Short Fiction: Quoth Blustina

      Just after sunset the darkening sky turns a shade of blue-gray that always reminded Mark of a mouse he had found living behind the refrigerator as a child. After the cat got hold of it he had tried to save its life and been bitten on the finger, resulting in a trip to the doctor for a painful shot to prevent rabies or the Hanta virus or something. He couldn’t remember. Looking up from the bench of a decrepit bus stop outside of a small, backwater town in south west Washington, Mark remembered the mouse again and he frowned. Ungrateful little bastard, he thought.

      He looked again toward the broken remnants of a glass and metal case that had once housed the bus schedule, then he pulled out his phone to check for reception. Nothing. He sighed and hoped he hadn’t missed the last bus. The darkly forested road remained devoid of headlights, and staring down it, first in one direction then the other, produced nothing.

      A gravel forest-service road intersected the strip of lonely pavement a short way from the bus stop, and Mark stood up straight at the sound of something approaching from deep within the woods. A car? No. Footsteps. And voices.

      “Well they can’t all go exactly correct,” said a man, his tenor pitch tainted by a slight sand-paper finish and a mild country twang. “Sometimes things are bound to go a bit sideways.”

      “I spose,” cried another, much higher voice, “but cha coulda done a bit better, jus a bit.” The second voice was heavily hillbilly, scratching and sing-song in a toneless kind of way. It reminded Mark of an animated cat he had once seen in an overtly racist cartoon from the 1930’s.

      “You always say that. Every time.” said the first voice.

      They were getting closer now and Mark struggled to see through the gathering darkness as they reached the junction with the main road and turned toward him. At first he could make out only one figure, pushing something. A wheelbarrow? As they drew nearer he could see something inside, wrapped in dirty blankets, and he started slightly when he realized it was an old woman, only her head exposed. The man pushing the wheelbarrow was big and stocky and dressed in overalls with a plaid shirt underneath. He wore a filthy baseball cap emblazoned with the word ‘Stihl’.

      “It’s just, do you have to be so critical? I’m workin’ hard Ma, improvin’,” said the man. The woman in the barrow just snorted. She had something tucked in beside her. Something bulky wrapped in plastic. The man suddenly noticed Mark sitting there at the bus stop, and he smiled broadly and continued coming forward.

      “Well howdy, friend!” he cried. “Waitin’ for the bus?”

      “Yeah,” mark croaked. “Sure am.”

      “Don’t spose you would mind if me and my Ma waited with ya? We’re tryin’ to get into Yelm for the evenin’.”

      “Not at all,” said Mark, trying not to stare at the old woman. The wheelbarrow wasn’t very big and he couldn’t figure out where her body was. It left an odd impression, like she was just a head perched on top of the blankets rather than a person wrapped up in them.

      The man settled the wheelbarrow back onto its supports and took a seat on the bench uncomfortably close to Mark.

      “Name’s Percivelcumber,” he said, offering a meaty paw. “But you can call me Percy or Pecker or Cumber or any damn thing you like, really.”

      “I’m Mark,” said Mark, shaking the man’s hand.

      “Mark? That’s a weird name.”

      “Okay. Nice to meet you…Cumber.”

      “Hell, it’s nice to meet you too! I was just tellin’ my Ma over there, her name’s Blustina, that it’d be good to talk to some new folks for a change. She’s always so critical about my work.” He gestured towards the head on the blankets. “Say hi, Ma!”

      “Raw! Hada!” Squawked the head.

      “Hi,” said Mark.

      “Yep, just critical. Don’t mind her. It’s alright though. At least it’s interesting work. Learn a lot of tricks.” He stopped and looked sideways at Mark, waiting.

      “Oh!” Said Mark, after a long pause. “What uh, what kind of tricks?”

      “I was hopin’ you’d ask!” said Percivelcumber, slapping his big thigh. “All kinds, all kinds. Like vinegar. That’s my favorite. Vinegar to get out all the blood.”

      “Oh are you a surgeon? Nope.” Mark immediately corrected himself. This man was not a surgeon. “A hunter? Butcher?”

      “Sort of like a hunter. And a butcher. And a surgeon too in a manner of speakin’.”

      “Ha!” cackled the head. “Surgeon! Nope! Gotta have precise-ness fer that!”

      “Oh come off it, Ma! Enough! That’s enough!” He leaned in towards Mark. “See? That’s what I’m talkin’ about. Always criticizin’.” He straightened back up. “No, I’m a chainsaw murderer.”

      “A chainsaw murderer?”

      “Yeah.”

      “You murder people?”

      “Yep.”

      “With a chainsaw?”

      “That’s right.”

      There was a long silence as Mark considered this information. He turned it over in his mind in a detached sort of way. Like it was just another interesting career choice. Like moonshiner or ballerina.

      “For a living?” he finally asked.

      “Well,” said Percivelcumber, “it’s more of a vocation than, you know, a JOB job. But I didn’t wanna be tied to a desk all the time.”

      “Sure.”

      “So I found a career that allowed me some free time. Time to be me, ya know?”

      “Uh huh.”

      “I get to travel, meet new people…”

      “That’s nice.”

      “…murder them with a chainsaw and smear my naked body with their splattered blood and flesh.”

      “Um…”

      “I’ve been thinking about a change though.”

      “Sumthin’ new! Haw!” Croaked the head. “Can’t never focus! That’s the problem!”

      “Enough Ma! That’s enough!” He leaned back over toward Mark and spoke under his breath. “That woman! Sometimes! But no, I been thinkin’ about…maybe just a slight change.”

      Mark looked off towards the wheelbarrow but Blustina had fallen silent. He had no idea what to do, so he soldiered onward.

      “Like…axes?”

      “Ha! Yeah right! Axes!” Percivelcumber threw his head back and laughed. “Sure! Maybe I’ll just stop wearing panties and join the Mouseketeers while I’m at it!”

      “Stop wearing panties?”

      “Yeah! Can you imagine?”

      “I…I don’t want to.”

      “Ax murderer! Like I’m Lizzie Borden over here. Although I hear she had fantastic panties.”

      “Lizzie Borden’s panties?”

      “Yeah! Big. Big and white and itchy.”

      “That’s good?”

      “Sometimes. Like if I wanna feel pretty.”

      “Alright.”

      “Like a princess.”

      “Kay.”

      “But no, not axes.”

      “So…What kind of change.” Mark felt like he was swimming through the conversation. The whole situation seemed so absurd that it hadn’t even occurred to him to feel afraid.

      “Well, I was thinkin’, what if I just murder the chainsaws. I mean the chainsaws themselves.”

      “You’re going to murder…the chainsaws.”

      “Yeah. You know, cut out the middleman.”

      Mark stared at him like a child seeing a firefly for the first time. He was absolutely overcome with a sense of wonder. Then Percivelcumber broke out laughing.

      “Wait. Did you get that? I made a pun!”

      “Yep.”

      “Get it? Cut out the middleman! Cuz I’m a chainsaw murderer! And I literally cut the middles out of men!”

      “Yeah.”

      “You’re not laughing,” said Percivelcumber, his expression suddenly very serious.

      “Sorry. I…just watched Ace Ventura. I’m all laughed out.”

      “Oh. Well that makes sense.”

      “Really?”

      “He ain’t laughin’ cuz tain’t funny!” Cried the head.

      “Ma! That is enough!” Bellowed Percivelcumber. “I’ve had enough out of you today! Just because you got no legs don’t mean you can interrupt everybody!”

      “Gave up my legs. Gave ’em up fer ya,” said Blustina.

      “I know, Ma, I know.” Percivelcumber let out a heavy sigh. “And I appreciate that. It’s just…” He turned back towards Mark, “…she thinks that just because she let me cut her legs off, that now I owe her the whole world.”

      “You cut your mother’s legs off…”

      “Yep. With a chainsaw.” he looked towards the wheelbarrow. “She is a generous woman.”

      “But why would you do that?”

      “Pracis!” Shouted Blustina. “Boy can’t be good at sumthin without pracis!”

     “That’s right,” agreed Percivelcumber leaning over. “She said I needed all the practice I could get if I was gonna be the best chainsaw murderer around. A generous, generous woman.”

      “My boy!” Exclaimed Blustina with obvious pride. “The best!”

      “I do love her. But you know how it is with family. Anyway…What were we talkin’ about? Oh yeah! Ace Ventura! I disemboweled a drifter the other week. He loved Ace Ventura.”

      “It’s a popular film,” said Mark. Real concern was creeping in now, and he wondered when the bus would arrive, or if it was even coming. He peered down the road once more, hoping for headlights.

      “Or…maybe he said he had a daughter in Ventura.

      “Oh.”

      “I think her name was Ace though.”

      “Yeah, probably.”

      “Hard to tell with all the screaming.”

      “Sure.”

      “Look at that! Shoes untied.” Percivelcumber leaned far over the bench and fiddled with something. Mark thought he heard something metallic, then he felt something on his pant leg. He jumped up but was caught by the ankle and looked down in horror at his shackled leg, the chain extending to the wrought iron post of the bench. His breath came in sharp ragged gasps and the bus stop and forest seemed to spin around him.

      Percivelcumber stood and walked over to the wheelbarrow. He picked up the bulky plastic package that had been sitting beside his mother and unwrapped a gleaming, 18 inch chainsaw.

      “No bus tonight I’m afraid. Not out here. Been a real pleasure talkin’ to you though.”

     Mark dropped to the ground, clawing desperately at the metal cuff fastened just above his shoe. He jerked at it and felt it dig into his flesh. He looked up to see Percivelcumber peering into the saw’s gas tank.

      “Hate to run out halfway through,” he said.

     Then Blustina spoke up.

      “That’s my boy,” she said. “The best aroun’.”

Short Fiction: Savin’ Souls

“I don’t think he’s coming home, is the thing,” said Jake.

“Of course he’s coming home. It’s just a three month mission trip. Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I don’t think so. He’s….He called me.”

“He called you?? What did he say? Why didn’t he call us?”

Jake looked at the ground and fiddled with the zipper of his jacket.

“I dunno,” he said.

“He hasn’t called us in months! We’re his parents for Pete’s sake!”

Jake stared at the floor. It had that short, gray carpet they always use in cheap lobbies and middle school class rooms. He could feel David’s father’s crucifix hanging on the wall of his home office. Jesus. Just hanging there. Watching. Judging.

“Jake!” snapped David’s father, “what did my son say? What do you mean he’s not coming home? Did he say that?”

“Pretty much,” mumbled Jake.

“What does that mean? What exactly did he say?”

“Well…I think he’s got a girlfriend.”

“Of course he’s got a girlfriend. He’s got Susan. Here. Waiting for him.” David’s father inched forward behind his desk as he spoke and for a second Jake feared he might stand up. He hesitated.

“Another girlfriend,” he said. “A new one.”

“WHAT!? He’s cheating on Sue!? With some other girl? Another girlfriend?! Are you sure?”

“Pretty sure,” said Jake. Then, very quietly: “Well. Girlfriends.”

“Dammit Jake!” exploded David’s father. “What exactly did he say? Pardon my language…but…what did he say? Exactly?”

“Exactly?”

“Exactly!”

“Well…He said he loves Cambodia. He said he’s…well…he’s discovered women.”

“That’s what he said? ‘Discovered women.’ Those were his words?”

“Pretty much.”

“Pretty much? Tell me exactly what he said.” David’s father swept an arm across his desk, inadvertently knocking over a statue of a tiny, golden baseball player with the words ‘Saint Mark’s Lutheran Church -Team Captain 1998-‘ engraved across a plate at the base.

“He said…um…” Jake stared at the floor. His neck itched where he could feel Jesus, dangling from the cross, staring at him. Judging.

“What?”

“He said….” Jake took a deep breath, “he said he’s savin’ souls and fuckin’ holes.”

Silence. David’s father sat, mouth agape. Even Jesus seemed a little shocked. Like he would have stroked his beard in wonder if his hands weren’t nailed down. When David’s father finally spoke it was with a confused, meandering tone, like a child trying to explain the plot of a David Lynch film.

“Saving souls and….and….”

“Fuckin’ holes. Yes.” Jake was almost enjoying himself now. His face felt hot and prickly, and he’d been dreading this conversation for days, but he’d never seen David’s father so flustered.

“That’s what he said?” asked David’s father.

“Yeah.” Jake tried not to smile. “Then he said that God created poonani and it was good.”

“God?…..Poonani?”

“Yeah. And that God saw that it was good and gave it unto the people.”

“He said that?”

“Yes sir,” said Jake. “Verbatim.” He was still staring at the floor, but he wasn’t embarrassed anymore. He was trying not to giggle.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“That’s what he said.”

“What else did he say?”

Jake hesitated.

“Nothing. Nothing really.”

“What else?” asked David’s father. He sat slumped back into his chair, eyes unfocused. His hand continuously moved up and down as if trying to grasp something ethereal. “What else did he say?”

“He said that God created all the plants of the earth, and they are good…”

“Well…that’s…true,” David’s father slowly nodded.

“…especially the poppy and the cannabis plant.”

“…What?” murmured David’s Father, slumping deeper into his chair.

“Are you sure?”

“He said it repeatedly. Then he said….um….”

“What?” asked David’s father. He covered his face with his hands.

“He said ‘the sticky green bud makes the poontang feel fucking unreal.’” Jake turned for a second to hide his grin. When he turned back David’s father had his head on his desk, muttering something. Praying? “Um….that’s it.” said Jake.

“Uh huh,” said David’s father.

“I’m gonna go,” Said Jake.

“Uh huh,” said David’s father. He didn’t move.

As Jake turned to leave his eyes fell upon the crucifix on the wall, and for a second, just for a second, he thought he saw Jesus smile.

Short Fiction(?): Crazy World

Murray came in from the cobblestone street, all bow-legged and booted, and sat down at the bar. He sighed heavily, ran his gnarled fingers through his short, gray hair, and looked up at John.

“Hey Murray,” said John. “How ya doin’?”

“Well John, it’s a crazy world. It really is.”

“Alright. Drink?”

“Mezcal and soda,” said Murray. He sighed again and drummed his fingers on the uneven hardwood of the bar.

John poured a shot and a half of liquor into a smudged glass, added ice, and popped the top off a fresh bottle of soda. He filled the glass and tossed in a wedge of lime.

“Having problems, Murray?” He said, setting the glass in front of his only customer.

“Well, John, it’s just a crazy world that’s all. Just crazy.” He took a long, slow sip from the glass and smacked his lips audibly, then wiped his fingers on the side of his white, button-up shirt.

“Alright,” said John.

“It’s just…I was up in the states ya know, checkin’ in on my place up in Austin, and these kids who were rentin’ it, well I thought they were good kids, ya know?” He took another sip from the glass and sighed once more, deeply, letting it escape his lips like an exorcised demon.

“Alright,” said John. “So what happened?” He poured himself a shot of mezcal and took a sip, feeling it slide across his palate in a smokey ballet.

“Well it’s just, it’s a crazy world John, that’s all it is.”

John looked toward the front door of the bar where sun beams streamed in, igniting flocks of dust motes as they dipped and twirled in the afternoon light.

“Alright,” he said.

Murray took another sip from his drink and glanced behind him at the picture of John’s ex-girlfriend, naked and draped over a cross.

“How’s things with you?”

“Shitty,” said John, looking down at the two plaid shirts he wore layered beneath a torn and dirty denim jacket. “City council is on my ass again. My staff is drunk all the time. Same old shit.”

“Well….” began Murray, before switching to a low whisper, “….crazy world. That’s what it is.”

“Shit you’re annoying,” said John. “What happened?”

Murray grinned and took another drink. A couple of tourists stepped into the bar, looked around at the graffiti covered walls, the dried wax stalactites left over from candle lit nights, the picture of John’s ex-girlfriend naked and draped over a cross, mumbled something, turned, and walked out.

“Not gonna try and reel ’em in, huh?”

“Nah,” said John. “They looked like assholes.”

“Well. Takes all kinds. Crazy world.”

“Jesus, Murray. Just tell the damn story already.”

“Nothin’ to tell really, John. Nothin’ at all. Just a crazy world is all. Had that apartment all rented out. Thought they were good kids John, I really did. They seemed like good kids. I mean, for the most part, ya know? Crazy world is all. Just a crazy world these days.”

“Is the apartment okay?”

“Oh yeah, place is fine. Just fine. Just gotta rent it out again is all.”

“They took off?”

“Yep,” said Murray. “They just skipped out. Skipped right out, no note no nothin’.”

“How much they owe ya?”

“Oh it’s not so much the money. Not so much that. You know me John, never was one to worry too much.” He drained his drink and pushed the ice-filled glass across the bar.

“Another?”

“Sure.”

John poured two shots of mezcal over the ice in the glass and filled it with soda. He threw in a fresh wedge of lime and set the glass back down in front of Murray.

“If that’s not it, then what?”

“Not the rent John, that’s not it. I just thought they were good kids. They seemed like good kids ya know? But I can’t tell anymore. It’s just a crazy world is all.”

“Jesus fuck, Murray. Just tell me what happened.”

“Well I got up there, saw the place, and they were just gone. Left it a mess. Garbage everywhere. Took me two days just to get it cleaned up.”

“Shit.”

“Yep. Two days, and that’s not even the worst of it. I tell ya, John, it’s a crazy world. Just crazy.”

“So you keep saying,” said John, draining the last of his shot. “So that’s it?”

“No, John, no. That’s not it.”

“So what?”

“Well those kids…They seemed like good kids, John.”

“And?”

“Well,” said Murray, taking another drink. “They stole my pistol AND my cocaine.” He drained his glass and stood. “And I just don’t know what to do about kids like that. It’s a crazy world out there, John, just a crazy world.”

He dropped a few bills on the bar, stood, and walked out into the afternoon sunshine.

“Ha!” snorted John. He poured himself another shot, and sighed.

The Great Costa Rican Banana Harvest of 2006

First we tied the machete to a broom handle, then, because it still wasn’t long enough, we tied the broom handle to a length of bamboo.

“That should do,” said Danny. “Tonight, we feast on bananas.”

I smiled and looked up at the bunch of yellow sausage-fruits clinging to their perch high up under the giant, green feathers of the unusually tall banana tree.

“Damn right,” I said, extending the machete at the end of the broom handle at the end of the bamboo.

The heavy blade of the machete swung wildly at the end of the broom handle at the end of the bamboo. I squinted up at it, wondering how much damage it would do if it fell on me. Or on Danny. Preferably Danny, if it had to be one of us.

The Machete at the end of the broom handle at the end of the bamboo wouldn’t swing straight. I aimed for the stalk holding up the bananas, but the machete at the end of the broom handle at the end of the bamboo veered right, hitting the fruits themselves and mutilating them. Little pulpy bits of gooey sweetness rained down on us.

“How do they do this? There must be a better way.” I suggested, handing Danny the Machete at the end of the broom handle at the end of the bamboo. He looked at it.

“Maybe there’s some kind of specific banana harvesting tool,” he said.

“You mean they don’t just tie a giant-ass machete to whatever lengthy shit happens to be lying around and then flail wildly at the bananas with it?”

“I doubt it,” said Danny. He extended the Machete at the end of the broom handle at the end of the bamboo and began to flail wildly at the bananas.

I looked up, watching the blade arc across the sky above our heads and thwack the stalk.

“Nice!” I said. “That was a good one!”

Danny tilted the bamboo back, and it bent a little at first then pulled the broom handle which accelerated backwards, zipping the machete in a long, unsteady arc across the blue sky directly above our heads. He slowly swung the apparatus forward, and the machete at the end of the broom handle at the end of the bamboo whipped forward again, this time veering just a little to the right and burying itself deeply in the bunch of bananas with a squelch. Banana puree splattered down.

After about 20 minutes of mangling our produce, we managed to sever the stalk of the banana bunch and they fell, half-mutilated, down to us. What remained of them was delicious. We hung the desecrated bananas from a hook on our kitchen ceiling and at night bats came and snacked on them. We knew because some of the bananas had chunks missing and there was bat shit all over the floor.

A few days later we were talking to our land lord, Melvin, who lived in the big house way up the hill on the other side of the forest, far from our little cabin.

“There’s a ripe bunch of plantains out there. I’m gonna go harvest ’em. You wanna help?”

“Yeah!” said Danny. “We got some bananas the other day but we ruined a lot of ’em trying to get them out of the tree. How do you do it?”

“Banana’s not a tree! It’s a bush! Grows real fast, only fruits once. You just cut the whole thing down! I’ll show ya. Tico trick!”

Melvin was always showing us ‘tico tricks,’ ‘tico’ being a colloquial term for persons from Costa Rica, where we lived.

He’d do something mundane and universal like sharpen a machete. Then he’d grin at us.

“Ya see that?!? Real sharp! Tico Trick!”

He led us out to the base of a large plantain plant wielding his machete. No pole, no bamboo, just a machete.

“NOW! What the ticos do is just cut about halfway through. Then it’ll come down real slow, and you have someone catch it, so the fruits don’t get smashed on the ground. It’s a pretty good trick! Tico trick! You! Stand right here!”

He pointed to spot perhaps 15 feet from the tree, where the bunch of plantains he sought would presumably end up. The spot to which they would slowly descend once Melvin cut through just the right amount of the plant’s base utilizing tico tricks. I stood on the spot and prepared to witness his epic jungle mastery.

“It’ll come down real easy, and you just kind of catch it! Ticooooo….TRICK!”

He spun, his jutting belly jiggling beneath his t-shirt, beads of perspiration gathering on his balding head as he held his machete aloft, whiskers trembling, the picture of concentration.

“Here we go!” he cried, and swung the machete.

The heavy blade gleamed in the tropical sunshine, a pineapple-yellow glint skipping across the polished edge as he arced it towards the plant’s delicate mid-section. It did not go halfway through. It went damn near all the way through. And the plantain plant did not ease toward me gently, offering up its fruity goodness in a delicate matter. It came down fast.

The tico trick had failed.

I looked up in horror as the enormous plant toppled toward me like a dropped bomb, the plantains themselves accelerating at my head like a cluster of yellow-green meteors.

“Shit!” I said, trying to move my body out of the way while keeping my hands beneath the precious produce. The plant side-swiped me, and would have knocked me on my ass were I not so spry. The plantains hit the ground, but not hard.

“Huh,” grunted Melvin. “Whacked it a little too hard. Looks like these aren’t quite ripe either. You know whachoo do? You put ’em in a black plastic bag and hang ’em up for a couple of days. Ripen right up! Tico trick!”

He got us a plastic bag and insisted we keep the entire bunch of plantains. And they did ripen up in the plastic bag. We fried them in the mornings and ate them with our pancakes. Slice them thin and fry them in butter until they just begin to brown. It’s a tico trick.

Short Fiction: Above Titan

 

 

The city of Titan, its myriad lights sprawling down hill and out across the plain below, appears mat-black through the tinted window of a BMW. The corridors of concrete and neon are lost, swallowed up by a thin sheet of dark plastic clinging to a push-button tempered glass slab -a standard feature on any car coveted by the truly discerning driver. Through a window from above the city takes on a velvety-smooth blackness punctuated only by the brightest lights: The swirling spots at a mall’s grand opening duck in and out of sight as they emblazon the sky with a call towards consumption. Halogen headlights flare and then vanish as drivers swing their vehicles up the rise on Second Street, sweeping their low beams briefly up across the hillsides of The Gates Neighborhood and around to Reagan Park. Individual street lamps are vaguely iridescent, and the upward facing bulbs that illuminate billboards pierce the tinted glass, though not well enough to convey the messages they light. Not from the passenger seat of the Bimmer on the hillside far above.

 

The sky, by contrast, the night sky, appears blank. Perhaps from the very top of The Gates Neighborhood a dedicated observer might glimpse Venus or Jupiter. Might briefly spy a myopic crescent moon. But by and large the lights of Titan overshadow the candles of the Gods. Choke them in a miasma of smog and steam and crusted gutter-punk drivel. Beat them down with noise and exhaust and the panted, desperate grunts of unwashed people struggling through a quick, anonymous fuck in the ally behind the AM/PM.

 

As the BWM hugged it’s taught, rubberized line up hill the city grew dimmer and dimmer below. It was headed up to The Gates Neighborhood. Up on top of the hill, where decisions were made that effected the entire state, and the world beyond. On the way it passed the painted facade of the guard house beside the big, metal gates of Reagan Park. The gates were large and ornate and made of aluminum, painted wrought-iron black. They were dressed in metal flowers and long ribbon-strips that swirled to become stems and petals, darting in amongst the structural bars where some immigrant laborer had coaxed them around the back to hide lumpy, half-finished welds and protruding bolts; Steel washers only a few years old and already crusting, the oxidized color of dried blood. From the thresh hold of Reagan Park one must drive almost four miles to find a grocery store, and just over seven to reach the nearest school.

 

Behind this gate stood a neighborhood, or rather a collection of houses. Its streets lazed around tiny bumps of hills until they ended in cul de sacs. Its houses bore out all the promises of the realtors, and had every personalization one might want: A variety of colors from taupe to tan to gray to grayish-blue. The garages came in either two or three car models and could be placed on the left or the right. It was all up to the buyer. One could buy a home in Reagan Park and everyone who drove past could look up across its nuclear-green lawn and know that whoever lived there preferred beige trim on their garage. And they liked their garage on the left so that’s where it will be because God Dammit this is America and no one’s gonna to tell me where to put my garage! Because in America people have options. BOTH of them.

 

In one such house with gray sides and eggshell trim and a garage on the right for three cars a man slept. He slept deeply, in his marrow, his kidneys, and his liver, where his body attempted to process a drug called Slumberlast which his doctor, who did not know his name, had suggested might be helpful for “getting a full eight hours”. The drug did its job. The man slept. His name was David Biggs, and he was 51 years old. In the four years since being prescribed Slumberlast he had never had a dream. Not one. And he hadn’t noticed.

 

Beside him slept his wife. His third wife, Mercedes, 20 years his younger and so comatose on Diazapam that David could have placed her face in a bowl of water and she would have drowned there without ever waking up. He had considered the act several times over the course of their two and half year marriage.

 

Down the hall there was a bedroom for his daughter of 16, Laura, and another for Dallas, his son of 11. Both rooms were unoccupied just then, and both were immaculate because the children spent most of their time at their respective mother’s houses, arriving in Reagan Park only for their father’s birthday, when one of their mothers left town, or in Laura’s case, to steal nick-knacks out of Mercedes’ cabinets and pawn them for weed money. Laura had also recently discovered the joys of pharmaceuticals and drove up the hill now and then to raid the medicine cabinets, distributing the spoils among her friends, usually for a price.

 

As dawn approached and passed the couple slept. As the sun streamed in the window the couple slept. As the city below awoke the couple slept, as did their neighbors and their neighbors’ children. Teams of Guatemalan landscapers arrived to mow all the lawns and trim the hedges and make sure all the sprinklers were running correctly on their timers and still the couple slept. Until eight o’clock when David’s i-phone blared a bird-song themed alarm that he hated but which he had defended to Mercedes many times on the grounds that “With these new double pane windows you can’t hear the birds at all and I’ve always loved waking up to the sounds of bird’s singing. Like when I was a kid.” Which was a lie. His mother had kept feeders in the side yard of their little two bedroom house outside of Philadelphia, and he had woken up to the songs of birds, and even as a child he had loathed them. He had twice tried to solve the problem by filling the feeders with aka-seltzer, which he’d heard would cause the birds to explode. The birds didn’t eat it and his mother grounded him for a week, later shortened to three days after he became weepy and apologetic.

 

“Fuck fuck fuck” he muttered as he fumbled with the phone.

 

“nggghgnn” responded Mercedes. David slid his legs from between 1200 thread count sheets of imported Egyptian cotton and padded across heated tile floors that looked like slate but were actually composite concrete. He walked to the shower and turned it on, unaware of the pipe that leaked down between the walls spawning black mold and slowly undermining the clay upon which sat his home’s foundation. He showered with a variety of washes and tinctures and scrubs containing things like shea butter and almond extract that cost more than most fine wines. He tried to masturbate but couldn’t get an erection.

 

“Still tired,” he told himself. “S’that pill.”

 

As he left the shower he looked over at his third wife, still passed out on the bed. One breast spilled out of her nightie and at the sight of it he thought he felt a tingle in his groin, but then realized it was just a bead of water dripping down his scrotum. He looked again at Mercedes and idly wondered how long it would take to smother her with a pillow. In movies it always happened pretty quick.

 

He shaved with an electric razor then dressed in new-looking jeans, a button up shirt unfastened at the collar, and a casual, black sport-coat for which he owned no corresponding suit. He sauntered back to the bathroom, examined himself in the mirror, and suddenly remembered the Rogain Foam he had forgotten to apply the previous day. He bent down to retrieve it from his drawer, down on the left beneath two of the five occupied by Mercedes, and as he did so felt his back creak and pop. He straightened up slowly, willing himself towards virility, if only in posture.

 

It would be a long day, he knew, so he dumped a little extra protein powder into his smoothy and went over the plan. He would fire people. Not personally, that wasn’t his job. As a consultant, his job consisted of telling other people who they might like to fire. He interviewed employees at corporations, saying things like “How fantastic!” and “You do such wonderful work!” Then he went to those same peoples’ bosses and assured them that everyone could be canned with few repercussions. He charged a substantial rate for his services and so had to be sure to recommend the firing of many, many people, otherwise the numbers wouldn’t add up, and he would miss out on opportunities to fire other people at other corporations. Though not personally of course.

 

He slurped the smoothie and made his way out to the garage, passing through most of the home’s downstairs as he went. He noted the hard wood floors, unaware that they were actually modular press board with hard wood veneers. He glanced into his living room, with it’s designer recommended throw pillows and uncomfortable sofa and pearl white carpeting that no one ever stood on unless David was entertaining people whom he hoped to impress. He looked into the downstairs bathroom, a half bath really since it had no tub or shower, and wondered for a second if he shouldn’t have gotten a full bath here too, instead of just the two on the second floor. His eyes swept through the kitchen and he smiled because he thought he had granite counter tops, which he did not. They were fake. He passed through the family room, where he spent most of his time at home, and noted with satisfaction that the LCD flat screen TV was out and visible, instead of retracted into the cupboard designed to store it.

 

“Why’d I even buy that cupboard?” He wondered. “Spend that much money on a TV just to hide it? I don’t think so.”

 

He opened the door to the garage and looked at his certified, pre-owned Lexus sedan and Mercedes’ certified, pre-owned Acura SUV and the third spot where he would park a Porsche 911 Turbo just as soon as his second wife remarried, freeing him from the burden of alimony. His hands clenched involuntarily at the thought of her.

 

“Bitch stole my car,” he mumbled as he settled into the Lexus. “Least she may as well have.”

 

He hit the button on the garage door opener, backed out, and drove down the winding road towards the aluminum gate. On his way through he nodded to the guard in the booth. His name was Jason and he had a second job as a parking attendant at David’s downtown office, where they also saw each other on almost a daily basis. David had no idea that it was the same man.

 

He paused at the intersection just outside Reagan Park to stare longingly up the road towards The Gates Neighborhood, then looked down the hill and out across Titan. It seemed to pulse below him, half cloaked in smog and struggling to breath.

 

“God damn!” He said to himself. “Now That’s a view.” And down he drove, into the city.

 

Camel Related Desert Shame

My Steed

For the record, a camel saddle isn’t a saddle at all. It is an implement for punishing the rider’s hips and genitalia. And it works horrifyingly well.

I spent three days on such a device during November of 2004, when I drifted into the city of Jaisalmer in Rajasthan and booked a camel safari, apparently in deference to some deep seated masochistic urge. Three days in the desert. Three days of ticks and spitting animals and rats running across my face in the night. Three days of rolling, honeyed-dunes and ancient, wind polished ruins and story telling while cooking chapati around a tiny campfire. Three nights spent staring up at an endless carpet of shimmering stars.

I shared the trip with four other tourists: a curly haired American woman, a Spanish dude with a shaved head, and an Israeli couple. The presence of Israeli Jews made me feel a bit better. Surely they knew something about wandering the desert. My hopes were dashed on day two when Tomer turned to me, lurching and bouncing on the back of his camel, and said “I no longer believe the Jews wandered the desert for forty years. Forty days maybe, but not forty years.”

“Well shit.” I said. “I thought you two would handle this just fine.”

Tomer’s girlfriend, who’s name eludes, snorted derisively. Or it might have been a camel fart, I don’t know. The beasts produce a cacophony of noises ranging from hilarious to disturbing to just plain confusing. They’re pretty awesome though, with their eternal regurgitation and their tennis ball shit. They seem to have pulled themselves, fully formed, from the early primordial ooze, long before the first fishes even developed scales, only to plod off across the meteor scarred hell-scape of the early earth in search of brambles to munch. Every time I look at a camel I get the impression that its ancestry predates dinosaurs.

Tomer on a dune

Our guides on the trip were three coffee-skinned men with piercing eyes. I only remember two of them clearly. One wore light blue from head to toe and spoke softly. He rarely made eye contact and seemed able to communicate with our humpy desert steeds. He would stroke the camels and whisper to them, apparently oblivious to the miasma of vomit-stink emanating from their constant ruminations. He often sang to them, softly, mouth close to their ears. He worried most about the baby of our tiny herd, who had only recently received a nose piercing. I think his name was Amir.

“It is paining,” he said, indicating the bar through the bridge of his young camel’s nose. “It is new so it is paining, and he cry.” Amir spoke broken English, but without too much accent, and he was easy to understand. I found out later that in addition to English and his native Urdu, he spoke Hindi, Arabic, French, and enough Spanish to joke around with the Spanish guy on the tour.

“How do you make the hole?” I asked.

“It is…I don’t know how to say….” He brought one hand up with his three lower fingers curled in and his thumb straight, like a little kid playing cowboy. “ZZZZZZZ!” he said, driving his finger forward through the air. “Very fast!”

“A power drill?” I asked. “You drill through its face with a power drill?” My ass and hips hurt as we bumped along through the desert, but at least no one was drilling a hole in my face.

“Yes!” he said, smiling broadly. “A drill!” He gave a gentle tug on the reigns to correct his animals course, and the young camel screamed across the dry plain, producing the kind of noise I imagine Chewbacca might make were he being water boarded.

Amir with friends

One day we crept into a village with a deep well where we watered the camels and refilled our own big, blue, plastic jugs. It was a dusty, windswept place, where the brightly colored saris of local women stood out in piercing greens and reds against the endless yellow landscape of the Great Thar desert. The fields around the tiny collection of mud-brick shanties sat fallow, cracked and painfully dry. Amir explained that the last two monsoons had been weak, and the people who hadn’t left for cities barely managed to survive.

I saw a family there – A mother with an earthenware water jug perched on her head, two girls in dresses, a young son in a colorful t-shirt and no pants. They had nothing. I took their photograph but in return could offer only pity and shame.

At night, we sat around the campfire listening to the other guide, who I remember clearly. His name was Mohammad, a name ubiquitous throughout the Muslim world. He was loud and brash and always singing. Mohammad made our chapati at night, around the campfire, where he constantly told the same joke.

“Mohammad, can I have another chapati, please?”

“Puh-leeze!? PO-leeeeeeese? No Police here! Only camel man! Ha HAAA!”

He always wanted us to sing, and at night we shared songs from home. I remember the other American on the trip sang ‘Take Me Out to the Ballgame,’ and one night I sang the first two versus of ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’.

“That was good!” said the Spaniard. “Even though I couldn’t understand any of it.

“That’s okay,” I said. “Neither can most Americans.”

Night camel with tennis ball shits

On day three I got sick. Some kind of vicious desert flu swept into my cells and began to corrode me from the inside out. I was scheduled for a fourth day, but the Israelis had a jeep coming to take them back to town, and I decided at the last moment to jump in with them and abandon the tour. The other American woman and her Spanish friend had left the previous day, so it was just me and them, driving away through the desert as Amir stood and watched with the camels. I remember his face. The look of surprise, of consternation. I felt so horrible and ill that I forgot to tip him. I just left him in the middle of the desert to make the long walk home with Mohammad and the animals.

Back in Jaselmeer I destroyed my daily budget by renting a hotel room with its own toilet and shower, where I curled up on the bed and spent two days alternating between soaking sweats and uncontrollable shivering. I coughed, I hacked, I sniffled, and every time I felt sorry for myself I pulled out my camera and looked at the picture of the family in the desert village. I struggled to make the trip downstairs for bottled water.

After forty eight hours I felt better. I wandered out into town to plod around the rust red streets of Jaisalmer and marvel at its ancient pedigree. I stared up at the fort, its massive ruddy walls dominant across miles of desert, and I struggled to contemplate its ancient immensity. Its continual occupation since it was built in 1156. The Fort is a city within a city, a civilization at rest trapped inside a world speeding forwards. Inside its labyrinthine walls I encountered shamans and children, painters and artisans, lepers and messiahs of all kinds. One family took my on a tour of their home, with low ceilings and immaculate floors it felt vaguely surreal, like a half remembered dream.

A street inside the fort

As I left the fort through the massive tunnel of its gate, a voice stopped me abruptly.

“Kebin,” it said softly. Amir stood in front of me, frowning gently. “Are you okay?”

That his first question was about my well-being killed me.

“Yes! Yes yes! I’m fine! I’m so sorry I left early! I was very sick and I didn’t think I could be in the desert anymore.” This to a man who had lived his entire life in the desert. Who rode a camel with the same casual comfort that I find in the passenger seat of a car.

“You left early,” he said. “I thought maybe you had a bad time.” He half smiled and looked at the ground.

“No No!” I insisted. “I’m sorry! It was great!” And I meant that. It had been great. A little uncomfortable maybe, but beautiful and unlike anything I had experienced before. “I was just sick,” I repeated. I grabbed my wallet and pulled out a fistful of rupees, but when I tried to give them to Amir he pressed them back into my hand.

“It’s not money, but my boss thought maybe you had not a good time.”

“It was great!” I said again. “I wish I had been able to stay for the last day!” I tried to hand him the money again, but once more he refused.

“Okay,” he said. Then he shook my hand and walked away, droop shouldered and shuffling.

I went straight to the agency where I had booked the tour to talk to Amir’s boss. I’d had a great time, I insisted. It wasn’t his fault at all, I just got sick! Could you please make sure he gets this money?

I doubt any of that cash found its way to Amir, but maybe it did. Really, I just hope he didn’t lose his job. I like to think of him out there, wandering through the desert, showing idiot tourists like me his home; A landscape of sand and scrub, poverty and resilience. Looking out across the dunes. Smiling. Singing softly into the ears of camels.

Full of Sh*t

 

     The pain resulted from constipation. Massive, horrendous constipation. On the X-ray it looked like cotton batting lumped together and filling all the space from the bottom of my pelvis to the middle of my rib cage. As if I’d eaten nothing but gym socks and wash cloths for weeks on end; As if I’d been cursed by a gypsy and was slowly turning into a stuffed animal from the inside out -some kind of fucked up reverse Pinocchio situation.

      In reality my stuffing was built of plain peanut butter sandwiches and dry, bagged cereal from the bottom shelf of the grocery store’s cereal aisle. That shit people say is just like cheerios and all you can do is pity them. I was ten, with limited dietary ambitions.

 

      I’m pretty sure my dad thought I was faking when I first presented with symptoms. Constipation symptoms. I used to pull that ‘stomach ache’ line all the time, and my father, thinking he was seeing through my lies, wasn’t going to fall for it again.

 

      It really hurt though. Bad. Because of all the poop.

 

      So I ended up at the doctor. Who I remember as being white, middle aged, and very gentle when sticking his finger up my ass.

 

      “I can feel some stool,” he said. “Some firm stool.”

 

      “Well,” I probably thought, “That doesn’t sound so bad. Some nice, firm stool.” Or not. I probably just laid there, terrified, fetal and facing the wall. And my father! He was there, standing like a pillar. Looming over me. Over us. Me and the doctor with his finger in my ass. I’m sure he was mostly just concerned, but I bet dad also found some humor in the situation. Especially after the doctor showed us the X-ray and explained about the poop.

 

      The next part I remember pretty well. There was a nurse, a big lady. She was black, and since I’d had little exposure to black people in the homogenized suburb of my youth, I immediately applied to her every stereotype my ten year old brain could muster. She was Aunt Jemima, Aunt Viv, and the mom from Family Matters all rolled into one. A kind, wise, black woman with a big ass. In my memory she talks like that racist caricature who was always pissed off at Tom and Jerry, although I’m sure she didn’t speak like that in reality. Anyway, her job was to give me an enema.

 

      “Now the doctor says two of these but I’ve been doing this a long time and I think one’ll be just fine,” she said. Or something like that. I’m afraid to write her speech as I actually remember it because I’m not Mark Twain and people might think it’s a hate crime. Also I’m sure my memory is completely wrong on the matter. She held up a plastic bottle of clear liquid with a straw on one end. Once more I was instructed to drop my pants, go fetal and face the wall -just a leather jump suit and box away from being a gimp.

 

      I remember the straw going in, and the sensation of inflation as she squeezed the bottle, filling me up with all that salty water. I guess. I suppose it could have been anything. She could have pumped me full of KY and I wouldn’t have known the difference.

 

      “Now,” she said, as I lay before her with my bowels full of lube, “in a couple of minutes your gonna feel like you have to go. And your gonna feel it heavy. So you just let me know when you feel it and there’s a bathroom right next door.” So I stayed put, curled up and staring at the wall with strange goings on all up in my guts. There was burbling, squelching…….movement.

 

      Then I had to go. I’m not sure if it was a result of the enema, or if the poop had simply been shamed out of me by confusing anal penetration, but the situation required my immediate attention. I looked up at the nurse, sitting in a chair in the corner flipping through a magazine.

 

      “You ready?” She stood up and I nodded. The ten or so steps between me and the toilet were nearly my undoing, but I made it. I sat down and it came like a rush, like a torrent. It was painful and horrifying and glorious all at once, like meeting God and finding out he has a mullet. I had to flush mid way through and then twice at the end as massive lumps of half-chewed, barely digested peanut butter sandwich swirled towards oblivion. And then I felt so much better.

 

 

 

 

 

Saved by the World Famous Corn Palace

      The World Famous Corn Palace of Mitchell South Dakota saved my life and the lives of my family. And it wasn’t even open. Afterwords, as we sat in the back of the RV drinking beer and staring out the window, my brother said to me “Wow. That went from being maybe the shittiest thing that ever happened to me to one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen.”

      “Shut up,” I said, probably. Or something like that. Maybe just “yeah.” I don’t remember. I’d never seen a super cell storm before and couldn’t stop staring at the enormous plume of dark clouds on the horizon, lightning constantly flashing through it like writhing neon snakes. The siren song of the Corn Palace had saved us from driving headlong into the storm, where our rented RV might have taken flight in a tornado or been beaten into scrap metal by hail stones the size of rats.

      The town of Mitchell sat empty when we arrived, a ghost town devoid of inhabitants. The lights at the Chevron station hummed gently and a parade of classic rock hits wafted through the humid air from someplace, penetrating the gathering darkness. It was eerie. I kept expecting a single shuffling zombie to come staggering down the street, like we had stumbled into the first scene of a George Romero flick.

      A car full of teenage boys sputtered past, and one of them leaned out of a rear window.

      “Run!” he screamed. “It’s coming!” Then they laughed and sped off. We all looked at each other: my mother, father, brother, and soon to be sister in law, completely befuddled.

      “What’s coming?” We all asked the question and each of us answered it with confused head shaking and shrugging.

      At least we had the Corn Palace. It might not have been open, but it was lit up. I have to admit though, I was a little disappointed in the construction. In my mind I’d built a picture of a palace made entirely of corn, with corn flying buttresses and and a big, corn drawbridge. Maybe a moat filled with vicious, corn-fed hogs. Instead I got a mall covered in corn murals.

      It’s still pretty cool in a non-palatial sort of way, but I maintain that the title is misleading. I guess ‘Corn Covered Mall’ might not have the same ring to it.

      Anyway, we stood around and gazed upon the corn-clad visage of the closed mall for awhile, then my dad went up the street to the Chevron to buy beer, which is one of the great things about traveling in an RV. As long as you stay behind the line where the cockpit meets the living area it’s completely legal to drink, even while in motion. So obviously that’s what we did.

      When dad returned from the Chevron, he told us about the Tornadoes.

      “The girl in there said a Tornado touched down on I-90 just a few miles up the road,” he said. “Just ten minutes ago.”

      We all looked at each other. If we hadn’t stopped at the Corn Palace we might have been right underneath it. Suddenly the empty streets made sense. Everyone in Mitchell was huddled in their basements waiting for the all clear. Except for us. We were standing around in the open, debating the merits of driving a frail metal box into a weather system of near apocalyptic proportions. That’s because we’re idiots.

      Especially Jill, my now sister in law, at the time my brother’s girlfriend. She wanted to see a tornado, and apparently had no qualms with risking all our lives in order to make that dream a reality.

      “We should go!” she kept saying. “I want to see it!”

      We huddled in the RV, ignoring Jill as we feverishly listened to the Radio. The radio guy kept saying extremely disconcerting things like “If you’re in a trailer get into the bath tub and pull a mattress of heavy rug over you. Do not attempt to outrun the storm. If you find yourself in the open lie down in a ditch or depression and and shield yourself with something heavy, such as a packing pallet or the body of a loved one. If you’re in a recreational vehicle you’re definitely going to die. Call your loved ones and apologize for drinking too much last Christmas. They have to forgive you because you’re basically dead already.”

      Maybe that’s not all exactly right, but it’s pretty close.

      The storm headed south, and we headed north, taking a long detour into Minnesota. On the way we could see the thunder head in the distance, snorting and tearing at the earth. It was pretty spectacular. Lighting ripped through it’s billowing immensity several times every second, lighting up different areas and aspects of the storm with each flash. My dad drove and my mom sat in the passenger seat navigating as frantically as one can navigate when one’s route follows major highways and only includes three turns. Still, she stayed on point. And she knew where we were the whole time.

      My brother and I sat in the back with Jill, drinking beer and watching the surreal display of electrical terror blanketing the horizon. It was awesome. One of the cooler things I’ve witnessed. Of course, if it hadn’t been for the World Famous Corn Palace of Mitchell South Dakota, that raging weather system might have killed us all.

Vodka Rox and the Slender Loris

     The Five Point Café in downtown Seattle is dark, and a little dingy. The kind of place where bleary-eyed people drink heavily in the morning and the waitresses think nothing of pouring another double scotch for a hollow faced man before eight A.M. David had arrived just after nine and slouched in a booth near the front door on the restaurant side of the building, where he nursed a Bloody Mary. Yesterday’s newspapers sprawled across the table and he glanced at the headline before pushing it aside: ‘Break-in at Woodland Park Zoo.‘

      A Zoo Robbery? He thought. Who the hell robs a zoo?

      He looked at the ancient bar stools, the neon in the windows, the black tee-shirts for sale: Alcoholics Serving Alcoholics Since 1929! He chuckled and briefly considered buying one. Then his phone rang.

      “Dave! What’s up, man?” It was Brian. His voiced sounded gritty and the signal faded in and out.

      “Brian. Where are you? Are you driving? I can hardly hear you.” He absently stirred his drink with his free hand. Brian wasn’t often late.

      “Kind of, man. I’m riding. Look, I had to get out of town. I’m not going to make it for breakfast.” David stopped stirring.

     “What? We had a plan. Riding what? Where’s my fucking car? You said I had to meet this guy. You said . . .”

      “Oh, he’ll be there. Vodka Rox will fucking be there. I called to suggest that maybe you shouldn’t be. The guy’s crazier than I thought. He said he could fix your car with piss. Piss! Don’t worry, it’s locked up in my garage. I mean, this guy is out there.” Brian sounded really concerned. Not like himself at all.

David thought for a moment and then said, “I mean, I’m already here. You said he might be able to fix my Volvo. So, can he or what?” He glanced outside at the empty space where his ’86 station wagon would have been parked had the damn thing started.

      “I dunno,” said Brian. “But it’s not worth it, man. Don’t give it to him. But get it out of my garage soon, because he knows it’s there. Key is in the glove box. Look, I gotta go. Just stand up and leave. Just get out before he shows up.”

      And with that, the line went dead.

      David considered the situation. He really wanted the Volvo fixed. But Brian sounded spooked. Like, really spooked. What kind of name was Vodka Rox, anyway? It couldn’t be real, could it? A given name? He looked back out through the dirty window towards the empty parking space and smiled. There was an old Volvo wagon pulling in. Looked just like his. Same color and everything. Same dent by the door where he’d side swiped his own mailbox two months prior….

      Shit! Thought David. That’s my car! A huge new dent marred the front right quarter panel. What the fuck happened to my car! He was just beginning to stand when the car doors opened and two men stepped out. The passenger was dressed in blue jeans and a tee-shirt. The man getting out of the driver’s side wore . . . is that a mink coat? A full-length mink coat? In August? And what kind of glasses are those? David squinted between the neon signs that took up most of the window. What’s he carrying under his arm. Wait . . . Is he wearing a fucking shower cap?

      The man in jeans was screaming loud enough for David to hear him, even from inside the bar. “You called him a retard! You can’t call him that! You KNOW his kid has Down’s.”

David moved quickly to the doorway, where he listened intently.  “Look,” said the man in the mink coat, “I only called him a retard because he was being retarded.”

      “Whadafuckissofuckingwrongwithyouyoufuckingasshole!?!”Tee-shirt guy seemed almost berserk. Spittle flew from his reddened face ashe spoke in mangled half-screams.

      “Not like that,” protested shower cap, adjusting the box cradled under his left arm.He spoke very calmly, as if addressing a child throwing a tantrum. “Retard is not an inherently offensive term. It means ‘slowed by an outside influence’. Crack a book you illiterate dingleberry.”

      “Stop calling me that! You rear-ended him! He was being slowed by a fucking stop sign. Jesus.Just, fuck you!” Screamed Tee-shirt. “Never contact me again! Or Ryan! You’ll be lucky if he doesn’t sue you for wrecking his car!” He turned and started walking rapidly, almost running, towards Denny Avenue.

Mr. Mink Coat kept talking normally, as if the other man weren’t activelyfleeing the scene.

      “He was slowed by his own irrational adherence to the law, dingleberry. If he found the word ‘retard’ offensive it’s because when HE hears it HE thinks of his mongoloid son. Maybe HE’S the bigot here.” He said it to nothing. The other man was already gone. Then he tucked the box deeperbeneath his arm and turned toward the bar with a grandiose flourish, the glistening fur coat streaming out behind him.

The strange man turned and walked directly at David, the mink flapping around his calves. He wore a half-smile pasted to his clean-shaven face and seemed unaware that a dozen peoplehad stopped on the street to watch the brief but bizarre argument unfold.

Catching David’s eye a few steps from the front door of the Five Point, he extended his hand.

      “Vodka Rox!” He announced. “I’ve heard so much about you!”

David slowly reached forward and shook the outstretched hand, more out of habit and confusion than anything else.

      “Is . . . is that my car?”

Rox glanced back over his shoulder then returned his gaze to David.

      “Yep! Running like a top! Tuned her all up and flushed the radiator with badger urine. Don’t worry! The smell will only linger a month or two. Tops. She’s a real beaut!”

      “What’s that dent in the front?” David looked Rox up and down. He could see the glasses clearly now. They weren’t eye glasses at all. They were two shot glasses held together with copper wire and electrical tape. How can he even see? Thought David. My god! Was he DRIVING in those?

Rox stepped around him and headed into the bar.

     “That? Nothing really. It’ll buff right out. Wasn’t my fault anyway. It’s this retarded guy named Ryan that you need to talk to. Real son of a bitch. Pops out mongoloid babies left and right. A burden on society, that’s what he is. Barkeep! Whiskey!”

      Rox brushed past and David spun to follow him, turning back momentarily to look at the car. Inside the door he stopped briefly to allow his eyes to readjust to the lower light. He was surprised to find Vodka Rox already sitting in his booth, a whiskey on the table in front of him. Rox had removed the mink to reveal an ill-fitting, pink tee-shirt with the words ‘Bun in the Oven’ shoddily embroidered across the front.

      “Have a seat.” Rox gestured towards the bench on the other side of the booth. As he sat, he noted that his Bloody Mary was almost empty. Had he drank that much?

Rox smacked his lips and took a sip of whiskey before speaking. “I suppose you’re wondering why I asked you here today, Herschel.”

      “It’s David.”

      “Right! David! I always get those confused. Hey, hold onto this for a minute. Don’t open it!” He slid the cardboard boxhe’d he’d been carrying across the table. It was a plain, gray package tied with brown string, about the size of a six pack. Scrawled across the front in sloppy, black letters read the single word “DAVID”.

      “Now look, Herschel, we…”

      “It’s David,” said David, staring at the box on the table before him.

      “Right! David! Tell me everything you know about Cleveland.” Rox folded his arms on the table in front of him and peered through the bottoms of the shot-glasses jutting from the copper wire frames.

      “Cleveland? Why? I don’t know anything about Cleveland. I don’t know anything about Ohio! I’ve never been there.”

      “What?” Rox sat back and slouched, the smile dissolving from his face. “Brian led me to believe you were something of an expert on the subject. No matter! We’ll figure it out when we get there. Maurice — he’s my occult guy — he’s from there and he owes me a number of vials of . . . various things. Do you own a bear trap?”

     “What the fuck are you talking about?” David was starting to find himself again. “A bear trap? What the hell are we going to do with that?”

      “Hopefully trap a bear. Duh.” Rox leaned forward again. “Never mind, we’ll use mine. It’s more humane anyway because it’s made from aluminum foil. Bear bile is a powerful aphrodisiac. Almost as good as Loris tears. Once we get to Cleveland . . . ”

David interrupted, holding up one hand and leaning as far away from the table as possible. “Once we get to Cleveland? I can’t just up-and-go to Ohio. I have things to do. I have responsibilities.”

      “That’s nothing,” scoffed Rox. “I have16 keys.” He reached into his pocket, produced a crowded key ring and tossed it onto the table. He leaned back and stretched one arm across the top of his seatback, gazing low across the booth as if daring David to challenge him.

      “…..Okay.” David offered cautiously.

Vodka broke into a wide grin and swooped the jingly mass of keys from the table top.

      “Ha! That’s only 15 keys!” He took a long sip from his whiskey. “Idiot.”

David shook his head. “I don’t even . . . I gotta go, man. Thanks for fixing the car.”

     “No problem! Your key is in the ignition. That was my sixteenth key, if I’d had it on me, so you were almost right. Hey, before you go, can you watch that box for me while I take a leak?”

David hesitated. Vodka Rox just kept staring at him through the bottoms of the shot glasses.

“Sure,” David finally said, throwing his hands in the air. “Why the fuck not?”

Rox got up, gathered the mink to his chest and started walking towards the bathroom, pulling a phone from his pocket as he went.

Minutes passed. David finished what was left of his drink, and the more he thought, the more he began to see the humor in his situation. He was laughing to himself, wondering at the majesty of this absurd man whose package he was looking after when someone tapped him on the shoulder.

Behind him stood a large, mustachioed cop. Behind the cop stood another man in a khaki uniform rapidly shifting his weight from one foot to the other..

“Excuse me, sir,” said the cop. “Do you mind if I ask what’s in the box there?”

“What? It’s . . . uh. I don’t know. It’s not mine.”

“Okay. And what is your name, sir?” The cop regarded him sternly and the man in the khaki uniform flitted about behind him, wringing his hands.

“David. My name is David Opfer.”

The cop looked at the box where ‘DAVID’ was clearly written, then back at the seated man.

“David? Like it says on the package there? You sure it isn’t yours?”

The cop glanced back at the gray box and then surveyed the room. No one looked up. The Five Points is not the kind of place where people make eye contact with a random police officer.

“It’s not. I swear. It’s this other guy’s.”

The cop pursed his lips and nodded. He looked again around the room and saw no sign of any “other guy”. He looked back at David and said, “So, it’s the other guy’s . . . Right. Say, you mind if we take a look?”

David sat perfectly still, looking stunned. The cop reached out and picked up the box. He untied the bow that held the string and lifted the lid. The he looked back up at David before turning towards his nervous khaki-clad companion.

“This what you’re looking for?”

The man looked into the box and broke into a wide grin.

“Yes! That’s him! A slender Loris! He’s been missing for two days! I’ve got to get him back immediately. Thank God he’s alive!” He gingerly took the box from the officer’s hands and rushed towards the door. The back of his khaki shirt read ‘Woodland Park Zoo’ in large, block letters.

“I want that man arrested!” he yelled, and he was gone.

“What?” David sputtered. “What the fuck is a Loris?!?” He stood quickly and the cop reached a hand towards the butt of his gun. David reached up, grabbing handfuls of his own hair.“ That thing is not mine! I swear! It’s not mine!”

The cop stepped back and said, “Mr. Opfer! Turn around and put your hands on the table!”

David began to protest, but saw the cop’s hand quaver over the butt of the pistol. He did as he was told.

“It isn’t mine.” David emphasized again, very calmly. “It belongs to Vodka Rox. In the bathroom!”

David realized how insane it sounded the moment he said it. A low guffaw emanated from behind and he felt the cop pat him down before taking his hands behind his back and placing them in cuffs.

“You are under arrest for trafficking an endangered species. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford, an attorney one will be . . . ”

David nodded his head in stunned agreement, but he’d already stopped listening. He was led out into the blinding mid-morning light and rushed into the back of a police car. He felt nauseous and vacant, like waking up hungover from a bad dream — but he knew he wasn’t dreaming. As the cop pulled away from the curb and headed north toward Denny Way, David stretched his neck and glanced out the rear window. A man in a long, mink coat and a shower cap stood briefly on the sidewalk, smiling and waving at the departing squad car. He opened the door to David’s Volvo and clambered in.

Then he was gone.

Short Fiction: The Trans-Eurasian Mustache

      In September of 1977 a cyclonic breeze picked up the trailing outer tendrils of an errant wisp of my mustache and gently draped it over the northern aspect of the Indian sub-continent. A few whiskery bushels landed outside a discotheque just south of Delhi, where they were discovered by a small band of slightly tipsy Sikhs. Overcome with a desire to meet the man capable of producing such long and glorious facial hair, this intrepid band of buzzed Punjabi’s resolved to follow my mustache to its terminus on my upper lip. They didn’t make it.

      They crossed the Great Thar Desert in northern Rajasthan, hopped the border into Pakistan, then turned north, pursuing the slender bristles ever upwards towards the mighty Karakorum. One by one they gave up and went home until only one remained. He surmounted one ice shrouded ridge after another, at times gripping my mustache to haul himself up steep snow slopes and relying on its strong and valiant strands to guide him through blizzard conditions. He displayed remarkable tenacity and determination. Perhaps he would have followed those princely facial locks all the way to the follicles that birthed them, had a mighty avalanche not thundered down from the high Himalaya, burying him near the Afghan border.

      He almost found me. He came closest thus far. But for now I remain alone; Sole steward, producer, and caretaker of the trans-Eurasian mustache. Protector of its secrets of immortality and infinite wisdom.

      In 1211 a group of Mongol warriors lost their way while returning from the bloody and triumphant defeat of Jin Dynasty soldiers at Badger Pass. These servants of Genghis Khan stumbled across a huge, wind-swept tangle of the trans-Eurasian mustache, and they quickly hobbled their horses beside it and burrowed in, seeking shelter in its voluminous embrace.

     During the night the mustache grew around them. It blew to and fro, closing the passages by which they had entered and creating a labyrinth of twisting tunnels, dead ends, and huge, vacuous spaces. Cathedrals of dark, whiskery softness, as black as night and silently echo-less. When Kahn’s soldiers awoke in that inky quiet they panicked. They attempted to hack their way out with their swords, but that only angered the trans-Eurasian mustache. It fought back, entangling them.

      Even today, great swaths of my mustache blow across the high plateau of central Asia, still riddled with the desiccated remains of those soldiers. To anger the trans-Eurasian mustache is most unwise.

      It is a sad admission, but the westward tending tendrils of the trans-Eurasian mustache are considerably less advanced. For centuries, expansion past Constantinople proved difficult, as my bushy, chestnut whiskers were cut back by the great fire of 406, and again during the Nika riots of 532.

      Some say the riots that erupted that fateful January at the Hippodrome were the result of Emperor Justinian’s unfair and excessive taxation, but the truth is far more banal. A young chariot racer for the Greens, and another for the Blues, had that day taken to comparing their mustaches. And fine facial sproutings did both men have, but neither could possibly compare to the exquisite undulations of the trans-Eurasian mustache. They resolved to settle the matter via their sport of choice, and took to the track in a head to head chariot race.

      At that fateful moment the furthest reaches of the western lying trans-Eurasian mustache chose to creep vine-like across the rutted belly of the hippodrome, sprawling over the track as the men raced. They were both fine charioteers, deft with their horses and instruments, but upon seeing the opulent twists of the trans-Eurasian mustache they became so enamored that they lost control. Green and Blue swerved against one another and chariots, men, and horses gained flight, rocketing into the crowd and killing a young couple -only teenagers- who had donned disguises and met in secret among the crowds to make out and rub each other all over. The young lady belonged to a family of prominent Greens, and her suitor to an equally prosperous clan of Blues.

      Of course each side blamed the other and rioting broke out. As Constantinople burned, so too did the trans-Eurasian mustache. A group of peasants heaved its burning end into the sea where it has remained ever since, growing ever downward.

      The politically minded of Constantinople turned the crowds against the unpopular Justinian, but it was the trans-Eurasian mustache that really caused the riots.

      Tales of the mustache spread, and though its westward wanderings ended in the swirling depths of the black sea, word of its majesty reached westward to Venice inspiring one Niccolo Polo to journey eastward. He reached Constantinople in 1260, bound and determined to find the trans-Eurasian mustache. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t stumble across its hirsute meanderings until somewhere on the central Asian plateau, where he found a huge mass of hair clogged with the bodies and bones of a Mongol hoard. He followed my mustache East, away from me, eventually finding his way to the palaces of Kublai Khan, grand son of Genghis.

      In the palace he wined and dined and made love to one of Khan’s young consorts, unknowingly impregnating her. She bore a daughter.

      In 1275 young Marco Polo, son of Niccolo, began his own voyage east, eventaully reaching Kublai Khan’s palaces in Shangdu. Upon arrival he became smitten with a young girl, and over the coming weeks he unwittingly seduced and bedded his own half sister. She became pregnant (the Polo’s were a virile bunch) and bore a son.

      This son represented a massive departure from the normal state of Polo genealogy. He was a raving and jabbering idiot. A big, foolish ball of inbred stupidity best suited for staring at the sun until blind. He was expelled from Khan’s residences for attempting to gnaw off the leg of a young horse, and he wandered south. Somehow the fool managed to breed, and his ancestors continued south, eventually settling in Punjab, and in the mid 16^th century adopting the faith of the Sikhs. Generations of new genetic material nullified the inbred stupidity of that original bastard Polo, but did little to stifle the latent tenacity and willingness to explore that so defined the bloodline.

      One young descendent, who of course had no idea of his lineage, left Punjab in 1977, moved to Delhi, and in defiance of his religion, spent his nights dancing and drinking in the local discotheques. One night he stumbled outside with a group of friends and happened across a few errant strands of the trans-Eurasian mustache.

      He was a tenacious one, as his antiquated antecedents had also been. He almost made it. When I saw him approaching the base of the mountain I’ve for centuries called home, I immediately recognized him as a Polo. In a panic, I knocked loose a large cornice, triggering an Avalanche, burying him, ending the lineage that began with Niccolo Polo in 1261, and once more protecting the secret of my whiskery greatness. For I am the sole steward, producer, and caretaker of the Trans-Eurasian mustache. Adieu.