This is the Johnson Page
first look at new fictional pieces.
This one is about a guy who is in the middle of breaking up with his
girlfriend because she always puts Sting's "Dream of the Blue Turtles"
record on and lip-synchs all the wrong words before they fuck. He's
describing his neighborhood.
Anyway, this was a goodwill program. I drove a company vehicle, a silver
Dodge minivan, and parked it every night in the driveway of my rented
duplex.
I lived in a maze of eight-plex apartments and townhouses that were
fashioned in the early '70s, when the Midwestern/suburban idea of a
townhouse was still being hammered out by government agencies, architects
and divorce attorneys. The neighborhood was sectioned off by strip malls
and office supply superstores. The streets were all named after retired
meteorologists and the great place-kickers of the NFL.
My block, Blanda Place, was filled with nurses, strippers, and secretaries
in expensive running shoes who pushed around battered strollers and left in
their wake a trail of broken tricycle parts, jump ropes and half-smoked
stubs of thin menthol light 100's. On garbage day, giant, colorful
cardboard boxes that once housed high chairs and tiny swings peeked out of
all the plastic rectangular cans on the boulevards. Near every first floor
bathroom window were muddy outlines of footprints from a crazed Super named
Ty.
"I'm making sure perverts can't see in," he'd wink and jab his thumb toward
the window. "We really oughta frost these cocksuckers, but it ain't in the
budget, yet." He seemed to think this was hilarious.
Most of my male neighbors were cynical 30ish, bartender-cowboys with
bloodshot eyes and primped mullets. When they weren't comparing their
alligator wallets, grilling out, or firing finger pistols at one another,
they stood ass-out and bowlegged, up to their forearms in Datsun 280Z's,
Ford Mustangs, or used F-150 pickups. They shoveled Little Caesars and
Disney videos down their kids' throats two weekends a month. The rest of
the time they looked down their noses and over their mustaches at me, the
not-currently-paying-child-support-guy.
Making my audit rounds, I'd often listen to the morning zoo crew of the
highest-rated radio station in town. Many television anchors would make
brief, smug appearances to plug that evening's telecast. The station's core
artists were people like Steve Winwood and Bob Seger. The jokes were little
snare hits on a drumroll of intolerance; they were generally aimed at Hmong
refugees, crib death, gays and other assorted poor people.
The host was a multi-millionaire who did voiceovers for airlines and root
beer. He was overweight and bionically self-loathing, but quite popular
with 18-35 year old men. Even in a promotional 8x10, you could see his neck
and jowls were faintly snaked with light purple blood vessels. He battled
nicotine addiction. His repeated surgeries for hemorrhoids and a
questionable incident involving a baby-sitter were scathingly documented in
an underground fanzine I picked up in the college neighborhood.
This is from one called Ass Dollars. It is about a guy who runs a van
service for traveling strippers. He has just given the new girl a ride
across the state line to a real shithouse.
I walked inside and sat down in Mike Knutson's office. Mike was a trucker
who retired early on a trumped-up disability. Wife had a thyroid condition.
She looked like a government test gone awry. She milled around the steam
trays of the buffet, her snout fogging the sneeze guard, "accidentally"
rubbing her ass against the customers. She told me she used to strip, but I
found it hard to believe. She said her medical condition knocked her out of
the game. Made it sound like it was just temporary. It was temporary all
right, temporary like ball cancer.
Mike asked me what I thought of the new gal, which was a shocker because he
was so keen on his own intuition that he'd often wave you off before you
could say anything.
"Didn't say much. Poor attitude. Nice ass. Some old bodyguard slash loan
shark is after her."
"Oh. That's just perfect. Listen, we don't need the element in here. I've
worked hard to keep the element out." Smoke came out of his nose. He ashed
in a Ho-Chunk Casino tray and picked up a ballpoint pen and started doing
some figuring. In a bamboo frame on the wall, he and a porn star stood
smiling against a Vegas backdrop. He and Thyroidette had an evil Keno
habit.
"The element doesn't even know this place exists, Mike. I wouldn't worry"
"Listen to me," his nostrils flared. He acted like he had a lesson to teach
me. " You know Gary Meadows?"
"Unfortunately," I said. Gary Meadows was the area liar. Most credit
unions and chiropractors in a sixty-mile radius were clogging up small
claims court with Gary Meadows' cases.
"Well, Gary boy in't quite the element," he said.
"No fucking shit, Mike," I replied.
"Gary brung the element in. He was betting on NASCAR and college bowl
games. They was here to collect, on accounta a lotta the bowl games that
was supposed to be locks wasn't locks. Gary got scalded. Anyway, Gary says
to 'em he ain't got the moolah. Know what they did?"
"No," I wondered if I'd have to get gas on the way back west. I shifted ass
cheeks in my chair.
"Well, two of them tackle him into the billiards table, and before I can say
two percent milk, the other one has stuffed a shot glass into his mouth.
Then the other two pick him up and hold him in place. The one that stuck
the shot glass in his mouth gives him a roundhouse punch. Know where?"
"Ahh. The mouth?" I was giving him the old sleuth routine.
"Yer Goddamn right, smarty pants. Roundhouse punch right to the fucking
mouth. Damn near severed his tongue and broke all of his teeth. Had a
medic out here and they nearly fucking closed me down. You can't even put
stitches or what the fuck do they call 'em, err, stuches..."
"Sutures," I finished.
"What are you a fucking male nurse? Yeah, sutures. So, do I want to even
take a chance?
This is one about a divorced, alcoholic amateur woman golfer in the 1970's
and her sister is always fucking things up for her.
While cheering on a third quarter interception, Mitzi's sister Joanne had
fallen out of the bleachers at the annual intra-city high school football
game in October and severely sprained an ankle. Joanne's hairdresser's son
short-armed a catchable down and out, and a quick-thinking cornerback took
it seventy yards for the game-winning touchdown. Since Joanne had been
butchered, and charged twenty-one dollars by this scissors-wielding bitch
not more than a week previous, she was ecstatic that the hairdresser's kid
choked under pressure. The paramedics fought to pry a plaid Thermos full of
Tom and Jerry's out of her hands when they carted her off. She rambled
incoherently about already having her "medicine."
Anyway, everything ground to a halt, and Mitzi, whose excuse to anyone who
cared to listen was that she was playing the role of reluctant wet nurse,
couldn't go anywhere or do anything. In a show of her own self-pity, she'd
occasionally sneak Joanne's painkillers and go on the nod until the TV
turned to pre-dawn static. Scraps of her daughter's unfinished homework
would be tucked between various tines on the pine banister of the stairs,
and all the dishes sat, half-greasy, in cold, soapy water for a forty-eight
to seventy-two hour period after their original usage.
For Mitzi, going on the nod was beneficial in some respects, she thought.
At the very least, it prevented her from having to deal with Raymond Strung,
the disbarred gynecologist who sang lead in the church choir, and had begun
to make, shall we say, advances. His phone calls were slow, steady and
reliable, like a dripping faucet. She'd given up answering the phone for
the most part, but on the outside chance that Strung got a hold of her, the
two were paralyzed in awkward silences.
"Mitzi," Raymond would say, and pause as if he were pondering something.
Then there'd be a faint sigh. Mutual drags off cigarettes. A few seconds
would pass. "Ice Cream socials are a foreign concept, no?"
"Well, I'm not sure. What do you mean by foreign, exactly? It's just a
social event, planned around nine or ten, or a dozen flavors of ice cream.
And pie, I guess."
"What I mean is, why does the church hold them? Why do you think the church
holds them?" More silence.
"What the hell are you driving at?" Mitzi looking at her toes, sitting on
the staircase, smoking a More 100. Her fingers coming together in a
massaging, pinching motion.
"Oh, nothing really. Is there more to church than ice cream socials?"
Raymond had a tight blonde perm, rimless glasses, and a neat mustache. He
was about 160 pounds, soaking wet. Snappy dresser. Bizarre doctor
mentality.
"Yeah. The service. There's a goddamn service, Raymond. You ought to
know. You sing during it. Anyway, half the time there's not any ice cream
afterwards, anyway."
This one is about a serial killer that always wears one of those fanny
packs. He keeps all his tools in there, cause he doesn't have a driver's
license or anything. He lives in his mother's basement of course, and after
while there's a there's a drug-addled insurance adjuster chasing him, but he
never catches him before the fanny pack killer drowns his mother in a
bathtub full of Van De Kamp's franks and beans.
Though he wasn't a true football fan, the Fanny Pack Killer often wore a
white Tim Biakabatuka Carolina Panthers' replica jersey, khaki shorts, and
flip-flops. He also wore a fanny pack. During the summer when most of the
homicides were committed, the Fanny Pack Killer was thirty-three years old.
33, the Jesus Age.
The Fanny Pack Killer would sometimes take his ten-speed bike across town to
a Carl's Jr. where he would consume a bacon cheeseburger, large French
fries, large Mr. Pibb, read the Sacramento Bee newspaper, look at the
counter girls, and make noises to himself.
The Fanny Pack Killer hung out, it was determined later, at one of the
community pools during the hot afternoons. He swam, and ate peanut M&Ms,
and drank Lemon Lime Gatorade. Kids would see him in the game room near
the showers when it got really crowded or too hot. He'd stand next to the
pinball machine and yell "Drano" whenever someone's ball drained.
On his way home, the Fanny Pack Killer would stop at the Dairy Queen and
consume a lime Mr. Misty and a footlong hot dog. Then he would pick up some
cheese for his mother. He'd also stop in at the library and continue to
make notes on gay political figures of earlier centuries, and weather trends
in the South Pacific. After his arrest, the Fanny Pack Killer admitted that
he wanted to escape to the South Pacific some day, but expressed some
concern that there might not be hot dogs, or other fast food.
At night, the Fanny Pack Killer would watch Dawson's Creek, NASCAR, WWF,
reruns of Family Affair and Dragnet, and the Game Show Channel. His blind
mother would sit on the porch, and quietly complain about not being able to
see Chuck Barris, Nipsey Russell, or Alan Ludden. She said that she could
still visualize the alcoholic ruddiness of Richard Dawson's face though.
She would eat something like soup. The Fanny Pack Killer often ordered take
out from Little Caesar's. When the mother went to bed (she often had a
caretaker help out) the Fanny Pack Killer would quietly prepare himself for
his deadly chores.
Then here are some notes the insurance adjuster made:
During this part of the story he'd eaten some bad salmon and had like 34 gin
and tonics and then a few Xanax. He too had a GAME SHOW NETWORK FETISH...
I didn't surf the web. The espresso had a negative effect on me. I vomited
several times, and then violently evacuated my bowels. I was even more
exhausted. The air conditioner and its usually calming chill only served in
making me feel more disoriented. Finally, I turned it off, and opened all
the windows. The heat was stifling, but in my condition it didn't matter.
I curled up in a wool blanket on my bed.
I turned on the Yves Montand record, and wondered if I hadn't left any drug
paraphernalia in my car. It was actually a company car.
I had nightmares about my girlfriend's stepmother. First, she was breeding
a particular strain of Schnauzer. The dog's teeth were long, and it's
usually paranoid temperament increased tenfold. Its fur was almost
stainless steel. It was repulsive. The mother laughed and laughed, and
then became horrified when she realized that she no longer could control the
dog.
I awoke in a panic and vomitted again. The wool blanket was soaked. The
needle was bouncing up and down at the end of the record, and with the sound
down on the television, I could only see Rayburn leering at Nipsey Russell
who surely must have just told an off-color limerick. I fell back asleep,
and soon saw Rayburn and the Schnauzer wrestling each other for a hunk of
salmon.
Rayburn had the salmon and was eating it in front of the dog, taunting it.
Charles Nelson Reilly was masturbating. The dog was non-plussed. It was
playing "Fascination," by the Human League on a toy piano.
I got out of bed and took a cold shower. I turned the television off, and
stopped the turntable. I packed up all the sheets on my bed and put them in
the hamper. A breeze finally blew in through the screen. There were
several sirens going off somewhere in town. I poured myself a Pepto Bismol.
I nodded off on the sofa. The Pepto Bismol spilling down my chest, and
through the flap of my boxers onto my penis. When I awoke again, it was
because a garbage truck had pulled up to the duplex next door and the guy
heaving the cans into the back of it.
No."
This is part of a sciene fiction series, about a race of parrot people.
Krove made his way out of the airport Cheers in the red terminal at the
St.Louis airport. Alcohol-wise, he was well on his way. He'd struck out
with a brunette in windpants and good jewelry at the bar, and now he had
to take a whiz. It hadn't been so swell for Krove over the last decade.
He'd been on a self-pitying bender for a better part of it. With the
ladies, he was a damn mutant.
His pain stemmed from the fact that his high-school sweetheart, a
do-gooder with an ample behind had dumped him in the middle of their
senior year. It wasn't Krove's fault. They'd ferociously banged into the
lockers making out a lot between classes. He drove her around from
Hardee's to Wendy's to Slots-of-Fun in a cherry Reliant K car. Sadly, the
girl's father, a double-chinned Lutheran pastor had been arrested that
school year. In January, he was caught by a member of the Altar Guild,
hunched over in an oak pew with surgical gloves on, fanning his bare
buttocks with the spoils of the collection plate and speaking in garbled
tones. The girl melted down and wore leg warmers well into May. She
would no longer talk to Krove.
Frustrated, Krove tried calling on several occasions with all the
pleasantness and understanding that he could muster. She would never
really pour her heart out to him though, and gradually he became bitter.
She survived it all by going to a small college in Iowa to study
senior/hospice care. Her parents divorced and the dad got off with a slap
on the wrist. He now bagged groceries in Tomah. Krove became a
pin-setter at a bowling alley and started drinking heavily. He'd lash out
at her when he'd see her around town over the holidays.
"Look what you did to me," he'd scream.
Anyway, Krove presently stumbled towards the red terminal Men's bathroom,
to his default-consolation prize. Fumbling for a five dollar bill, he
staggered across the ceramic tiles and eyed the forgiving automated latex
mouths of the new dick-sucking machines that were stationed near the
urinals. For a finski, they were offering guilt-free sexual relief to
salesman and vagrants alike.
An old tiny fruit with a pewter crew cut and a Detroit Pistons t-shirt on
was currently getting blown and loving it. "Exquisite," he cheered.
"Simply exquisite." He threw his head back and bit his lower lip. Krove
averted his gaze and reached for the bottle of Windex. He shot it between
the thick red lips of his chosen machine and hit the "VAC" button. You
could never be too careful. He undid his belt buckle, and arched his ass
a little bit, so his corduroys wouldn't hit the floor. He sort of tangled
himself a bit between his fingers, to warm up. He thought of an adult
cinema star that he'd seen strip recently. She couldn't have been more
than nineteen, tops.
Krove was all set when he heard the rumbling in the stall behind him. It
made him uneasy. It was a thick, flemmy, mewing. Almost a plutting
sound. There was a distinct shiver, or shuffle that sounded like
feathers. Krove craned his neck, but only saw a pair of Orvis khakis
napping around an old pair of New Balance trainers. "Shesus H," he
muttered to himself. He just wanted to get head.
He tried to concentrate but the molting sounds grew. Krove chuckled a
bit, and slapped at his own head. He couldn't believe his ears.
Whoever was in the army-green steel stall was more than regular. It was
like a weed-eater submerged in pudding. But something else wasn't right.
Krove just closed his eyes and plugged away on the machine, with one hand
back on his ass-pocket protecting his wallet.
Soon the sneakers in the stall began sliding back and forth in a skiing
motion, and a clump of feathers hit the floor. Frightened, Krove's pants
hit the tile, and he pulled them back up and quickly tucked his half-erect
penis away. The old, tiny fruit was leaning against the sink oblivious to
it all, hot-boxing a Chesterfield and humming "The Battle Hymn of the
Republic". Krove scrambled out of the bathroom in a hurry. Three minutes
and forty-two seconds were still left on his machine.
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