Andersen Prunty's Blog, page 5

How the Man Waits for Death

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

He does his best to alter this.

He always sleeps until two or three in the afternoon.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mister God

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

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

“Fuck off, you little shit,” I snarl.

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

“Where to, Boss?” the driver asks. “Take me to heaven,” I say, laughing. “Take me to fucking heaven.”

The Balloonman’s Secret

His real name was Bob but everyone called him the Balloonman.

He owned a shop at the corner of Main and Wetzel downtown. It was an innocuous building located at the end of a whole row of shop fronts. The facade was drab and brown, the balloons lining the awning the only splash of color to liven the place up. Not many people actually entered the Balloonman’s establishment. Most of his business was done over the phone. One would think it might be difficult to make a business thrive through the sale of balloons but this was not the case for the Balloonman.

Everyone agreed his balloons were, indeed, the best balloons in the tri-state region. They didn’t know what it was that made his balloons so much better than the ones obtained in a regular store. Perhaps it was the quality of the latex—maybe it was a little stronger, a little more durable than the latex of your average balloon. Or maybe it was the helium. The Balloonman’s balloons certainly seemed to last a lot longer than other balloons. They seemed to float a lot longer.

Once the quality of his balloons had been proven sufficient, the Balloonman found people needed them for almost every occasion—birthday parties, weddings, graduations—all the standard celebrations. But the need did not stop there. The Balloonman had supplied balloons for a divorce party and, once, he had delivered two-hundred black balloons for a funeral. Not to mention the regulars—the car lot off the Interstate ordered five hundred balloons each week. That alone would have been enough to keep the Balloonman in business. He had always kept the overhead low.

As brisk as business was for the Balloonman, his shop had seemed drab and lonely until today. Today, everything was going to change.

The morning was gray and chilly when the Balloonman awoke and went down to his shop. He usually stayed on the lower floor during business hours even though there really wasn’t much of a reason to. He went about his usual routine for a Monday morning—dusting, vacuuming the virtually unused welcome mat, filling that week’s orders.

It was interesting he became a balloon salesman because he so resembled a balloon himself. It was very likely, had he never sold a single balloon, some malicious person in town would have taken to calling him the Balloonman based solely on his balloon-like appearance.

He was a round man. And although he was heavy, he moved with a sort of airy weightlessness admirable for a man of his girth. His skin, shiny and rubbery, stretched tightly over his face, giving him a deceitfully jovial expression. The resemblance was such that one would be tempted to rub a finger down his cheek to see if it made that annoyingly screechy sound balloons made. To his great relief, no one had yet attempted this. It would have undoubtedly tested his otherwise mild disposition.

On the morning of the day his life would change the Balloonman finished his chores early and was, by noon, sitting behind the counter reading the newspaper. All the balloons had been blown and were now enroute to their designated destinations. None of his patrons really knew how the balloons were delivered. The balloons simply appeared where they wanted them to appear. One minute their mailbox was naked and the next it was covered in a multicolor display of balloons intended to alert people to the location of their family reunion or auction.

Looking out the window, the Balloonman sighed heavily. The day was just as gray and heavy-looking as ever. This seemed a direct contrast to the light and airy nature of his festive stock. It wasn’t until he was ready to close up just before six o’clock, a few minutes early, having only seen three customers that day, his life changed.

June First came charging in the door, her face flushed and her ponytail in disarray. The Balloonman, living in the center of town, knew more about the residents than many people. He knew June First came from a poor family. He also knew she was a gifted scholar, the valedictorian of her class, and would be attending a wonderful college in the East on a full scholarship after she graduated later this year.

She slammed the door behind her, panting, breathing in the heavy latex smell of the Balloonman’s shop.

“You have to help me,” she said.

“What’s wrong?” the Balloonman asked.

“It’s Derek Gloom,” June said. “He’s after me.”

“Why is he after you?”

“He wants me to marry him. He says he wants to take me away tonight.”

The Balloonman knew who Derek Gloom was. Everyone knew who Derek Gloom was. He was the son of Cecil Gloom, the fireworks tycoon. Cecil owned a large fireworks factory at the edge of town that employed many of the residents and he wielded his power over the town just as Derek wielded his father’s power over the high school.

Derek was a threatening figure. He was very tall and very pale. Rumors said that Cecil used his children to try out new and fantastic fireworks. Consequently, they weren’t exposed to a lot of sunlight because the fireworks were best viewed in the dark and Derek only had three fingers on each hand, the other four assumedly blown off by ultrapowerful firecrackers. Of the remaining fingers, he let the nails grow to sturdy points. He always smelled like gunpowder and threatened the younger kids with Roman candles and bottle rockets. If they didn’t do what he asked, he nailed them. And his father’s lawyers would exonerate Derek even if his last victim was left with a massive burn or without an eye.

“I don’t want to go away with Derek. I don’t want to go anywhere with Derek.”

The Balloonman did not know how to react. He was not a policeman. He was not a protector. He sold balloons. Not only that, the second June First had pounded into his shop he had nearly forgotten how to breathe. The Balloonman was very nervous around girls. He had never so much as held hands with a girl and, if it didn’t involve the decorative placement of balloons, he didn’t really know what to say to them. So now he was in two situations that made him very uncomfortable.

“I need to hide or something,” she said. “They were right behind me.”

The Balloonman came out from behind the counter, smoothing his tight suit over his ample stomach, and said, “Go on upstairs. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you, uh, Balloonman,” June said, running up the stairs behind the counter.

The Balloonman walked over to the door and stared out at the gray afternoon. Derek Gloom and some of his friends approached the shop. The Balloonman turned the sign that said “Open” to where it said “Closed.”

Derek stopped just on the other side of the glass, raising a gnarled hand and knocking ominously on the door.

“Send her out, Balloonman. I know she’s in there,” he growled.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the Balloonman said.

“I saw her go in.”

“No you didn’t.”

This blatant lie seemed to stump Derek for just a second before he regained his train of questioning and said, “Yes she is. I was just down the block when I saw her come in.”

“Go away before I call Sheriff Badge.”

“Oh, like he’s going to do anything to me. My father has him in his pocket.”

The Balloonman pulled down the white shade in the doorway and turned to go up the stairs.

His heart hammered in double-time. Now he had a girl upstairs in his apartment and that … that had never happened before.

June sat in an overstuffed orange chair that smelled like a balloon, pulled just far enough away from the window that she couldn’t be seen.

“Well, I think I got rid of them,” the Balloonman said with a bit more bravura than he had intended.

June shook her head, looking so scared sitting in the chair that seemed to eat her up. “There is no getting rid of Derek Gloom,” she said. “I need to get out of this town.”

As if to punctuate this statement, a large rocket shattered the window, crashed into the far wall and exploded, sparks flying around the room. Both June and the Balloonman jerked spasmodically.

“How did you get mixed up with someone like Gloom?” the Balloonman asked. Maybe, the Balloonman wondered, it was the extremity of the situation allowing him to actually speak with June.

“I don’t know,” June said.

A whole package of firecrackers flew through the window and exploded loudly on the floor, leaving a large black stain on the boards. June jumped up, leaping out of the chair, screaming this time. Ever attentive, she tried to give the Balloonman a satisfactory answer. “I just thought … well, his father owns that big factory and I thought it would be nice not to be so poor.”

“You were going to … marry Derek Gloom?”

“I considered it … but I said no. And now this.”

This time, a multitude of fireworks poured through the window, popping and exploding, a continuous stream. The fireworks hit June and the Balloonman, exploding and stinging their skin before they could gather their bearings. Finally, the Balloonman said, “Come into the bathroom with me. I think I’ve just thought of something.”

The Balloonman led her into the bathroom. “Now,” he said. “I’ve never tried this before so I don’t know how well it will work.”

Then he leaned down as if to kiss her. June wrinkled up her face and pushed him away. “You dirty old man,” she said. “This is not what I came here for.”

“No,” the Balloonman said. “You’re mistaken.”

“I might as well just go back to Derek,” she said, retreating into the main room.

The Balloonman followed her. “No, it wasn’t what it seemed.”

A bottle rocket bounced off her head and Derek shouted, “You better get out here, June, or the whole place is going up!”

While she was distracted, patting out a smoldering flame in her hair, the Balloonman grabbed her around the forearms and gruffly pulled her toward him. Then he leaned down his head and planted a kiss on her lips. Startled, she opened her mouth and the Balloonman exhaled. June felt the breath go through her body, expanding it. She felt light. Lighter than air.

“Come on,” the Balloonman said after exhaling his lungs and breaking the kiss. It was hard to keep her from floating to the ceiling before they reached the window in the bathroom. He grabbed her arm and led her to the window, stuffing her out of it.

“Thank you,” she said.

Outside, she floated high up into the gray sky, her bright yellow dress billowing up around her.

Derek and his gang turned away from the Balloonman’s loft and began shooting their fireworks toward June but, from that distance, their aim was not as good and they all missed, the fireworks exploding around her, drawing attention to the girl floating through the sky. The Balloonman stared from the window and watched as she floated away, hoping she would make it all the way to her prized college in the East.

—  —  —

After the kiss, things turned tragic for the Balloonman.

He deflated.

His balloons were no longer what they used to be. Whereas before they stayed afloat for weeks, now they were lucky to stay afloat for a couple of hours. The people of the town could no longer take it. More and more people began coming to his shop. Only, this time, they came to complain. They came to yell at the Balloonman, the once plump proprietor of quality balloons, now a gaunt and wasted wreck of a crook.

Then his luck changed. One day, after his balloons had ruined Derek Gloom’s wedding, the bride-to-be came into the shop.

She was stunning. Not as stunning as June First, but stunning in a different way. She had gathered all the limp balloons and dumped them on the Balloonman’s counter.

“I would just like to say thank you for ruining my wedding,” she said.

“It certainly was not my intention to ruin your wedding,” the Balloonman said.

“I couldn’t even go through with it.”

“You couldn’t get married because the balloons went flat?”

“No, I most certainly couldn’t. And that marriage could have made me the richest woman in town.”

“But, maybe,” the Balloonman said, “if something silly like balloons would keep you from getting married, then you shouldn’t have married this person anyway.”

The beautiful woman looked at the Balloonman and he saw something sharp, like glass, break inside of her.

“I guess you’re right,” she said. “He was a fool anyway.”

Then the Balloonman thought she looked at him with renewed interest.

“How long have you worked here?”

“I’ve always worked here.”

“No, the Balloonman is a little more … puffy.”

“I used to only want to make balloons. Now I want something else.”

“I guess we all want something else.”

“And I guess you want a refund?”

“No, I didn’t pay for the balloons anyway. So what are you going to do now that your balloons are about as good as used condoms?”

The Balloonman wrinkled his nose at the simile. “Maybe I’ll travel.”

“Would you like a companion? I bet you made a killing off this place in its heyday.”

The Balloonman looked at the woman, saw whatever it was that had broken in her before harden again, and shook his head.

“No, I think I’m just going to go east.” He thought about June, floating away from him in her yellow dress. He thought about the way she had tasted. He thought about her fleshy arms in the palms of his hands. He figured she was probably where she needed to be now and wondered if she needed deflating. He thought he would know how to do that.

The woman huffed and turned toward the door, marching out on heels made of ice.

Behind her, he flipped the sign to the “Closed” side and walked to the back of the store. He opened the circuit breaker box and flipped all of the switches off. He opened the back door and stepped out onto the loading dock. He locked the door behind him. Crouching down, he began untying his shoes. Untying his shoes was not nearly the chore it once was. He hoped he had enough float left. Once his shoes were untied, he placed the toes of the right against the heel of the left and slid the shoe off. Already, he felt himself lift. He repeated the process with the right shoe and, slowly, he was off the ground.

He looked to the East, to the future, and floated a little higher, looking down at the pair of empty, weighted shoes behind the back door of his abandoned shop.

Storming

The storm calls on Wednesday. I answer on the phone downstairs. The storm sounds angry and hateful, rumbly and static-filled. I hang up the phone and my right foot begins vibrating. I’ve been chosen. I suppose I should let the boarder know. I knock on his door. It’s right next to the phone. The boarder is a circus strongman. I don’t know his name. I call him Mr. Strongman. He signed the lease with an “X”. No help there.

His door swings open. He’s a classic circus strongman, standing there in his crimson singlet. His black hair is greased and parted down the middle. An ostentatious handlebar mustache, waxed to perfection, reaches out from either side of his face. Years ago, training for the Olympics, Mr. Strongman strained his mouth and has been unable to speak through it since. Instead, he has trained his left deltoid to speak. He turns around and his deltoid says, “Hello.” I always want to touch it but I resist the urge. He would probably break me in half.

“My foot’s vibrating,” I blurt out, gesturing down to it. Even with a shoe on, you can tell it’s moving, twittering rapidly back and forth like something’s trying to get out.

Mr. Strongman is looking at me over his shoulder. Surprise and a certain amount of horror fill his eyes.

“You know what this means,” I say.

“I certainly do,” his deltoid says.

“I think you’d probably better go.”

“I’d rather not.”

“If you stay here, it’s quite likely you’ll die.”

“I’ll take that chance.”

“I would rather you didn’t. I don’t want to be responsible for another person.”

“I’d rather not move all these weights.” Mr. Strongman gestures into his room. It’s filled from floor to ceiling with globular iron weights in varying diameters. He has a point. I wouldn’t want to move all that stuff either.

“Surely you have some strongman friends who can help you?” I’m nearly pleading with him.

“They’ve all passed on.”

“Suit yourself then.”

“Do you know when?”

“I’m afraid I don’t. Soon, I imagine. With the way my foot’s vibrating.”

“I’ll be prepared.”

“You can only prepare so much for something like this.”

“You’ll have to go see the doctor next.”

“Yes. I know.”

“Would you like me to go with you?”

I think about it. Maybe it would be nice to have company. And I do not have a car.

“If you’re willing.”

“Let me get my keys.”

He disappears back into the room and I hear the clattering of iron weights. I don’t know what that has to do with keys. When he comes back to the door, his muscles are ripped and he’s sweating profusely. “I had to do a few reps.”

We head out to his tiny two-seater parked on the curb. The car is rusted and leans to the driver’s side. Probably because Mr. Strongman weighs so much.

“Wanna drive?” he asks. We both know this might be my last time to do this.

“Sure.”

He tosses the keys at me. His throw is slightly off. I miss the keys. They hit me on the side of the face and clatter down to the sidewalk. Bending down to pick them up, I can hear my foot vibrating. I look up at the sky and do not see a single cloud but I know this will change. The storm will come. The storm will rage through and change everything. How could I have let life become so stagnant?

We get into the car and I drive us to the doctor’s. It’s a small single-story shack on the outskirts of town. It doesn’t take very long. The town is not very large. I get out of the car.

“I’ll wait in here, if you don’t mind,” Mr. Strongman says.

“No, not at all. I’ll be right back.”

I walk through the parking lot, taking tentative steps around the vibrating foot. I pull the door to the doctor’s open. He has one of those bells that jangle over the door. He’s asleep in the middle of the floor. I approach him and nudge him with my foot. He lets out a final honking snore and pries his bloodshot eyes open.

“My foot’s vibrating.”

He’s in the perfect position to observe this. He rolls over onto his side, facing my foot. He puts his hand around it and squeezes. He puts his ear to the shoe.

“So it is. Can you help me up? We’ll get this taken care of.”

I hold out my hand and he clasps it.

“Come on back here with me.”

I follow him through a tattered wooden door. It creaks open and bangs shut. There is an old cot in the middle of the dimly lit room.

“Sit.” He points to the cot.

I sit down. He grabs a giant pair of what looks like hedge clippers and pulls a chair over beside the cot.

“Upsy daisy,” he says and pats his thigh.

I put my vibrating foot on his knee. He grabs the handles of the clippers and angles the business end around the top of my foot, just below the ankle.

“Here goes,” he says, and takes a mighty clip.

My foot is now off. There isn’t any blood or anything.

“That went well,” he says. “Now for your surrogate.”

He goes to a large box in the back corner of the room and rummages around. He comes back carrying a very large yellowish eagle talon.

“I’m afraid this’ll have to do.”

He sits back down on the chair and lines the talon up with the bottom of my leg. He grabs the clippers and does the same thing he did to remove the foot, the blades slicing through the empty space. When he’s finished, the talon is affixed securely to the leg.

“There we go,” he says.

“Thanks,” I say.

“We’ll get this sent off for you.” He holds my foot up in the air.

“That’d be great.”

Mr. Strongman has pulled the car around to the front of the building. That’s very considerate of him. I slide into the passenger seat.

“When we get home,” I say. “We’ll have to begin dismantling the house.”

He grunts and guides the car away from the doctor’s.

The tiny car squeals to a stop in front of the house. I place my new right foot, my talon, out onto the sidewalk. An old lady walking by looks at it and says, through her bent and twisted face, “So it’s true.” She gives me the evil eye and continues on her way. I want to shout something after her but she has every right to be angry.

The phone is ringing from the house. Mr. Strongman, aware of my condition, races to answer it. I’m walking up to the house when he appears in the doorway, his back to me, his deltoid saying, “It’s for you.”

Walking on this talon is tricky. After a couple minutes I reach the phone. It’s the storm again. It sounds closer. Even angrier. I imagine it gathering steam somewhere over the plains of Kansas. Taking in deep breaths and roiling around itself. Ready to spew out its vitriolic guts on me and my house. I could argue with it, but it wouldn’t do any good.

The next two days, Mr. Strongman and I dismantle the house. I pull the siding off the lower parts. He’s good with the ladder. He’s able to get the second floor. We strip off the siding and place it in the backyard. He places his weights over the various piles. The walls are huge and very heavy, giant chunks of drywall. I supervise as he pulls them from the support beams. He stacks these in the backyard as well.

“You want me to do the roof?” he asks.

I squint up at the roof. “Nah, it needs replaced anyway.”

“It’s too bad this has to happen to you.”

“There’s no other way. I want to let you know this house is yours after the storm, for all your hard work.”

“Aw, thanks. That’s not necessary.”

“I insist.”

“Very well.”

“Now I think I’m going to go wait for it.”

“Need any help.”

“I’ll get it. You should probably hide in the basement … when the time comes.”

“I’ll stay out here with you. I can’t let you do something like this alone.”

“It was meant to be done alone.”

“It could have been me who answered the phone.”

“That’s not the way it works. You know that.”

He lowers his head as if he is already in mourning.

I grab my green lawn chair I bought just for this occasion and enter the house through the missing wall. We left the stairs because both of us decided we didn’t know how they would go back together. It wouldn’t matter to me anyway. I climb the stairs to the second floor.

From downstairs, the phone rings.

No one answers it.

The day is sunny.

I study the horizon.

And then I see it over the house across the street. Black and perilous. Moving quickly. I clutch the arms of the lawn chair, set my jaw, and wait for it.

Downstairs, Mr. Strongman is supporting himself in a doorway that is lacking a door.

The giant cloud reaches my house and stops. There is a loud boom of thunder. Lightning shoots out. Rain pounds down. I notice there is a crowd of people gathered on the sidewalk. They ooh and aah as the storm delivers its beating. A funnel cloud extends down, beginning at the edge of the lawn and working its way toward the house. I release the lawn chair and push myself to the edge of the floor, where the wall used to be. I raise my arms to the storm and, like a hateful father, it scoops me up and lifts me into its black fold. Below, I see Mr. Strongman squinting up at me, at the storm carrying me away. I wonder if he was the one who had called the storm or if it was really just my time.

The inside of the storm is cold and loud. It races across the mountains, toward the coast. We reach the ocean in a matter of hours and it coughs me out. I plunge down into the salty water. Somewhere, a sea gull is laughing at me. I pull the water into my lungs. It is cold. I put my head down and swim toward the shore, eager to start over.

Marcello

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

The Devil’s Dreambook

I have been the Devil’s assistant for nearly five years now. During that period of time, I have seen his mood range from joyous to maudlin to angry and everything in between. I have put up with the crankiness, the whining, and delusions of grandeur. But never have I seen him as depressed as this morning.

I finished preparing breakfast and Satan sauntered in, playing with his coarse chest hair. He was completely naked, his skin red and gleaming.

“No loin cloth this morning, huh, Satan?”

“What’s the point?” He switches his tail over to the side and sits down at the table.

“Depressed?” I ask.

“Shouldn’t I be?” He sullenly leans his head, supporting his cheek with his hand.

“What’s to be depressed about? I made bacon.”

“I just don’t think I’m scary anymore.”

“What do you mean? You’re being ridiculous.”

“Look at you. You’ve lived with me for almost five years. I haven’t eaten you. I haven’t stolen your soul. I haven’t really given you any discomfort at all.”

“Well, there was that time we went camping and your legs hurt. Remember? You made me give you a piggyback ride to the car.”

“Oh, that’s not what I mean.”

“You’re being rather cryptic.”

“I just don’t cause enough destruction. People don’t even do things in my name anymore. The worst deeds, the biggest atrocities, are done in the name of God.”

“You and I both know that God’s a shiftless bastard.”

“Do we? I used to think so. No, not anymore. Shiftlessness? That has to be me. Yesterday, I was going to put a demon in Mrs. Wilcox, over on Third, but I couldn’t even get out of bed.”

“So you weren’t feeling very well. We all have our bad days.”

“I’m supposed to make everyone’s day bad.”

“Look, you’ll get back on your feet.”

“Today! It must be today!”

“Eat your breakfast. I’m sure we can arrange something.”

After breakfast, the Devil wraps me up in duct tape with the anticipation of ripping it off later. Once I’m fully wrapped, we head to the park. The Devil wants to scare some children to try and get back into the swing of things.

It’s a beautiful day. We get there around noon and the park is very crowded. Initially, everything goes smashingly. Many of the children that see him clear out, terrified. A few others hang on until the Devil trudges up to them, stamping and yelling.

Things take a downward turn when one of the little shits runs up to his mother.

“Did that big red man make you cry?”

The child nods his head and wipes a tear from his cheek. She stalks up to the Devil. I am prepared to intervene and offer her cash to forget that it happened when the Devil tells me he can handle it by himself.

The woman shakes her finger in his face and says, “I don’t know who the hell you think you are but this kind of behavior is totally unacceptable. If you don’t leave immediately, I’m going to …” But the Devil doesn’t let her finish. He grabs her by the neck and pulls her toward him, quickly biting her head off and swallowing. Nonchalantly, he tosses the headless corpse to the side. He begins walking toward the child and I think, “Good God, he’s going to devour the child too.”

The Devil has to bend way down to talk to the child. He moves in so close to the boy’s face I feel he’s going to eat him for certain now. Instead, he only yells at the boy, “I just bit off your mother’s head! Now where are you going to go?”

The child runs off screaming and I breathe a sigh of relief. I go up to the Devil and say, “Hey, whaddya say we get out of here?”

He swishes his tail and we head away from the park.

Back in the apartment the Devil falls into another state of melancholy.

“Oh, come on, what’s wrong now?” I ask. “You had a good day.”

“Not good enough.”

“What are you expecting?”

“I’m just … so tired. That’s all.”

“Tomorrow then.”

“No. Not tomorrow.”

The Devil yawns, stands up, and heads to his bedroom.

Obsolescence

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

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

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

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

“Were you all right?”

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

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

“Where’s Dad?”

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

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

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

“Not you too?” I say.

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

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

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

I stand there, completely puzzled.

“Is anybody else hungry?” Mother asks.

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

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

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

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

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

“Did it hurt?” I ask.

“Well, not yet. But I can only sit on soft things.”

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

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

“I insist.”

“Let one of us get them.”

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

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

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

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

“Were you just going to throw them out?”

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

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

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

Comfort

Marty is a comfortable man. He’s worked at the same place for over two decades, getting a decent raise every year. He’s pleased with most of the people he’s worked with. Sometimes they’ll hire someone slightly agitating but his co-workers typically gaslight them into quitting before they can annoy him too much. He wears expensive clothes and drives a luxury car to a nice house in an affluent suburb—the kind with not a lot of character and a large, well-manicured lawn. His wife is numb and drugged so he’s able to engage in his various pursuits when he gets home. Sometimes they go out for a nice dinner and attempt to have conversations like the people in their age-appropriate sitcoms and films. They do not attract attention. He goes to bed every night with nothing to worry about. His wife floated the idea of a sleep divorce a decade ago and Marty pounced on it. Now he doesn’t have to worry about her flailing or keeping her awake with his snoring.

One day, people online begin mocking comfort. Marty feels like a meme. He looks a lot like many of the middle-aged men in the most viral online content. He feels soft.

That night at dinner he says to his wife, “I feel soft.”

She tries her best to focus on him and says, “You’re only a little overweight. I like my men with a little meat on their bones.” They haven’t had sex in seven years.

“No, I mean, too comfortable. I need my edge back.”

She snorts, thinking it’s inaudible, and says, “Did you ever … have an edge?”

“We used to get out and do stuff. Play tennis. Go to vineyards. Mini golf.”

His wife loses focus. She’s running the tip of her index finger around the rim of her water glass.

“I’ll figure it out,” he says.

He finds a man online and the next day he goes to this man’s house. The house is a state away in a town that makes Marty think the apocalypse might have already happened. The man sells him six venomous snakes. Marty happily takes them home and places them in separate plastic totes in his bedroom.

Feeding them makes him break out in hives but he feels more alive than he has in years. Sleeping amidst them fills him with nightmares and he once again starts sleeping in his wife’s bed.

When one of the snakes escapes, he doesn’t call anyone to come and wrangle it. He and his wife start spending less time at home. They take vacations, visit old friends, book local hotel rooms where they start fucking again because it feels kind of sleazy.

His wife notices the change in him and he’s pretty sure he sees more life and clarity in her eyes than he’s seen in a while. She asks if she can start feeding the snakes too. He knows she’ll probably forget to latch their containers every now and then and the thought of another venomous snake on the loose fills him with adrenaline he wholeheartedly welcomes. In only a couple of months, all the snakes are free-range.

One of the snakes, seeking refuge and heat under the refrigerator, strikes at Marty as he’s retrieving the dinner salad. Because he’s now constantly vigilant, Marty’s reflexes are pretty good. He lunges out of the way, grabs a cast iron pan, and beats the snake to death. He brings the salads into the dining room and places them on the table. His wife asks him what went on in there and he gleefully recounts the encounter.

He alert, engaged, and passionate. His wife listens attentively. They talk about downsizing, about going nomad. The five remaining snakes slither out from their hiding spaces, ready to follow them anywhere.

Halloween

We get super high and buy way too much candy corn.

We get home. We sit on the couch. We find the stupidest horror movie we can find.

After shoveling nearly the entire bag of candy corn into his mouth, Darren says, “I don’t think I know what real corn tastes like. This just tastes like candy. It doesn’t even taste like corn. Does it?”

“It does not,” I say. “How have you never had corn?”

Darren thinks about this. “I think it’s because I’m too young.”

“You’re thirty-five.”

“I just don’t … think it was a thing. Like, I’m pretty sure people stopped eating corn before I was born.”

Several minutes go by before Darren says, “Now I want to know what corn tastes like.”

I get up and walk into the kitchen, open some cabinets. “I don’t have any corn.”

“Where do you even get it?” Darren says. “Is it like in fields and stuff? The wilderness?”

“You get it from the store.”

Darren is on his phone. The grocery-ordering app. He sighs.

“Why are there so many types? What’s the green stuff? Is corn green?”

“That’s fresh corn. It has a husk on it.”

“Like a shell? That’s too much work. I’m gonna order this canned stuff. It says it’s sweet.”

He has to order twenty cans to meet the minimum for delivery.

Later, the delivery driver shows up with a flat of canned corn. He’s dressed like a delivery driver. It’s pretty convincing.

“Cool costume,” I say.

He looks down at himself as if he’s forgotten what costume he chose to wear today.

“Uh, thanks?” He walks back to his car, stepping over the candy Darren and I threw at some kids earlier.

I heat a can of the corn on the stove because if Darren cooks it we will either die or something will blow up.

He takes a bite and says he doesn’t like it. He prefers candy corn. He spits the corn out into the bowl, ruining all of it.

“I’m gonna put the rest of the corn in the bathtub … It’s all I can think about.”

I help him open the cans so he doesn’t cut himself and we dump them all in the tub. It’s not really as much as you’d think, barely covering the bottom. Darren has me spray him with adhesive before he gets in the tub and flops around until he’s covered in corn.

“I like the way this feels,” he says.

We go back into the living room to finish watching the movie. Or maybe it’s a different movie altogether. I can’ tell.

Darren sits on the couch. “I think some of them popped.” He seems really happy. “It’s like bubble wrap … Really pulpy bubble wrap.”

I blackout sometime after midnight.

Darren’s gone when I finally come to.

Corn is all over the place.

The Lift

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

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

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

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

“Thought maybe you could use some help.”

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

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

“No. Not at all. Is this your truck?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Definitely.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yeah, but, a receipt?” I asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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