“I know. I’m not blaming anyone for anything. I just don’t think I’ll be able to take care of him.”
“As I recall, he was a sale item.”
“Yes.”
“We don’t take returns on sale items.”
“What am I supposed to do with him?”
“That’s your problem.”
“But surely this isn’t the first time you’ve had this problem.”
“I don’t have the problem. I guess you could try donating him to the thrift store. Or selling him to the used bookstore if you need the cash although, quite frankly, I don’t think they’ll pay you very much for him.”
“Thanks. Maybe I’ll try that.” She had already hung up. I pressed the OFF button and walked into the living room. Manko sat on the couch, his hands resting on those withered legs, watching television. He hadn’t picked up a book since coming here. I thought that was odd. Shouldn’t an author read a lot? It seemed like I had read somewhere that an author was supposed to read twice as much as he wrote. For that matter, he hadn’t requested a single piece of paper or pen or typewriter or laptop or anything. Didn’t he write anymore? Sitting down next to him, I noticed his bottom lip was trembling. He blinked back tears.
“Say, you want to go for a drive?” I asked.
“Getting rid of me?” he said.
“This just isn’t what I expected,” I said.
“Not what you wanted, you mean?” He wiped a tear away with a knobby knuckle.
“Yeah. I guess you could say that.”
“You people don’t know what you want.”
“You people?”
“Readers.”
“I liked that book of short stories you did.”
“And you wanted something like that?”
“I guess.”
“And you got real life instead.”
A heavy silence hung between us. He sniffled. A phlegmy, wet-sounding thing. Then he spoke again. “People say they want to read about life but that’s not what they want at all. They want a version of life. Don’t you realize, someone else’s version of someone else’s life is still fiction? It’s still a story. But it has no imagination. That’s what you people have done. You’ve murdered imagination.”
He pulled a handkerchief from his breast pocket, blew his hairy nose and farted, most probably involuntarily.
“This is life,” he said. “And it’s not what you want at all.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. I didn’t know what else I could say.
“You want to help?”
“I can’t let you stay here. I would love to but I can’t afford it and I’ll have to go back to work soon.”
“I don’t mean that,” Manko said. “There is no help for me here. Look ...” He reached into the inside pocket of his blazer and pulled out a wad of bright, exotic-looking foreign money. “Take me somewhere and buy me a wheelchair. I’d prefer one of the motorized kinds, if I have enough here, and then take me to the center of the city and drop me off. Just, please, don’t take me back to the bookstore. That’s where my dreams died.”
I folded his lumpy hand back over the money.
“Hang onto that,” I said. “You might need it. I’ll get the chair. I’ll take you wherever you want to go.”
He wiped away another tear and tried to force a smile.
The next morning I took him into the city square, full of pigeons and benches and people and statues and lights and noise. I settled him into his wheelchair and watched him burr into the thick of things. Selfishly, as I watched him, I wondered if he would find another story out there or if the imagination, once killed, remains dead for life.
Alone in a Room Thinking About All the People Who Have Died
A man walks upstairs. It takes him years. Many of the stairs are broken. Some are missing altogether. He reaches the attic. It’s filled with boxes of memories in the form of manufactured debris. Why do people call these memories? They make him mad. He needs room to think. He shoves open the attic window and throws the first box out. It bursts into flame on its way down and lands on the ground with a small explosion, smoke blooming like a demon. The man likes this. In turn, he throws each box—every little thing he can get his hands on—out the window. They all burst into flame. Eventually there is a sizable fire beneath the window, threatening the house. The man sits down in the middle of the attic floor and thinks about everyone he’s known who has died. The number is substantial. The memories of these people are horrendous and devastatingly sad. He closes his eyes and curses himself for ever getting close to these dead people.
The fire roars. It’s closer now. The man is pretty sure the house is on fire.
He opens his eyes. While in his reverie, darkness has fallen. The fire paints the attic with orange and yellow air. Snowflakes flutter outside in the darkness and blow into the attic. The man wonders if the fire will cause them to melt before they reach him. He opens his mouth and sticks out his tongue. The first snowflake hits it and tastes like a tear. After that, they stream in. The man lets them assault his tongue.
The fire enshrouds the house, blackening it, curling it inward from the edges.
The man, with the taste of tears on his tongue, closes his eyes while the heat of his memories consumes him.
The Tailors
My pants make me depressed. They make me feel sad and fat. I stop in the middle of the room and summon Rugby, my bodyguard. I sling an arm over his shoulder, my legs weak. I beg him to call the tailor to come and alter my pants. Rugby goes outside and constructs a mammoth fire in the front yard. I collapse to the floor, staring down at my pants. The tailors arrive by bus. A whole fleet of tailors run from the bus and invade the house. They say the carpenter has the worst looking house on the block and the same could be said for the tailors’ clothes. They are all ill-fitting. Binding. Too loose. Voluminous, in some cases. And their selection is poor. Logo t-shirts and jeans. Out of date clothes intended for the wrong gender that look like they were purchased from a second hand store. I have little faith in them. They prop me up and take measurements. A man with an outgrown mohawk, wearing a denim skirt with a flag embroidered across the chest pulls out a pair of scissors and snips the air.
They set to work.
I black out.
When I wake up I’m sweaty and famished. I’m in my bed. I toss back the covers and hop out. I feel refreshed. There is a definite spring in my step. I look down at my newly tailored pants. They are very sleek. Almost a part of me.
When I get downstairs, I find Rugby entertaining the tailors. He explains to me the great sacrifice they all went through to reconstruct my pants. One by one, the tailors lift up their shirts and drop their pants and I see missing flesh and hair. As I squat down to test the give in the pants I realize their sacrifice was worth it and, looking at them, I see they are all smiling, proud of their craft.
The Champion of Needham Avenue
The phone rings and a voice blares out without it even being picked up. “Shovel fight! Two minutes!”
I cram some half-rancid salami into my face hole and wipe my greasy lips with the back of my hand. I’m naked and I have to get ready. I pick up my good sweatpants from the floor and slide them on, run my hands over my rotund and hairy torso. I kick in the door to the closet and select my weapon. A light snow shovel with an orange plastic head. Not a very good choice but the only one I have.
I step out onto my porch into the brisk late winter air. The neighborhood is already out, enormous families clustered on sagging porches and screaming for blood. I hold the shovel head up, letting it rest on my shoulder. I stroll out into the middle of the street and turn to face the shovel fight champion, Dick Borghum.
His shovel is massive and heavy-looking, like the man who wields it. It is a gardening shovel with a thick, iron head. He snarls and walks toward me as I walk toward him. There is no walking away. Borghum is undefeated. His eyes are huge and bloodshot. “I’ll give you the first swipe,” he growls.
I gra
b my shovel firmly in both hands and take a massive, roundhouse swing at his face. The shovel hits him in the ear and the lobe falls off onto the pavement.
“Half-hearted! At best!” He bends down to pick up the lobe. I bring my shovel down on his massive back. He is unfazed. He tosses the lobe to the adoring crowd, takes his shovel in both massive hands and crouches down like a batter at a baseball game. I quickly take another swipe at his face. The tip of his nose goes shooting off to his right. He whips his shovel around and catches me in the ribs. All my wind is gone. Something has to be broken in there. I land a couple more blows, weakly. They only leave red marks on him. I turn my shovel and strike down with the side of it. A small chunk of his scalp comes off but there isn’t any blood. I suddenly have the feeling I’m not going to win this. The champion of Needham Avenue raises his shovel above his head and brings it down on the top of my skull. My head splits in half. Objects fly out: a small airplane, a fingernail clipper, some candy.
Haphazardly I begin spinning in circles, swinging my shovel around and around, as though this will ward him off. He approaches rapidly, swinging his shovel across my body. My torso splits open, unleashing more of these strange objects. Children rush down from the porches to grab up these seemingly incongruent items. Their mothers caution them to watch out for the swinging shovels. But I cast mine aside, a sign of defeat and surrender. My body is so split apart it’s hard to stand. Borghum swings his shovel at the approaching children, telling them to drop the objects. It’s like this every time. The children, most of them anyway, are so terrified they drop the objects as soon as they pick them up. A few mischievous punks stuff the objects into their pockets and run back to their protective mothers. I stare vacantly as Borghum uses his shovel to scoop up the small mound of objects and it occurs to me what they are. All of my dreams, all of my ideas, all hope and joy are now in the process of entering Borghum’s heavy burlap pockets. He’ll take them home and give them to his wife. She will prepare a nice supper with them and then, sitting down, they will devour all of this mental content until they are full, only to defecate it out sometime the next day.
I do not even have the energy to pick up my shovel. I head back to the house, trying to hold my body back together. I suppose I’ll have to call the doctor. Once in the house, I reach down into my legs, feeling for more objects. Sadly, the left leg is filled with pain and the right leg is filled with depression. I do the same to my arms and find the left one filled with addiction and the right filled with madness. I put it all into the garbage disposal. And at the end of my right big toe, I find it, the one dream I’ve been saving. I pull a box of dirt from the freezer and bury the dream. Come spring, there will be many more and I’ll have to begin training all over again.
Teething
My teeth revolt and decide to leave my head. For five hours I am collapsed onto the floor as each of my teeth painfully remove themselves from my gums. Blood drips from my mouth and onto the carpet. I stand up, woozy from the pain, and stare down at my liberated teeth. The left incisor, marked by a gleaming white filling, seems to be the leader. Together, they march out the door, leaving behind little bloody toothprints. The wisdom teeth, contrary to their moniker, are slow and clumsy, fat and dimwitted.
I sit down on the couch and think about the loss of my teeth. I’m incredibly angry. I look at the carpet, at the large bloodstain that marks the beginning of their revolt and all the little spots they made when they left. The rest of the evening I spend removing the carpet, ripping it up from the floor and tossing it out into the yard. Exhausted, I retire for the night.
Thoughts race through my head. I can’t just go about my life with no teeth. I’ll have to get dentures. But I can’t afford dentures. What will I do until then? Perhaps I could grow a large, Nietzschean mustache. It will only be a matter of time, however, before my lips and cheeks begin to curve inward and I’ll look like all those homeless guys downtown.
I call in to work the next day and tell them I need a week off. When they ask what for I tell them I can’t feel my legs and can’t see out of my left eye. They tell me that sounds serious and I tell them it is. I put orange peels in my mouth, like kids do, only I don’t smile. I keep my mouth closed. The peels are only there to give the illusion of teeth. I go to the store and stock up on soups.
The next two days pass in a wave of black depression.
One night, as I’m lying in bed, my teeth come back to me. Most of them do, anyway. The left incisor, the ringleader, reeks of liquor and cheap perfume. The right incisor smells like smoke. The left eye tooth smells like the outdoors. Perhaps he went camping or something. I think about criticizing them, telling them I’m going to have to get braces. Something about them distracts me. The wisdom teeth are absent and I’m assuming they had to leave them behind. But there’s something else. At first I think I’m just seeing double and then realize what has happened. My teeth have come back with spouses. Save the missing wisdoms there are twice as many of them. I don’t know how they’re going to fit. I don’t know how painful it’s going to be when they re-insert themselves into the gums. I try not to think about it.
I open my mouth and let all the newlyweds enter.
Toss
A boy with a boar’s head wanders into his kitchen and asks his father for a pet.
His father doesn’t hear him.
His father’s pills are scattered all over the kitchen table. He’s leaning back in the chair, his arms dangling at his sides. He says he takes the pills to keep his fingers from curling up.
The boy kicks his father in the shin.
The father snaps out of his coma and stares forward with bloodshot eyes, dragging a bony hand across his drool-slicked chin.
“I wanna pet.”
The father makes a great effort to reach out and grab one of the boy’s tusks. He gives it a weak shake and says, “Then we’ll go get you a pet.”
They leave the house and go to the pet store. The father walks very slowly and looks at his hands. He asks the boy if he notices his fingers curling up. The boy doesn’t answer.
They reach the pet store. It smells like a barn. The animals roam free. The menagerie runs the gamut from cute and cuddly to exotic and lethal. The father pokes the animals in the eyes and tells the boy he’s checking to make sure they’re ripe. The boy thinks maybe he’s confused. The boy falls in love with a two-headed rabbit. Luckily, it’s ripe. He takes it home and names it “Cobra.”
On the way home, the father says, “If you want we could stop at the hospital and get that cat sewed up in ya. Yeah, it’ll be a real fun surgery. We used to do shit like that all the time.”
The boy bites his father on the hand. The father slowly pulls his hand to his chest and stares at it, says now they’re gonna curl up for sure.
The next day, the boy takes Cobra to school, to the classroom filled with boar-headed children.
The class is taught by two men named Vern and Carl. Vern is stout and intense. He wears a tight button down shirt stretched over his belly. He is the disciplinarian. Carl is taller with carefree, flowing hair. He wears a sweat suit. He is the fun guy.
After about an hour of class, the teachers get bored. Vern tells the boy to hand over the rabbit. Carl assures him they’ll bring it back. The boy hands Vern the rabbit and the two men go outside.
The boy stands at the window and stares out at the green grass of the school grounds. Carl and Vern appear. They look very happy. They toss the rabbit back and forth. Back and forth. The boy thinks it looks like a lot of fun. So fun. He wants to be out there, tossing the rabbit with his teachers. Instead, he stays in the classroom and cries with the other students.
Later, he takes Cobra home.
He tells his father to come out to the yard, he’s discovered a new game. A half hour later, his father makes it out. The boy tosses Cobra at his father. His father moves way too slow and the rabbit bounces off his chest. His father falls down. His fingers curl up, wildly extending from his hands and twisting into
impossible shapes.
Cobra hops away.
The boy goes into the house and beats his fists on the couch. Tomorrow he will make his father take him back to the pet store and he will get a new pet. And then they will go to the hospital and he’ll have the pet sewn so deeply inside him it will never escape.
Where I Go To Die
I crawl out of the fire hydrant. Reach out my hand and stroke its rough surface. “Wood?” I mutter. I look around. A treelined suburban street. Where the hell am I? I don’t know. But I do know I’ve come here to die. From down the street I hear a loud car. It speeds toward me. A super jacked up hot rod, black and covered with gleaming white skulls. This car looks designed to take me to my death. I put my hands in my pockets and wait for the car to stop. It doesn’t. I enclose my right hand around an object. A paint can opener. I had used it to open a can of paint but the can was filled with ...
I hurl the opener at the car. It clangs off the bumper and the car stops. I wait for it to back up. It doesn’t. I wander down the street until I reach the car. Apprehensively, I stand next to the passenger-side door until the driver shouts, “Wanna lift?!” He has an unkempt mustache that eclipses his lips and wears a pair of mirror-shade aviator sunglasses. He wears a trucker hat with a skull above the bill and, above the skull, the word: “Necrophiliac.”
“You bet I do,” I say, tugging rapidly on the door handle.
“Handles don’t work! Gotta hop in through the window!”
After several clumsy minutes, I make it into the car, bashing my head on the top of the door.
“Bitch, ain’t it?” he says. “I’m glad you came along. I need me some tunes. Grab that disc up off the floor and slide it in there.”
The Driver's Guide to Hitting Pedestrians Page 5