by Borne Wilder
The shadow would twist in on itself and push and puff quietly, it was more visual than audible. As a kid, Nolte knew these quiet farts, as ‘SBDs’, Silent-But-Deadlies. Sometimes the trigger smell would be pleasant, like honeysuckles, or fresh cut grass, or jalapenos, but never with an agreeable memory. Once he smelled mint cookies, another time it was Palmolive, another it was the Gulf of Mexico, but always with a suggestion of something stale and rotting, something musty, like a wet dog, or damp flatulence laden swim trunks and always, some horrible memory would flood his mind.
Nolte could see when it was about to happen, it only took a few times, a few punches to the nose, before he had learned the fart-cloud’s stink-process, but it mattered little, there was still no protection from it. He armed himself with a can of air freshener, he’d waited for the signs and the puff and then he would unleash his Mountain Berry Blast or Summer Pinecone. He brandished the can as if he were fending off an angry grizzly with bear mace; yet, the smells would cut through the artificial mountain air like butter. Even body spray, the king of odor maskers, met with the same failure, as did, lighting faggoty-assed candles and strategically placing them around the house for a sustained barrier. The candles did nothing but make his house stink like a vanilla cinnamon stick. All methods were useless against the shadow cloud’s stench. All he could do was watch and wait, and try to keep the little coward in his head calm and safely tucked away.
There had been hundreds of these puff attacks since the first one. The last time it was hairspray and vinegar, an odd scent that scared him, yet, at the same time, made his crotch tingle. It reminded him of his mommy’s panties and the scent’s memory had left him curled up in a ball, crying. Big boys don’t cry; Mommy had always said.
At one point he had let himself ponder the possibility, that maybe, he had slipped into the realm of completely-fucking-nuts, or that his medication had gone south of the border, maybe soured in the sun. Perhaps the medication was having a bad interaction with the alcohol, which he refused to quit drinking. Nolte tried to convince his mind, that his eyes and nose had no idea what they were talking about, but reality kept elbowing its way back into his desperate reasoning.
Maybe he had mold behind the sheetrock, maybe a can of tuna or beans had exploded somewhere in the house and his brain had become coated with tuna mold. He soon ran out of things to blame it on and reluctantly allowed himself to admit to what the shadow really was and why it was here.
The doctors had fucked up. They had screwed up plain and simple. It didn’t take an educated man to cipher the writing on the shithouse wall, Nolte could see it plain as day. He wasn’t educated in any academic sense of the word, but he wasn’t stupid, either. Some things can be deduced with simple reasoning, and good ol’ fashioned common sense. He knew what the shadow wanted. It wanted a piece of his ass. Death had come aknockin’.
"But what you want and what you get are two different ducks, Motherfucker!" Sometimes Nolte would yell this at his shadow, sometimes he would say it to himself, but every time, it made him feel a little better. Defiance had always been a substitute for his lack of constitution. A temporary salve for the impotence of his soul.
As far as Nolte was concerned, this thing/shadow/reaper/medical error, whatever the hell it was, could hang around until monkeys fly out Jesus’ ass on Judgment Day, he wasn’t going to die until he was good and ready to die and no shit cloud was going to rush him.
"Wish in one hand and shit in the other, Shitbag." Sometimes Nolte would say this to avoid sounding repetitious to the shadow, or to himself.
When the smells weren’t confusing his nostrils or tying his mind in an olfactory knot, he would stare at the small dark apparition with unfiltered contempt. Its small stature alone repulsed him. He was sure he deserved something better if better could be used in terms concerning or relating to the Reaper. He had always thought death would have a little more style when it came to collect his ass, a little more pizazz. This thing had nothing. No Sickle of Death, no Sword of Damnation, nothing, nothing but little puffs of stink.
Have a little fucking respect. Nolte damned sure felt that he’d earned it. At least put on a better show, something a bit more sinister than a bitch-assed shadow, slinking around, puffing out queefs of popcorn farts and spearmint baby shit!
Enough is enough! “Enough is enough! ---Respect Motherfucker! R-E-S-P-E-C-T-M-U-T-H-E-R-F-U-C-K-E-R!” Nolte yelled. “Show me some fucking respect.”
Long ago Nolte had come to the conclusion, that respect, or more pointedly, the lack of respect shown to him, had been and still was the bane of his existence. Lack of it had been at the root of every violent moment in his past. The lack of it had caused every relationship in his life to fail. Lack of respect was the common denominator of his miseries. Respect was a simple courtesy, which he felt he was owed. “You want respect?” He yelled at the shadow. “Earn it, bitch!”
Nolte was a firm believer in giving respect where respect was due, he just felt there weren’t too many idiots out there on God’s Green Earth, who were due any and just because they didn’t have it coming, didn’t mean they didn’t owe it to him.
“Who knows how far I could have gone, with the support, and respect, I deserved,” Nolte said this often; usually this statement was passed along to drunken wretches, unlucky enough to find themselves on a barstool in Nolte’s vicinity, at the end of a successful drinking binge.
Nolte didn’t feel he needed support, but felt, that it would’ve been nice to have some, once in a while. What he really felt he needed, was what he was duly owed and that was respect. In truth, as far as feelings went, Nolte could feel nothing, drunk or sober; he just thought he felt things.
Perhaps, it’s that everyone sees themselves in more flattering light than others might, that fueled Nolte’s delusions. Nolte saw himself as an untapped resource, an overlooked mentor, a well from which one could quench their thirst for common sense. Though Nolte had never actually mentored anyone, he always thought he would have been a good one. He had a lot to offer those around him, and it was obvious to him, those around him were clearly in need of mentoring. Had anyone shown any interest or the proper respect, he would have been more than willing to distribute his gift and generously instill his wisdom unto anyone he found worthy of his precious insights. He would have mentored the shit out of them.
What Nolte had, couldn’t be found in books. What he had, he’d earned with dedicated study at the School of Hard Knocks and the Library of Common Sense. It hadn’t come cheap either; it had been bought and paid for with blood, sweat, and tears. He had come by it the old fashioned way, the hard way, either by someone pounding it into his head or kicking it up his ass and by God he thought he deserved some consideration and appreciation from those, unwilling to trade punches with life.
The people who had come and gone in his past would have been so much better off, had they only opened their eyes to his vast and varied, experience and wisdom. Had they shown even a little respect or even the tiniest interest, he might have fast-tracked them around life’s obstacles and put them on the path to greater things. He could have bridged the emotional pitfalls and helped them avoid countless injuries to heart and soul. All that for the low, low price of a little respect.
It irritated Nolte, to no end, to see morons stumbling through life, unable to even guess at what was up around the bend. Idiots, blissfully ignorant of their own shortcomings and limitations, thinking their can-do, glass half full, tomorrow’s another day mentality would carry them through the harsh realities of life’s day to day mind-fuck. It was wishful thinking on their part, at best. A letter to Santa Claus would produce more tangible results.
This is where Nolte’s involvement would’ve come in handy. He could’ve really put them ahead in the game by leaps and bounds, were they to offer a respectful and appreciative ear to a few moments of his instruction.
More than once he’d told himself, that these unwitting, ungrateful fucks had no business breathing the same air a
s him. As a matter of fact, he felt that every swinging dick on the planet should thank him personally, they all, owed him a bit of gratitude, he could have reduced their numbers greatly on many occasions, had he had a mind to. He could have put them down like dogs and raised a toast with half full glasses of their own blood. “Tomorrow’s another day motherfuckers! Drink up!”
Rampaging snipers don’t climb clock towers; they are driven up them by the stupidity that surrounds them.
There were so many times in his life, Nolte had thought about climbing his own ‘clock tower’ and cause lesser men to trample his grapes of wrath. They would dance and shit themselves to the wonderful sound of his staccato gunfire. ‘Bust a move, bitches.’ He would say, with his cheek pressed against the smooth stock of his rifle. He would whisper it like Charlie Bronson. ‘Bust a move, Bitches.’ They would dance for him and sing. Even as they scurried like mice for cover, they would yell to one another out of pure respect, “Get behind something, this asshole can shoot!”
As a kid, Nolte had found a sheet of plywood behind their tool shed. It had been pressed into the ground by weather and time. Hoping for a garter snake, he’d flipped the rotting wood over, but instead of a serpent, baby mice ran in every direction. His heart raced and he’d leaped into the chaos with both feet. Pumping his knees like pistons, he stomped them in a dance of brutal, hysterical, exhilaration, though, he was quite careful not to let any run up his pant leg. His mother had told him many times, ‘to be bitten by any animal, was instant rabies’. Shots in the stomach had been a major fear of Nolte’s, throughout his childhood.
The mouse stomping had been a mad minute, which had resulted in a rush of unfiltered excitement and pure power, which he’d never before experienced. The memory of that raw rush of adrenalin had remained with him the rest of his life, even forming much of his life. He longed for the metallic taste of it and the thought of doing the same thing to people, had always held more than a certain allure. It was an almost sexual desire. It called out to him at times, in a voice that was almost too hard to ignore.
POP-POP-POP-POP, they’d all fall dead. He envisioned the poor gomers and goobers as they scrambled, bobbing in and out of his crosshairs. POP-POP-POP-POP, they would drop like empty shit sacks as he relieved them of their pain and suffering. Even so, through their fear and panic, they would marvel at his accuracy. He would put the unwitting, ungrateful mice out of their misery one after another until he, himself, was taken out, jerking and flopping in a hail of bullets, as he struggled to squeeze off one more shot. His name would echo throughout eternity. Oswald’s name would never again be mentioned without his. When analysts discussed firing disciplines and recoil recovery, they would be forced to use Nolte’s skills as a prime example.
“That there is a respectable death.” Nolte said boldly, and aloud. It was more to intimidate the little coward who lived in his head, whose curiosity was slowly coaxing him into the open than to address the stink cloud. Anytime Nolte pondered imprisonment or his own end, the coward would pop into his head and offer self-preservation alternatives.
He assumed the stink cloud could read his mind and Nolte was quite sure it had been intimidated by his clock tower revelation. Probably more than a little intimidated, right up until Nolte’s little fear monkey had poked his fucking head out from behind whatever flowery, feather boa wrapped section of Nolte’s brain that he used for hiding.
The little coward had always poked his little bitch head up, at the last minute, at the most inopportune times and fucked up every chance Nolte ever had at the limelight. ‘Don’t do it, we might get in trouble! Don’t do it, we could get hurt!’ If there had ever been a way to gag the little turd, he would have done it long ago, he fucked up everything. Had he been given half a chance, Nolte would have been famous; he had never been fond of the word infamous, he would have been famous. Nevertheless, they would have written books and made movies about him. He would have shown the world what real crazy was. They could have locked him up next to Charles Manson, and he would have made Chuck his bitch!
He caught a glimpse of the little coward as it flitted across his mind’s eye. “Happiness is a warm gun, motherfucker!” Nolte shouted after him, trying to sound cold and calloused, in order to scare the simpering pussy a safe distance away from his manly thoughts. 'Happiness is a warm gun.' He had a T-shirt with that stamped boldly on the front. That’s what he would have worn on the clock tower day.
“It’s okay.” He told himself. “If everything goes as planned, there’s still time. My nest egg will come through.” Nolte would be respected, if it was the last thing he did on Earth.
“A little respect Motherfucker!” Nolte screamed boldly, yet, he visibly flinched as the shadow suddenly darted closer. It farted. Burnt pork chops this time.
Nolte suddenly saw himself as a small boy, at night, silhouetted against his mother’s burning garden shed. The sound of his sister’s screams had been replaced by the frantic chanting of his mother. “Where is your sister, Nolte? Where’s Mattie? Where’s your sister, Nolte? Where’s Mattie?” He remembered the look of horror on his mother’s face and his inability to answer. He remembered he’d squeezed the two kitchen matches he still held in his small hand, so hard they had broken the skin of his palm.
“She bumped her head, Mommy.” Little Nolte said, as he stared into the flames and wondered what fire would taste like.
Nolte quickly pinched his nostrils, dislodging the oxygen tube he loathed. “Show some fucking respect you stinkin’ sonofabitch!” He screamed his voice sounded nasally and comical. Nolte wanted to kill something. Mostly, he wanted to kill the shadow, but his little coward stepped forward to save him. ‘Stop Nolte, that thing looks dangerous.’ The little guy feared the shadow might kill them back.
The reaper had arrived the same day as his last round of chemo. It must have snuck in the door behind him, like a cockroach.
The doctor had warned Nolte about taking this last round. Doc had said, he was too weak and the drugs could give him a heart attack. He hadn’t bothered to mention that they might give him a shadow that spewed mind altering poison farts.
“Maybe it’s time to face the music, Nolte.” Doc had said.
“Well, book smart motherfuckers and morons all dance alike when the music’s slow, Doc” Nolte could tell, the doctor had no idea how tough he was, how special he was. People like me don’t die. He had told himself, amidst the doctor’s warning. People like me can’t die. “Fuck it, fill ‘er up and check the oil, Doc.” It didn’t really matter, one way or another, what the med-heads did, he had a secret. “I will be risen, motherfuckers! On the third day he is risen! I have a fucking nest egg.”
Nolte either couldn’t, or wouldn’t see the withered shell he’d become. One reason might have been that he wore well-lubricated whiskey goggles tinted with grandeur. Another reason could have been, Nolte had a weak, self-centered mind, riddled with self-preservation and crippling fear, which he refused to acknowledge.
To admit to himself that his body was failing, would be to confess he wasn’t the man he once was. To acknowledge any sign of weakness could be catastrophic to Nolte’s carefully constructed, emotional house of cards. If it came crashing down, it would all go to hell in a hurry and quite possibly result in an extended stay at the booby hatch. This is where his ‘constants’ and ‘boundaries’ came in handy.
Although he had become a death camp poster boy, one hundred pounds of skin draped across gristle and bone, animated by a cold heart that had completely turned to shit, Nolte still saw it as a temporary thing. In his mind, it was a speed bump. He would slow his roll for a while and snap back from this glitch as good as new, in fact, better than new. He would be twirling his dick like a watch chain in no time. He would rock out, with his cock out.
Nolte saw himself as the man, the myth, the legend. Not the shirtless, pot-bellied creepy guy in gym shorts, who wore white socks with sandals.
In Nolte’s world, the sky was a different shade of blue.
In his world, he was stylin’ and profilin’. He drove a ‘Vette, for Christ’s sake, as long as he kept his hair combed, his teeth brushed and his dick washed; any woman in her right mind should and would feel privileged to find herself underneath him. Even now, naked, except for an adult diaper and flip flops, he felt he didn’t look half bad.
Hell, he must not be too far gone, he had been able to talk his stepdaughter into a bit of a tug when she had stopped by to check his meds and wash his crotch. He was pretty sure she would have sucked it too, if her idiot husband, (goober, gomer, hickerbilly) hadn’t tagged along. Goober would allow a tug here and there, but no pussy and nothing with the mouth.
Nolte knew this activity was only available to him because of their greed, but he didn’t give a shit, a tug is a tug is a tug. Besides, watching (goober, gomer, hickerbilly) squirm was actually more fun than the tug, itself. It wasn’t that (goober, gomer, hickerbilly) liked the idea of sharing his wife’s hand, but at the first sign of the old man’s sickness, it had been made clear to him that Martha’s inheritance depended on Nolte’s happiness and Nolte’s happiness depended on the occasional tug.
“No sex and no sucking.” Goober would say. This irritated Nolte that the corn-fed country-fuck felt the need to establish these two rules, prior to every tug. This also tickled Nolte, because what Goober didn’t know, wouldn’t hurt Goober. Her mouth was only off limits when Goober was there. Not that Goober’s feelings mattered to Nolte; in fact, he would try to make the tug sessions as humiliating for the country boy as he possibly could, by smiling at him the entire time. A big ol’, toothy grin fer Goober, Gomer, Hickerbilly.
Goober wasn’t his real name, nor was it Gomer or Hickerbilly, his real name was RJ, but to Nolte, he looked and acted like a Goober, sometimes a Gomer and always a Hickerbilly. RJ so much fit Nolte’s idea of a perfect Goober, that he had never bothered to find out what the initials stood for, but Nolte would venture a wager that the J stood for Junior.
