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.
