Fire Down Below

by Debra Anastasia

  Duke tucked the gun into the waistband of his underwear. “Nah. I’m all good. This fifteen minutes of fame is sure to get me pussy at the bars.”

  “Listen, I understand you’re captain of Harry Potter’s Shitditch team and all, but your nasty ass is coming with me to talk to the management. We’re going to set them straight.” Dove took a few steps closer to Duke.

  He smiled while his sausage grease-filled beard framed his emotions. “What’s in it for me?”

  Dove really didn’t feel like convincing him. It was the right thing to do, and time was of the essence. “Duke, he loves being a pharmacist. He loves numbers. He saved your miserable life.”

  Dove moved closer still. Duke took another horrifying bite, the dick jewelry going deep into his mouth.

  After a few seconds of careful chewing and one dreadful removal of the silver hoop from his tongue—clean of any leftover spiced meat—he gave her his answer. “It’s still a no. I’m already in my pajamas.” Duke stretched his hand above his head, and a fart popped out. “Whoops. That one tickled my balls. Maybe if you let me sex you up a bit, I’d think about it.”

  Dove had to take drastic measures. Duke put on his dirtiest smile as she reached toward his underwear.

  She removed the piercing gun from his waistband. “I’ll pierce your dick for you.”

  She held it right under his nose. It was the ultimate Clint Eastwood movie standoff.

  He cracked first. “All right, Dove. I’ll go with you to meet the manager, and then I want you to pop a hole in my junk.”

  She tested the trigger. “I think I’m going to like the hell out of this.”

  Dove insisted that Duke put on pants. He followed her up the stairs despite the fact that she kept shooing him away. As Dove got to the door, she found a cat sitting on her welcome mat.

  “Hello, kitty. Where do you belong?” Dove squatted down to give the feline a pet.

  Duke tried to find a place for his hands, but with no sausage, he seemed a bit lost. “That’s the Anastasias’ cat.” Duke fiddled with Dove’s doorknob.

  “The Anastasias?” Dove smiled as the cat leaned into her rubbing hand.

  “Yeah, you know. The chick that writes porn? She’s always wearing Daisy Dukes and posing? Mr. Anastasia walks around without a shirt?” Duke rolled his eyes at their obvious lack of decorum.

  Dove couldn’t take the cat’s adorableness any longer; she picked him up. His tag said Cletus.

  “Well, Cletus, you’re so stinking cute.” She turned her attention back to Duke. “Dude, you never wear pants. You can’t roll your eyes at anyone.”

  Duke shrugged and continued his narrative. “When they first moved in, I heard a lot of moaning when I wandered by their door. I thought they liked to have crazy sex. So I stood right outside and had a spankfest with my situation.”

  Dove made a disgusted face. “Of course you did. Because being the loitering pervert’s a great pastime.”

  “So one day, I asked them if I could join in, and they explained that Mr. Anastasia is Italian. Most of the moaning was coming from having to wax him every day.” Duke looked around Dove and up the stairs.

  The clear sound of stiletto heels clacked loudly until the couple in question stood in front of Duke and Dove. Debra Anastasia talked in a very fake, breathy bombshell voice. Mr. Anastasia spent most of his time keeping his abs flexed.

  “Oh, good, you found Cletus. I’m so glad. It would be just terrible if he went missing.” Debra Anastasia reached out to take Cletus from Dove, but the cat shied away from the underdressed woman.

  Mr. Anastasia spoke up. His face was tense—like he was trying to talk while holding his breath. “Uh, that’s our friend’s cat. We took him for a little while.”

  Debra Anastasia found a patch of wall and posed against it like she was in a Whitesnake video circa 1992. Mr. Anastasia joined her and flexed.

  Duke smiled at the show and put his hands down his pants. Debra Anastasia spoke in between flipping her ridiculously long, bleached-blonde hair.

  “We forgot we have a couples’ retreat. No pussy allowed. Whatever will we do?”

  Duke and Mr. Anastasia seemed to think all her gyrating and grinding made perfect sense. Dove was a bit worried that this couple hadn’t legally obtained the cat in question, but Duke seemed to want to help. Dove knew she couldn’t trust her own little serial killer cat with a companion.

  “I’ll watch the cat. Does he eat sausage?” Duke pulled his hands out of his pants and held a finger up to the cat. Cletus sweetly licked the sausage remnants that must have always clung to his skin.

  Duke stepped a little too close to the heaving, hairless couple and began discussing cat maintenance. Dove slipped into her apartment. Steve the Cat was sitting dead center in the middle of her living room, staring right in her eyes.

  “Hello, Creepo.”

  Steve the Cat tilted his head, and his pupils got huge. Dove grabbed her purse and car keys, and when she stepped back into the hall to lock up, the porno pair and Duke were gone.

  Dove went downstairs to Duke’s apartment. She caught him holding on to the cat’s ear and lining up the piercing gun.

  “No! Fuckhead! You can’t pierce the cat.” Duke set down the gun and unwrapped a Slim Jim.

  “If there’s a party around, you can’t help but crap on it, can you?” Duke strolled past Dove and left his door wide open.

  Dove looked at the sweet cat as it tried to figure out how to ingest the Slim Jim.

  “You poor thing. I’ll make him buy you cat food at Save-Mart.” Dove closed the door so at least the cat was contained.

  Duke was already sitting in the passenger seat, waiting for her. She got in and started the car. Duke busted into a Slim Jim of his own.

  “You hairy toad fucker. That stuff’s nasty. Your toilet must be like a nuclear reactor.” Dove turned on her windshield wipers as a light mist seemed to fracture the glass.

  “I’m sorry, Whore Basket. I couldn’t hear you over the noise of you crapping your pants!” Duke took another huge bite and chewed the waxy meat like gum. “This stuff is off the charts. I could eat vats of it.”

  “Here’s the deal. We go in, you stand there like the asshole you are, and I explain you aren’t gay lovers with the pharmacist. Sound good?” Dove clicked her blinker on and checked her side mirror.

  “All I heard was blah, blah, holding your dick later, blah, blah.” Duke rolled down his window and stuck his face into the night.

  Dove pulled up to the stoplight in front of Save-Mart and waited. The red light seemed to broadcast the urgency of her trip inside her car.

  Duke pulled his face in and rubbed the rain into his beard like a preening otter.

  He was disgusting; watching him function was like watching a dog take a crap. She didn’t want to but couldn’t look away either.

  “Is that your shower for the evening?” Dove forced her gaze back to the traffic light.

  Duke burped as an answer and quickly rolled up his window so Dove would be trapped with its scent.

  “You’re revolting. I hope all that meat gives you an assalanche.” Dove fed the car gas as the light turned green.

  After parking, Dove sat in her car and tried to ignore Duke while she psyched herself up to go inside. “You can talk. You can fix this. Duke is a freak. You can do this.” She clenched and unclenched her fists.

  “Bitch. Do you think we’ll get arrested or something if we go in there? ’Cause I don’t have time for that tonight.” His whole body clenched as he lifted himself from his seat.

  The fart was horrifying, sounding like a guinea pig getting choked to death by two Tasers.

  He grabbed Dove in a headlock and dragged her head as close to his butt as he could. “Sniff it, live it, be it!”

  Dove made a fist and tried to hammer him in the nuts. He flinched and let her go. She clamored out of the car and took a deep breath. Duke shook his leg before starting to walk toward the store as if he hadn’t arrived with her at
all. Dove gave his back the finger and rushed around to close his passenger side door.

  “What the hell is wrong with you and doors?” Dove hurried to catch up with him. He looked at her as she arrived at his side.

  “I think that sausage I ate while the pharmacist butt-fucked me wasn’t good after all.” He popped off another juicy bit of gas.

  “You will not fart in there. Do you hear me? You clamp those cheeks together. I swear to fuck, Duke. I’ll pierce your dick shut.” Dove shook a finger in his ass’s direction.

  “You’re a harsh, withered bitch.” Duke yawned and slapped Dove’s butt.

  Dove shook her head. As she looked up from the glassy, wet asphalt, she didn’t expect to see Johnson leaving the store. But there he was holding one Save-Mart bag. He met her eyes and then looked down. For a hot minute she thought he’d ignore her completely. His eyes looked so sad.

  They all met in the middle. Duke looked from Dove’s face to Johnson’s, and seemed to sense that he needed to leave. He invented a likely excuse.

  “I have a crap-a-little-ding-dong fighting to get out. See you in there, pussy lint.”

  Dove knew she was blushing.

  I’m going to pierce his balls to his nose. I hate him.

  Johnson sighed. “More sale items?”

  Dove realized he was talking to her. “Uh, no. At least they still let you shop here?”

  You vagina cheese. That’s the worst empathy ever.

  He looked at the bag he was holding as if noticing it for the first time. “Yeah, I came back to get my things. Turns out I didn’t have much here.”

  He held open the bag, and inside there was an open can of Coke spilling its contents on his New Employee Handbook.

  He continued. “Mrs. Pills decided to stay at home with her baby. They were going to hire me full time.”

  Dove was mortified as he closed the bag like it was a door closing on his dreams. She had to set this right.

  “I was coming here to try to say something to someone to get anything done about the YouTube thingy.”

  Nice and concise, jerk smoker.

  “I’m pretty sure you and your friends are in the clear. Not sure I’d advise going in there tonight, though.” Johnson gave her the nod of a finished conversation.

  “No. You. Your job. I’m here to try to get you your job back.” She opened her hands and tried to force understanding into his mind.

  “Oh. Thanks, I guess. I tried—the boss isn’t budging. It’s okay. I’d do it again if I had to. Misunderstanding or not, I’d never watch someone choke.” Johnson shifted his bag from one hand to the other.

  She wanted to tell him everything right then. Tell him all about her, how stupid she was. How unmotivated she was, how she was the sexy Twitter girl.

  I want to talk about me when I should only be worried about him.

  “You’re a good person. I’m sorry I crossed your path. I’m like a black cat, a ladder, and a pap smear. I’ll do anything to make this right.” Dove wanted to put her hand on his hand again, like when the squirrels were humping in the park.

  Don’t put any more you on this man. You ruin everything.

  “Don’t, okay. Just don’t.” He put a hand in his pocket and jangled his keys.

  “Of course. I’ll just get Duke and leave. Coming here won’t help you. I make everything worse.” Dove wished her eyes didn’t want to cry so much.

  Johnson took his hand out of his pocket and held it in her direction. “No. I meant don’t be sorry we crossed paths.” For a second he looked deeply into Dove’s eyes, and she forgot to breathe.

  He broke the magic first. “Your boyfriend’s back. See you around, Gynazule®.”

  Before Dove could correct him, Duke was waddling back to her, shouting, “That was one slippery situation. Damn. I barely made it to the crapper. Almost had to drop one off in the urinal.”

  Johnson headed deeper into the parking lot. His shoulders were hunched. There was nothing jumpy or excited about his motions. And his loud voice had been an exactly normal tone.

  Dove, you fuck stick, you broke his beautiful happy.

  “Come on. We’ve got some serious damage control to do.” Dove grabbed Duke’s wrist and dragged him back into the store. She veered to the right and went straight to customer service.

  The bored teenager must have thought staring at Dove was the equivalent to saying, “May I help you?”

  “Get me your manager.” Dove held her head high and tried to seem older and more self-assured.

  The teenager barely registered her request.

  “Do it now. My friend here is about to crap his pants. Do you want to smell it?” Dove slapped her hands down on the counter, snapping the life into the girl. “Do you want to smell his shit?”

  The teenager disappeared through the swinging doors.

  Duke sat down in one of the recharging motorized scooters and pretended it was a motorcycle.

  “Hey, Napoleon. You might want to tone down the shit threats.” He pretended to take a sharp curve.

  A stiff-walking manager appeared. His nametag proclaimed he was “Preston, Manager-in-training.”

  “Can I be of service to you?” He tilted his head one way and then the other. He reminded Dove so much of Steve the Cat it was creepy.

  Compose yourself. Make sense. Just don’t stall.

  “My friend and I appeared in the YouTube video taken from this store. I’d like to say… I want to make a… There were cock rings… the porn was not the porn of the porn… it was meat and a masturbating weight.” Dove slapped herself in the forehead.

  Not working… My mouth sucks ass.

  Duke climbed off the scooter. “Jesus fancy pants. You’re a train wreck. Let’s put a bullet in this nightmare.”

  Duke leaned down and read the man’s tag. “Preston. Listen Prick-ston, you fired an employee who gave me first aid today. Not only that, but the surveillance video that was leaked to the media had the pharmacy in its range, which is a complete violation of the strict HIPPA patient confidentiality standards you’re required to adhere to.”

  Dove opened her mouth and left it hanging as Duke made wonderful, logical sense.

  “And another thing, I ate some sausage here today that I do believe was rancid. Honestly, I’m feeling a little sick. I think I might have food poisoning.”

  Duke lifted his leg in the air as if he was a dog peeing on a tree. The wet, productive fart sounded like an air horn.

  “Now, Prick-ston. What you’re going to do right now is pick up the phone, call the pharmacist, and give him his job back.”

  Duke looked at Dove and then reached over and closed her mouth for her. Preston was the manager-in-training for a reason, and he immediately launched into a spiel that would placate a much less motivated, unsatisfied customer.

  “Well, sir, of course we’ll refund your money on the sausage. I can’t reinstate the pharmacist without consulting corporate. That decision was made by people much higher up on the food chain than I am.” Preston straightened his clip-on tie, his face getting splotchy and red with the confrontation.

  Duke smiled. “Dude, here’s what you need to tell corporate. I’m meeting with my lawyer tomorrow. Tell them to look for paperwork from my attorney. And another thing, I’m coming back here soon. And when I do, I’m bringing sausage. I’m going to the pharmacy where I’ll proceed to eat said meat like a dog—no hands, hardly chewing at all.” Duke made a horrible reenactment of his choking incident. “It might even block my airway. Imagine the bad press when Dove here tearfully tells the ironic, horrific story of Save-Mart firing the one pharmacist who could have saved my young, vital life?”

  Duke grabbed Dove’s hand and yanked her toward the door.

  “Fix it, Prick-ston. Tell corporate to roll up everything I just told you and smoke it. I’ll be back.”

  Duke dragged Dove into the store, mumbling, “Getting my Lincoln Log drilled should be easier than this. Let’s get some more Slim Jims for the cat.”


  Dove was still amazed when they pulled in front of the apartment. Duke was holding a bag of Purina and a tube of Magic Beard cream. He was singing a made up song just like he was the same idiot she had always known.

  “Dove’s gonna pop my dick

  And all the chicks

  Are gonna wanna Lick

  My dick.”

  She put the car in park and had to say something. “Dude. You were like… coherent and impressive at Save-Mart.”

  Duke made fake gang signs in her direction. “That’s what she said!”

  He got out of the car and waltzed into the apartment complex without holding the door for her. She followed him into his apartment. Cletus was curled up on the couch. Duke grabbed a mug from the kitchen and ripped the bag of food open. He put the now-full mug of food next to the cat. Dove made a face at his half-assed attempt at pussy parenting. He walked over to the snack tray and grabbed the discarded gun.

  “You ready, Crappy? A promise is a promise.”

  I have to do this for him. He might have gotten Johnson his job back.

  Duke started unbuttoning his pants.

  “Hold on.” Dove covered her mouth with the back of her hand. “Let me try to control my gag reflex.”

  Duke put his hands on his hips. “Dove. You will not back the fuck out. I took a shower like a few days ago. The ball cheese level is very low.”

  He laughed as she crinkled her face around the horror of his words.

  “That’s not helping.” She held out her hands to show him they were shaking. “Let me at least Google some knowledge on the topic.”

  “Okay. I’ll let you off for tonight.” He grabbed the Save-Mart bag and his shave-less hair remover. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of this earlier. Shaving without having to move my arms? That’s the kind of genius that deserves a fucking medal.”

  Dove was backing slowly away from the snack tray when her exit was hindered by the hairless wonders who should’ve been on a couples’ retreat.

  Debra Anastasia perched her red heel on the doorframe and posed—again. Dove guessed she was trying to have a heaving bosom, but she just looked like a bear in heat scratching an itch.