Smashed, Squashed, Splattered, Chewed, Chunked and Spewed

by Lance Carbuncle

  Bernice waives me over to a stand alone chest freezer that could easily hold a side of beef. “I keep all of my trophies in here.” She pops the lid and a greenish haze mushrooms out. I hear soft chiming mystical Buddhist music or something.

  “What the fuck?” I step back.

  “Yeah, I just added the fog, music and lights for effect. Pretty cool huh?” She laughs her gurgle-chuckle.

  “Okay, whatever. Let’s see what you got from Bruce Dickinson.” I lean over the freezer and see that it is packed three-fourths of the way full with plastic freezer bags of varying sizes: from little half-sandwich bags all the way up to the gallon freezer deals. And each one seems to contain a turd of an appropriate size for the respective bag.

  “Calm down, Honey. Let me show you some of my favorites.” Bernice digs around in the freezer and extracts a gallon bag with a round frozen turd the size of a grapefruit. “That’s the meatball.” She holds it out to me, expecting me to grab it. “Oh, go ahead and look at it. Don’t be a pussy. It’s frozen and in a bag. Ya ain’t gonna get none on you. Hell, you can barely smell ’em when they’s all freezed up.” She holds the bag right up to her schnozz and inhales deeply. “Nothing.”

  I take the bag. I study it. Bernice claims that the sample came out just as I see it, a large perfect brown orb. But, I think I see fingerprints, like somebody (probably Bernice) molded it by hand. I tell Bernice my theory and she says that I’m seeing tracking marks, kind of like the marks a barrel will leave on a bullet that has been fired. She claims that each one of us leaves unique tracks on our excrement. According to Bernice, if I gave her five firm samples of my own, she could pick my sixth turd out of a lineup. I hand the meatball back to her before it can start to thaw in my hands. I still think that those were fingerprints. An image of Bernice molding the sphere enters my mind, followed by one of her cooking up my Scrapple.

  “And look at this. From Kool and the entire Gang.” She holds up another gallon bag that’s chock full of different sized logs. “And here, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band . . . guano from a Flock of Seagulls . . . the drummer from Survivor . . . Brownsville Station . . . a roadie for Stryper . . . Foghat . . . some guy named Tommy Tutone . . . Kip Winger . . . most of the guys from Molly Hatchet . . . ” I look at a bag of poo that supposedly came from Gene Simmons. It looks like it has bits of hay in it. Before I know it, my arms are loaded up with frozen mookie stinks. Some of the bags are signed. Bernice is bent all of the way over in her freezer, digging down to the bottom. She hands me another gallon bag and says: “Hey, take a look at that one.”

  The bag is full and it looks like it has bits of mushroom and corn in it. “Gross. How’d somebody fill this thing all the way up? It looks like your mushroom gravy.”

  “It is. Look at the label.” I flip the bag over and see that it’s labeled Mush Room Gravy.

  “Damn, woman! You keep food in there too?”

  “Yeah, you still hungry?”

  “Hey! Hey, enough! I thought I was going to see Bruce Dickinson’s contribution to your collection. Hurry up. I’m not holding this shit much longer. I don’t care what you say, I’m starting to smell it, frozen or not.”

  “Here we go!” She shouts up from inside the freezer. “I’ve got your golden nugget.” A small Mylar zip-up bag dangles between Bernice’s fingers, holding what looks like a chunk of dry dog food. A golden ray of light shines in from the window on the front door, directly on the blessed stool sample.

  “Let me see that.” I hold it in the lone ray of sunlight. I feel strongly about the sample. It radiates rock and roll. The back of my brain buzzes and I hear the guitar riff from The Trooper. My spidey-senses are tingling. On the front of the bag somebody wrote Maiden Japan, Love Bruce. I wrap my fingers around the bag, being careful not to squeeze too hard. “Why only such a little piece?”

  “Well,” says Bernice, “that was one classy man. Not into anything kinky. He didn’t want to go dooty on my face or in my hair or anything, like some of those guys. He agreed to give me some, but he did it in the bathroom stall, without me watching. He said he can’t go if somebody’s watching. Anyway, that man left a big ’un in the bowl for me. I was gonna get it with my fish strainer that I use. But, out of habit, he flushed. I was devastated. But it was meant to be a double-flusher and he left just a little bit behind. That lone doo-doo ball was just a-bobbin’ in the water waiting for me. It was meant to be. He signed the bag and gave it to me.”

  My body gains strength from the relic in the bag. The baggie vibrates softly, almost imperceptibly. I sniff gently. It smells like a Maiden show: beer, weed and sweat. “What do you want for this? I need it! It was meant for me. I don’t know how or why, but I feel it.”

  Bernice smiles but her eyes are sad. “You’re right. For some reason I’ve been holding on to that one for quite some time. And you know I’ve gotten offers on that little baby. But, I can see that it was meant for you. Take it, but take care of it. That one is special.”

  Bernice always was a nice lady. She just drank too much sometimes. She pours herself a whiskey and grapefruit juice drink and then offers to patch up my injuries as much as possible. I take her up on the offer and sip one of her mixed drinks myself while she works on me with gauze and band-aids and other absorbent pads. By the time she’s done, I’ve finished several large drinks and I’m feeling less pain again. I look in the mirror and see a mummy with a feminine napkin taped across his forehead. We laugh.

  And outside I hear thunder booming. But it doesn’t stop. It’s not thunder. It sounds like a herd of Harleys just outside the door.

  “Get down.” Bernice orders me as she peeks out her front window. “Aw shit, it’s just your Uncle Doug and some of his weird friends. That must be your ride. You better get over there so that you can beat feet.”

  “Thanks for the poop,” I say, thinking to myself now there’s a line you never expected to utter.

  “No problem, Sweety. Now give this old hag a hug and then get out of here.” I tuck the turd in my front pocket and hug Bernice. Her hands slip down and squeeze my ass. I shudder and back away, thanking her for her help.

  Sitting in front of Uncle Doug’s trailer is the most pimped-out automotive aberration I’ve ever seen. A two-toned, maroon and tan, abomination of a two-door coupe with chrome running boards and side pipes running laterally on the car from just behind the front wheels. A spare tire sits squarely in the middle of the sloping trunk lid. The vehicle looks like an old model Monte Carlo that’s been customized for a gay pimp. I stand gaping at the freakish car, studying the beast, trying to understand.

  “Get inside, you dickhole!” Uncle Doug smacks me in the back of the head and Denny’s aviator sunglasses launch from my face. “You want everybody in the park here to see you?”

  Uncle Doug’s gentle nudge brings me back to full alert. I duck into his trailer followed by Doug and two of the most peculiar looking characters I’ve ever encountered. “Alright, Buddy, I’ve got you a ride out of here, headed north as far as Atlanta. These are my close friends, so you treat them with respect. This is Dean, but we call him Fat Elvis.”

  Fat Elvis looks like . . . well, he looks like a really fat Elvis. At least six-and-a-half feet tall and easily 400 pounds. Black greasy sideburns and a dirty, thick pompadour. Fat Elvis sticks out a puffy mitt and says “Ambulate over here and make my acquaintance,” in a melodic southern tone.

  I walk over and shake hands with Fat Elvis. His beefy hand dwarfs my average-size manus. “It’s a pleasure. Should I call you Dean or Fat Elvis?”

  “My mama calls me Dean. You call me Fat Elvis. That’s my nom de plume. You try to call me Dean, well, I may have to defenestrate you.”[24]

  “You’ll have to what?” I ask. It sounds threatening. I want to make sure I understand the man.

  “Defenestrate you, Jack. I’ll throw you out the window, man. Just don’t call me Dean.”

  “Tha’ man always using dem fitty-cent words, a-yow,” says the ancient black fellow standing
just behind Fat Elvis. “I ain’t unnerstan a damn thing he say, a-yowww.”

  “Shut up, Clubfoot Jasper, or I’ll wallop you.” Fat Elvis shakes a balled up fist the size of a cantaloupe at the man.

  “And, this . . . ” Uncle Doug interrupts and puts his hand on the black man’s shoulder, is Clubfoot Jasper Moberly. Jasper shuffles up to meet me, dragging his right foot as he walks. The foot caps off one of his overly long, thin legs, points west to his north and drags on the ground. It looks as if he is walking on his ankle.

  Clubfoot Jasper removes his weather-beaten fedora and extends a long thin arm that culminates in a wispy hand with long, spidery fingers. I shake Clubfoot Jasper’s palsied hand; it shakes on its own. “It’s a pleasure, sir,” I tell him. The hunch-backed old man looks like he’s in worse shape then me. If he could stand up straight he would probably amount to six-and-a-half to seven feet of man. In his present stooped state he stands five-foot-ten or so. One eye has an involuntary tick and the other looks to be clouded over with cataracts. The teeth that have decided to remain in his head have been woefully neglected and perhaps stay rooted just to spite the man who obviously ignored them most of his life. One front tooth is gold with a diamond set into it.

  “A-yoww,” replies Clubfoot Jasper. He mumbles something that I don’t understand. Somewhere in the middle of his reply I think he says something about a guitar. Clubfoot Jasper turns around and walks out of the trailer.

  “Don’t try to understand him, Jack,” says Fat Elvis. “You’ll just drive yourself crazy. If he has something important to tell you, he’ll articulate and enunciate like the dang Queen of England. Otherwise he’s mostly just messing with you.”

  Denny pops his head out of the bathroom and wishes me good luck. I ask if he wants to come along but he says he’s heading back to Utah to discuss the whole soul-binding arrangement with his girl, Marie. I tell him I think that’s a good idea and wish him luck, too.

  “Alright. You’se guys have to move, like now.” Uncle Doug slaps the back of my head again. “See you later dickhole. Make sure to mention me when you’re on Montel.”

  “Yeah. Let’s make like a banana and split, Jack.” Fat Elvis slaps me too. He pulls his hand back with blood on it. I think he popped something open on the back of my neck or hit a bloody bandage. “Aw shucks, fella. That’s nasty. Don’t go bleeding all over my car. Right?”

  “Right on Fat Elvis. Let’s roll.” We get into the car and head north. I am on the road again.

  • • •

  Fat Elvis says that his car is a Stutz Blackhawk. His head touches the ceiling of the car. According to him, there are only about five hundred of these cars and at one point all of the celebrities wanted to own one. “Shucks, Frank Sinatra owned one, Elvis Presley, Evel Kneivel, Larry Holmes, Willie Nelson, Al Pacino, uh,” Fat Elvis runs his fingers through his slick hair, “who else? Let’s see. Hey, didn’t Sammy Davis, Jr. have one of these cars, Jasper?”

  Jasper is playing a three-stringed dobro in the back of the car, using a butter knife as a slide on the frets. Right in rhythm, he stops his guitar, grunts “a-yowww,” and then jumps back into his song.

  “A-yow is right, Jack.” Fat Elvis laughs. He pushes the accelerator to the floor as we set tires on the entrance ramp to I-75 in a town called Brandon, just outside of Tampa. The Blackhawk roars, the tires mark the pavement with smoking rubber, and the g-force pins us back in our seats. All the while Clubfoot Jasper plays his metal guitar. “Feel that power man. Now that’s a car, Jack.” Fat Elvis tells me that power like that don’t come cheap. “I get about 8 miles to the gallon in this baby, but damn, it do feel good.”

  “A-yoww,” answers Clubfoot Jasper from the back seat, still picking away on the sweetest blues I’ve ever heard.

  “I won this car off of Mr. T in an arm wrestling match. I darn near snapped his hand right off of his arm. You see that there.” Fat Elvis points to a plaque on the dashboard engraved with the name Maximus Decimus. “That man was the first owner of the car. They engraved the original owner’s name on that plaque when he bought it. And see there.” Fat Elvis sets a plump index finger underneath the engraved name where somebody wrote the letter T with a permanent marker. “That’s where Mr. T put his name. I pitied that fool when I had to take his car.”

  “So, like, this is the perfect car for you, being an Elvis impersonator and all, right?”

  “Aw, jeez, kid. I ain’t no Elvis Presley impersonator.” Fat Elvis turns to me and the look he gives drains my blood and makes me cold. For a second I fear that he is going to thump me hard. “I’m a blues man, just like ole’ Clubfoot Jasper back there. Elvis Presley stole from bluesmen like us. I ain’t trying to be him. That man was trying to be like us?”

  “But you look just like The King. I mean, don’t you think that you are copying him, maybe just a little bit?”

  “I ain’t emulating that wannabe,” Fat Elvis indignantly looks at me over the top of his gold-paint plated, rhinestone sunglasses. “This is just me. I’ve always looked like this. They been calling me Fat Elvis ever since I was a little baby. This mop of hair,” he runs his fingers through the black hair, “it looks like this no matter what I do.”

  “What about the sunglasses? Those come standard with the Elvis Presley Halloween costume?”

  “Clubfoot Jasper back there gave ’em to me for my birthday.”

  From behind us Clubfoot Jasper starts chuckling and mumbling over the penetrating soulful sounds exhaled by his guitar. “Hmmn, haw-haw, mn bin wearin’ dem dare Presley spectacles, haw-haw, a-yoww.”

  “Dad-gum-it, Clubfoot Jasper, you prankster. You gave me Elvis Presley sunglasses and let me wear them for going on a month now. You know how I feel about being compared to that man.” Fat Elvis goes to throw the glasses out of the window, but I convince him to give them to me instead. “That Clubfoot Jasper is always getting me with little stunts like that.”

  “Well,” I ask, “why do you go by Fat Elvis if you can’t stand the King? I mean, it’s kind of weird.”

  “It’s my name, my pseudonymous designation, my nom de plume. They been calling me that as long as I remember. It’s got nothing to do with that white-boy, blues thieving, poseur. Besides, people see that Fat Elvis is playing in a bar, well, it helps to draw a crowd. People get curious. Then they hear our music and learn about the real thing.”

  Clubfoot Jasper’s chuckles ring out in time and in tune with his guitar, just another part of his song. “Haw-haw. Crazy cracker, awmanaman-aw. Gib a man a vow-cab-oolarry book an’ a-yow, da man get up wit’ fitty-sent words. Haw-haw-haw. Soo-dough-magnimus detrimation. A-yow. Nam dee ploom. Haw-haw. Ayow.”

  “Shut up and play your guitar, Clubfoot Jasper. You keep it up and I’m gonna defenestrate you.” At 90 miles per hour on the interstate Fat Elvis turns all the way around in his seat, taking his hands off of the wheel and tries to grab Jasper over the back of the front seat. “Dang boy, you the one gave me that vocabulary book for my edification. Now you want to make fun of my articulation, enunciation, and eloquence. I take umbrage at your affront. Keep it up and I will defenestrate you.” I steer the car in and out of traffic while Fat Elvis and Clubfoot Jasper verbally thrust and parry.

  “Ah-how.” Clubfoot Jasper continues to laugh and taunt over the weepy blues strains of his guitar. “Da man g’win to depenestrate Ol’ Clubfoot Jasper cuz Clubfoot Jasper copy dem words. A-yow. Always depenestrate. G’win to t’row Clubfoot Jasper out de window. Depenestrate. A-haw-haw-haw-haw.”

  “Stop echoing my words, you psittacine ignoramus.” Fat Elvis turns around, regains control of the steering wheel and mumbles about defenestration.

  Going north on I-75 we keep seeing signs for the Café Risqué. According to the girls on the sign, they bare all. Clubfoot Jasper wants to stop and eat lunch. “I’m a wanna geh me some tuner fish sammich and sniff around sum dem nekked girls.”

  “We ain’t stopping at that den of iniquity to witness your depravity, Clubfoot Jasper.” F
at Elvis ignores Jasper’s pleas and drives past the Micanopy exit. “Dang it Jasper. You always spend all of our gig money and get in trouble in them places. What you didn’t spend on the harlots in the last place, I spent on your bail after you got arrested for refusing to leave.” Fat Elvis winks at me and smiles. “That old boy must be ninety years old but still has the libidinous aspirations of a fifteen year old boy. He leaves a trail of illegitimate children in his wake.”

  “I’s hunnert-two, a-yow.”

  “You aren’t a-hundred-and-two. Now shut up and play your guitar, Jasper.” Clubfoot Jasper plays the guitar nonstop as we monopolize the passing lane, whizzing in and out of elderly tourists, Canadians, used school buses full of migrant Mexican field workers, and RV’s with murals and the families’ names painted on the back. Fat Elvis sings along to Clubfoot Jasper’s guitar, a song about rolling and tumbling. Clubfoot Jasper croons a haunting song about shooting his woman because she cheated on him. I’ve never been so touched by a three string guitar and nearly incoherent grunts and utterances.

  “Why is it,” I ask, “that you bluesmen are always singing about shooting your woman? I mean, does that really happen or is it like these county stars that sing about prison but never did time?”[25]

  Clubfoot Jasper sings back something barely decipherable about mean mistreaters doing their men wrong.

  “That’s the blues, man,” answers Fat Elvis. “That man back there is the blues. He’s nearly blind, nearly dead, crippled and lame as can be. Those long fingers used to play some of the most beautiful finger-picked blues guitar you ever heard. Now they can barely hold that butter knife that he plays slide with. But he still plays better and sweeter than anyone I know. And I ain’t never known him to stop playing for more than ten or fifteen minutes. He plays while he eats. He plays on the toilet. In his sleep the man even plays. He just lays there supine, holds that guitar on his chest and drags that knife back and forth on the frets in time to his gentle snores. It’s mighty moving to hear.”