Andersen Prunty's Blog, page 9

The Plath Maneuver

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

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

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

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

“How who did what?”

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

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

He laughed at his foolishness.

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

Where I Go to Die

I crawl out of the fire hydrant. Reach out my hand and stroke its rough surface. “Wood?” I mutter. I look around. A treelined suburban street. Where the hell am I? I don’t know. But I do know I’ve come here to die. From down the street I hear a loud car. It speeds toward me. A super jacked up hot rod, black and covered with gleaming white skulls. This car looks designed to take me to my death. I put my hands in my pockets and wait for the car to stop. It doesn’t. I enclose my right hand around an object. A paint can opener. I had used it to open a can of paint but the can was filled with …

I hurl the opener at the car. It clangs off the bumper and the car stops. I wait for it to back up. It doesn’t. I wander down the street until I reach the car. Apprehensively, I stand next to the passenger-side door until the driver shouts, “Wanna lift?!” He has an unkempt mustache that eclipses his lips and wears a pair of mirror-shade aviator sunglasses. He wears a trucker hat with a skull above the bill and, above the skull, the word: “Necrophiliac.”

“You bet I do,” I say, tugging rapidly on the door handle.

“Handles don’t work! Gotta hop in through the window!”

After several clumsy minutes, I make it into the car, bashing my head on the top of the door.

“Bitch, ain’t it?” he says. “I’m glad you came along. I need me some tunes. Grab that disc up off the floor and slide it in there.”

I wonder how me being here has anything to do with him being able to listen to music until I notice his hands are nailed to the steering wheel. He catches me staring.

“Keeps ’em from slidin’ off,” he says. “I got that sweatin’ disease? Gets damn slick. My wife, great woman she is, nails me down every time I go for a drive. She usually puts some tunes in too but, well, I been drivin’ around for a long time.”

I press the EJECT button on the stereo and the remains of a disc spill out. It’s melted and runny. I hesitate before putting the next disc in. This one is plain white with strange markings on it. Maybe it’s gibberish or maybe it’s how people write things here.

“I’ve never heard of them,” I say, more or less to make conversation.

“Me neither,” he says. “Some whore left it in the car. I like to stop off in The Alley and pay for sex favors sometimes. That one, as I recall, gave me an exquisite blowjob. Dropped that out of her bag.”

I slide the disc into the player.

“Thank god for automatics,” he says, peeling out into the road, speeding through a series of residential suburbs, each one the same as the last.

The music is at top volume. It is very discordant. No vocals. He rocks his head and shouts made-up words as though it’s some arena rock anthem. He burns to a stop in front of a small white ranch house. I guess this is home. I start to get out and he tells me to take the disc with me. “I don’t know what the fuck that is. It ain’t music in my book. Sounds like listening to a TV test pattern through a box fan.”

“Thanks,” I say, ejecting the disc and putting it back in its paper envelope.

I walk up the cement path to the house. He speeds two doors down, whips the car into the driveway and then just sits there. I reach the door and look over at him, sitting there in his quiet car.

“Hey!” I shout. “Do you need some help getting out of the car?!” It must be difficult with his hands nailed like that.

But he seems to be enraged. He shouts violently from his car. “Get the fuck in your goddamn house and don’t you ever say another fuckin’ word to me! If I catch you so much as lookin’ at my house or my car I’ll come out and fuckin’ slit your throat! Got that! SLIT YOUR FUCKIN’ GODDAMN THROAT!”

Reaching my hand out to turn the doorknob to the house, the door swings open and a clothed inflatable doll stands in the doorway.

“We’re through,” she says, pushing her way past me. A giant bag is slung over her shoulder. It’s nearly as large as the house. I have no idea how it fits through the door. Even though I have no recollection of ever being here, I know all our possessions are in that bag. “There’s a note for you on the floor,” she snarls through her O-shaped mouth. Then she lifts up her foot, flicks open an air stopper protruding from her heel, and goes shooting into the blue sky, carrying the bag with her.

The note on the floor says:

THE FLATS

FIBE A.M.

Five in the morning, maybe? I don’t really know. Knowing this is where I’m going to my death, I go into a rage, running around the bare room, kicking holes in the unadorned walls. I go into the kitchen and rip the cabinets from the walls, tip over the refrigerator, yank out all the drawers, piss on it all. Exhausted, I spiral into the living room and collapse but the silence is deafening. I remember the disc Necrophiliac gave to me and, for no apparent reason, take it from my pocket and lick the underside of it. I hear snippets of the music way back in my brain. I lick it again and, again, I hear the music. The house, with no source of light anywhere, is plunged into darkness as afternoon slides into night. I lie on the floor with the disc clamped between my teeth, my tongue touching it, until the music fills my skull. This is my last night to live and I make the most of it by falling asleep.

I wake up. The disc has fallen out of my mouth. It’s covered in drool and I no longer want to touch it. I go outside and trudge across the yards until I reach my neighbor’s house. He’s still in the car, rocking to and fro, growling. I kick the passenger-side door. “Hey!” I say.

He stops growling and whips his head around. “I told you never to get near me again you fucking shitsucker! I’m gonna open you up! Come on over here and I’ll fuckin’ rip your neck open you FATHERFUCKING SHEEPLEG!”

“Look, I need to go to The Flats.” I throw my stupid note into the car. “You have to take me.”

He growls. “I ain’t got no lights. No lights at all.”

I hurl myself into the car, plopping down in the seat next to him. “I’m sorry but we have to get going. The note said five … I think.”

He manages to turn the key with his knee, truly fascinating, it has little fingers. Rather than backing out of the driveway (the sick little hand can’t reach the gear shift) he just guns the accelerator and swings the wheel with his gruesome-looking hands until we are back on the road. I get hungry and rummage through the debris on the floorboard. I hold up a white triangular object and say, “What’s this?”

“Think that’s a guitar pick,” he says, keeping his eyes focused on the dark road. We leave the suburb and cruise along in the inky blackness.

“I’m gonna eat it,” I say.

“Go right ahead.”

I put the guitar pick on my tongue like a communion wafer and swallow it down. Amazingly, my stomach begins glowing and, once again, I hear music in my head. This time it’s really loud and I’m surprised it’s not leaking out.

“You hear anything?” I say to the driver.

“Nope. Nothin’ but the road,” he says.

I concentrate on the music and the glow filling the car. It’s so bright it drifts out of the car, illuminating the countryside around us. Only it is no longer countryside. It is a flat, cracked-earth desert.

“Here we are,” he says. “The Flats.”

“I think this is where I’m supposed to die,” I say.

“Best get out then.”

I clamber out of the car, feet smacking onto the hard earth. I’m like the moon, sending out all this light. I watch the driver drive back toward the neighborhood. I can see him for quite a way. I stand there and wait. Dawn comes up pink and golden. I feel myself growing weaker, the light from my stomach dying down. I collapse onto the scraped and scarred earth and know that I will not rise again.

The Janitor, The Owner, and That Other Guy

The janitor is exalted to a kind of king status.

He’s reached his fifties and the owner, who’s nearing seventy, knows the janitor is going through something. He doesn’t intervene because he doesn’t like altercations.

The janitor, after working there for thirty years, takes a shit in front of the door while everyone watches—some of them up close, some from their cars, some from the windows, some from the closed-circuit television.

“I ain’t comin’ back in until someone else cleans this up!” the janitor shouts.

The owner tells the new girl she has to go clean it up because he knows if he fires the janitor on the spot, he’ll either get beaten up or yelled at. Plus he’ll have to find someone on the internet—quick—who can come and solve his problem. He doesn’t like asking the new girl this, it just seems like the easiest, most immediate and copacetic action.

She says, “Fuck no,” and quits, leaping over the pile of human shit to get away from the building.

The owner asks the next-newest guy and he also says, “I quit,” but then says he isn’t walking over shit to get out. It’s unleapable. It’s a pretty sizeable mess and he’s a little obese. He admires the new girl’s athleticism and determination.

Finally, the owner wises up and asks the guy who’s there sixty hours a week but adds “I don’t want to stretch you too thin” because he knows he’s really on edge.

The guy raises his eyebrows and says he needs a raise. The owner gives him a hundred percent raise. He’ll be rich in six months, living like he does now.

The janitor goes back to doing what he always did, except now he shits in front of the door once a day. It keeps him regular. It’s also less messy, to make it easier for the other guy to handle.

The other guy cleans up the pile of shit every day, but the rest of his job performance suffers a little.

The owner stops paying any attention whatsoever.

They all know this has to happen, but none of them wants to make it too difficult.

The Inconsequential Man

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

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

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

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

“Should we do something about it?”

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

I shrug. She has a point, I guess.

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

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

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

“It’s fascinating,” I say.

“I gotta get back to them jars.”

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

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

“What!?” a gruff man shouts.

“There’s a man out on the road …”

“Is this a prank!?”

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

“You got the wrong line buddy!”

“Is this the police?”

“You got that right.”

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

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

“I’m pretty sure he’s dead.”

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

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

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

Toss

A boy with a boar’s head wanders into his kitchen and asks his father for a pet.

His father doesn’t hear him.

His father’s pills are scattered all over the kitchen table. He’s leaning back in the chair, his arms dangling at his sides. He says he takes the pills to keep his fingers from curling up.

The boy kicks his father in the shin.

The father snaps out of his coma and stares forward with bloodshot eyes, dragging a bony hand across his drool-slicked chin.

“I wanna pet.”

The father makes a great effort to reach out and grab one of the boy’s tusks. He gives it a weak shake and says, “Then we’ll go get you a pet.”

They leave the house and go to the pet store. The father walks very slowly and looks at his hands. He asks the boy if he notices his fingers curling up. The boy doesn’t answer.

They reach the pet store. It smells like a barn. The animals roam free. The menagerie runs the gamut from cute and cuddly to exotic and lethal. The father pokes the animals in the eyes and tells the boy he’s checking to make sure they’re ripe. The boy thinks maybe he’s confused. The boy falls in love with a two-headed rabbit. Luckily, it’s ripe. He takes it home and names it “Cobra.”

On the way home, the father says, “If you want we could stop at the hospital and get that cat sewed up in ya. Yeah, it’ll be a real fun surgery. We used to do shit like that all the time.”

The boy bites his father on the hand. The father slowly pulls his hand to his chest and stares at it, says now they’re gonna curl up for sure.

The next day, the boy takes Cobra to school, to the classroom filled with boar-headed children.

The class is taught by two men named Vern and Carl. Vern is stout and intense. He wears a tight button-down shirt stretched over his belly. He is the disciplinarian. Carl is taller with carefree, flowing hair. He wears a sweatsuit. He is the fun guy.

After about an hour of class, the teachers get bored. Vern tells the boy to hand over the rabbit. Carl assures him they’ll bring it back. The boy hands Vern the rabbit and the two men go outside.

The boy stands at the window and stares out at the green grass of the school grounds. Carl and Vern appear. They look very happy. They toss the rabbit back and forth. Back and forth. The boy thinks it looks like a lot of fun. So fun. He wants to be out there, tossing the rabbit with his teachers. Instead, he stays in the classroom and cries with the other students.

Later, he takes Cobra home.

He tells his father to come out to the yard, he’s discovered a new game. A half-hour later, his father makes it out. The boy tosses Cobra at his father. His father moves way too slow and the rabbit bounces off his chest. His father falls down. His fingers curl up, wildly extending from his hands and twisting into impossible shapes.

Cobra hops away.

The boy goes into the house and beats his fists on the couch. Tomorrow he will make his father take him back to the pet store and he will get a new pet. And then they will go to the hospital and he’ll have the pet sewn so deeply inside him it will never escape.

Onion

I visit a strange man in the middle of the night. He lives in a tiny house at the end of a long dirt lane in the middle of nowhere. He tells me he knows I want to eat the onions in his refrigerator but if I do I’ll end up in the hospital. Suddenly I want nothing but onions. I tell him this. He throws open the refrigerator door and says, “Have at it.” I pull an onion out, plop it down on the counter, and grab a knife to slice it. I cut the end of my finger off. I turn and ask the man if he can take me to the hospital. He says he can but all he has is a cart he’ll have to pull. We go outside. I climb into the cart and he hoists the handles. The cart smells like onions. I put the tip of my finger into my mouth and think about the one I lost as we head out into the dusty night.

Drugs

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

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

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

“No, I’m Mr. C.”

“Is this 2300 Rosewood?”

“Yes it is.”

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

“May I ask what for?”

“Hiding something, Mr. L?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I see.”

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

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

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

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

“Please, one more week,” I plead.

Teething

My teeth revolt and decide to leave my head. For five hours I am collapsed onto the floor as each of my teeth painfully remove themselves from my gums. Blood drips from my mouth and onto the carpet. I stand up, woozy from the pain, and stare down at my liberated teeth. The left incisor, marked by a gleaming white filling, seems to be the leader. Together, they march out the door, leaving behind little bloody toothprints. The wisdom teeth, contrary to their moniker, are slow and clumsy, fat and dimwitted.

I sit down on the couch and think about the loss of my teeth. I’m incredibly angry. I look at the carpet, at the large bloodstain that marks the beginning of their revolt and all the little spots they made when they left. The rest of the evening I spend removing the carpet, ripping it up from the floor and tossing it out into the yard. Exhausted, I retire for the night.

Thoughts race through my head. I can’t just go about my life with no teeth. I’ll have to get dentures. But I can’t afford dentures. What will I do until then? Perhaps I could grow a large, Nietzschean mustache. It will only be a matter of time, however, before my lips and cheeks begin to curve inward and I’ll look like all those homeless guys downtown.

I call in to work the next day and tell them I need a week off. When they ask what for I tell them I can’t feel my legs and can’t see out of my left eye. They tell me that sounds serious and I tell them it is. I put orange peels in my mouth, like kids do, only I don’t smile. I keep my mouth closed. The peels are only there to give the illusion of teeth. I go to the store and stock up on soups.

The next two days pass in a wave of black depression.

One night, as I’m lying in bed, my teeth come back to me. Most of them do, anyway. The left incisor, the ringleader, reeks of liquor and cheap perfume. The right incisor smells like smoke. The left eye tooth smells like the outdoors. Perhaps he went camping or something. I think about criticizing them, telling them I’m going to have to get braces. Something about them distracts me. The wisdom teeth are absent and I’m assuming they had to leave them behind. But there’s something else. At first I think I’m just seeing double and then realize what has happened. My teeth have come back with spouses. Save the missing wisdoms there are twice as many of them. I don’t know how they’re going to fit. I don’t know how painful it’s going to be when they re-insert themselves into the gums. I try not to think about it.

I open my mouth and let all the newlyweds enter.

Florida

I hitch a ride to Florida with an ominously flatulent, chainsmoking nun. I’m standing by the road with my thumb out and a worn cardboard sign that reads, “Florida Please.” The nun pulls her giant wood-paneled station wagon to a stop and rolls down the window.

I lean into the window. A terrible smell wafts from the car. “Going to Florida?”

“Wherever.”

“Mind if I catch a ride with you. I’ll give you, like, a dollar.”

“I gotta move all these cats first,” the nun says.

The front seat is littered with cats. There must be a dozen of them. She grabs each of them by the scruff of the neck and tosses them into the back seat. The part of the wagon behind the backseat appears to be covered with kitty litter and lumps of cat shit. I realize this is going to be a hostile environment and think about backing out but I really can’t. My arch nemesis’ vessel is currently situated off the coast of Florida and this may be our last chance at battle in quite a while.

Once the nun has all the cats cleared off the seat I open the door and sit down in a cloud of cat fur. My throat closes and my eyes begin watering. I unleash a volley of sneezes as she pulls from the curb. She promptly rolls up all the windows. The air conditioner runs full blast. She pulls an unfiltered cigarette from a crumpled pack and lights it, ashing into the overflowing ashtray. She hacks and coughs a lot. Tells me her name is Candy. She’s thirty-four years old but looks seventy-six. The cats are spiteful, batting at the back of my head and hissing. After a few minutes I black out. I come to the next day, lying in an alley, my clothes strewn all around, crosses covering my flesh in dirty ash.

“Gah,” I mutter. My mouth tastes like a cigarette and a cat’s ass. I pull on my clothes and stumble out of the alley. The sea and blinding sunlight besiege me.

My arch nemesis, John Crux, waits on the beach.

“Hey there,” I say. “You ready to do this shit?”

He smirks and takes off his heavy fur coat, so cool. Crux is my arch nemesis because he is my exact opposite. Cool. Collected. Calm. Not a drop of sweat on him. His naked torso is bronzed, each muscle defined. His hair is blond, long and flowing.

I decide to take off my shirt as well. I’m pale and flabby. Hair thinning. Weak.

“This time to the death,” I say.

“This is a farce,” he says, approaching me. I cower away.

I don’t remember exactly when our epic struggle began. Perhaps it was in grade school. I was under the assumption he had stolen something vital to my existence although I can’t possibly think of what that might be.

“‘Farce’?” I chuff out. “That’s a fancy word.”

“You’re an idiot,” he says. “Let’s just call a truce.”

“Like hell. I have to destroy you.”

“Why? What did I ever do to you?”

I don’t have an answer for him so I pick up a handful of sand and throw it in his face. He steps back and wipes the sand from his eyes. Then he punches me in the nose. I collapse onto the sand, wave my hands in the air and beg for mercy, for him to spare my life. He kicks sand at me in a furious storm. I roll over onto my stomach and cover the back of my head. Once the sand stops pelting me I look into the distance to see his vessel heading into the deep blue of the ocean. I pull my shirt back on, shake the sand out of my hair and wander off to find a phone and maybe a drink. I think about following Crux to exact my revenge and realize I’m far too lazy for that.

Prince

Prince sits at the table.

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

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

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

“Look, we need to talk,” I say.

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

“What’s the problem?” he asks.

“I think you know what the problem is.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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