I got a bonus for a year’s work down at the paper factory. It was a big bonus. I wanted to buy something for myself with this money. I went to a department store and bought myself a black leather jacket. First I tried it on and looked at myself in the display mirror. It made me look dangerous and warm. I had to have this black leather jacket. After buying the jacket I still had over a hundred dollars left from my big bonus. I wanted people to see me in my new jacket so I decided I would go out and have a drink. I went to the G Club. I especially wanted a pretty woman to see me in my black leather jacket and be attracted to my new sense of dangerous warmth. I sat at the bar and ordered a drink. I drank the drink and looked around. A small woman sat in the smoky back corner. She was wearing a thin emerald green dress. I could not see up the dress. She looked neither dangerous nor warm. She looked seductive and cold. I walked over to her, drawing myself down into my new jacket. I asked her if I could buy her a drink. She said she would rather do something else. I said we could go back to my place. She said that sounded good. But I’m with my mother, she said. Girls’ night out. She can wait downstairs, I said. I have a couch and television and a dog named Seamus to keep her company. Yes, she said, that sounds good. So we all went back to my house. Me and the girl, whose name was Tracy, went upstairs to my bedroom. She went to the bathroom to insert her diaphragm. She told me, I’m going to go into the bathroom and insert my diaphragm. I said okay. I took off my leather jacket and the rest of my clothes. Then I put the jacket back on. She came out and she was naked. She lay down on the bed. I took off my jacket and hung it on the footpost, hoping I’d used just the right amount of extravagance. I crawled into bed and rolled over between her legs. I’m pretty sure she didn’t come. I rolled off her and lit a cigarette. She said, Well, Mom’s waiting, I better go. I said okay. On the way out she took the leather jacket. When I finished my cigarette I went downstairs to feed the dog and watch television but the dog and the television set were gone. So were the stereo and the silverware. There wasn’t much left in my house. It felt like even the heat was gone. I could have used that black leather jacket.
Category: Stories
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Pointing at the Sun
Lowprice Head gets into his car and takes a drive down to the local supermarket. It is a pleasant drive. Not a day for revelation but a nice day nonetheless. The sky is blue and clear. Not a cloud in it. He sings, “I wear high pants,” to himself and realizes how much he sounds like his father. This irritates him because he does not like his father. He tells himself the rest of the day will be better once he has stocked up on assorted fruits and vegetables.
Suddenly, he is struck with the overwhelming urge to stop the car, get out, and point at the sun for a few minutes. So he does that. And as he stands at the gravel shoulder of the road a black truck pulls up behind his car and a group of three teenagers gets out. They all have a lot of tattoos and wear extremely short running shorts.
The most well-muscled of the three approaches Lowprice and gives him a little shove. Lowprice continues to point at the sun.
“You wanna start some shit?” the muscled guy says.
“No,” Lowprice begins. “I’m perfectly content just pointing at the sun for a few minutes or so.”
“That’s some fucked up shit,” the guy says. “You better stop that.”
“I can’t,” Lowprice says.
The muscled guy tries to force Lowprice’s arm down but it stays, ironlike, pointing at the sun. The heavily muscled youth’s friends begin laughing at his failed attempt to bring Lowprice’s frail arm down.
“If you don’t put that arm down I’m gonna fuck you up real good.”
His friends collectively make a sound like, “Whoo!”
“Sorry,” Lowprice says, continuing to point.
“You asked for it, you little shit.”
He walks around to the front of Lowprice and punches him in the face. Several of Lowprice’s teeth shatter and he collapses back onto the gravel, his arm continuing to point toward the sun.
“All right now,” the muscled guy says to his friends. “I’m gonna roll him over here and when I do that I want one of you to get in the truck and drive over his arm.”
“Right on, Mitch,” one of them says.
Mitch rolls Lowprice over and the guy driving the truck runs over it once going forward and again in reverse. Mitch kicks Lowprice over onto his back so his arm rests floppily and broken on his stomach. “Serves you right, you damn pointing shit!” Mitch screams before joining his friends in the truck and speeding away.
Lowprice begins singing, “I need medical attention,” to himself around broken teeth and a busted jaw. Luckily, he no longer sounds like his father when he sings. That makes it an alright day.
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Blood
We go see a movie called Bloodfest. The title is horribly misleading and it ends up being a four-hour documentary of people with all different ethnic backgrounds donating blood. Midway through, my date turns and starts making out with the man on her right. I tug on her sleeve and tell her she’s confused. A woman behind us shushes me.
Fatigued, we exit the theater onto the bright city street. From behind my date, I notice a large red blotch on the back of her skirt. I tap her on the shoulder and point to her behind. Lightning fast, she throws a right hook at my face. I stumble backward, lose my footing, and collapse onto the street. Once I can focus again, I look up at her. She has discovered the stain. “Oh, gosh, I’m sorry,” she says before coming over and lending a hand, helping me up. She then sticks her hand down the front of her skirt, bringing it back out and smelling her fingers. “Yep, that’s blood all right,” she says. “Damn, I don’t have a san nap!”
I am briefly taken aback by her crudity until I remember. “Here,” I say, reaching for my wallet. “I’ve got something.” I pull a pad from my wallet, warm and smooshed. She snatches it away.
“Oh, God, thank you,” she says.
Amazed once again, I watch as she pulls down her skirt and underwear in the middle of the sidewalk. I see an old couple walking out of the theater and I rush to shield them from my date, blocking their view with my expansive coat. “I liked the part where that Cuban fellow has a crisis of conscience when he realizes he can’t go through with the donation because he is getting over a cold,” the old woman says. The man casts a cold, suspicious glance in my direction.
“Hi there!” I shout, not knowing what else to say. He grabs his wife a little tighter and they move closer to the road.
“All ready,” my date says.
Relieved, I put my coat back on. I look at her and shake my head. She has merely used the device to mop up some of the excess blood and now has it fastened to her wrist like a bracelet.
“You’re hopeless,” I laugh.
Walking away, I notice she has hiked her skirt up in order to hide the stain beneath her shirt and now her buttocks are practically hanging out … but I can’t see the stain. I think about letting her borrow my long coat, its hem drifting just millimeters above the sidewalk, and then think better about it.
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The Johnsons
In my search for spiritual enlightenment, I travel to the desert to study a group of people called the Johnsons. Living in total isolation, their village has the look of a suburban street. There are only about sixty of them and none of them have a first name and, since all of their last names are Johnson, the only way to address them is by their street number. I visit 468 Johnson Lane and speak with the man and woman there. All of the men have very thick hair, which they keep heavily gelled and parted to the side. I ask them why there are no children around and Mrs. 468 says, “Oh, they’re really worth too much money to keep.”
“You mean they cost too much?”
“Oh, good heavens, no. We get paid so much for them. The men with the mustaches give us so much money … Well, it’s impossible to resist—look at all the nice things it has bought us.”
The house is nice. It has all the modern amenities. The electricity, Mrs. 468 tells me, is supplied by sorcery. I stay overnight at their house, sleeping in a luxurious bed, and get up the next morning to follow Mr. 468 to work. He dresses as though going to an office—a clean white shirt and navy blue tie, khaki trousers, his hair all thick and gelled. I follow him out into the desert, across a low dune where he is, in due time, joined by the other Johnson men.
They do not speak. They merely shuffle around in the sand, as though the others don’t exist. This continues for a few hours until they decide it’s lunchtime. They pull sandwiches and bottles of water from their baggy khaki trousers. After they finish eating they all begin ridiculing one man. They tell him his wife doesn’t love him and they all slept with her last night. They tell him his house looks like a garbage sack. They accuse him of being impotent, flatulent, and disease-ridden. They tell him the only person uglier than him is his wife. Then they pull out barber’s clippers and shear clumps of hair from his lustrous head. They all laugh at this new haircut and circle up around him, chanting, “Flumpy hair! Flumpy hair!”
When lunch is over, they all go back to shuffling around. I start back to search for the village, but I can’t find it. When I go back to ask the men if they could point me in the right direction, I can’t find them either. I stare at the sun and continue moving west.
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Genitalia
I wake up from a twelve-day inhalant bender. My room has been redecorated, a giant poster of Kirk Cameron taped to the ceiling above the bed. I have to piss.
I pull the leaves of wilted lettuce off the toilet seat and discard them in the trashcan. I pull down my underwear, the sight astonishing me. My genitals have become a dry, lumpy mass, something only resembling a penis protruding from the mire. I reach down to seize it delicately between two fingers and it tumbles off into the toilet, a spray of urine shooting everywhere.
I decide I never should have rolled out of bed. Reaching under the sink, I grab a can of spray paint, anxious to huff my way back to sleep.
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Ted the Salesman
Ted the Salesman bends over his papers, greedily stuffing them back into his giant briefcase. He seems incapable of shutting his mouth and his dry lips frame teeth so large and white I almost think they’re fake except for the spaces in between each of them. His papers are on the floor because I emptied his briefcase when he went to the bathroom. A bathroom that will be sterilized as soon as he leaves.
“Been on the road a long time, eh, Ted?”
“Yes. Indeed. I shur have an ya know whut?”
“I know very little, Ted.”
“People are getting meaner ’n’ ruder all the time.”
“People are bastards, Ted. Hey Ted, guess what?”
“Whut?”
“I knocked your briefcase onto the floor. Dug right in there and pulled out all those papers. I had myself a pretty big time.”
“Now why’d you go ’n’ do that for?”
“Oh, I knew you wouldn’t say anything.”
“Why’d you figger I wouldn’t say nothin’?”
“Because you’re trying to sell me something.”
“Logical, I guess.”
“But guess what else, Ted.”
“Whut?”
“I lied to you. I don’t even own this house. I’m not even supposed to be here.”
“It’s people like you that waste my time.”
“Yeah. But I sure did have fun. If you could have seen me in here, rolling around in all those papers.”
“I woulda whupped yer ass.”
“You know why I did that, Ted?”
“Why?”
“Because I’m one of the dirty bastard people.”
“Figgers.”
Ted finishes gathering up his things and storms out the front door. I watch him speed away, a trail of dust rising up behind his battered car.
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Cowboy
I approach the three teenage girls and brazenly inform them they can call me “Cowboy,” motioning down to my shiny new boots. They look at each other and begin laughing. They laugh hard enough to make their firm breasts jiggle.
Jiggle.
I try to tell myself I don’t need their approval of the name change or the new person the name is to represent. I try to tell myself they are ugly but, looking closely at them, I can’t find a single flaw. I begin to cry, loud and gushing. I look down at the ground as the tears roll out of my eyes, splashing the surface of my new boots.
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Roses
I wake up and head straight for the bathroom. My bowels are really rumbling. Once on the toilet, I have to struggle more than usual. I have, in fact, left the bathroom door open with the expected need for ventilation. Finally, near exhausted, I have my movement. I wipe but there’s nothing there.
I get up and pull up my underwear and pants. Curious, I decide to look in the bowl before flushing. I am astonished to see that the toilet is filled with rose petals and, standing there in the morning light of the bathroom, I’m surrounded by the smell of the flowers.
I go to work in a better mood than usual.
During my lunch hour, I have to go to the bathroom but someone has made it there before me. I wait patiently outside. A few minutes later, Dan comes out, the newspaper folded under his arm. He looks somewhat guiltily at me, the smell of feces hanging about him like a malicious cloud. I pinch my nose closed with my fingers and mouth, “Pee-you.”
“What,” he says. “Your shit smell like roses?”
I smile broadly and nod my head.
“Yes,” I say. “Yes it does.”
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Lawn Work
My neighbors offer to pay me for mowing their grass. They have a large riding lawnmower to match their expansive overgrown lawn. Wanting to hurry up and get out of the blazing sun, I hop right to it. It isn’t long until I become distracted by the clouds floating in the sky and pay very little attention to the grass itself. The lawnmower runs up over a giant bump and grinds to a halt. I hop off the gasoline-reeking beast, swearing.
Horrified, I identify the bump as the neighbors’ golden retriever, Tammy. Using all my strength, I force the lawnmower off the mangled animal. Now I’m panicked. I can’t let the neighbors see the dog before they pay me for mowing the grass. I pick the dog up, slinging its matted carcass over my arms, and carry it over to the edge of a vast cornfield where I haphazardly toss it, making sure it is not easily visible.
After wiping my bloodied hands off in the grass, I jog back to the lawnmower and quickly finish the job. I park the lawnmower by the house and walk to the back door. Suddenly, I’m gripped by an overwhelming sense of dread.
Tammy, apparently with one final burst of life, has managed to pitifully pull herself out of the corn, leaving a trail of blood behind her. The MacGregors are huddled around her, pointing down at the gored corpse. I contemplate running but I really need the cash. I contemplate denying the horrible incident altogether but I’m covered in blood. Slowly I walk over to the scene, delaying the inevitable, trying to act as though nothing too serious has really happened.
“Yeah, look, I’m real sorry,” I say.
“Were you ever going to tell us!” Mrs. MacGregor shouts in her snootiest Scottish accent.
“Look, the dog got in front of me. I didn’t even see it.”
“It? That is a living breathing thing … And we loved Tammy!”
At this point, she rushes me. Luckily, Mr. MacGregor holds her back.
“She was old anyway, dear,” he says. “There’s no reason to act juvenile about it.”
She cries onto his shoulder.
He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out his wallet, dragging out two bills and handing them to me.
“Don’t worry about this, kid,” he says. “I’m sure we’ll all look back on this one day and have a good laugh.”
“Thanks a lot,” I say, turning to head for home.
As I’m leaving I hear him ask his wife to go get the gasoline and matches. “We’re going to have a cremation.”
Mrs. MacGregor’s sobs fill the evening air.
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My Dumb Hair
I get in a barfight and am horribly beaten by three men in tight pants. They work me over about the head and neck with a blackjack.
The next morning I have trouble waking up and cough more than usual. I strip off my bloodstained clothes and head into the bathroom. The mirror reveals, amidst my now lumpy and misshapen face, a BB-sized pimple perfectly centered between my eyebrows.
My hair sticks up every which way. I put some water on it to try and get it to lie down. The lumps on my head have caused my hair to go dumb and it hurts too bad to mash down too much. I have been defeated. I have the overwhelming urge to shoot myself in the head.
