exactly what I want to do. I look in the mirror just to make sure the haircut hasn’t grown on me. Of course it hasn’t. It is ridiculous. Absurd. It just isn’t me. No. That’s not right. I know that’s not right. Maybe it is too me. Certainly, I am ridiculous and absurd, not to mention a million other unflattering things. Well, that may be the case, but the hair still has to go. Having never been good with the scissors before, I pull my battery-powered clippers from the vanity drawer. Previously I have only used these to trim my sideburns but now I am going to take the hair down to the scalp. I am terrified of the shape of my skull but I can’t keep this ridiculous farce on my scalp any longer.

There is a wettish plopping sound, repeating continually against the door. I imagine Jacinda is outside, throwing scrambled eggs at the door. I want to tell her to stop but know that won’t do any good. She will do it until I have to leave the bathroom to go out and make her stop. Which is exactly what she wants. But I am not leaving the bathroom until the work is done. I slide the switch of the clippers to the ON position. The sound is somewhat satisfying, like summer insects, and the job only takes a couple of minutes.

Now finished, I don’t like the result but it is better than what was on it before.

I open the door, wondering how Jacinda will react to my latest haircut.

Wading through scrambled eggs, I find her in the kitchen curled into a ball. She looks up at me with something like hate.

“No,” she says. “I can never love you with that haircut.”

As soon as she says this I realize I don’t want to break up with her. The thought of her leaving makes me want her to stay more than anything. I want to uncover her mysteries. Find out who she really is. Standing there, not a strand of hair on my head, I feel naked and exposed, like she can see right into my brain.

“It’ll grow out,” I say. “It’s just hair.”

“No. I can’t...” she stands up, tears running down her cheeks. She reaches the front door and casts a sad look back in my direction, letting her hand flutter in something like a wave.

I wander over to the couch and sit down, waiting for my hair to grow.

The Fancy Hairs

Carl was middle-aged. He was free. He had new hair.

His circle of friends waited for him in the parking lot.

He approached them. They clapped him on his flannel-clad back. Carl kept his hands in the pockets of his new pants, the deepest shade of blue and skin tight.

“That’s some crazy ass hair, Carl.” Steve was the first to notice.

“Crazy as shit,” Bob said.

“Fancy,” said Frank.

Carl had had his hair professionally permed that morning and was beginning to feel slightly embarrassed about picking a hairstyle that was so ostentatious. He nervously shifted from foot to foot and ran a hand over his fancy hair.

The next week they all stood in the same parking lot and they all had perms. They smoked their unfiltered cigarettes and whistled at the young girls as they got out of their cars.

Mister God

Famous now, I finish jacking off in the first groupie’s face while the second tongues my asshole. I roll out of bed, light an imported cigarette and pull on my leather pants and mesh shirt, complemented by a silver cape. I stroll outside to my car where the driver is sleeping at the wheel, waiting. Waiting for me to tell him what to do.

The paperboy buzzes by on his bike. “Good morning, Mr. God,” he says, handing me the paper.

“Fuck off, you little shit,” I snarl.

I get into the car and crush my cigarette out on the driver’s face to wake him up. He screams and I spit in his wound and he shuts up because my spit is curative, as are all of my fluids.

“Where to, Boss?” the driver asks.

“Take me to heaven,” I say, laughing. “Take me to fucking heaven.”

Handsome

I wake up and realize I’m the best looking man in the world. I study myself in the mirror. I am stunning, breathtaking. My eyes are a penetrating blue, set deep into my head and framed perfectly by black eyelashes and perfectly arched black eyebrows. My jawline is strong and chiseled. My cheekbones are high and just the slightest bit flushed.

I inspect myself for hours but I can’t find a single flaw.

People have to see me. I have to get out of the house. My parents are in the kitchen but, luckily, their backs are turned as they work away at the dishes. I don’t want them to fawn over me.

I step outside onto a crowded street and am overcome by the feeling that being beautiful is now hopelessly out of fashion.

Everyone looks like a walking Picasso. They have had their eyes rearranged so they sit atop one another, or on each side of their heads. Many have had their noses surgically enhanced or, in some cases, lopped off altogether. Slings, casts, and bandages abound from where they have had their arms and legs broken so they’ll grow back in some unnaturally twisted form.

One girl with a giant deformed nipple protruding from her neck throws a glance at me and rolls her hideous eyes back into her ears.

The Joys and Hardships of Having a Famous Mother

One morning my mother had Wilford Brimley come over and make some Quaker Oats for my breakfast. I walked downstairs and she told me she was going back to bed. Something about her jaw being sore. Mr. Brimley moved deftly around the kitchen as I lit up a Lucky and downed a quick shot of whiskey.

“That stuff’ll kill ya,” Mr. Brimley said, sliding the bowl in the microwave.

“What the hell, you’re only thirteen once,” I said.

He chuckled. “Well, I guess yer right about that.” In a couple of minutes he sat the bowl down on the table in front of me. I took a bite and choked it down.

“How is it?” he asked.

“Tastes like shit, Brimley,” I answered.

“You rude little cocksucker! I oughta bust that bowl over yer fuckin punkass head!”

I stood up and threw the bowl at his glowering red face.

“Well then, you shuldn’ta fuckin asked me!”

I went upstairs to my room where Julie was showered and waiting for me. I rolled over after we finished and handed her a washcloth to wipe the come from her chin. Reaching into my nightstand, I pulled out a joint, lit it, and inhaled. After passing her the joint and exhaling, I told her, “That fucking Brimley’s a real jerk.”

“I’m sorry he ruined your breakfast, baby.”

“Where did Mom find you, doll?”

She smiled and blew smoke against my face, suckling my earlobe.

The Thinker and The Fleabumps

The Fleabump girls do not know he is a writer. They just know he is quiet. One day, Polly Fleabump approaches him and asks, “Whatcha thinkin about?”

“Death metal,” he responds, flashing her devil horns with his fingers and stealing a quick glance at the hole in the upper thigh of her jeans.

She calls him a dick and goes back to Molly Fleabump, her ugly gimp sister.

Tight

Rod checks out his new pants in the full-length mirror on the back of the bathroom door. They couldn’t be any tighter. He can plainly see the outline of his keys in his pocket and, more importantly, the outline of his cock. “That looks good,” he thinks. “No lady can resist a dick like that.” He does a couple of knee bends to see if he’ll be able to dance effectively at the bar tonight. He turns around to check and make sure his ass looks nice. While looking at his ass, he also makes sure his glistening perm is holding up. Maybe he’ll have to visit the stylist at the end of the week.

He walks out of the house, enjoying the way his Camaro looks parked in the driveway. He’s been thinking about painting flames on it. The afternoon sun casts long shadows. “Just a few things to do and then I’ll be dancing.” When he gets out to his car he tries desperately to pull the keys from his pocket, but he can’t quite get them out. “Fuck it,” he grunts beneath his mustache. With his hand half-stuck in his pocket, he begins hopping up and down, hoping to loose the keys that way. On his last descent, the heel of his cowboy boot comes down crooked and he goes sprawling into the sidewalk. He growls and rolls around on the ground and tries to stand up. It is a lost cause. The pants are just too tight. “This is fuckin embarrassing,” he thinks.

Two of the neighbors come by. He knew someone would see him.

“Hey there, Rod,” the man says. “You mean to be down there on the ground like that?”

“I'm all right,” Rod says. “Just down here checkin out the bottom of the Camaro.”

“You’re a good two feet from the car,” the woman says. “Are you injured?” Rod can feel the nasty scrape on his head.

“I’m fine,” he barks.

“Let me give you a hand.” The man thrusts his arm toward Rod.

Reluctantly, Rod takes hold and lets the man hoist him up. “Thanks,” he says, sheepishly bowing his head.

The man leans into Rod, “Just between you and me, you might wanna wear some pants that aren’t so, you know, tight.”

Rod turns without saying a word. He just wants to go back into his house and cut the pants off. As he’s walking away, Rod hears the man say, “That guy thinks he’s Lionel Richie or somethin.”

This makes Rod mad but he realizes he wouldn’t be able to pick a fight with this guy. He might fall down. “There will be another day,” Rod thinks.

Mobile Desk

Over a span of 83 years, the old writer moves 25 times. Each time he moves he keeps his writing area the same.

He has an ancient black desk with a narrow drawer in the middle. On top of this desk sits his typewriter, perfectly centered. In the right-hand corner is the same pale green lamp with its paper brown shade. To the immediate left of the lamp there is a picture of his wife and children. He keeps a ream of blank typing paper on the right side of the typewriter. Printed papers go on the left side. Dali’s Impressions of Africa hangs above the left half of the desk.

The writer considers himself a Surrealist.

The Author

I watch him when I’m out in my yard. He sits in a chair that rocks occasionally and stares out the window, sipping coffee and smoking cigarettes. Sometimes he listens to beautiful music that floats out of the yellow interior. As I catch strains of it, soft and wind-borne, the music makes me feel good.

Every now and then people come to visit him. I don’t get the impression they are family. Most of them are quite a bit younger than him. College students and professors, I suppose. Sometimes they stay overnight. I read their license plates and realize some of them have traveled all the way across the country.

Curious, I try to read one of his books. I can’t figure out why people like him. I throw the book across the room and it lies there in the corner, a broken heap. I go back outside to stare over at his house, three cars in the driveway. I reassure myself by thinking these people must have come all these great distances to listen to his beautiful music.

Legless

I’m going to the supermarket downtown to buy some coffee and eggs when I see Sammy the Legless outside. This isn’t at all abnormal. He has been sitting outside the supermarket three out of four times I’ve been.

“Hey, Sammy!” I call.

He nods and smiles beneath his baseball hat. Smiles a little larger than usual, I think. What could make him smile so large?

While picking out my purchases I overhear the squat cashier talking to a regular customer. Some piece of bar trash I’ve noticed wandering around the town.

“You fucked Sammy?” the customer asks.

“Well, kinda. He’s got some nerve damage down there so he has some trouble getting it up most of the time. But I got him out of that chair and all laid back in the bed. Well, at this point, I was kinda wonderin what to do. But I had that horrible fuck ache, ya know? You ever go a whole day and just know yer gonna get it at the end of the day?”

“Oh yeah, sister.”

“Yeah, well, so I has him back on the bed and I’m lickin that thing and I know it’s gonna be huge if he gets it up but there ain’t nothing happenin. And I says to him, ‘Feel good, baby?’ ‘N he just looks at me from unnerneath that stupid hat ‘n says, ‘I can’t feel a thing.’ So at this point I’m thinkin, Well one of us is gonna be gettin off one way or the other so I take off my panties and climb onto his face.”

“Oh yeah? How was that?”

“That little fucker’s got a tongue that’ll go all the way up to yer stomach, let me tell you. God, I couldn’t stop comin. When we got finished I felt sorta bad for him so I asks, ‘Ain’t there nothin I can do, baby?’ ‘N he tells me about the dildo in his closet.”

“He wanted to watch you use the dildo?”

“No! He wanted me to shove it up his ass!”

“Really?”

“Yeah, turns out he can’t feel hardly nothin in his dick but he’s got a highly sensitive asshole. The second I slid it in he started spurtin all over the place.”

I creep by the customer and put my purchases on the counter.

“That all, sir?” the cashier asks.

“That’s it,” I say.

About the Author

Andersen Prunty lives in Dayton, Ohio. Visit him on the web at www.andersenprunty.com.

Table of Contents

The Chancellor

The Wise Man

The Plath Maneuver

The Murderer

The Animal Trainer

The Bright Side

Gravedigger

The Call

The Johnsons

Prince

Trash Face

Bully

Void

Pimp

Drugs

How the Man Waits for Death

Philosophy

Drive

A Self-Contained Walk

Cowboy

Slab

Fad

Marcello

All About Bucky

Roses

Pointing at the Sun

New Pants

Now I’m Found

Crabs

My Dumb Hair

The Hole

Vagina

Laser

Angst

Black Leather Jacket

Delayed Reaction

A Sandwich in the Park

Ted the Salesman

2/3 Soul

The Joke

Shoes

Anthropology

CTN

Vampire

The Inconsequential Man

Genitalia

The Death of Eric

Frogs

A Fresh Head

The Man Whose Insides Were Broken