“That fucker? What’s his name again?”
“Exactly. That fucker. He is one of them – the Fuckers. And his name is Hayman.” Grundish sneers. “He keeps telling me that I’m not enthusiastic enough with my arrow sign. He wants me to dance around and wave and smile at people. He’d probably like it if I wore those faggy short-shorts like him, too. Shit, for minimum wage I’m not gonna do anything other than stand there and be a sign post. He actually tried to give me lessons on how to spin my arrow and dance around. I was this far,” he holds up his thumb and index finger exactly one centimeter apart, “from stabbing him in the face with my arrow. I don’t know if I can stand to have this shit heaped on me everyday. Do you understand what I’m saying about the Fuckers?” Grundish crushes his aluminum can and throws it toward the kitchen area of the trailer. The can bounces off of the counter and lands beside a macramé framed picture of Askew’s great aunt on top of a broken black and white television set.
“Yeah, I get it.” Askew starts in on another piece of pizza and Grundish opens another beer. “Did I tell you about the Buttwynns?”
“The butt winds? I got your butt winds,” Grundish smiles and squeezes off a moist, reverberating bottom burp.
“No, the Buttwynns,” Askew shakes his head in disgust, flaring his nostrils at the olfactory assault. “I deliver two or three pizzas to their house every week. I’m always on time. The order is always right. Do you know what that fucker gives me for a tip?”
“Is his name really Buttwynn?” Grundish laughs.
“Yeah, it’s Buttwynn. The fucker even has it on his vanity license plate – Buttwynn. But you’re losing track of my story. Pay attention. Here’s the thick of the plot: guess what he gives me for a tip every time?”
“I don’t know, maybe a dollar,” ventures Grundish.
“Hell, I wish,” says Askew. “He gives me a quarter tip every time. The prick is the furthest house out on the delivery route, he always gets his shit on time, always, and he insults me with that tip. Acts like he just shit out a gold nugget and is doing me a favor when he places that quarter in my hand. And it’s always really warm, like he’s been squashing his fat mitt around it, not really wanting to hand it over to me. I’d rather he didn’t even tip me, the bastard.”
“Well, why don’t you tell him you don’t want his measly quarter next time?” Grundish asks.
“No way, man. I’m not giving up my quarter.”
“Well, why don’t you spit on his pizza, or throw a couple of pubes on it? Do something to teach the fucker, ya know?”
“Yeah, maybe,” Askew agrees.
“I mean, shit, I’d like to start striking out at the Fuckers. Fighting for the little people. The people like us. Maybe I should. Whatta ya think?” Grundish chugs the remainder of his cheap beer and feels the warm happies that only alcohol brings him.
“Yeah, maybe that’s a good idea,” Askew agrees and polishes off his beer. “Or maybe not. I don’t know. I could see you going overboard. Taking things too far. Maybe it’s not a good idea. But then again...”
“There you go again!” Grundish loses patience with his best friend. “Maybe. Maybe not. But on the other hand and yet again, maybe. I think you may be one of the Fuckers too.”
“Well,” Askew averts his eyes, “I do hate to be a fucker. But I’ve got some bad news that I have to share with you.”
“Oh, sweet baby Jesus! What now?”
“It’s my Aunt Turleen. Things have taken a bad turn for her?”
“That crazy little old lady?” Grundish smiles. “She’s funny. I like the way she repeats everything she says. I like to give her wine and watch her get all wacky.”
“She ain’t crazy. She just gots oldtimers disease. So she forgets stuff sometimes and has bouts of demention.”
“Well, what’s the problem? Does she have to get her other lung removed? Is she dying?”
“No. I think she’s gonna live forever,” answers Askew. “The problem is...I think she’s going to have to live with us.”
• • •
Turleen Rundle never was one for lasting relationships. In fact, her great-nephew Leroy Jenkem Askew wasn’t really sure exactly what relationships linked him to his great aunt. For that matter, neither was the rest of the Askew family. Turleen was always around, though, and as best as any of the Askews could determine, she and Uncle Hank were both somehow related to them. Turleen was more of a parent to Askew than his biological mother or father. And Askew loved Turleen more than anybody else in his family.
Due to a fondness for hand-rolled filterless cigarettes, Turleen had one lung subtracted from her bodily equation at the age of eighty-five. Weakened and in need of recuperation, Turleen was unable to take care of herself and had to be institutionalized in the Emiction Lakes Nursing Home. At first Turleen enjoyed the company of the other patients at the home. Upon arriving at the facility, she formed a women’s bowling team with other emphysema sufferers and named the team the Pink Puffers due to their frequent bouts of spastic hyperventilation that was necessary to maintain sufficient oxygen levels. There also was no shortage of gentlemen callers for Turleen or the Pink Puffers, as she and her lady friends had a reputation in the community for having a certain slackness in their morals.
There was one thing Turleen didn’t like at Emiction Lake: Stubs the dog. Stubs the furuncle-covered, tick-infested, three-legged, flatulent dog. Aside from seemingly having the approximate intellect of the loose fecal matter that he littered about the facility, Stubs also had a golden mist of a urine stench that followed him about like a lovesick stalker. Stubs was brought to the home with the thought that he could be a companion to anybody who might be lonely. Animal Assisted Therapy, the staff called it. Turleen called it ridiculous. Stubs wasn’t one to interact with any of the residents. After a while, though, the staff and residents noticed that Stubs sometimes wandered into the rooms of the sicklier patients and cuddled up at their feet. Almost invariably, when Stubs was affectionate with one of the residents, the patient would pass away shortly thereafter. People started calling Stubs an angel of mercy, saying that he was showing up to comfort the residents in their final hours, ushering them to the great hereafter. He would go his own way after tending to the infirm and keep his own company, only interacting with another person when it appeared that the person’s time was close to being up. Whatever it was—maybe Stubs could smell impending death, maybe it was a psychic connection—nobody at the home doubted Stubs’ ability to predict an imminent dirt nap.
And then, one morning, Turleen awoke to find Stubs in her bed gently licking her feet[8] and looking at her with smiling, soulful eyes...
• • •
“...and I snapped that mangy mongrel’s neck right then and there, I’ll tell ya,” Turleen tells the boys, her arthritic fingers clenching the air in front of her and squeezing the imaginary dog. “That nasty little mutt was gonna kill me, he was. As I see it, it was either him or me. Angel of mercy, my wrinkled old ass. That hound was an angel of death. And I’m still here and he’s the one that’s pushing up little daisies, he is.”
“And that’s what got you kicked out of the home?” asks Grundish.
“Yeppers,” snips Aunt Turleen. “You got a problem with it, do ya?”
“No, Ma’am,” says Grundish, a look of calm satisfaction settles on his face. “I just wish I could’a helped you take that punk out.”
“Good,” says Turleen. “Now go get me a glass of wine, Boy.”
5
“Do you have a list for me?” Grundish asks Askew.
“Yeah. I got it,” Askew says as he pulls out a folded yellow sheet of paper from under the cellophane of his Blue Llama cigarette pack and hands it to Grundish. “But are you sure you wanna do this? I know I said it was a good idea. And I have the upmost respect for your skills. But, then again, if you get caught, you’re fucked.” Askew draws out a smoke, lays it between the pointer and middle finger of his upturned palm, thrusts the cigarette-hand upwar
d and smacks his forearm with the other hand, abruptly stopping any further motion of the cigarette-hand and sending the cigarette in an end-over-end trajectory that is halted by Askew’s cracked and brownish prehensile lips, which grasp the Blue Llama and hold in place, waiting to be lit. The cigarette catapult, a move that Askew perfected after sitting on his couch for five hours straight, practicing again and again, was flawless. It was typical of his obsessive drive to accomplish meaningless things. Likewise, on a two day car trip with Aunt Turleen, a five-year-old Askew held onto his ears and manipulated them back and forth the entire time until, by the end of the journey, he could wiggle his ears.
“Well, I ain’t gonna get caught. Not as long as you get me good information.” Grundish grabs the Blue Llamas and taps out a cigarette for himself. “I thought you was gonna quit this shit. I would quit but you’re always lighting up around me. A man can’t quit smoking when his best friend keeps blowing smoke in his face.”
“I am gonna quit. First of next month. I swear it,” Askew says and smiles at his friend, the filter of the cigarette wedged into the gap of his front teeth, holding up his right hand in support of his promise.
“Yeah, that’s what you say every month.” Grundish lights his own smoke and reads the childish handwriting scrawled on the list, barely legible to most, perfectly clear to Grundish. He folds the list, nods to his friend and walks out of the trailer, leaving the barely-smoked Blue Llama smoldering on a dirty coffee saucer.
• • •
The list is smaller than expected, but not so lacking in possibilities as to disregard its potential. Outside of the trailer, Grundish checks his piecemeal mountain bike, stolen part by expensive part so as to have the best transportation available to a man with no driver’s license. Peddling through the trailer park Grundish stares down the residents, mostly white males, mostly older than him, mostly sex-offenders who are prohibited from living in other areas of the city due to the proximity to bus stops, schools, daycares and public parks. They avert their eyes; some of them go inside, sensing he is different, not friendly to their kind. Grundish shivers with disgust at the perverse vibe given off by his degenerate neighbors. The Fuckers, he thinks, stopping in front of a pot-bellied slug of a man. Grundish stares him down. The man slinks into his trailer, both scared and aroused by the menacing tattooed bicycle-man, and zealously jacks off into a dirty sock.
The road winds its way along the river with no sidewalks for Grundish to ride on. Careless cars whizz by, close enough that he could easily kick them from his bike. Grundish peddles on, becoming one with the flow of traffic instead of shrinking from it. A full moon reflects the sun’s light at Grundish, and he says to himself that it will be a good night.
The first address is a bust. Through the front picture window, a man, woman, and two children can be seen eating dinner, smiling at each other. They look happy. The house is too small. The one car, an old sedan, sits in the driveway slowly dripping oil and waiting for its opportunity to die just before the family’s monthly mortgage payment comes due. Grundish sees no potential here. He peddles on, wondering if he should have worn a jockstrap. His balls dangle uncomfortably, one over each side of the hard bike seat, drooping lower than they used to, making Grundish ponder how far they will drop as his age advances.
The moon takes a more prominent position in the sky and witnesses Grundish’s search. The mountain bike skids to a stop in front of the second house on the list. A blue octagonal sign stands sentry near the front door announcing that the residence is protected by an alarm service. And the owner appears to still be around. And the house is too big. Why is he giving me these occupied houses? Grundish wonders, making a note that he needs to school his friend on some of the finer points of casing a job.
The next address is perfect. The house is not too big, not too small. It’s just right. Three bagged newspapers sit in the driveway. At least three days of the owners being gone. And it’s Friday, thinks Grundish. That means they will probably be gone until Sunday afternoon. He rides his bike around to the side of the house and stashes it in the shrubs. Not one for using burglary tools, he circles around the back of the house, checking for an unlocked window as he goes. No lights on, no alarm, and an unlocked window in a back bedroom. Somewhere a clock strikes midnight. There’s a full moon in the sky. He cracks the window and waits. Nothing. No sound. Grundish senses a lonely, empty feeling from the house as he climbs through the window. He sits still for five minutes, ten minutes, and nothing. No sounds. Just the feeling that the house wants him there. His stomach rumbles, evidence of a large lunch at the roadside taqueria working its way through his gut and looking for the exit.
Grundish cracks the bedroom door. It creaks as it moves. He cringes, stops, and waits again. Outside a fruit rat runs up an orange tree and a chill runs down Grundish’s spine. He listens to the house. No sound. Through the door and relying on instinct, he creeps into the house. And then he knows. It’s just a feeling, but that feeling is always right. Nobody is home. The calendar on the kitchen wall says Cancun and a line is drawn through an entire week, starting the Monday before. Grundish checks the refrigerator, left over pizza boxes, leftover restaurant food, imported beer, juice, and a giant bottle of hot sauce. The freezer is filled with frozen pizzas, frozen steaks, microwave burritos, frozen waffles, and Hot Pockets. Dirty dishes languish in the sink. Pictures on the counter show smiling children with a man – the father – but the mother is absent. Obviously divorced and living on his own, Grundish concludes correctly. He inspects the well-stocked liquor cabinet and decants a tumbler of scotch, a brand he has never heard of, and tosses back the entire tumbler like a shot of cheap tequila. He smiles and ethyl alcohol fumes waft from his mouth, wavering in the air in front of his face, distorting his vision and warming his lips. Grundish thaws a steak and throws it on the grill portion of the custom stove. From a beer mug collection on display in what once was the china cabinet, Grundish takes a stein that came from Amsterdam. He studies the regal looking lions that book end a coat of arms with XXX running vertically down the front. Good enough for beer, he thinks and pours a dark German malt liquor into it.
The beer is good. The beer is strong. He eats his steak and cooks another. Before he realizes it, the beer is gone. Feeling the effects of the scotch and malt liquor more than he expected, Grundish lies down on the couch and orders a pay-per-view anal porn movie, Stick it in the Rear Dear, IV.[9] Gently sipping at another tumbler of scotch, Grundish drifts off to the sounds of sloppy, brutal ass-fucking.
• • •
The center of our universe strategically positions itself to shine a blistering ray of light through the picture window in the back of the house, and onto a face that covers the front portion of a throbbing head. A thick vein pulses on each side of the forehead, identical twitching worms pulsing to the same beat. Sweat beads gather and drip down the side of the face attached to the throbbing noggin. And Grundish stirs. He can feel that his pupils are asymmetric, the vision in his left eye blurry, floaters dance in his vision, the harbinger of a debilitating migraine. Other parts of his body check in. A piss hard-on painfully throbs in time with the twitching worms in his forehead, demanding attention. The Mexican food from the day before knocks on the exit door and screams for freedom.
Stumbling through the master bedroom, Grundish throws open the door to the bathroom, his pants already unbuttoned and around his knees by the time he is halfway to the toilet. Grundish swings his ass around, trips over the pants that have dropped to his ankles and falls backwards onto the toilet seat, just in time to unleash the evil dwelling deep in his bowels. The release is sublime, almost as satisfying as sex. An unbroken rope of southern brown toilet snake coils itself into a perfect umber corkscrew, the point poking out of the water. He stands and examines it. Pride wells up in Grundish; he cannot bear to flush his masterpiece. Rather than ruin the presentation of the perfect dooty, Grundish leaves it unmolested and bunny-hops through the house with his pants around the ankles unti
l he finds the other bathroom. Only then does he wipe. And he wipes. And wipes. And wipes. He wipes until he bleeds. Only then does he stop.
Still feeling the rush of endorphins from his glorious bowel movement, Grundish’s pre-migraine throbbing ebbs, leaving him clear-headed enough to finish his mission. In an envelope in the underwear drawer he finds a stack of cash. In another drawer he discovers a stack of magazines with pornographic images of young children. His stomach churns, his head throbs, and the migraine feeling returns. Grundish spreads the magazines out on the kitchen counter and leaves a note on top of them that says, “Go ahead and call the cops. I dare you.” In the medicine cabinet he finds the Xanax, Klonopin and a variety of other pharmaceuticals, all of which he grabs. Grundish takes a bottle of expensive cologne for Askew. He loads as much premium liquor as he can with the rest of the booty into a daypack that he finds in the front closet. Before leaving, Grundish orders an entire week’s worth of vile pornography on pay-per-view and leaves the television running with the volume at full blast. He goes into the bathroom one last time and admires his work. Stopping once more at the liquor cabinet, he sucks hard at a bottle of Scotch to stave off the imminent hangover migraine that looms above him. And then he sneaks out the back door, grabs his bike, and peddles away unnoticed. First it’s back to the trailer to unload the boosted goods, and then, off to work to maintain the appearance of an upstanding citizen contributing something of value to society.
6
The thought of spending another day as a human billboard chips away at Grundish’s spirit, wears it down to a sensitive exposed nub. To go from the high of burgling the house of a Grade-A shithead and back to standing in the hot sun, hung over and waving at people in their cars who don’t give a shit, it’s like throwing himself at the wall. It ain’t that pretty at all. Grundish dumps random pills from the pilfered prescription bottles and blister packs into his palm and thoughtlessly washes them down with a handful of warm water from the kitchen tap. He lies back in the recliner, rests his eyes, and waits for the sweet pharmaceutical numbness.
Grundish and Askew Page 3
