I was in another argument at the hardware store, chiding the predictably incompetent help over their latest mistake. "No, goddamnit," I yelled, pounding my fist on the desk. "These are the wrong kind of nails. Idiots!" I stomped around with my hands raised in an indignant "V", huffing and puffing and, according to the cretinous sixteen-year-old at the counter, "making a scene."
"Sir, please," she said. "If you could just settle down, I'm sure we could help you." I stopped my march just long enough to roll my eyes and spit on the ground. "Please, sir," she said again. "Sir!"
"Fine," I finally agreed, deciding that one of us had to handle this in a mature manner. She presented me with every type of nail but the one I needed. Box nails, bright nails, casing nails, coated nails, drywall nails, helix nails, shank nails and sinker nails, and after each I groaned a little louder than before. After the sinker nails, she hung her head and picked up a railroad spike. "I'm not an idiot," I said, and she looked like she was about to cry. "They're the nails with the things around them," I finally said, drawing a circle in the air with my finger.
"You mean screws?"
"No! No! No!" I screamed.
I'd find out later that I was, in fact, looking for screws. When I went back a few weeks later to apologize to the girl and get some screws, the manager said that they hadn't seen her since she ran crying from the store that day. I must've forgotten that part though because, as I bellowed at that dumb teen for the last time, a woman would walk into the store and change my life forever. She wasn't a beautiful woman, or even a presentable woman. I forget her name, but imagine it’s something fat, like her. But that's neither here nor there. All I really know is that she must have had a great sense of humor and an eye for high fashion--because, covering her gelatinous midsection was the funniest tee-shirt I, or anyone else, will ever see. Bending at the corners, the words drooped: "Do I look like I care?"
O, was this the rhetorical question to end all rhetorical questions?
Yes, yes, it was.
It was sarcastic, and funny, and biting. The shirt, in itself, a juggernaut of haute couture, guaranteed to induce feelings of inadequacy from all those who were less apathetic--and induce knowing, reverent nods from those who were. Or maybe not--maybe all those who truly "didn't care" wouldn't care enough to acknowledge the apathy expressed on the garments of others. I thought about that for a while until my head started to hurt, and then I noticed that my corpulent muse was walking out the front door. I tore out of the store to catch up to her, which was easier than I thought it would be because, you know, she was pretty fat. I was breathing heavy when I reached her, and so was she. "Where...did...you..get..that shirt?" I asked.
"Down...at...the...dollar store," she answered, pointing to the Dollar Mart next door. Waving my thanks, I ran into the dollar store.
They only had 18 left, in various sizes, so I bought them. I drove to the Dollar Mart in Flower Mound and bought 27 more. The dollar store in North Dallas had 17, and the one in Farmers Branch had 29. All told, I went home that day with 91 of the greatest shirt ever. To the humor-pedestrian, that might have been enough, but I recognize quality humor when I see it. I ordered 200 more from the manufacturer, and submitted the shirt for a Thurber Prize. I still haven't heard back from them, but that might just be because they're laughing so hard. Or maybe they're wondering if owners of the shirt care about other owners of the shirt enough to nod at them in public. I never did find a clear answer to that one.
At any rate, I sleep on a bed of apathy shirts now and so does my TV, computer and dog. My closet has a stepladder made of apathy shirts leading to two rows of apathy shirts. I cut up a few of the apathy shirts as carefully and respectfully as I could, and made a pair of apathy pants, and an apathy parka. I had the phrase screenprinted on all my more caring clothes, including the business suit Grandpa gave me for graduation. Mom got pretty mad at me. "You ruined your clothes!" she said.
Normally, I would've had to say something back. Instead, I just scoffed and pointed to my chest.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Genghis & Me
I met Genghis in the fall of 2007, as a cocky college junior who thought he knew everything about the world.
Unbeknownst to me, I hadn’t yet learned the true meaning of the word 'friendship.'
Back then, I thought 'friendship' was the one with wings and like a tuxedo--like a bird, but unable to fly. A penguin, yeah. We'd be at the zoo and I'd say, "Look at the friendships." Then my buddies and I would laugh and laugh at their sliding, or maybe because I confused the words 'penguin' and 'friendship' again.
At any rate, I didn't know the true meaning of the word friendship until the day I saw Genghis passed out on the little patch of lawn outside our apartment, his lined, taupe face resting among hundreds of cigarette butts. It was never my way to help vagrants, but I knew there was something different about this one. And also I really liked his fur coat. I helped him into my apartment and Clay was mad, either because of Genghis, or that I accidentally vomited on his X-Box the night before.
Genghis woke up and growled something and I asked what he was majoring in. He growled again, so I just said, "Oh, yeah, cool." After some more growling, I figured he wanted some food, so I ordered a pizza and challenged Genghis to a game of Mario Kart. I would have challenged him to Madden, but, for some reason, our X-Box was covered in vomit. Genghis stared at the controller and, at first baffled, he came to the conclusion that it was a weapon. So he swung it around his head by the cord, and I took cover under the coffee table, all the while giggling about my new pal. “Oh, Genghis,” I squealed. "You smell awful."
And he did.
There was a knock at the door and Genghis leaped behind the sofa and grabbed Clay's guitar. When I realized I had no money, I asked Genghis if he could cover it. He swung the guitar at me and growled and stomped off to the door.
When Genghis hadn't come back for some time, I began to get worried, and really hungry. Right as I picked up the phone to report him missing, though, he came out of Clay's room carrying the pizza. "Stay the hell out of there, Genghis," I said. "That's not your room."
We sat down to eat, but I guess Genghis wasn't very hungry. He did seem to love the show "Coach," which was nice because I love that show, too. Oh, me and Genghis sat there all day laughing and grunting at one another. He'd get up every once in a while and go into Clay's room, and I'd scold him again, and so forth throughout the day. We must have nodded off at some point, because I woke up to a dark apartment and Clay hovering over me, angry still.
"What the fuck, dude?" he growled, like Genghis, but more intelligible.
"Is this about the X-Box?" I groaned.
"No, actually not," Clay said. "It's about the dismembered pizza guy in my bed."
Clay led me into his room and turned on the light. Sure enough, the delivery boy had been bludgeoned to death, and partially eaten. "This actually explains a lot," I said, and I reached into the corpse's front pocket.
"I'm fucking out of here," Clay said. "You can find yourself a new roommate."
"Genghis," I said sternly, after Clay had left. "Did you kill and eat the delivery guy?"
Genghis put his head down and refused to look me in the face, which betrayed his guilt immediately. "Genghis," I said again, and he jumped off the couch and hid under the coffee table. "You see what you've done--now I'm going to have to find a new roommate." Genghis pointed at himself hopefully, and I said, "I'm afraid not, Genghis. I draw the line somewhere between murder and cannibalism."
As I watched him walk through the parking lot, his club dragging behind him in a forlorn march, an airplane flew low overhead. He looked up in terror and rage at the plane as if to say, "What the fuck was that thing?" I hoped he'd be alright, and held my head to hide the tears.
We'd learn later that the pizza delivery guy, named Alonso Moore, was an aspiring writer, which explained the pocket dictionary I found in his front pocket. Alone in my apartment, I thumbed through its worn pages and found the "F" section:
Friendship
Pronunciation: \ˈfren(d)-ˌship\
Function: noun
Date: before 12th century
1 : the state of being friends
2 : the quality or state of being friendly
That's nothing like the tuxedo bird, I thought. How silly.
Unbeknownst to me, I hadn’t yet learned the true meaning of the word 'friendship.'
Back then, I thought 'friendship' was the one with wings and like a tuxedo--like a bird, but unable to fly. A penguin, yeah. We'd be at the zoo and I'd say, "Look at the friendships." Then my buddies and I would laugh and laugh at their sliding, or maybe because I confused the words 'penguin' and 'friendship' again.
At any rate, I didn't know the true meaning of the word friendship until the day I saw Genghis passed out on the little patch of lawn outside our apartment, his lined, taupe face resting among hundreds of cigarette butts. It was never my way to help vagrants, but I knew there was something different about this one. And also I really liked his fur coat. I helped him into my apartment and Clay was mad, either because of Genghis, or that I accidentally vomited on his X-Box the night before.
Genghis woke up and growled something and I asked what he was majoring in. He growled again, so I just said, "Oh, yeah, cool." After some more growling, I figured he wanted some food, so I ordered a pizza and challenged Genghis to a game of Mario Kart. I would have challenged him to Madden, but, for some reason, our X-Box was covered in vomit. Genghis stared at the controller and, at first baffled, he came to the conclusion that it was a weapon. So he swung it around his head by the cord, and I took cover under the coffee table, all the while giggling about my new pal. “Oh, Genghis,” I squealed. "You smell awful."
And he did.
There was a knock at the door and Genghis leaped behind the sofa and grabbed Clay's guitar. When I realized I had no money, I asked Genghis if he could cover it. He swung the guitar at me and growled and stomped off to the door.
When Genghis hadn't come back for some time, I began to get worried, and really hungry. Right as I picked up the phone to report him missing, though, he came out of Clay's room carrying the pizza. "Stay the hell out of there, Genghis," I said. "That's not your room."
We sat down to eat, but I guess Genghis wasn't very hungry. He did seem to love the show "Coach," which was nice because I love that show, too. Oh, me and Genghis sat there all day laughing and grunting at one another. He'd get up every once in a while and go into Clay's room, and I'd scold him again, and so forth throughout the day. We must have nodded off at some point, because I woke up to a dark apartment and Clay hovering over me, angry still.
"What the fuck, dude?" he growled, like Genghis, but more intelligible.
"Is this about the X-Box?" I groaned.
"No, actually not," Clay said. "It's about the dismembered pizza guy in my bed."
Clay led me into his room and turned on the light. Sure enough, the delivery boy had been bludgeoned to death, and partially eaten. "This actually explains a lot," I said, and I reached into the corpse's front pocket.
"I'm fucking out of here," Clay said. "You can find yourself a new roommate."
"Genghis," I said sternly, after Clay had left. "Did you kill and eat the delivery guy?"
Genghis put his head down and refused to look me in the face, which betrayed his guilt immediately. "Genghis," I said again, and he jumped off the couch and hid under the coffee table. "You see what you've done--now I'm going to have to find a new roommate." Genghis pointed at himself hopefully, and I said, "I'm afraid not, Genghis. I draw the line somewhere between murder and cannibalism."
As I watched him walk through the parking lot, his club dragging behind him in a forlorn march, an airplane flew low overhead. He looked up in terror and rage at the plane as if to say, "What the fuck was that thing?" I hoped he'd be alright, and held my head to hide the tears.
We'd learn later that the pizza delivery guy, named Alonso Moore, was an aspiring writer, which explained the pocket dictionary I found in his front pocket. Alone in my apartment, I thumbed through its worn pages and found the "F" section:
Friendship
Pronunciation: \ˈfren(d)-ˌship\
Function: noun
Date: before 12th century
1 : the state of being friends
2 : the quality or state of being friendly
That's nothing like the tuxedo bird, I thought. How silly.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Reginald Pennyfarthing's Guide To Facebook, Volume One
In my day, if one felt inclined to increase his social standing, he had to marry into a good family or kill the pretermitted heir to a large estate, and endear himself to the benefactor in question. Each of these remain as viable options for the average American, but few seem to possess the intestinal fortitude these days required for murder or sham marriages. Tis a shame indeed, but, lucky for them, one can now win the adoration and envy of the masses via Facebook, a social tool invented in 1909 by Errol Duncan to give his wife another outlet for her petty rambling.
1) Be careful what you like. This silly "like" button has turned a great deal of dandies into common louts in the eyes of the public. Take my old friend Lord Darkstone--you may remember him from his formulaic dust-ups with that churl Sherlock Holmes. Well my dear chum Darkstone got "like-"happy one day and, before you know it, he was giving the thumbs-up to swill beer, Angelina Jolie and the Ford F-150--all terribly low entities to be certain. Once, he was as urbane and dapper as Henry Charlwood; now, he's as slovenly and pitiful as "Stinky" Dick Barlow. He is required to pay prostitutes an extra six pence per visit--a sort of ugly tax, we suspect--he enjoys the films of Michael Bay and I thought it best to not invite him to my last birthday party.
Heed the lesson, lest Darkstone's descent be completely in vain.
2) Unless you're a lowly attention-strumpet, abstain from open-ended status updates. These updates-- which might read, "Nothing ever goes right for me," or "This is the worst day EVER"--are nothing more than invitations to a naif's pity party--and dandies are not pitied. Indeed, if anything, dandies would do the pitying--of course, they don't.
Sympathizing with others is one of the many curses of the working classes.
3) With regard to your profile picture, thou shalt not pull your shirt up and take a photo in the mirror with your phone. Should you find yourself without any friends to take your photograph, simply commission an artist to paint your likeness atop a gallant horse. Mine was painted by JMW Turner, after which he spent every last pound I paid him on a three-day bender through the streets of Cambridge with yours truly. As you may be unable to commission Turner--either because you are socially undecorated, or because he's been dead for 159 years--you may consider a photo from the good people at Glamour Shots. I hear they do fine work.
4) Never accept a friend request from an unworldly tyro. This is a good rule in day-to-day life as well, though it is remarkably easier to avoid the lower classes on Facebook. Should a friend of mine befriend someone who, say, wears clothes from Target, that reflects rather poorly on yours truly. A great many of my so-called friends have fallen victim to this rule, and a polite de-friending is as hopeful a conclusion possible for one who mucks up my computer screen with a gaggle of unrefined friends. In 1839, I shot my chum Stanley Jackson in a duel. What precipitated this showdown? Well, thanks to old Stanley, it was suggested that I become friends with a fellow by the name of "T-Bone." So miffed was I at this suggestion, I shot my friend in the face. Do I feel bad? Sometimes, when I'm leaving his wife's bedchamber, and have to walk by his chubby, despondent children. But you had better believe I'd do it again--because this rule is as necessary as a moustache comb or pipe tobacco.
Which is to say, it's absolutely bloody necessary.
5) Only the most buffoonish, mealy-mouthed louts intentionally misspell words. One of my many illegitimate children once wrote on my wall "Can't wait 2 c u Dad!" Lovely sentiment after my eight-year absence from his life, granted--but wholly unacceptable from the seed of Reginald Pennyfarthing. So, in turn, I beat the contractions out of him with a bag of dictionaries. The English language is not a prostitute, to be disrespected, spit on and punched in the face (Or, in the case of my old friend Jack, cut apart with surgical implements). It is a lady of the highest order, who seems at times untouchable, but will put out if you treat her right.
1) Be careful what you like. This silly "like" button has turned a great deal of dandies into common louts in the eyes of the public. Take my old friend Lord Darkstone--you may remember him from his formulaic dust-ups with that churl Sherlock Holmes. Well my dear chum Darkstone got "like-"happy one day and, before you know it, he was giving the thumbs-up to swill beer, Angelina Jolie and the Ford F-150--all terribly low entities to be certain. Once, he was as urbane and dapper as Henry Charlwood; now, he's as slovenly and pitiful as "Stinky" Dick Barlow. He is required to pay prostitutes an extra six pence per visit--a sort of ugly tax, we suspect--he enjoys the films of Michael Bay and I thought it best to not invite him to my last birthday party.
Heed the lesson, lest Darkstone's descent be completely in vain.
2) Unless you're a lowly attention-strumpet, abstain from open-ended status updates. These updates-- which might read, "Nothing ever goes right for me," or "This is the worst day EVER"--are nothing more than invitations to a naif's pity party--and dandies are not pitied. Indeed, if anything, dandies would do the pitying--of course, they don't.
Sympathizing with others is one of the many curses of the working classes.
3) With regard to your profile picture, thou shalt not pull your shirt up and take a photo in the mirror with your phone. Should you find yourself without any friends to take your photograph, simply commission an artist to paint your likeness atop a gallant horse. Mine was painted by JMW Turner, after which he spent every last pound I paid him on a three-day bender through the streets of Cambridge with yours truly. As you may be unable to commission Turner--either because you are socially undecorated, or because he's been dead for 159 years--you may consider a photo from the good people at Glamour Shots. I hear they do fine work.
4) Never accept a friend request from an unworldly tyro. This is a good rule in day-to-day life as well, though it is remarkably easier to avoid the lower classes on Facebook. Should a friend of mine befriend someone who, say, wears clothes from Target, that reflects rather poorly on yours truly. A great many of my so-called friends have fallen victim to this rule, and a polite de-friending is as hopeful a conclusion possible for one who mucks up my computer screen with a gaggle of unrefined friends. In 1839, I shot my chum Stanley Jackson in a duel. What precipitated this showdown? Well, thanks to old Stanley, it was suggested that I become friends with a fellow by the name of "T-Bone." So miffed was I at this suggestion, I shot my friend in the face. Do I feel bad? Sometimes, when I'm leaving his wife's bedchamber, and have to walk by his chubby, despondent children. But you had better believe I'd do it again--because this rule is as necessary as a moustache comb or pipe tobacco.
Which is to say, it's absolutely bloody necessary.
5) Only the most buffoonish, mealy-mouthed louts intentionally misspell words. One of my many illegitimate children once wrote on my wall "Can't wait 2 c u Dad!" Lovely sentiment after my eight-year absence from his life, granted--but wholly unacceptable from the seed of Reginald Pennyfarthing. So, in turn, I beat the contractions out of him with a bag of dictionaries. The English language is not a prostitute, to be disrespected, spit on and punched in the face (Or, in the case of my old friend Jack, cut apart with surgical implements). It is a lady of the highest order, who seems at times untouchable, but will put out if you treat her right.
Big Me: Chapter 2
You’re walking along a cool, windy beach with a cold beer in hand, when you see a dot in the distance with pink things and yellow and it is bouncing, kind of. The thing gets closer and you wish you could see what it was, but when Carol told you to go to the eye doctor, you said “Okay,” and then spent the rest of the day playing Super Mario Bros. on Super Nintendo.
Lucky for you, you found a pair of glasses on the floor of the strip club later that night, and you wear them whenever Carol’s around just to get her to shut up. You mean to call the eye doctor for real, but it’s sweeps week and you never can pry yourself from those teen vampires or sexy oncologists for long enough to do it, so the glasses are here to stay. Now your head hurts so you decide to walk down the beach to clear your throbbing head, and the pink and yellow bouncing question is presented and you throw on your new glasses just to see if it helps. It doesn’t.
But the yellow and pink bouncy blob gets closer and closer, and then you see it’s a woman with yellow hair and a pink bikini, from whence the bouncing issues so delightfully. You take your glasses off because you don’t want to look square, and your head hurts too. You aren’t sure, but you’re pretty sure she wants to have sex with you, and that’s when you wake up tied by your ankle to a bike rack outside the police station. “Nuts to this,” you say, and then you start running away, dragging a bike rack behind you. This is a rite of passage for adolescents in some part of the world, only it isn’t a bike rack they're tied to, but a bull, and they’re not tied to it, but locked in a cage with it, a knife and, for some reason, a condom made of raw cotton fibers.
You know Carol will be confused when she brings you your dinner--a wheelbarrow of Jack in the Box tacos and a few boxes of wine--but you refuse to be held on trumped up charges of indecency. This is bullshit. This is profiling. You're a giant now, kid, and it's high time you start acting like it. So instead of politely ordering your tacos from the drive-thru, you tear the roof off the place and start grabbing. Jesus, you're hungry. But you are also tied to a bike rack. The rope they used is from the ship yard so, yeah, you need to go to the shipyard.
When you get there you're out of breath. One of the seamen speaks like a pirate, and you laugh, mostly because you thought of the word "seamen." Then you find out he's only joking about the pirate thing and you're a little disappointed to hear his regular voice. He cuts your ropes off though, so you thank him and roar and throw the bike rack into the sea.
Then the police come.
You're cornered, they say, so you jump into the sea and get your leg tangled in the bars of the bike rack. "Fucking shit," you gurgle. But you're making your escape, where it'll be much better, down where it's wetter, under the sea. "Sucks to you coppers," you chuckle. Then you're running out of air and this might be tougher than you thought.
Lucky for you, you found a pair of glasses on the floor of the strip club later that night, and you wear them whenever Carol’s around just to get her to shut up. You mean to call the eye doctor for real, but it’s sweeps week and you never can pry yourself from those teen vampires or sexy oncologists for long enough to do it, so the glasses are here to stay. Now your head hurts so you decide to walk down the beach to clear your throbbing head, and the pink and yellow bouncing question is presented and you throw on your new glasses just to see if it helps. It doesn’t.
But the yellow and pink bouncy blob gets closer and closer, and then you see it’s a woman with yellow hair and a pink bikini, from whence the bouncing issues so delightfully. You take your glasses off because you don’t want to look square, and your head hurts too. You aren’t sure, but you’re pretty sure she wants to have sex with you, and that’s when you wake up tied by your ankle to a bike rack outside the police station. “Nuts to this,” you say, and then you start running away, dragging a bike rack behind you. This is a rite of passage for adolescents in some part of the world, only it isn’t a bike rack they're tied to, but a bull, and they’re not tied to it, but locked in a cage with it, a knife and, for some reason, a condom made of raw cotton fibers.
You know Carol will be confused when she brings you your dinner--a wheelbarrow of Jack in the Box tacos and a few boxes of wine--but you refuse to be held on trumped up charges of indecency. This is bullshit. This is profiling. You're a giant now, kid, and it's high time you start acting like it. So instead of politely ordering your tacos from the drive-thru, you tear the roof off the place and start grabbing. Jesus, you're hungry. But you are also tied to a bike rack. The rope they used is from the ship yard so, yeah, you need to go to the shipyard.
When you get there you're out of breath. One of the seamen speaks like a pirate, and you laugh, mostly because you thought of the word "seamen." Then you find out he's only joking about the pirate thing and you're a little disappointed to hear his regular voice. He cuts your ropes off though, so you thank him and roar and throw the bike rack into the sea.
Then the police come.
You're cornered, they say, so you jump into the sea and get your leg tangled in the bars of the bike rack. "Fucking shit," you gurgle. But you're making your escape, where it'll be much better, down where it's wetter, under the sea. "Sucks to you coppers," you chuckle. Then you're running out of air and this might be tougher than you thought.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Big Me: Chapter One
"So, uh," Carol said, "Do you need some clothes, or what?"
It was a dumb question and as I stood there towering over her, the tip of my penis dangling like mistletoe over the top of her head, I let the frustration well up in an eye-roll before suppressing it with a long breath, which shook the pictures displayed on the shelf. Of course I needed clothes. "Yeah," I said, "But I don't think Big Pete's Big & Tall will cut it.
"Where did the Incredible Hulk get those purple jean shorts?"
Carol laughed but I wasn't really joking, and I thought about pinching her. Realizing a simple pinch would snap her arm like a tortilla chip, though, I settled for glaring angrily at her. After a few short phone calls to local merchants, she shrugged her shoulders at me.
It was only because we sprung for the two-story condo with high ceilings that the public hadn't yet seen my birthday suit, which I'd been wearing since the transformation lay waste to my favorite pearl-snap shirt and the only pair of jeans that makes my package look formidable in any way. Speaking of--
My penis, I measured, was now around a foot, give or take, in length--but, taking proportion into account, it was still nothing to brag about. Brobdingnagian me hadn't lost his sense of shame, so I refused to go out and told Carol to leave and not return until she had found me something to wear. She grabbed her keys and left in a huff. I just stood in the living room trying not to bump into anything.
When Carol returned three hours later, she carried a huge flat box. "Well," I said.
"It's all I could find."
I got ready to scold Carol, and she produced a massive American flag from the box, the sort that fly outside of car dealerships. She said she had bought it from "Slick" Danny Barfield at Barfield Motors. "It'll have to do," I said,"until we find something more permanent."
Carol cut a hole in the middle of the flag, and stitched up the sides where my hips would go. It looked a little like a hospital gown when I put it on, only brighter, and more disrespectful.
With some makeshift raiment covering my shame, we decided to go into town to continue our search for proper pants. After a few unsuccessful attempts at wriggling my way through the front door, I looked at Carol. "I'm just going to have to, you know... Go through it."
Carol thought about protesting, but didn't. There was no other way.
So much to the chagrin of the folks at Valley View Condominium Homes, I got a running start and smashed my way through the front of the building--which, to be perfectly honest, felt pretty good. Almost like I was finally acting like a giant. The trip into town was a bit less vindicating.
As we walked through the streets, eyes fixed constantly to my heaving, star-spangled back, a veteran took exception to my choice of clothing and spat whiskey on my ankle. "You goddamned liberal queer!" he yelled, tilting his head dramatically from his wheelchair. "Go back to Russia." Carol tried to politely explain our situation, and when that didn't calm him, she gave him a push in the opposite direction and he rolled away, flailing his arm.
We roamed around aimlessly for a few more blocks, and as a great crowd began to form behind me, realized that neither of us knew where we were going. As we turned to go home, a throng of dead-eyed rubberneckers staring up at me with camera phones in hand, a little girl on a big wheel came barreling toward me. I stood still for fear of crushing her.
She seemed oblivious to my presence as she rode between my legs. Then, from somewhere beneath my flag-gown, I heard a dreadful, piercing scream.
I knew immediately what had happened. The first casualty of my being a grotesque leviathan was the innocence of the girl's eyes. She saw an awful, awful thing that day, and when I saw the crowd, simultaneously reaching for their cell phones, pointing and screeching about a 22-foot anti-American pervert on the loose, I felt the urge to climb a tall building. "We better go," I said, and Carol agreed. A fat man I took for the girl's father put his phone away and began frantically punching the side of my knee. "You communist pervert!" he said. "I'll kill you!" I glanced down at him, and chuckled at his threat. For a moment, I thought about kicking him, going on a real rampage. But I was tired, and his punches didn't really hurt. The sirens began to wail then and, accepting begrudgingly that I couldn't really hide, I stood silent, my knees together, hoping no one else got a good view of my crank.
This was red letter day for the police department, whose greatest responsibility, generally speaking, was keeping drivers at a reasonable speed and removing unauthorized signs--advertising garage sales, lost pets, and once a prostitute--from utility poles. The officers had dusted off their previously untouched SWAT gear and fired up the cavalry by the time they arrived, careening onto the scene to find Carol and I standing in a pond of curious onlookers. "Put up your hands, Freak Show!"
I put on a brave front for the crowd, beating my chest and doing my imitation of Chewbaca that everyone likes so much, but it was then, as I knelt in the streets listening to the cops argue over how to detain a 22-foot perp, that I knew for sure. Being a giant sucks ass.
It was a dumb question and as I stood there towering over her, the tip of my penis dangling like mistletoe over the top of her head, I let the frustration well up in an eye-roll before suppressing it with a long breath, which shook the pictures displayed on the shelf. Of course I needed clothes. "Yeah," I said, "But I don't think Big Pete's Big & Tall will cut it.
"Where did the Incredible Hulk get those purple jean shorts?"
Carol laughed but I wasn't really joking, and I thought about pinching her. Realizing a simple pinch would snap her arm like a tortilla chip, though, I settled for glaring angrily at her. After a few short phone calls to local merchants, she shrugged her shoulders at me.
It was only because we sprung for the two-story condo with high ceilings that the public hadn't yet seen my birthday suit, which I'd been wearing since the transformation lay waste to my favorite pearl-snap shirt and the only pair of jeans that makes my package look formidable in any way. Speaking of--
My penis, I measured, was now around a foot, give or take, in length--but, taking proportion into account, it was still nothing to brag about. Brobdingnagian me hadn't lost his sense of shame, so I refused to go out and told Carol to leave and not return until she had found me something to wear. She grabbed her keys and left in a huff. I just stood in the living room trying not to bump into anything.
When Carol returned three hours later, she carried a huge flat box. "Well," I said.
"It's all I could find."
I got ready to scold Carol, and she produced a massive American flag from the box, the sort that fly outside of car dealerships. She said she had bought it from "Slick" Danny Barfield at Barfield Motors. "It'll have to do," I said,"until we find something more permanent."
Carol cut a hole in the middle of the flag, and stitched up the sides where my hips would go. It looked a little like a hospital gown when I put it on, only brighter, and more disrespectful.
With some makeshift raiment covering my shame, we decided to go into town to continue our search for proper pants. After a few unsuccessful attempts at wriggling my way through the front door, I looked at Carol. "I'm just going to have to, you know... Go through it."
Carol thought about protesting, but didn't. There was no other way.
So much to the chagrin of the folks at Valley View Condominium Homes, I got a running start and smashed my way through the front of the building--which, to be perfectly honest, felt pretty good. Almost like I was finally acting like a giant. The trip into town was a bit less vindicating.
As we walked through the streets, eyes fixed constantly to my heaving, star-spangled back, a veteran took exception to my choice of clothing and spat whiskey on my ankle. "You goddamned liberal queer!" he yelled, tilting his head dramatically from his wheelchair. "Go back to Russia." Carol tried to politely explain our situation, and when that didn't calm him, she gave him a push in the opposite direction and he rolled away, flailing his arm.
We roamed around aimlessly for a few more blocks, and as a great crowd began to form behind me, realized that neither of us knew where we were going. As we turned to go home, a throng of dead-eyed rubberneckers staring up at me with camera phones in hand, a little girl on a big wheel came barreling toward me. I stood still for fear of crushing her.
She seemed oblivious to my presence as she rode between my legs. Then, from somewhere beneath my flag-gown, I heard a dreadful, piercing scream.
I knew immediately what had happened. The first casualty of my being a grotesque leviathan was the innocence of the girl's eyes. She saw an awful, awful thing that day, and when I saw the crowd, simultaneously reaching for their cell phones, pointing and screeching about a 22-foot anti-American pervert on the loose, I felt the urge to climb a tall building. "We better go," I said, and Carol agreed. A fat man I took for the girl's father put his phone away and began frantically punching the side of my knee. "You communist pervert!" he said. "I'll kill you!" I glanced down at him, and chuckled at his threat. For a moment, I thought about kicking him, going on a real rampage. But I was tired, and his punches didn't really hurt. The sirens began to wail then and, accepting begrudgingly that I couldn't really hide, I stood silent, my knees together, hoping no one else got a good view of my crank.
This was red letter day for the police department, whose greatest responsibility, generally speaking, was keeping drivers at a reasonable speed and removing unauthorized signs--advertising garage sales, lost pets, and once a prostitute--from utility poles. The officers had dusted off their previously untouched SWAT gear and fired up the cavalry by the time they arrived, careening onto the scene to find Carol and I standing in a pond of curious onlookers. "Put up your hands, Freak Show!"
I put on a brave front for the crowd, beating my chest and doing my imitation of Chewbaca that everyone likes so much, but it was then, as I knelt in the streets listening to the cops argue over how to detain a 22-foot perp, that I knew for sure. Being a giant sucks ass.
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