by David Ohle
Year seven Hooker shaved his head and face and sat cross-legged on the floor, carving tooth-shaped nuggets out of soap with a long thumbnail that he'd let grow for this very purpose. He made a drawstring pouch out of a bandana to keep his nuggets in. When he held it in his hand and imagined there was gold inside, he felt a childish glee.
Year eight he collected earwigs from the damp floor and put them up his nose and in his ear canals. He plugged his nostrils with soap and held his hands over his ears. Once he got used to them moving around in his head, trying to dig their way out, it became an addiction that ranked second only to masturbation.
When year nine came along, he grew a bushy mustache and lay on his cot in a state of suspended animation. It was the year his legs began to stiffen and grow numb. He remembered almost nothing of the seasons other than the sunny summer day when he watched a pair of grasshoppers mate on the bars of his window.
Ten was a snowy year, dedicated to counting the days until his release. He stiffened even further as time passed and could sleep only by kneeling on all fours. When the day of his release arrived, he was issued a suit, a tie, a big hat, a sack of starch bars, a small wog of willy, a morning edition of the City Moon, and a ticket for the ferry to Bum Bay.
"Look here, Hooker," the Guard said, tapping the rolled-up paper. "The Pisstown Chaos is over. People are finding work. Anywhere you go, there's a job to do."
"Thank you for that tip," the Reverend said, tucking the paper under his arm. "I do like to watch people work. It fascinates me."
The Bum Bay ferry arrived at Permanganate Harbor a few minutes ahead of schedule. With the help of a Guard, Hooker climbed stiffly aboard, chose an aisle seat and strapped his feet into a set of pedals.
The End
David Ohle's novel, Motorman, was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1972 and re-released by 3rd Bed Press in 2004 with an introduction by Ben Marcus. Its sequel, The Age of Sinatra, was published by Soft Skull in 2004. He has edited two non-fiction books, Cows are Freaky When They Look at You: An Oral History of the Kaw Valley Hemp Pickers (Watermark Press, 1991) and Cursed From Birth: the Short, Unhappy Life of William S. Burroughs, Jr. (Soft Skull, 2006). His short fiction has appeared in Harpers, Esquire, the Paris Review, TriQuarterly, the Missouri Review, the Pushcart Prize, and elsewhere. He lives in Lawrence, Kansas.
