“Yeah, well…” Gary held his deck tighter. “I can’t just give you cards, Clay.”
“Why not? I mean, I’d trade you, but I don’t have anything you want. And you have so many good—”
“Sorry, man. You gotta work for your deck. That’s what makes it your deck, you know what I mean?” He turned and started walking away.
“Yeah…okay. I know what you mean,” he said. “Where you going now?” His voice got smaller as Gary kept walking.
“Home. I’ll see you later, Clay.” Gary rolled his eyes.
“Hey, Gary?”
“What is it, man? I already told you my comic isn’t ready. You can’t read it until it’s finished.”
“No…it’s just…I graduate in a few months. You think maybe you could come? It’s just going to be my dad, and it’ll sound pathetic if it’s just him clapping.”
“Jesus, you’re a senior? I don’t remember seniors looking so…young when I was in school.” He turned his back and began walking. “Sorry, Clay. No offense, but those things are boring. See you tomorrow maybe.”
“Okay. Tomorrow. Maybe we can play some Mystical together?”
Gary didn’t respond. His knees ached from his fall and his stomach roared. He picked at the scab on the back of his neck as he went. The Hentai comic was tucked in the back of his jeans, and he contemplated whether or not to look through it again once he got to his room.
Almost home now, he was already thinking about what he’d grab from the fridge on his way to his bedroom. He knew Sheila wouldn’t cook anything—hadn’t cooked a decent meal since his dad left. The days of hot meals were replaced by booze and necking with her boyfriend Chester. Which is why Gary stayed in his room most of the time, drew scenes for his comic or played on his computer.
The apartment complex was just to his left. All he had to do was cross the street and...
The sound of shoes shuffling from somewhere up ahead. Whispers, giggles.
Then someone stepped out of the dark, blocked his path.
Gary tried to cross the street, avoid this stranger in the shadows, but he was blocked again.
“Hey, fat ass. Where do you think you’re going?”
***
Gary tensed up, a slight warm trickle soaked into his underwear. “Come on, guys. I’m just going home.”
“No you’re not.” Sonny slammed his sneaker into Gary’s groin.
“Humph…” Gary tasted concrete before he knew he’d fallen. His legs kicked and he sucked for oxygen. Pain twisted into his stomach and his balls throbbed. Their laughter was just audible over the sound of his pounding pulse, and from the corner of his eye, he saw his Mystical deck get scooped up. Loose pages of Kronos the Destroyer blew around, and Gary crawled over and laid himself over the remaining drawings.
But not before Sonny snatched one of the papers from the air as it swirled by him.
“What do we have here?” Sonny handed the Mystical deck to Brett, and then inspected the drawing. “You did this, fat ass?”
Gary stood up, still wincing from his aching groin, his face red and sweaty. He clutched the rest of the comic to his chest. “Give that back, asshole.”
A pair of hands shoved him hard from behind, but he kept his balance. He snorted, swallowed. His breathing became more labored, wet and thick.
Sonny stared at the drawing, laughed, showed it to the others. “You suck at drawing, man. Really.” And he tore it down the middle, tossed it in the air.
Gary seethed as he watched the two pieces of his ruined drawing, his favorite one of course, swirl away in the wind. Took him at least four hours to do that one. He started toward Sonny, but was shoved again from behind.
“Fuck, man. You smell that?” one of the twins said as he screwed up his face and waved his hand over his nose.
The other twin covered his mouth. “It’s him.”
Sonny leaned in, took a big whiff. “Goddamn, masturbator. You smell like my dog’s asshole.”
A chorus of laughter.
Gary snickered. “You spend a lot of time with your dog’s ass, huh?”
His comment was answered with a fist to his stomach. He fell backward, landed hard on his backside, struggled for air, but still managed to keep the rest of his comic tight against his chest.
“What a fucking loser,” Brett said.
Sonny sniffed his knuckles. “Whew,” he said. “You are such a piece of shit, you know that?”
Gary just kept his eyes glued to the street. Sweat ran down his face and neck, dripped down his back. He couldn’t look the kids in the eye. All he wanted to do was go home, eat some junk food, and play video games. In his video game, he was a king. A king that could not be defeated by any man or beast. He was King Kronos the Destroyer. But in life…
“Thanks for the cards, fat ass.”
Sonny spat and Gary flinched when it splattered on the top of his head, trickled down his forehead. He waited until they were walking away before he wiped it off. “Fucking dickhead.”
Rising to his feet, he grimaced at the residual pain that still twirled in his stomach and testicles. He thought about his deck of cards, the deck he’d been building for over three years. All down the drain. He knew he wouldn’t get them back, knew those little bastards were feeling pretty good about themselves for scoring the best Mystical deck in town, probably the state.
“You’re lucky you weren’t alone.” Gary mumbled. “Kick your fucking ass.”
Just for good measure, he checked over his shoulder, saw the coast was clear, then stuck up both middle fingers and waved them in the air. He collected the loose drawings that hadn’t been destroyed or lost, added them to the pile in his arms. They may not be the best drawings in the world, he thought, but they’re good enough to get me a comic book deal. Then I can move away from this shitty town, start a new life.
He trudged across the street, squashed a junebug that was wiggling on its back under the streetlight, walked through the parking lot and into the complex. From midway up the concrete steps, he could already hear Chester’s drunken laughter mixed with snorting giggles from Sheila.
Please just ignore me. Please don’t say anything to me.
He opened the door, stepped in. Cigarette smoke stung his eyes and made it hard to breath. Sheila and Chester sat on the couch in the living room playing grab ass and sucking on beer bottles. Keeping his head low, Gary eased the door shut.
“Well if it ain’t the forty year old virgin.” Chester coughed out a cloud of gray smoke, a smoldering butt hanging from his lip.
Sheila chuckled, cleared her throat. “Hey, honey.”
“Hey.” Gary went straight for the kitchen, set Kronos the Destroyer on the counter, and opened the fridge. The cool air felt good on his sweaty face.
“Hey, man.” Chester’s voice already had the familiar slur. “When’re you gonna start contributing around here, huh? Eating up all your mom’s food.”
“Chester, he don’t—”
“No, no. Don’t defend him, okay? I’m sick of it.” Heavy footsteps.
Gary chewed on his tongue, grabbed a Tupperware full of spaghetti. It had no top and a plastic fork sticking out of it.
“Hey, fucker. You hear me talking to you?” Chester stomped across the kitchen, grabbed hold of the fat on the back of Gary’s neck, squeezed.
“Ah, let go, asshole,” Gary said.
Sheila stumbled into the kitchen, looked like she was holding in a laugh.
“You see what he’s doing to me?” Gary said through clenched teeth.
Chester thumped him in the middle of the forehead. “You crying to your mom, pussy? Huh?”
“Okay, that’s enough. Settle down.”
“No, fuck that. He’s about to eat my spaghetti. The fat fuck is always eating all the good shit.”
“I live here, idiot. It’s our food, not yours.” Gary grimaced, squeezed his eyes shut as the pressure on the back of his neck increased. “Let me go, goddamnit!”
Chester released him with a shove.<
br />
Gary stumbled backward, slammed into the open refrigerator door. Condiments and beer bottles crashed to the floor, soaked into the back of his shirt and jeans.
“Now look what you did. You better clean that shit up. And you owe me for the spilled beers, motherfucker.”
“Me? You shoved me, dickhead. And who’s the motherfucker in this house?” Gary tried to stand, slipped, crashed back into the door and spilled more beer.
Sheila burst out laughing, grabbed her knees and squealed. She stumbled backward, caught herself on the counter.
“I hate you. Both of you,” Gary said as he climbed back to his feet.
“Then get the fuck outta here. I ain’t never seen a grown-ass man be such a pussy in my life.”
Sheila howled, fell over and rolled on her back.
Gary stepped on the spilled spaghetti, kicked the refrigerator door shut, grabbed his drawings. “I’m going to my room.”
Chester swiped at his shoulder, missed, nearly slipped on the mess. “You’re gonna clean this shit up first.”
Gary tracked ketchup and mustard and beer across the carpet as he escaped toward his bedroom.
“Get your ass back here!”
Sorry, asshole. I’ve got important duties to attend to.
Gary trotted into his room, slammed the door, slid the four locks in place. He stood facing the door, smiling and waiting. In a few seconds, the door shook from punches and kicks.
“I’ll fuck you up, Gary. I swear to god.”
“Yeah, right. Why don’t you go suck the beer off the floor, you drunk piece of shit?”
The door nearly shook off its hinges. “You wanna live to see thirty, I suggest you move out. I ain’t going nowhere, you understand me, pussy?”
Gary peeled his shirt and pants off, backed up until the backs of his knees hit his bed, then let himself fall. The coolness of the sheets soaked into his warm skin. He leaned over, grabbed the Superman lunch pail from under the bed, yanked a Snickers bar from the stash, and tucked the pail back in its spot.
Caramel stuck to the roof of his mouth, and he worked at it with his tongue as he watched his door rattle. His molars shrieked in pain with every sweet bite, but he ignored that, was used to it. He looked toward his computer in the corner, then flipped through Kronos the Destroyer, sighing as he took inventory of the missing pages. It would take hours upon hours to redo those drawings, but Gary was too frustrated to even attempt any of that right now.
But he read it again, for the hundredth time, and was pretty happy with its progress. The story line was just as good, if not better, than half the comics he read at the Rusty Dungeon, and he knew someone would publish it. It was his ticket out of Sheila’s apartment, his ticket to freedom.
Imagining himself escaping his current life forced him to reach for his drawing pencils and get to work. King Kronos stood in the Forest of Forgotten Souls, swinging his mighty sword at a group of goblins surrounding him, beheading the lead goblin that had an uncanny resemblance to Sonny.
—2—
Gary looked into the mirror hanging from his closet. He hated mirrors, hated what they showed him. The fat of his belly bunched up as he grabbed hold of it, gave it a good shake and counted the seconds it took for it to stop jiggling—too many.
He reached behind his head and scraped his nail across the fresh scab on the back of his neck until he peeled it free, then bent it over and over until it broke, tossed it to camouflage into his carpet.
A cool breeze weaved into the room from the open window. Though he didn’t feel he had time to clean his room, he never got used to the odor in there, figured if he kept his window at least cracked, some of the floating smell would escape into the world and do its part to speed up global warming.
He walked across the room, sat in his computer chair by the window and peered out. His eyes cut across the hallway and locked onto the window opposite his. The silhouette of the girl moved back and forth, her curves clearly visible, and Gary’s pants grew tighter. Just imagining his blond bombshell neighbor caused his hands to shake, his pores to open wide and spit sweat all over him.
There was just the slightest part in her curtains, and as her shadowy figure walked by it, Gary would get a quick glance of flesh, pink and soft and beautiful. He bit his lip, gripped the armrests on his chair. It didn’t look like her boyfriend was home, that lucky bastard. Living a dream and probably took it for granted—Gary hated that asshole’s face.
Then the curtains flew apart. And she stared right at him, mouth agape, eyebrows slanted.
Gary did his best to pretend he wasn’t looking in at her, that he was just observing…what, the hallway? His face cooked in its own juices, burned bright red. “I…I…uh.” He knew she couldn’t hear him, but he sat there frozen, not knowing what to do with himself.
He didn’t need to hear her to read “fuck you” on her lips, pink and plump. She flipped him off and slammed the curtains closed.
Gary slid his window shut, and just before he turned the blinds down, the boyfriend stepped into sight, glanced at Gary before he rapped his knuckles against the girl’s door.
You lucky bastard son of a bitch!
Gary hopped up, staggered to his bed, fell face-first into it.
Oh my god, I’m such a fucking idiot.
His deepest darkest fantasies always starred the blond neighbor. Every one of them. Even when he looked at Hentai, he sometimes imagined it was just a cartoon rendering of the neighbor girl, wide-eyed and ample-breasted.
He never fooled himself into believing he had any kind of chance with her, but he didn’t want her thinking he was some pervert peeking in on her. Which, really, was true, but she didn’t need to know it. A sudden wave of panic smothered him as he imagined the girl’s boyfriend breaking into his room through the window and kicking his ass for peeping in on her.
His hands covered his warm, damp face as he shook his head. The fan in his computer hummed, and he shrugged, dragged himself back to his computer chair.
The screensaver disappeared as he rolled his mouse. He cracked his knuckles, doubleclicked on the World of Fantasy icon, and melted into another world—a world where he was king, where he reigned supreme.
***
The next day was a Saturday, and Gary woke up already late for work.
“Shit.”
Without bothering to shower or brush his teeth, he grabbed some wrinkled clothes from the hamper and threw them on, crept into the hallway outside of his room. He half-expected Chester to be waiting for him, but when he heard the deep snores rocketing from his mother’s bedroom, he knew he was safe.
The mess on the kitchen floor had been cleaned up, and he felt a pang of guilt knowing it was Sheila that had to do it. He checked the time on the microwave clock.
I’m already late, might as well eat something.
He was midway through a bowl of Fruity Pebbles when he heard the bedroom door swing open. Abandoning his breakfast, he trotted to the front door and eased it shut before jetting down the stairs and toward the Rusty Dungeon.
Mr. Shipley was supposed to be getting the new issue of Spider-Man today, so Gary had an extra pep in his step. Even though having to work was a pain in the ass, he always got to read the new comics first, always got first dibs on game pieces. He knew Mr. Shipley was going to be angry, was going to give him an earful, but it was nothing new. Gary would just nod, apologize, promise to do better, just like always.
He had decided to leave Kronos the Destroyer at home today, didn’t want another run in with Sonny, Brett, and the twins. Not only because he feared for the safety of his drawings, but also because he didn’t want to hear any more unwelcome criticism.
But when he stepped up to the Rusty Dungeon and peered in through the windowpane, his stomach dropped and his hands shook as he reached for the door handle.
“What, what the hell is going on?”
Mr. Shipley’s eyes popped up from the catalogue in his hands, showed no sign of surprise or worry. “Yo
u’ve been replaced.”
Gary locked eyes with Sonny who stood on the other side of the counter wiping the glass surface down with a paper towel. The new Spider-Man comic lay open beside him.
Sonny only smiled, his eyes ping-ponging between Gary and Mr. Shipley.
“Replaced? By this asshole?” He slammed his palm against the counter, leaving a milky streak. “Why?”
The catalogue slammed onto the glass top as Shipley stood from his stool and marched toward Gary with an outstretched finger. “Why? Are you kidding me?”
Gary backed away, though he tried to keep his facial expression stern.
“You’re worthless. You walk around like everyone owes you something, like you’re better than everybody. But for what? What have you done to deserve any kind of respect, huh?”
Gary collided with the wall behind him and Mr. Shipley’s finger prodded his chest.
“I’m sick of dealing with your bullshit. Always whining about working, always showing up late, always jacking off in the goddamn restroom. You didn’t show up on time today, and Sonny here was at the right place at the right time.”
Brett and the Turner twins stood toward the rear, flipping through comics and giggling.
“Come back tomorrow and pick up your last check. You’re fired. And if you ask me, it’s long overdue.” He pressed his finger harder into Gary’s chest, so hard Gary thought his lung was punctured. “Now get the fuck out of my store.”
Gary’s tongue was a dried slug in his mouth, and he realized his mouth was hanging open. Mr. Shipley began to swim in the tears filling Gary’s eyes, and no matter how hard he tried to suck them back in, one escaped and dripped down his cheek.
“Oh, look at the wittle fat ass cwy baby,” Sonny said, and even Mr. Shipley joined in on the laughter that ensued.
“You’ll all pay for th-this…fuck all of you!” Gary bumped a comic rack as he ran out, knocked it to the ground in a flood of colored glossy paper. As he escaped into the parking lot, Mr. Shipley shouted something about docking pay, but Gary just ran, didn’t look back.
Fat Off Sex and Violence Page 2