Not Andersen Prunty

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

Bucky had amazing flatulence. He would stroll into a room full of people, get ripped on beer, and let them fly. His friends would make circles around him, slapping their thighs and laughing until tears streamed down their cheeks.

Bucky disappeared one day and it was rumored he’d got someone’s girl pregnant and the said someone decided to plug up Bucky’s asshole.

I was never Bucky’s friend but I go to a lot of the same gatherings and watch the people whenever someone else gets ripped on beer and starts letting them fly. They still form the circle but the laughter is frantic and near hysterical. Terrifying. And their eyes bulge and their faces turn red but no tears ever come out.

It is a grainy black and white day.

Mr. Gravel’s small house sits back a long driveway. They call it a lane in the country. He steps out of his house and looks at the low hill horizon. He walks down the steps of his front porch. There is a man with sunglasses on doing pushups in the front lawn. Mr. Gravel pays no attention to this as he heads for the lane. He has to get the mail. The box is way down off the road.

To entertain himself for this long walk, he raises his arms above his head, fingers extended, and begins hooting. He hoots with each step he takes. “Hoo, hoo, hoo.” The gravel crunches beneath his feet.

About halfway down the lane, he gets excited because he can see a large package bulging from the mailbox. He has always been afraid someone will steal his mail. He hopes this is the package he has been expecting.

He breaks into a light jog, his arms still extended toward the sky. Within no time at all, he is at the mailbox, his hands on the thick brown package, greedily pulling it out. Too excited to carry the package all the way back to his house, he rips it open.

He pulls the gun out, letting the bubble-lined paper fall around his feet. He tosses the pistol from hand to hand, feeling its heft. Mr. Gravel smiles knowingly. He is pleased. Placing the cold barrel of the gun against his forehead, he pulls the trigger, thinking that it’s so cold because it’s been outside all day.

His head erupts.

A dying spray of red against the black and white day.

Mr. Gravel’s body staggers before falling to the pavement of the road. The neighbor’s dog, always loose, wanders over and begins licking at the wound.

Every day, Eric strolls proudly out of his house with a cadre of invisible but beautiful women. Every now and then he sneaks them into a public bathroom stall and makes glorious love to one or more of them while the others watch. He performs all voices with near channel-like perfection, often alarming men in the other stalls. Some of them find themselves enlightened by Eric’s new height of masturbatory zeal.

He takes the women to jewelry stores and asks them what they want, forcing the commission-hungry workers to address their particular coordinates in the air.

When Eric finally dies of a heart attack (he weighed over 400 pounds and everyone saw it coming) no one attends his funeral. The priest blesses him, completely unaware of all the beautiful women standing around him, aroused by his stoic celibacy, each of them looking for something to fill the void.

One morning my mother had Wilford Brimley come over and make some Quaker Oats for my breakfast. I walked downstairs and she told me she was going back to bed. Something about her jaw being sore. Mr. Brimley moved deftly around the kitchen as I lit up a Lucky and downed a quick shot of whiskey.

“That stuff’ll kill ya,” Mr. Brimley said, sliding the bowl in the microwave.

“What the hell, you’re only thirteen once,” I said.

He chuckled. “Well, I guess yer right about that.” In a couple of minutes he sat the bowl down on the table in front of me. I took a bite and choked it down.

“How is it?” he asked.

“Tastes like shit, Brimley,” I answered.

“You rude little cocksucker! I oughta bust that bowl over yer fuckin’ punkass head!”

I stood up and threw the bowl at his glowering red face.

“Well then, you shuldn’ta fuckin’ asked me!”

I went upstairs to my room where Julie was showered and waiting for me. I rolled over after we finished and handed her a washcloth to wipe the come from her chin. Reaching into my nightstand, I pulled out a joint, lit it, and inhaled. After passing her the joint and exhaling, I told her, “That fucking Brimley’s a real jerk.”

“I’m sorry he ruined your breakfast, baby.”

“Where did Mom find you, doll?”

She smiled and blew smoke against my face, suckling my earlobe.