When Grundish opens his eyes again, Turleen is exiting the bathroom with a jelly jar of foamy amber liquid. She sets the jar on the counter. “There it is, fella. I filled it up and then some, I did. Why’d you say you want my pee again?” She sits down at her newly staked out position on the couch and removes her upper plate of dentures, setting them on the coffee table beside her.
“Thanks, Turleen,” says Grundish. He grabs the jar; the outside of it is moist. He pours the warm liquid into the reservoir tank of the prosthetic strap-on penis. The urine smells like overly-ripe broccoli. “It’s kind of embarrassing, but my parole officer randomly does pee tests on me. I don’t feel like going back to prison just because I occasionally partake, if you know what I mean.”
“I’m hip to the jive, I am. You do what you gotta do, Kiddo. You’ve always been a good egg. I don’t mind helping. And, there’s always more where that came from, there is.” She nods at the jelly jar and smiles a big gummy grin at him. “Now, if you don’t mind doing me a favor, could you light up a cigarette and blow some smoke my way? I’m not allowed to smoke, I’m not.”
Grundish shrugs and says nothing. He grabs a Blue Llama from Askew’s pack and lights it. The smoke wafts in Turleen’s direction. She closes her eyes and inhales the second-hand cancer deeply, taking it into her mouth, down to her lung, and into the blood stream. She lies back into the couch, eyes still closed, and softly moans. Grundish notices that he can make out the outline of her nipples through her loose house dress. His member stirs and quickly swells into pulsing turgidity.
Taken aback by the ferocity of his sudden erection, Grundish rushes for the bathroom. He drops his pants to the bathroom floor and admires the harsh rigidity of his boner. A thick blue vein, fed by smaller boner-vein tributaries, courses blood to the angry purple dome. Holy moly and great googly moogly, thinks Grundish, I ain’t had a stiffy like this since I was fourteen. Somewhere, maybe on a radio talk show, or maybe in a girly magazine, Grundish heard that one can get rid of a boner by squeezing tightly with the thumb and forefinger just below the head of the penis. Grundish tries to kill the boner with the two-fingered-headlock technique but it just makes his cock more engorged. He realizes that he cannot strap on the fake urine-filled schlong with his raging wurst in the way. He abuses and demeans himself to the point of release in an effort to get the erection to subside, only to find that it is still standing at full attention and refuses to go down.
Grundish leaves the urine-filled dildo on the sink and pulls his pants up. He adjusts the stiffy so that the angry head peeks out above the waistband of his pants. The prescription pills are still on the kitchen counter beside the sink. He examines them: Xanax (fine, he thinks), Vicodin (even better, he says to himself), and then the blister pack, soft-tab Sildenafil Citrate (huh? he wonders). The final medication, he learns, is a quick-acting male enhancement prescription. According to the warnings on the package, erections will occur almost immediately and can last up to four hours or more.
Four hours? He thinks. More? Already late for work, Grundish decides to chance it for the day and head out without the strap-on piss-test insurance. The latex phallus remains on the counter, its large head hanging just over the edge of the sink, slowly weeping one golden, dejected, tear at a time as Grundish turns his back on it and heads out the door. I can’t wait four hours, he thinks to himself and leaves the bathroom. He takes a hit off of the butt he left smoldering in the ashtray and tastes burning filter. Turleen is laid out asleep on the couch, her house dress hiked up enough to show the puckered, alabaster flesh of her inner thighs. Grundish’s member pulses to indicate its interest.
The front door of the trailer slams shut behind Grundish and wakes Turleen from her catnap. She breathes in deeply, seeking out any remaining second-hand smoke.
Pedaling his bike as fast as he can, Grundish screams nonsense at the trailer park residents to take his mind off of the friction of his dick rubbing against his belly. Grundish’s next door neighbor, Mr. Shirley, tries to avert his eyes as Grundish rides by. He shouts at Shirley: “WHO? WHAT? WHICH? WHY? WHO? WHEN DID YOU SAY THE EARTH WOULD STOP TURNING? WHEN DID YOU SAY WE WOULD ALL START BURNING? PUSH THE BUTTON. CONNECT THE GODDAMN DOTS. CONNECT THE GODDAMN DOTS.” Shirley, clad in a t-shirt tucked into a lavender Speedo, averts his eyes, grips onto his walker, and scurries back to his trailer to avoid any trouble with his scary, buff, and severely-tattooed neighbor.
• • •
“You should spin the arrow once in a while. And maybe dance around a little bit to get the motorists’ attention,” says Hayman to Grundish. “This is an important one for you today. They’re counting on you to get people’s interest in those two-for-one pepperoni pizzas. Now show me your moves with that arrow sign, Mister.” Hayman steps back, hands resting on cocked hips, and nods at Grundish.
“Mr. Hayman,” answers Grundish, “I don’t dance, I’ve got a dirty whore of a hangover, and it’s too hot out there to be moving around very much. How about I just hold the sign and wave?”
“Well, I don’t have anybody else here to take your place right now, so you’re going to have to do. But, and listen to me now and hear me later, you will not advance with this company with that poor attitude.” Hayman, in his excitement, spills a little bit of his iced mocha latte on his hand. He wipes it on his tiny shorts. “Now get out there and use that arrow to turn people toward those delicious pizzas.” Hayman walks toward the bathroom with his back turned to Grundish.
“You bet, boss. I’ll do my best. And I might even try that dancing thing you want me to do,” says Grundish as he slips three rapid-tab boner pills in Hayman’s latte.
• • •
The humid Florida weather exhausts Grundish. But the boner remains. The thick exhaust from the buses, trucks, RV’s and cars assaults his lungs. And the boner[10] remains. The mental exhaustion of mindlessly waving at people who look down on him erodes his soul. But the boner remains. Grundish stands on the corner with his Two-fer-One Pizzas sign and tries to entice passers-by to go into PollyEyes Pizza and take them up on their deal. Jess, the lazy-eyed owner of PollyEyes, brings Grundish a piece of cold pizza and lectures Grundish on how he should dance around with the arrow sign. The pizza has olives and makes him want to puke. Grundish doesn’t know which of Jess’s eyes to look at, the one pointed directly at him or the one staring off toward traffic, as Jess tells him that when he was younger, he would have danced his ass off for $10.00 an hour. But still, the boner remains tucked in his pants, head peeking slyly out over the waistband, one eye surveyeing the scene and looking for something to spit on.
A rusty pickup truck blurts its horn as it drives past Grundish. The driver’s kid, a freckle-splattered little girl with her front teeth missing, flashes a beautiful smile at Grundish. Momentarily, witnessing the unbridled mirth of the little girl, Grundish is touched by her innocence. For just that moment, joy stirs in his chest and begins to work its way up to his facial muscles, making his mouth twitch and form into something resembling a smile. And still his cock throbs. But, before Grundish breaks into a full-fledged grin...SCHPLATTT... something hits him from behind, splats on his neck, and oozes down his back.
“Hah-hah!” screams the pimply teenager hanging out of the window of the yellow minivan. “Loooooo-zerrrr!” shouts another voice from the vehicle as it speeds away before Grundish can try to catch them. He rubs his hand on his neck and studies the goo: rotten tomato. And still his erection persists.
“You really oughtta report those little hoodlums to somebody,” says the raspy voice behind him. “It’s ridiculous the way they taunt you.”
Grundish turns around, shrugs his shoulders at Ms. Velda, and says nothing. His shoulders, having nothing else to say, droop. His arms hang limp at his sides. His back hunches up in a deflated lump of defeat. His day is shot. He’s been abused, humiliated, attacked, and generally beaten down. And now, he thinks, ain’t this great? I’ve gotta take a piss test with a bloodstream full of prescription meds. And I d
on’t have my strap-on. Yet still, his boner throbs.
“Come on, I need you to go whiz for me,” says Velda, waving him in her direction as she turns and walks away. “The Git-n-Go is just around the corner. You know the drill.” Grundish follows. As she walks away, he can’t help but to study her form. Tight shirt stretched over her barrel-like upper body. The dirty jeans stretched over the wide, thick hindquarters, staying tight all the way down her tapered-off legs to mid-calf, where they stop. Her pigeon-toed feet clad in pointy, flat-footed shoes. The way her legs stay stiff while she walks with the points of the shoes veering off at forty-five degree angles from her forward direction gives her a waddle that a penguin would be proud of.
The Git-n-Go bathroom stinks like a bucket of rotten fish. Grundish towers over Ms. Velda, the top of his erection almost level with her sternum. He stalls: “Ms. Velda. Before I do my test, can I clean myself off? I have tomato all over my back, and it just hasn’t been a good day.”
“Turn around,” she says, grabbing a paper towel from the rusty dispenser. “Squat down a little bit, and I’ll help you clean your back off.”
Still stalling for time to think, Grundish complies. Velda wipes down the back of his neck and tosses the used paper towel into the trash. She gets another towel to wipe him off and wets it in the sink. She cleans his back gently and then drops the towel. Grundish stares straight ahead, silent, not sure what to do next. Velda’s hands start to gently rub his wide shoulders. Grundish shrugs his shoulders and says nothing, waiting to see what happens next. Whatever it is, he thinks, it’s gotta be better than getting my parole violated and going back to prison.
“I’ve been trying to talk to you about something every time we meet,” says Velda, soft and quiet into Grundish’s ear as she slowly moves her hands down his back, “and you always have to rush out and hurry back to work before we finish talking.”
Grundish says nothing and in his head curses his throbbing knob. Still trying to figure a way out of giving a piss test or shagging Velda, Grundish stalls and allows her to slowly move her hands down his back.
“You know,” she whispers in his ear, the not altogether disagreeable odor of corn chips on her breath, “I could recommend that your parole gets early terminated. Would that be something you would like?” Her hands pause at the crook of his back, just above his ass.
Grundish shrugs, noncommittal, while his cock twitches like a snake being crushed under a work boot. His back is still to Velda and his mind reels. A positive piss test means prison. On the other hand, sexing Velda means a loss of self-respect and perhaps an odor that will stick to him for days. And, he thinks, God help me but I’ve gotta do something with this rod. Even Velda doesn’t seem so bad right now.
“You know what, Ms. Velda?” he says. “I think I know what you’re getting at.” Her hand slides down to his ass cheeks and kneads them. “And I’ve been thinking about this for a while now. I say, let’s do it.”
Before Velda can caress his gluteus maximus any further, Grundish unbuttons his pants and flips around, his rigid dong sticking out. Not as big as Velda was led to expect by his imposter penis, but still quite acceptable to her. Grundish stoops down to her level and buries his face in her neck in order to avoid kissing her corn-chip breath. His tongue flicks at a sweaty fold of her neck. He wraps his arms around her barrel-like figure.
Velda’s entire body shudders. “Yesss,” she moans in a voice not like that of a female. And still Grundish’s erection stands firm. “I’ve been thinking about this, too. Ever since our first meeting. It’s so right.” Grundish struggles to unsnap her pants, the outward pressure of her girth stretching the denim taut, making it a difficult process. “Fuck me now! Fuck me here!” she grunts and reaches down to undo the pants herself.
Obeyeing Velda, obeyeing the primal urge in his groin, Grundish, in one fluid move, drops his own pants, and spins Velda toward the sink and away from his face so as not to have to kiss her. You’re going to hate yourself for doing this, he tells himself as he jams his hand down between her legs from behind and feels the hair-matted, sloppy core of Velda. You’re going to hate yourself if you cum, he tells himself as he bends his knees to get down to her level and slides into her from behind. You’re going to hate yourself, he says as he pushes her forward, his hands gripping at the sides of her dimpled steatopgia[11], bending her further over the sink, taking in her wattled fundament. A fly flits about, buzzing in between them and alights on Velda’s back, just at the top of her ass crack. Grundish notes the fly, notices it resting on a soft tuft of hair growing from her crack and running inches above it onto her back.
Velda moans, “MMmwaaaahhhh,” like an old man fiercely moving his bowels, and it just makes Grundish hotter.
You’re going to hate yourself, he continues to tell himself as he slips his hands up under her shirt and pushes the bra up off of her breasts. He grabs onto the silky soft tits, pinches the nipples.
The smell in the bathroom is sickening – worse than when they entered. And still Grundish persists in slamming Velda from behind, balls-deep in self-loathing, gripping onto her sweater-meat like a rodeo champ trying not to get bucked off of a bull. The harder Grundish pounds, the more Velda grunts her senior-citizen-dropping-a-log sound. And nothing can make Grundish lose his erection. Not the thought that he isn’t using a condom. Not the fact that scrogging Velda is like doing it to a man with jugs. Not the smell of ass, corn chips and urine in the bathroom. Not the flies buzzing about just above where he is vigorously penetrating his parole officer’s baby hole. Not Velda’s masculine moaning.
You’re gonna fucking hate yourself, he thinks again as he buries his cock up to the base of the shaft and releases. She screeches in ecstasy, finally like a woman, as Grundish drives his hips into her so hard and collapses on her, ripping the sink off of the wall. They both momentarily deflate onto the bathroom floor, water spraying from the wall where the sink used to be, and relish the post-coital endorphins coursing through both of them.
“Holy shit,” Grundish laughs and stands, quickly pulling up his pants, his erection just as firm as before. He holds out a hand to assist Velda. Her pants still down around her ankles, Velda accepts the hand and Grundish pulls her up. He notices a thick brown skid mark in her sizable panties and hates himself more for what he just did.
The spray from the sink soaks them. Velda leans down and twists off the water valve still connected to the wall. Still, Grundish’s priapism persists. Still his hunger remains. He buttons up his pants. “I have to get back to work, Ms. Velda,” he tells her, avoiding her eyes. He heads out the door, back to his just-above-minimum-wage-arrow-sign-hell. Velda remains and contemplates how she could allow herself to fall in love with one of her charges.
• • •
During the next week Grundish acts mostly on instinct. With Ms. Velda’s recent visit, Grundish doesn’t expect another visit from her for the next five or so days. He calls in sick to work, claiming the flu. And then he gets to work on the list. The rest of the houses on Askew’s list are good. Grundish thinks to himself, during his more sober moments, that it is a good plan – having Askew case houses while he’s delivering pizza. Grundish tells Askew what to watch for while he’s driving around: front doors with notes for delivery men, days’ worth of newspapers in the driveways, all but one light on in the house and all blinds or curtains closed, mailboxes overflowing with mail and flyers, un-mowed lawns. Askew makes a list. Grundish checks it out. Grundish sneaks in and out of the houses, a greedy grinch grabbing goods. At each house he gorges himself on the best food, drinks the best liquor. At each place he passes out. At each, he wakes the next day and leaves his new calling card, dropping a monster dooty log in the crapper, leaving it to wallow in the cool water, no soggy toilet paper to keep it company, waiting for the home owner to discover it upon his return. At each he snags the best goods, always thinking about what Askew and Turleen will like, and loads them into his newly-pilfered daypack. He retreats to the trailer and sle
eps during the day, returning to the addresses on the list under the cover of the night to strike again.
At the final hit on the list, Grundish stuffs his daypack full of frozen meats: steaks, burgers, and pounds and pounds of kosher hotdogs. The migraine floaters threaten debilitation and are once again quelled with a huge snort of aged scotch. He goes into the bathroom one last time and leaves his steaming umber calling card. He admires his work. And then he sneaks out the back door, grabs his bike, and peddles away unnoticed, back to his trailer to sleep off the migraine for the rest of the weekend.
• • •
At the trailer, Turleen lounges on the couch in the front room, sleeping off her own bender from the burgled wine Grundish brought her. “Hi there, Honey,” she says to Grundish as he flops down in a broken recliner. “Do you mind lighting up one of Leroy’s cigarettes and smoking it? I can’t smoke anymore, but I do like the smell of it, I do. Just blow it over in my direction.” She cackles at her own cleverness in circumventing her doctor’s orders. The cackle turns into a phlegmy cough. “Ah shucks,” she smiles and wipes her mouth, “when I find out that I am dying of something, I’m gonna start smoking again, I am. I kind of look forward to it. Might as well at least enjoy my final days, eh?”
Grundish shrugs his shoulders and lights up a Blue Llama that he doesn’t even want. They both drift off to sleep with wisps of smoke swirling around them in the trailer.
Instead of sleeping off a hangover, Askew works a split shift of pizza delivery. Sunday mornings during football season, there is always a lot of prep work required to have everything ready for the game-time rush. And Sunday mornings during football season always find Askew performing the necessary pizza prep.
Grundish and Askew Page 4