Size Matters (Handcuffs and Happily Ever Afters)

by Robyn Peterman

  Apparently, while Rich and I talked last night, our team got a little rowdy. Well, Edith and Mrs. C got rowdy . . . and of course Mariah, being Mariah, got in on the action. Shots of vodka and lighters are not a good combination. After Edith tried to set a family of four on fire when they asked if Mariah was a man, and Mrs. C punched the owner because he said David Hasselhoff couldn’t sing, everything went south. Mariah took offense at the tone of voice used on the old lesbos, so she drop-kicked the bouncer and kneed his man-jewels up into his chest cavity. Of course, that went over well, but the crowning moment was when Hugh sang the unsanitized medley of Eminem . . . in a family restaurant.

  The police and the fire department showed up. Miraculously, no arrests were made. Boo explained why we were in town, and the locals were so impressed, our crew left with just a slap on the wrist . . . and a firm warning never to step foot in Rose and Popo’s again. Ever.

  “Where’s Stan?” Rich asked, scanning the parking lot.

  “He’s pulling the sedan around,” Stuey said. “You won’t need your suitcase,” he told the old gals dismissively, and handed Kim directions to the base camp.

  Edith and Mrs. C ignored him and shoved their monster bag into the luggage compartment under the van. I had no idea why they needed it or what was in it, but I refused to ask. I valued my spleen.

  “You won’t be riding in the van with us?” Boo asked.

  “No, sweet cheeks,” Stuey said, winking suggestively at Boo. Mariah growled and Stuey backed off. “We could only afford insurance on one driver for the van and that’s Kim, so Stan and I will take the car. We might need an extra vehicle if we capture Sasquatch. Plus I get carsick in vans.”

  “That’s a waste of gas,” Hugh croaked, sounding like a baby dinosaur. Clearly his concert last night had left him practically mute. Sweet baby Jesus, I hoped it would mean he would be on vocal rest today.

  “Don’t worry about it.” Stuey grinned. “The network forgot to get their credit card back.” He flashed a gold card at us and gave us the double thumbs-up.

  He was such a douche, it was difficult to believe anyone would entrust him with anything. The network didn’t have to physically have the card to cancel the account, but he was so pumped about getting one over on the company, I didn’t have the heart to tell him how stupid he was. I wondered how his date with Heidi Kugelschmooson had gone last night. If her not being here was any indication . . . I’d guess, pretty bad.

  “So here’s the deal. We go out and I take a camera and follow you guys through the woods and we find us a goddamn Sasquatch!”

  “We’re searching for Bigfoot’s pubic hair today,” Boo said in a matter-of-fact tone.

  “I’m sorry, what?” Stuey asked, appalled.

  “We’ll be looking for hair and footprints and evidence today,” I added quickly, before Boo described Sasquatch’s genitalia and our plan of action.

  “Right, right,” he said and then turned his eyes to me. “So you got some kind of intro set up?”

  “What do you mean?” My gut clenched. Was I supposed to have memorized something? “I didn’t get a script,” I said, starting to sweat. Assmonkeys, this just kept getting worse. I’d forgotten I was supposed to be the host.

  “No script,” he said, looking me up and down. “Just stand there, look hot, and say some shit about Bigfoot. Then we’ll run all over the woods for a couple of hours, eat, and come home.”

  “Is this one of the areas where Bigfoot has been sighted?” Kim asked.

  Stuey answered her, but I didn’t hear a word he said. My ears were ringing and I wanted to run away. Far away. What in the hell was I going to say? I didn’t even really believe Bigfoot existed. Any true believer would be able to see right through me. Maybe I should try to find a tame part of the Bigfoot bible and read from it. Holy hell, who was I kidding? From what I’d heard so far, that was probably a very bad and profane idea. Maybe I could talk about the bar fight last night . . . the producers of most of these reality shows loved some violence. Wait, no . . . that’s Jerry Springer. Shitballs, I can’t do this. I’m not an actress, I’m a social worker . . .

  “How far away is this base camp?” Mariah asked.

  “What did you say?” Stuey asked Rich.

  “He didn’t say anything,” Mariah said, menacingly. “I did. I asked how far to the base camp, and just because someone has a low voice doesn’t mean they’re a man.” Her volume increased as her anger skyrocketed. Rich grabbed Mariah as her little hands clenched into fists and she narrowed her gaze, zoning in on Stuey’s nose. Rich held her firmly against his big belly and whispered in her ear. She immediately calmed and sagged against him. What in the hell had he said to her? I needed to know. He had some kind of weird magic with people. After all, he was a magician, if I remembered correctly . . . I was simply grateful we weren’t going to start the day with Stuey lying on the pavement in a pool of his own blood.

  “Half hour,” he said, answering Mariah’s question, blissfully unaware that his nose had been in grave danger only moments ago. “Let’s do it!”

  Stan pulled up. Stuey jumped into the sedan and they took off.

  “Does anyone find it odd that they leave us in the dust all the time?” I asked as we piled into the van.

  “At least they gave us directions this time,” Kim muttered, putting her seat belt on and checking to make sure Hugh had fastened his correctly.

  Hugh turned around and faced us all with tears in his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he croaked. “I won’t be able to sing for you today. I blew my wad last night. I should be okay by tomorrow.”

  “That’s okay, Hugh,” Boo said sweetly. “You were amazing last night.”

  “That’s my Hubie.” Kim grinned and patted him on the head like a dog. He leaned over and kissed her cheek. Theirs was an odd love . . . but, hey, whatever works.

  “Kristy, I feel your tension and fear,” Boo said in her creepy psychic way. “Would you like me to read from the bible to give you some ideas for your intro?”

  “Um, no,” I said quickly. “I’ll think of something.”

  “Talk about your boob job,” Edith said, completely serious.

  “For the last time, my boobs have not been jobbed,” I snapped.

  “Yeah, right,” she muttered under her breath. I rolled my eyes and gave up.

  “Why don’t you talk about why you came on the trip?” Mariah suggested.

  “I think telling the world that I was bribed by a fifty-thousand-dollar donation to the shelter might get us off on the wrong foot,” I said.

  “Point,” Mariah agreed.

  “How about why you’ve dedicated your life to Sasquatch?” Kim offered. “Oh, wait,” she remembered. “You haven’t actually dedicated your life yet, have you?”

  “Ahh, no. Sorry,” I muttered.

  “That’s okay, dear.” She smiled. “You will.”

  Dear Lutheran God in heaven, I had no response to that whatsoever. I wouldn’t hurt her feelings for the world, but she was on crack if she thought I would dedicate my life to a fictional creature with a man-tool the size of a two-liter soda bottle. I stayed silent and racked my poor brain for a way to not insult the intelligence of the rabid Bigfoot believers. I did not want to screw this up.

  “Maybe you should introduce yourself and explain that we’re on a serious quest to find a creature that many believe to be a myth,” Rich said, saving me from frying my brain.

  “I think that’s perfect,” Boo said approvingly. “But I’m going to read a passage just in case.”

  I smiled gratefully at Rich and held my breath in anticipation of the frightening words that I knew were about to come from Boo’s lips. She read with passion and conviction in her sweet little voice.

  “Time travel made him weary. He longed for stability and a woman with a cooter large enough to accommodate his bulbous pecker. He wandered aimlessly, depressed and lonely. There had been one, with a deformed vagina, but she had been evil to the core. She had tried to kill his f
earless leader and his leader’s concubines.

  “Her punishment had been death. Her skin had been flayed from her body and her toenails yanked from her feet with pliers. She had enhanced her bazooms to epic and disgusting proportions. While he found that to be revolting, it was slightly arousing. He often pondered the probability of large hooters equating to large hoohas, but because of his stench, he’d never gotten close enough to a stripper or a porn star to test his theory. Instead he’d taken to masturbating in the dark corners of bedrooms belonging to large-breasted women.”

  You could hear a pin drop. Even the old queers had been stunned to alarmed silence . . . for a moment.

  “What in the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Edith shouted from the back of the van. “Bless your heart, Boo, but that’s a crock of bull-honkey and makes me want to puke up my breakfast.”

  My sentiments exactly.

  “Don’t you talk to my sister that way, or I’ll come back there and make you eat your own vomit,” Mariah threatened, unbuckling her seat belt.

  I quickly opened the window to try to tamp down my gag reflex. This was such a bad idea on so many levels. Just when I felt close to my crew, I realized they weren’t playing with a full deck. Some of them were playing with no deck at all.

  “Now, now, girls, no fighting or force-feeding stomach bile,” Kim admonished. “Yes, that passage was a bit disconcerting, but it’s the interpretation, not the text, we need to pay attention to. If this was easy, everyone would know how to find Bigfoot.”

  I was losing it. Kim was making sense to me in a bizarre way. By the time these two weeks were over, I would need to be institutionalized.

  “Boo, can you decipher that one for us?” Kim inquired. I noticed she was driving way over the speed limit. Maybe we would crash and die before we got there. It was beginning to sound like a good alternative.

  “I believe that Bigfoot is sad and lonely. He longs for love and sexual satisfaction. I think the time travel may be a metaphor for something, but I’m not sure. The actual manipulation of space and time seems highly unlikely, but then again . . . stranger things have happened. If he can time travel or shape-shift, it would explain why he’s so difficult to track.”

  “What about the evil woman with tremendous watermelons? What does that mean?” Hugh questioned in a gravelly voice.

  “I think that implies he’s made bad choices in his mating search. Something that appears appealing on the outside may be all wrong on the inside. With his looks and his stench, he may have experienced great abuse in his youth. He simply wants to be loved and cared for . . . like we all do,” Boo added quietly.

  Was I in an out-of-body therapy session? Take out the looks and stinky part and Boo could have been talking about me. Fucktard. Heat crawled up my neck and I felt clammy. I stuck my head out the window . . . maybe a tree or phone pole would knock it off. Wait a minute, with Kim’s erratic driving, that was a distinct possibility. I pulled my head back in the car and made myself sit with my own thoughts.

  I had been searching for love and I thought I might have found it. No, that was stupid. You couldn’t fall in love with someone in a matter of minutes . . . or could you? I didn’t really know Mitch, but somewhere deep inside, I did. Damn, damn, damn, why should his job matter so much? I didn’t have a traditional growing up . . . I’d had a horrific childhood, so I’d thought the only way to be happy was to find the perfect model of what I’d never had. I was drawn to police officers because they were supposed to be above reproach. That had blown up in my face time after time. Why was Mitch different? Was he different? Did it even matter? He would probably be gone by the time I got back . . .

  “Are you okay?” Rich asked, giving my hand a light squeeze.

  “No,” I told him truthfully. “I think I might have really screwed up.”

  “The guy or this trip?”

  “Both,” I laughed without much humor.

  “Look,” he said logically, “the trip insures funding for your shelter and the guy will always be there. He’d be crazy not to.”

  I gave Rich a bright smile. “You’re right,” I said. I believed the money part, but the guy? Not so much. Whatever. I took a deep breath. I would be okay. I was always okay. These nut jobs in the van needed me and I was beginning to wonder if I needed them too . . .

  Chapter 19

  “And in conclusion,” I stuttered, feeling a sweat droplet roll from my eyebrow down the bridge of my nose, “Bigfoot is a tragic and misunderstood creature . . . looking for love and friends.”

  “And sex,” hissed Mrs. C from off-camera.

  “And sex,” I repeated before I really heard what she had said. “Shit, I mean . . . oh sorry, I didn’t mean to say shit. God, I did it again.” My entire body heated in embarrassed panic. I scanned my surroundings and wondered if it would be odd if I took off running into the woods. I decided that might be more humiliating than having said shit on national television. Somehow, despite the fact that I pride myself on my common sense, I had agreed to this. Because I’m a gal of my word, I would see it through . . . Assbuckets. I took a huge breath and tried to smile at the camera. I’m fairly sure it came out as a pained grimace. “Pardon my French. Bigfoot may or may not be real, but if this many people dedicate their lives to finding him, there must be something to the story. That’s why we’re here . . . We’re Searching for Sasquatch.”

  “And cut,” Stuey said, lowering the camera.

  “Was that okay?” I asked, biting my lower lip with worry. “Sorry about the shit thing.”

  “Oh yeah, no problemo. We can cut that stuff in editing. The most important thing is that your tits look great. You are one hot broad,” he said, leering. “All that sexy hair, the long legs, the tight ass, the . . .”

  Edith grabbed him by the scruff of his neck. “Scrotum,” she spat into his ear, spraying old-lady spit all over his face. “If you’d like to keep your scrotum, you need to shut your shiny cake-hole. Now.”

  “Got it,” he muttered, moving away from Edith.

  Stan was still in the sedan talking on his cell phone. He’d been there the entire hour we’d spent on my disastrous intro. That guy had some serious lack of social graces. He barely spoke and when he did, it was clipped and short. Stuey said he was the silent brains of the operation. Help us, Jesus. I guess the brains decided a small deserted hunting cabin in the middle of nowhere was a good spot to hunt Sasquatch. Maybe it was, but this place was gross and clearly a hangout for someone. Cigarette butts and beer cans littered the area. The cabin itself was large for a hunting shack. It didn’t look lived-in, but it seemed well visited. If I believed in Bigfoot, which I didn’t, I’d have a difficult time seeing him hanging out here.

  Stuey backed up and stood about ten feet away from all of us. He kept the camera lowered in front of his privates. He seemed unsure whether Edith had been serious about removing his scrotum. He was taking no chances. “Allrightyroo,” he shouted. “Let’s go into the woods and find that big hairy bastard!”

  We stood frozen in a clump, unsure what to do.

  “Do we just take off into the woods?” Mariah asked. “Do we stay together or split up or what?”

  Stuey ran his hand through his hair in confusion, pinched the bridge of his nose, and started a staring contest with a nearby tree. Clearly he hadn’t thought out his shot list very well . . . aside from my boobs. Stan, sensing a problem, got out of the sedan and approached his doofus partner. “What’s the problem?” he asked Stuey.

  “No problemo, my friend,” he said. “I just need to figure out the . . . you know, um . . .”

  “We don’t understand what exactly you want us to do,” Rich told Stan.

  Stan gave Rich a measured look. “Find Bigfoot.”

  “Yes, we know that. But do we search together, since there’s only one camera? Do we split up?” Rich was trying to be polite, but his undertone of frustration was obvious.

  Stan and Stuey eyed each other silently. Holy hell, this was ridiculous. My g
uess was when TIT cancelled the show, they cancelled the crew and the director and God knows what else. I wondered if Stan and Stuey had any idea what they were doing. From the silent conversation going on, my deduction was: no.

  Their wordless conversation lasted three minutes too long. “You will stay in a group. Walk north for about twenty minutes before you start your search. Stuey will film all of you. You can take turns, or whatever. I don’t care, just find some proof,” Stan said as he walked back to the sedan.

  “Oookay then,” Kim bellowed joyously, completely oblivious to Stan’s rude behavior. “You heard the man. Let’s go!”

  Hugh did a cartwheel and an impressive toe touch. Boo, with her bible in hand, skipped ahead of the group. Her excitement, Hugh’s toe touch, and Kim’s glee made the awkwardness of the situation disappear. Their delight was contagious. Mariah followed after her sister, grinning like an idiot. I prayed to Lutheran Jesus that Boo wouldn’t read from the bible on camera. That could be bad, way worse than my intro gaffe. Rich ambled along with Kim, Hugh, and Stuey, and the old lesbos and I brought up the rear.

  “Um, thanks for sticking up for me with Stuey,” I mumbled to Edith. Saying thank you to one of the women who had made my life a living hell was akin to chewing glass and swallowing it, but it was the right thing to do. Surprisingly, it felt pretty good.

  “Well, it’s your own fault,” Edith sniffed. “Bless your heart, if you hadn’t had those disgusting dingleboobers put in, I never would have had to threaten his ball sac.”

  Maybe it didn’t feel that good. I rolled my eyes and tried to think of a comeback, but decided against it. Mrs. C and Edith’s boobie envy knew no bounds. There was no winning this fight.

  “So are we walking for twenty minutes because there’s been a sighting out this way?” Kim asked Stuey.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Stuey replied, distracted and sweating like a pig.

  “Where’s Stan?” Hugh asked. Unfortunately his voice was coming back. I suspected we’d be hit with some background music soon.

  “He’s staying close to the cabin. Don’t tell him I said this, but he’s got a tiny bladder and has to stay near a toilet.”