Andersen Prunty's Blog, page 4

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.

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.

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.

Frogs

Three white thugs are playing leapfrog 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’ leapfrog 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 I’ve never played leapfrog 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 leapfrog 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 leapfrogging, quickly fall 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.

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 heading 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.

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 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 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.

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.

Happy New Year

Things will probably look a lot different this time next year.

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.