bummer

FICTION

by Tony Rauch

eyeball

         Three days of sobriety had given her the ambition, and she finally found her eye, dusty, yet neatly balanced on the heating grate in the alley behind the old gas station. . . .

very very late last night

         My eyes were closed, but I could tell she was taking a sip of the Wild Turkey. The glass was plain and small, almost perfect for her hand. I know she probably wanted a cigarette because she rolled up and over me. She laid her head on my chest and looked out the window at it all. We both took in all that calm, blank emptiness out there as the summer breeze leaked in to cool us and billions of stars sparkled beyond us.
         “Do another one of those things again,” she whispered after a while. She kind of smiled. My eyes were closed, of course, but I could still tell her smile voice.
         “Ho-kay,” I sighed. “Why not,” and reached for the phone, lifted it up and over my milk and cookies on the plate that rested on the milk crate beside my bed. I set the phone down next to me with a soft clang and began dialing. I looked straight up at the ceiling for a second. Then my eyes drifted back to the wall, to the stuff taped up behind my bed. Some yellowing pages from old National Geographics and Sears catalogs were taped up, just above my bed.
         I used to have them up at home a couple of years ago. I fished them out of some desk drawer a few months back. I’d forgotten all about them. The Sears pages were of those old ladies in their big girdles and bras. I snaked some giraffes from the National Geographics. I considered it good luck to have giraffe photos above my bed. Three or four would do.
         Someone answered the phone.
         “Yeah, hi, Dad, it’s me,” I said, looking up at the older ladies posing just for me and only me in their big bras and girdles. “Yeah, I just wanted to tell you that I’m gay . . .” I spoke slowly in a long yawn. “. . . Yep, I’m just really really into guys . . . that’s about all. I just wanted to get that off my chest. . . . Oh, also, I’m wearing a dress right now. I really feel good in it, really natural. Free. I feel free. Well, good night . . . sleep well.” A voice began screaming at the other end as I set the receiver back to rest. I looked up at the ceiling. A breeze snuck in from the dark window next to the bed. It felt perfect, the unfathomably deep night breathing on us. After a couple of seconds, the phone rang. She let it ring a couple of times, then reached over my stomach and picked up the receiver without even looking.
         “Yeah?” she asked.
         My father’s voice began booming from the other end.
         “No, no, he’s not here right now. . . .” She yawned. “No. . . . No. He’s not . . . I think he went out quite early . . . to some bar, or some old gladiator flick . . . with some guys . . . from the gym.”

name your demons

          I guess I just didn’t think I was worthy of eating hot dogs with you all, that’s why I started the garage on fire.

at the stable

          “I don’t want to be this person. Can’t you see that . . . that I’m unhappy, that I don’t like how my life is?”
         “See, see, right there. You’re doing it again. You say my life, not our life.”
         “I want a life, can you understand that? A life, not a lifestyle, you trendy stain.” She was whipping horse shit everywhere. “We never go anywhere.” She heaved heavy green clumps with her bare hands, shot-putting gushy globs into the air. “Yer always out hoochin’ it up with yer loser friends.” Steaming fresh dung hung from the walls, desecrated his windshield, stained his shirt, dripped from his slick hair.
         He shook his head and muttered as he slowly turned to shuffle across the sandy path to his rolling love palace that gleamed in the sun. “I never should’ve gone to Sexaholics Anonymous to meet girls,” he muttered. The radio faintly creaked an old love song from the early 1970s and the long yellow grass of the field blew around his legs. 

at the freakin’ party, man

          As I buttoned my coat in the doorway, I heard a very distinct retching sound, a rough retching sound coming from the bushes. I stepped out the door and stopped on the steps for a moment, trying to figure out who it was. “Wwaaaaagghh.” The person heard the door close behind me and finally looked up to see who was leaving the party. To my surprise it was my sixty-year-old boss. He was down on all fours in the snow and vomiting into the bushes. His head bumped the white picket fence as he heaved. He rocked back and then forward into the fence as he heaved again. “Aaaauuughhhh.” I stepped down onto the walk. “I partied too much.” He swallowed as he looked back up to me again. He blinked in the bright, bare bulb stare from the light above the door. A trickle of golden vomit ran down his chin. His eyes were half open and his face was the color of an old gym sock. He looked down into the wet grass and said, “I don’t feel so well . . .” I turned and started down the walk. I think he wanted to be left alone, and I didn’t want to embarrass him. As I stepped off the walk and onto the street to head up the block to my car, I heard his faint moaning, “Aauugghhh. . . . Eeemmmm. . . . I don’t feel so well. . . . I don’t feel so well without her.”

just before our first kiss

          Fires burned out of control. Entire cities were evacuated. People were bummed.

at the dinner party

          The dining room was elegant—all gleaming white with thick wood trim. The butlers brought each item out one by one. Pheasant. Chick peas. Wine. Suddenly I heard a racket coming from the room next door. At first it was a low rumble rumble rumble that sounded like someone moving furniture. But gradually it grew into a sharp bang bang banging that could’ve been old pipes rattling, or someone handy installing some floorboards. Although the house was old, obviously they had the money to meet any such repair needs. The bang bang banging seemed to grow into the walls. The waiters kept right on serving. I began eating, thinking the sound would go away, but it just got more and more noticeable. Not louder really, it was just so foreign. And that’s when the squeaking began. Squeaka-squeaka-squeaka, like two people having relations in the room next to yours at a cheap motel that has hourly rates to accommodate the lunchtime crowd. The squeaking faded, giving way to the thumpity thump thumps and then back to the bangity bang bangs until the chandelier jiggled on the ceiling above and the dishes rattled in the cabinet against the wall.
         Finally I looked up. Accidentally my eyes met our host’s. “Oh that,” she said, noticing something in my face—an inquisitive look. “That’s just Kevin and Maureen having at it.” She beamed. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

a vegetative state of general mental disrepair

          “Are all men this stupid?” she asked in amazement.
Quietly I looked down at my shoes. “. . . Probably.”

the burning of atlantisburg

          What a devilishly cruel trick of nature to have a funny name—foreign and unfamiliar. What a cruel hoax of fate to have your friends forever pronouncing it with an obviously deliberate and forced seriousness. What a life to grow up haunted by such arbitrary labels and tags—having to endure the weight of it hanging around your neck for all to see, day after day—the playground taunts, bus stop ridicule, invisible hallway humiliation—to always want to be where few people are, to forever shun crowds—where the pack mentality turns the insecure to cannibalism as they hunt out every flaw, every possible angle of attack in order to gain position. What a cruel fate to be eternally envious of those savvy enough to possess a cool or smooth sounding name, pleasing to the eye and ears, inoffensive, slippery clean generic. Oh to be a Jones or Smith, to hide comfortably in warm obscurity, in the sweetness of an invisible name.
          What a cruel cruel fate to avoid the masses, to forever seek small groups where common courtesy would have them own up to and face your humanity.
          And later in life, to endure the giggles of children, to be dressing for dinner, knowing your hosts are instructing their children on the other side of town: “OK, kids, be on your best behavior tonight—the Sphincters are coming over.”

if it should all turn to shit tomorrow
(and run dripping through my fingers onto my new loafers)

          She was yelling at me in the parking lot and flapping her arms. I bent to collect the boxes that had spilled from the grocery bags on the ground. Some I couldn’t get to because she had kicked them away.
         “You’ve got to compromise, give some of it up, pretty one.” I looked up to her. “We’ve got to do this together, make these decisions together.” I stood. “This is it, my radish, right here. We’ve got everything. This is it. This is life. What everyone else is hoping for. What all those poor, blind, lost souls out there are praying stumbles their way. What they lie in bed at night and dream of bumping into. What they stumble after day after day . . .” I held out my arms. “We’ve got it. . . . Right here. . . . We’ve found it. Somehow lucked into it. We’ve got a great life.” I bent back down to straighten things on the tar. “I’ve got a job I’m good at, so good that people hate me. People are jealous of us. See, that’s how good we’ve got it. People hate me. . . . They hate us. Both of us. Hate what we have. Oh, sure. Yeah. . . . Plus, I’m selling a few paintings here and there on the side, you know—a productive little hobby to keep that other side of my brain alive, keep me out of the pool halls.”
         “Yeah, I guess, but people really hate us?”
         “Oh, sure, lots of people.” I crouched and reached to retrieve the groceries from the tar.
         “They really hate us?”
         “Of course they do.” I nodded, searching the pavement. “Hate. Really scratchy, itchy, raw, burning red hatred. There’s lots of weaklings out there, you know. And these weaklings despise us. It’s like a hobby to them. They want to see us fail and suffer, that’s how good we’ve got it. It’s just their own greed and jealousy getting the best of them, that’s all. Giving in to their own worst tendencies. And that’s how you know you’ve made it—all those insecure, jealous, nosy, gossipy, no-life-of-their-own lying wannabes hate us because they don’t have it as good as we have it. . . .” I reached for a banana. “Now I’m not being conceited or anything, judging others too harshly, saying we’re better than anyone else or anything. I’m not complaining, just reporting what I see. . . . But you see what I’m saying?”
         “Yeah, I suppose . . .”
         I stood, holding an orange that had rolled around on the hot tar. I examined it slowly, rolling it in my hand. It had a large, soft, purple bruise. Then I looked out over the parking lot, surveying it like the bruised orange in my hand. I saw lots of dull, muted cars, and the heads of people—oranges and purples, dents, rust, bruised cars. I saw far off, people here and there, the trees, clouds hanging in the distance, and then I noticed an old classmate of mine, now the vice president of a bank. He had a big house and a beautiful wife. He was packing bags into his big, shiny, expensive new car.
         I looked down at the orange in my hand as she packed the last of the bags into our beat-up little car. I squeezed the damaged orange and rubbed it with my thumb. I thought about spinning around and hurling it at my old classmate, then quickly ducking down, so he wouldn’t see where it had come from.
         “All packed up,” she said as she climbed into the car.
         “OK,” I said after her door closed, still looking down at the damaged orange. I thought about chucking it, getting rid of it, but then I turned and opened the door. I sat with that bruised orange in my lap the whole way home, rubbing it softly, as if it were a child’s head—rubbing it as if to heal it.

answering machine

          “Thanksgiving was a gas. Just fabulous. We’ll have to do it again next year. Thanks for inviting me . . . And please excuse my nudity. Talk to ya later. Bye.” 

you did this to me

          I was walking downtown, and I saw a girl I used to go out with walking on the other side of the street. I stopped cold in my tracks. She was obviously very very pregnant. I couldn’t move. Suddenly I felt numb and empty, drained of everything, of my past and of my future, drained of all feelings or senses. That numbness weighed me down, held me in place. My heart thumped a dull ache, as if it were very far off, a heartbeat from long ago. My legs and feet just wouldn’t work. It was as if she controlled them.
         As I watched her walk by, I thought: You did this to me. You’re the reason I can’t trust anyone. You made me feel this way. I hate you. You changed me.
         I wanted to scream it at her, point in frantic, jabbing motions, call out to the disinterested strangers. Warn them. I wanted to yell, “I’ll never trust anyone ever again! Why would I trust another human?!” But I couldn’t. Words wouldn’t form in my mouth. They only echoed inside some deep old musty dark place way way deep down inside. And she just continued walking. She didn’t even notice me.
         How can I trust things after this? How can I trust what people say? What they feel? What’s in the air, the wind, what’s between us, what’s in the silence? How can I ever trust the silence again?

let’s talk (all the little things)

          “Let’s talk,” she said, sitting herself down on the couch next to me. The game flashed before me on the TV in spectacular colors, angles, and shapes.
         “Oh, God no. Not that. Not talking again. We just talked the other day. Why do we always gotta talk? Huh? Why can’t we just sit here quietly and enjoy the not talking for a while longer. Huh? Why can’t we enjoy that warm and fuzzy negative space that festers between us?” He held out his hands. “This. . . . This space right here. This silent, slippery, beautiful space between us.” He motioned his hands forward and back as colorfully dressed men gracefully tumbled through the air. “This . . . This spectacular silence . . . The glowing quiet. The serenity. The splendor.”
         She sighed and drew in a deep breath. “No. No. We’re not going to do that one. . . . Now we’re gonna talk.” She nodded. “. . . So, tell me about your day. . . .” 

she smelt like a wet cardboard box

          I got used to it

that other relationship

          part I

         I saw her around for several months, mostly in bars. She was totally boss. She’d look at me and then look away—drove me nutty. Finally one night she came on, real slowly. I thought I was being smooth. We went out for a while, but she was really busy from time to time—with work I thought. One day I asked her what she did. “Oh, I don’t know,” she said casually, “this and that, some crazy stuff. I get by.” Then one day she called me up, acting all sexy you know. I rushed over, only to find some guy tied up on a chair in her kitchen. “Deal with him!” she yelled. He had a panicked look on his face, kept trying to shake his head. I stood in the doorway staring. He was all wrapped up with a thick, limp snake dangling around his neck. Little white strings, crisp, like tampon strings, hung out of his nose. “Do it!” she screamed. The strings whipped back and forth as he shook his head frantically.
         I turned to her. Her face was nail polish red. Her trench coat a skin, the belt wrapped tightly, maybe too tight. “We . . . we gotta talk,” I said nervously. I began to shake. I looked over at the guy and then back at her. I felt all funny, like a tingly rush. I looked at her, all mad and sassy, tied up all tight, bulging out. I was getting kind of turned on.

         part II

         I wanted to leave, but I ended up staying the night. She was wonderful that night.
         The next morning I woke up tied tightly to a kitchen chair in the bathroom. I heard her on the phone in the other room, talking really sexy and all.

she turned into a bike, and I rode her around town

          And one day she asked me, right out of the blue as we sat there, “If I turned into a bike, would you ride me around town?”
         I looked at her for a moment, then off into space. I felt so deeply about her. She listened to me. She complimented me. She didn’t complain or boss me around or sleep all day or smell funny. She didn’t compare me to other guys. She didn’t care that I only had what I had. “Well,” I started in my verbose manner, “it depends on if you’d want me to ride you around town. I’d certainly lock you up, that’s for sure. So nobody would steal you. And I’d be responsible with maintenance and all that. But mostly I think it would depend on what style and color you were.”
         “Oh, well sure, I mean . . .”
         “Of course if you did possess such an ability . . .” I interrupted harshly, as was my nature. “. . . I’m confident you could also moderate desired colors and hues.” I raised my eyebrows. “I guess I see the deeper question lying in whether that capacity would, in time, become a metaphor for the compromises and give-and-takes we all must make in our daily relationships and affairs. Or perhaps symbolic of tolerating and accepting the various differences and desires in those around us. Or maybe representative of the magic of love.” Although I didn’t realize it, she had already slipped out of the room. “I mean if you wanted me to ride you all the time, like for several hours a day for instance, I may have to draw a line at some point that would hopefully be accommodating to each of us. Also, what if I were going too fast or down the wrong block? That could lead to some measure of friction between us. Or what if all your friends wanted to ride you too? I mean what if they’d pester me as I proudly strolled past them down the block? My back held straight, my head up high. ‘OK, OK, now it’s my turn to ride the Melody, now it’s my turn.’ Friends can be very demanding in the attention you must give to them, you know. And how could I distinguish between potential saboteurs?”
         Later, in bed, she whispered the question to me again: “If I turned into a bike, would you ride me around town?”
         “Absolutely and without question,” I answered. I was very tired.
         “It just seems that everything I could ever need is just flittering away from me. It’s all so fragile and uncertain . . .”
         “I feel the same way sometimes, my dumpling. Don’t worry, you’re just tired, try to get some sleep.” I yawned.
         “What if I turned into a green bike?” she whispered softly, as she began to slip into sleep.
         “Yeah, . . .” I yawned again. “That would really be something,” and I left it at that. It was the last time I could recall her mentioning the subject.

something dark and evil

          I ran after her, up the narrow street, calling her name: “Darleen! . . . Darleen! . . .”

bummer

          The one-eyed lady’s yard was nothing more than sand with several patches of tall weeds. Her house was that thirsty weathered empty gray, as if over the years the wind had just sucked the flavor right off, and each dried-out plank of wood was somehow just barely clinging to the rusty nails.
         Her house had no paint on it, no paint whatsoever—only faint whisks and whispers where it had worn and faded over the sun-bleached years. Just faded splotches here and there where paint had been clinging at one time—just faint hints of faint pasts. 
         She was a painter, wisps of paint on her every time I’d see her.
         One time when we happened to meet out at the mailboxes, I asked her why she didn’t come out for days.
         “I get depressed,” she answered under the whisks of faint clouds.
         “Must be some pretty heavy stuff,” I muttered while flipping through my mail.
         She just peeked in her box, had to squint to close her glass eye to see in, then turned and shuffled through the sand and weeds back to her gray, weathered house.