The Spectacular Simon Burchwood

by Scott Semegran

  I try to make the best of it. My family is now destroyed but I make the best of it. I have a new place, a new life, and new challenges. When my children cry at night, telling me they miss all of us being together, I tell them I'm trying my best. I am trying my best. When they are gone, I cry too. When they are with me, I try to be strong. It's the only thing I can do now.

  On Tuesday evenings, the night before Jessica and Sammie come to stay with me, I go to the grocery store to get the things I need for them. Stuff to make their school lunches, snacks, ingredients for dinner, bathroom toiletries, kid stuff, everything that I will need to be a good daddy. I love my children and I want the best for them. Plus, we like to bake cookies together. Baking cookies makes everything better. It's true. Baking cookies with your children is like watching the sun rise. It's magical. It brings a smile to your face. It's what families do.

  I pulled into the grocery store parking lot and found a space toward the front. Inside, I found a cart with the least amount of bird shit on it and pulled out my grocery list. The weekend before, I was by myself. I subsisted on ham and cheese sandwiches and ice water and my refrigerator was completely empty. So I had a pretty lengthy list of things to buy. Jessica made sure to tell me that she wanted macaroni and cheese and Sammie wanted peanut butter to make sandwiches. Done and done.

  I pushed the cart up and down the aisles, loading it up with the things I needed, crossing items off my list as I went. Macaroni and cheese? Check. Peanut butter? Check. Cans of soup for work? Check. At the end of the aisle, I noticed a little boy, not much older than Sammie, rummaging through some cans of ravioli, looking for something. I watched him as he rummaged. He didn't see me because he was in a zone, looking for beefaroni or lasagna or cheese raviolis or some shit like that. Watching him made me miss my kids. I wondered what they were doing right now. Were they happy? Were they hanging out with their mother and the bastard who wedged his way between our marriage? I looked around for his mother. She was nowhere around. So I decided, right then and there, that I would check on the kid, see if he was all right. I slowly pushed my cart forward, trying not to disturb him. He was really rummaging through those cans, like a squirrel who knew he buried a nut somewhere and couldn't for his life remember where it was. I parked my cart right next to him and pretended I was selecting an assortment of Ramen noodles. I still had cases of Ramen at my apartment but I acted like I needed some more. Ramen is disgusting, by the way. It's true.

  "Are you lost?" I asked him. He flinched a bit then continued rummaging. "Did you lose your mother?"

  He pretended to ignore me even though I knew he heard me. His little squirrel hands were really going at it. He was looking for something special, I could tell. What could it be? He kept me in the corner of his eye.

  "My mommy told me not to talk to strangers. I don't know you mister."

  "Your mother is right. You shouldn't talk to strangers."

  "OK." He continued on, rummaging.

  "Do you like beefaroni?"

  "No. Beefaroni is disgusting. It makes me want to barf." He put his index finger up to his mouth, puffing his cheeks up as if to hold back an imminent projectile barf. His face turned red from holding his breath.

  I laughed, hard. What a character! Most kids are real characters. It's true. Kids speak without any filters. They always say exactly what is on their little minds. I admire that. Adults don't do that. Adults talk a lot of bullshit, nothing but bullshit. It's true.

  "Then what are you looking for? Ravioli?"

  "Ravioli is disgusting too. I like fish sticks. Fish sticks are the bee's knees. Fish sticks are yummy. My mommy makes me fish sticks and ketchup. I like to eat fish sticks for breakfast." See? Unfiltered. Kids are so great.

  "Oh. Then why are you rummaging through the Chef-boy-r-dee?"

  "I lost my Woodle."

  "What's a Woodle?" I asked. What the hell was a Woodle, anyway? How interesting.

  "Not what. Who. My Woodle is my friend. And I lost him."

  "You lost him in the Chef-boy-r-dee?"

  "Yes, I lost him. The last time I came shopping with mommy, I hid him here because my mommy didn't want me to bring him. And now he's gone. I put him right in here and he's gone. Someone stole my Woodle." Little tears appeared in the corners of his little squirrel eyes. He looked like he was about to start bawling and there is nothing worse than a little kid bawling over something that is important to him. It's true. It's a goddamn shame, really.

  "Do you want me to help you?"

  "OK!" he chirped, a smile stretching across his little face. "You look behind the ravioli. I'll look behind the spaghetti with meatballs. My name is Cameron."

  "Hi Cameron. My name is Simon."

  "Do you have kids, Mr. Simon?"

  "Yes, I have two kids. Their names are Jessica and Sammie."

  "Where are they?"

  "They are with their mother."

  "Oh. I wish they were here. They could help me look for my Woodle too."

  "Yes, they would help you look for your Woodle. I'm sure of it."

  "Are they nice?" he asked. What a cute little squirrel! I bet he was the same age as Sammie. He looked about the same age. I wondered if he went to my kids' school. I wondered if Sammie knew who he was. I wondered if they played together. I wondered a lot of things. I sure missed my kids. I missed my kids something awful. It's true.

  "Yes, Cameron. My kids are very nice, sweet kids."

  "You are nice, mister. You're not like a stranger at all."

  I looked behind the cans of ravioli and spaghetti and meatballs and beefaroni even though it was obvious that the Woodle was nowhere to be found. Some goddamn grocery store employee probably found it during the early morning stocking hour and discarded it with the rest of the trash. The bastard. People can be real assholes sometimes, finding things that aren't theirs and throwing them away without a care in the world. It's true. I'm guilty too, finding things and throwing them away without a care or a thought to who may be missing what I found. I felt terrible thinking about that.

  "I don't think your Woodle is here anymore, Cameron. I'm sorry."

  "Don't say that, mister. He's here, I know it."

  As we continued our search, I felt a presence behind me, an eerie presence. I turned my head and saw another cart behind mine. It was filled with all kinds of crap, Ding Dongs, Twinkies, Cheetos, an assortment of junk that would make your insides turn to mush. I heard a familiar goddamn voice. It was the voice of a real bastard too.

  "Simon Burchwood? Is that you?"

  I stood up and discovered the asshole of all assholes. The king of the cocksuckers. The epitome of douchebaggery. Mr. Folsom, my former boss. My nemesis.

  "Mr. Folsom?" I wiped my hands on my pants, straightening myself up. Cameron noticed too. He gazed at Mr. Folsom's lazy eye, its bulging presence spinning around out of control. It must have freaked Cameron out because that little squirrel bolted like he saw the boogieman. He ran as fast as he could, leaving behind his Woodle. It wasn't there anyway, poor kid. It's true.

  "What are you doing?"

  "I was helping him find his Woodle."

  "His what?"

  "His... nevermind. I'm grocery shopping."

  "That wasn't your boy, was it? What was his name? Johnnie? Frankie?"

  "His name is Sammie."

  "Right, right. That's it. Sammie."

  "No, that wasn't Sammie." His goddamn eye was spinning something crazy, like it was ready to pop out of its goddamn eye socket and roll around on the floor. What a cocksucker.

  "You find another job?"

  "Yes, I did. Tech support for the State of Texas."

  "Great. Just wanted to let you know that your layoff was nothing personal. It was just business. You know that, right?"

  "Sure." What a bastard! What a fucking smug bastard! I wanted to cram a can of soup in his mouth and shove it out his diseased eye socket. I wanted to kill him, right then and there. I was red hot. I was livid. I wanted to cry. I was a ball of
confusion and anger and resentment. I was a mess. It's true.

  "Great. Good luck to you. Take care." He extended his hand for a shake but I didn't shake it. I clinched my fist, as if I was going to throw it. I wanted to knock his goddamn block off. He saw my fist and grimaced. "OK then." He pushed his cart away. I watched him round the corner until he was out of sight.

  I felt the rage boil up inside me. I wanted to hurt him something bad. I wanted to make him pay. Revenge is an evil thing. It really is. But sometimes, just sometimes, it seems like the right thing to do. Sometimes, when you are all out of sorts and confused and angry, it seems like the only thing that makes any sense. And the only thing to do was let things be the way they were going to be. It was time for action. It was time for revenge.

  I grabbed my cart and pushed it the opposite way up the aisle. I turned the corner and saw Mr. Folsom down the next aisle looking for more crap to throw in his cart, more bullshit to stuff in his rotten gut while sitting behind his comfortable desk at his comfortable job. I continued on to the next aisle, one filled with chemicals and household items and cleaners and detergents and sponges and shit like that. I found a bottle of bleach and thought I could do something with it. But what? Pour it on him? Throw him to the ground and drain it down his throat? I grabbed the bottle of bleach, clinching it in my angry hand, scheming something in my mind. I rounded the corner and waited at the end of his aisle. I saw him examining a package of Little Debbie cakes, deciding to take it or not. I unscrewed the top of the bottle of bleach and knew what I was going to do. The scheme went off in my mind like a firecracker, quick and bright and brilliant. I cocked my hand back like a professional bowler, lifting the bottle behind me. I took three careful steps and slid my foot forward, sliding the bottle like an eight pound bowling ball. The bottle slid across the floor, swiveling out of control, bleach spurting out the top. He saw it coming but not quick enough to do anything about it. Score, direct hit! The bottle slammed into the wheels of his cart and tumped over, spilling bleach all over the floor. The slippery liquid pulled his feet out from under him. He danced a spastic dance, losing his balance, spinning around, his feet flailing for firm ground. He saw me, for a split second, with his lazy eye. It focused right at me. And before he could say anything, yell for help, he grabbed for a shelf to catch himself but his weight was too much. The shelf gave way, falling down, spilling the cheap snacks on top of him. He crumpled to the floor and the rest of the shelving gave way, dropping heavy cases of food on top of him. It was like an avalanche, violent and quick and loud. And then time stopped.

  "Uh oh," I thought. Revenge. It sounded so good for a second. It didn't seem like such a good idea anymore. I grabbed my cart and went in the opposite direction, pushing frantically.

  Check-out aisle 12 was empty so I unloaded the few groceries I had. I knew it was time for me to go and leave the Woodle behind and Cameron the cute squirrel and Mr. Folsom and his goddamn lazy eye and the rest of my groceries for me and Sammie and Jessica. The clerk looked a little frazzled, not knowing that I was the culprit. The commotion from the falling groceries sent a buzz through the store and the employees didn't know what to do or how to react. I acted like I didn't know what was going on either. Suckers.

  "Sounds like something fell over," I said, nonchalantly, discreetly.

  "Yeah, it didn't sound good," she said.

  "Nope, it didn't."

  "Need stamps or ice today?"

  "No."

  "How about a candy bar from the sale basket?"

  "Sure, a candy bar would be great."

  I paid for my groceries and the candy bar and left. I wondered if Cameron had found his Woodle. I wondered if he eventually found his mother. I wondered if Sammie and Jessica were all right. I wondered what I was going to make for dinner. I wondered if Mr. Folsom was hurt but I didn't wonder about that very long. Revenge. It's not what it is cracked up to be. It's true.

  6.

  Things were a lot different when I was in elementary school. It seems, nowadays, that the world is filled with goddamn pedophiles and creeps and rapists and kidnappers and lunatic bums who claim that Jesus told them to steal your children and make them their sex slaves. It's all enough to make a parent want to slam their head against the wall and lock their kids up in their homes, sheltered from the perverted world. It's true. When I was a kid and it was time for me to go to school, I really don't think my mother and father worried that I would get scooped up and kidnapped. My mom would load up my Spider-Man lunch box and make sure my things were in my backpack and she would wave goodbye to me as I rode off on my Huffy BMX bicycle to school. The elementary school was a mile or two away and, 99% of the time, I made a beeline straight to the school, occasionally stopping to mess with a pile of fire ants or perform a jump off a curb, just for kicks. Kids do that kind of shit for no reason, you know? But I never encountered any strange creeps or anything like that. In fact, I don't remember ever even hearing about strange creeps in my neighborhood. Today, you can't turn on any news channel or news show without hearing about these slimy bastards all over the United States going after your children. John Walsh and Nancy Grace and all of the concerned talking heads on the boob tube warn us about the scumbags every day, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And that, my friend, is why I drive my kids to and from school (when I have them, that is). Today was no different. It was my day to have the kids and I waited for them behind the school in my car, same spot as the time before.

  The elementary school devised a pretty goddamn complicated pick-up system for the children and all of the parents were supposed to follow it but no one did, mainly because most of the parents were selfish bastards. It's true. When people are in their cars with their personal distractions like car stereos and MP3 players and cell phones and DVD screens and their makeup and their cheeseburgers and their creepy rat terriers or whatever else they have distracting them, they are oblivious to everyone else in the goddamn world. It's enough to make you want to ram your car into theirs in a fit of nasty yet justified road rage. But, in an effort to remain calm (and not go to jail, thank you), I decided early on in my kids academic career to avoid the car line and the school's silly pick-up rules and the other distracted assholes and their mongoloid children and park on the street across from the school. It was a safe place for me to wait and watch for my kiddos.

  I enjoyed doing a couple of things while I waited for my cutie pies. One of the things I enjoyed to do was to observe the body language of the teachers and guess their marital status. You can easily tell if a woman is married or not by the way she carries herself. It's true. Some of the teachers wore outfits that were so hideous and so unbecoming of the female shape that they seemed to create a force-field so impenetrable that even the sexiest of the sexy bastards couldn't woo them. These frump-a-linas were obviously married to some poor schlubs who were deprived of sex and instead showered with bitterness and condescension so relentless as to render them neutered. Poor bastards. In contrast, other teachers wore outfits so sexy and unbecoming of an elementary teacher that the site of the little boys buzzing around them like horny honey bees brought huge, shameless smiles to their faces. With the boys buzzing around, they would bend over and expose their breasts to the poor little bastards, sending their confused hormones to a heightened state. Obviously, these women were divorced and shameless, full of regret and the urgency that comes from aging and the inevitable loss of beauty that makes snagging a husband more difficult. They were one misstep away from pedophilia. It's true.

  The men in the teaching profession, on the other hand, were there for two reasons: 1) they were on reprieve from their previous careers as devious accountants, micro-managing assholes, or conniving salesman and 2) they were trying to woo the bitter frump-a-linas and the shameless cougars. It's true. Why else would they be teaching small children? There is no prestige in being a male, elementary school teacher. None. Why else would they be there besides trying to get laid? It's true.

  The other thing I enjoyed
doing while waiting for my children to get out of school was completing Mad Libs. As I've mentioned before (in detail, I might add), Mad Libs are an excellent tool to relieve mentally constipated writers from the cruel grasp of writer's block. It's true. A perfect example of a Mad Libs puzzle goes like this:

  "Mary _____ her yellow _____ while she _____ her _____."

  Now, as you can see, there are a dozen ways to complete this puzzle. A proficient writer like myself might complete the puzzle like this:

  "Mary drives her yellow automobile while she calls her sister."

  Perfecto!

  On the other hand, an ignorant jackass like my best friend Jason would have a ball with this exercise. He has no desire to exercise his mind. He just likes to make light of everything, like everything in life is a goddamn joke. It's true. He tries to make jokes at everyone's expense all the time and laughs his ass off like a goddamn hyena, hemming and hawing and cackling all over the goddamn place. He probably would complete the puzzle like this:

  "Mary porks her yellow dildo while she barfs her lunch."

  And he would start giggling like a goddamn jackass, I'm sure. He has no idea how hard it is to keep the creative mind sharp. It's true. Sadly, most people don't.

  This little exercise got me wondering what good ol' Jason was up to, though. As much as I rag on him, he really is a good guy and all. It's true. He can be all kinds of sweet and supportive and just what a friend should be. It's sad that he is married to a goddamn whore. It's just too sad. She doesn't deserve a nice guy like good ol' Jason, that bitch. I decided right then and there that I would send him a text message and see what he was up to, maybe see if he wanted to take a break from his crappy marriage and pay his best friend a visit in beautiful Austin, Texas. I sure could have used the company. It's a sad state of affairs when you're divorced and living alone. It's true. I pulled out my trusty cell phone (an old junky flip phone but a trusty one nonetheless) and sent the following text message: