“You don’t have to grab me,” I say.
“Now get down, motherfucker. I’m gonna fuckin go first.”
I loosen my robe and crouch down on the sidewalk. It occurs to me that I’ve never played leap frog before. What if I screw up and accidentally land on the punk, G-spot?
“Here I fuckin go!” he shouts and leaps over me. The crotch of his pants hits me in the back of the head, thrusting me forward onto the sidewalk.
I stand up, angry. I want to kick him in the back of the head but I’m not wearing any shoes and he has a gun. He’s crouched down, waiting for me to leap. “You almost broke my nose,” I say.
“Don’t be such a fuckin pussy. Come on!”
I rear back on my haunches and attempt to leap over him. My robe gets all tangled and I land on G-spot, rolling off and sprawling half on the street and half on the sidewalk. He lies face down, twitching. The other two thugs come running. “Fuck, dawg, what happened!” Baseball Hat shouts.
I straighten my robe and gesture down at the fallen youth.
“He fuckin killed G-spot!” Basketball Jersey says. “That’s some fucked up shit, dawg!”
It’s possible I did kill him. Luckily, the thugs are distracted by an ice cream truck coming down the road, playing its haunting tune at top volume. I think it’s “Fur Elise” but I can’t tell because it’s so distorted. The ice cream truck, spotting the thugs, comes to a screeching halt. The driver leans out and vomits. “Hey!” he shouts. “Hey! Anybody want any ice cream?” He gets out of the truck, staggering around, falling into the side of it, vomits again, and makes his way to the back doors.
“Aw, fuck, man,” Baseball Hat says, bending his knees and waving his arms in the air. “He’s fuckin wasted.”
“Hey, dawg,” Basketball Jersey says to me. “You got any ho tickets?”
I put my hands in the pockets of my robe. Since I don’t know what he’s talking about, I pretend I didn’t hear him.
“Hey, dawg, I’m talkin to you. You got any green?”
“Money?” I say.
“Fuck yeah.”
“Not on me.”
“C’mon. You get us some cream we’ll forget all about G-spot.”
“I didn’t do anything anyway!”
“The fuck you didn’t. He fuckin sucked at leap frog but you were the one took him down.”
“He almost broke my nose!”
“You ain’t the one that’s dead, motherfucker.”
The ice cream man throws up the door at the back of the truck, grabs various ice cream products and throws them at the thugs before passing out. The thugs gather up the ice cream bars and stuff them in their pockets. “Shit man,” Baseball Hat says, “Let’s take this motherfucker for a ride.” He climbs into the driver’s seat and Basketball Jersey crosses over to the passenger side.
“What are you going to do about...” I begin.
“G-spot?”
“Yeah.”
“Leave him. I guess it serves him right. He’s your responsibility now. Sucks though.”
I look down at the sad youth sprawled on the sidewalk. The two thugs speed away in the ice cream truck, the back doors flapping open and closed. I think about dragging him inside or calling someone. Then I think better of it. Best just to go inside and pretend this never happened. Maybe, if anyone finds him, they’ll just write it off to some sort of gang violence. I go back inside and, exhausted from the leap frogging, fall quickly asleep. When I wake up the house is filled with the pulsing rhythm of rap music. I’m not surprised when I go downstairs and find G-spot in the kitchen, dancing some ridiculous dance and eating a bowl of cereal. The kitchen smells like marijuana, sweat and cheap beer. My soul hurts. I sit at the table and massage my throbbing temples. I feel very white and very old and very snobbish. G-spot’s gun sits on the counter, apparently it impedes his dancing, and I stare at it, wondering how I’m going to get him out of the house.
A Fresh Head
I watch the boy across the street ride his skateboard. He does a horrible job. Every day it’s the same thing. He rides it, very slowly and cautiously, down to the end of the driveway and stops. He kicks it around and maneuvers it with his feet.
I can’t take it anymore.
I stroll over to the boy and snatch the skateboard away.
“Let me show you how it’s done,” I say, even though I don’t have a clue as to how one rides a skateboard. Nevertheless, I put my all into it. I start way back at his garage and take off, full speed, for the road. I get to the end of the driveway and try to flip it back around so that I’m facing the garage. Of course, something goes terribly awry.
I fall off and crack my head on the cement, losing consciousness for a few seconds.
I regain my vision. The boy is hovering over top of me.
“I’m in pretty bad shape,” I moan. “Maybe you should call the ambulance.”
“There’s no need for that,” the boy says. “I’m a doctor.”
“Knock it off. My skull feels cracked and I can’t move my left arm.”
“Really,” he says. “It’s no problem.”
He reaches down and pulls my head and arm from my body, tossing them nonchalantly to the side.
“Just hold on now,” he says, noticing my panic.
Within a few minutes, I have a fresh head and arm. I stand up. I feel great.
“That’s amazing,” I say. “How’d you do that?”
“That’s for me to know and you to find out.”
“Was it some kind of magic?”
“Maybe. Maybe not,” he says. He picks the skateboard up from the road and rides it slowly back up to the garage. From the garage he calls, “You run on back home now.”
I do what he says.
The Man Whose Insides Were Broken
Lloyd was a man of few feelings. Actually, he had virtually no feelings at all. The one feeling he thought he may have was really more of a suspicion. He suspected that, in some way or the other, his insides—emotions, whatever—had been broken. The vision he had of his insides was that of an open piano, the intricate wiring and mechanisms all smashed and cut.
Sitting in his apartment one night, he decided to try and make himself cry. For hours, he played back emotions through years of memory. He would contort his face and make slurpy noises with his mouth, all the physicalities that came with really intense weeping, but no tears would come. The next day, he signed on as a volunteer at a nursing home. Every morning he would drive out to the home and have long discussions with the oldest man there. When the old man finally died, Lloyd stopped going to the home, but he didn’t cry. Didn’t even really feel sad.
He walked in the worst parts of town to get home. One day he was mugged. He thought this should have angered him but it didn’t. He collected himself from the pavement and continued home.
One night, he had a dream. In the dream, he got up from the couch. He specifically recalled that he was headed for the kitchen to make himself a sandwich. Halfway there, he collapsed onto the floor. Blood trickled out of his mouth. He crept to the phone and dialed emergency. A parade of doctors automatically appeared in his apartment. One of them opened up the top of his head and looked inside. “Good Lord, son,” he said with Lloyd's father's voice. “You’re all busted up in there.” Lloyd only looked at him. The next day he woke up and inspected his pillow for blood. For a brief second he felt joy that his internal breakage had not yet made him bleed. It was something, at least.
Buddy
Buddy called this morning, very excited about what he called his “new figure.” I was excited for Buddy. He had been maybe 20 or 30 pounds overweight and, as no one had seen him for a few months, I assumed he had lost some of this excess weight.
I decided to throw a party in honor of his new figure.
“I'm real glad to hear about this,” I told him. “I think everyone should see you.”
A hundred guests must have shown up between 8 and 9 o’clock, all eager to see what had become referred
to as the “new Buddy.”
Buddy got there around 10:30. It looked like he had put on 200 pounds. Everyone burst out laughing. They couldn’t control themselves. I laughed too, the gin and tonic I was enjoying shooting through my nose and making my eyes tear up. Festive music came through the house speakers.
Buddy seemed totally undaunted. “No, wait, you haven’t seen anything yet!” he announced with the same enthusiasm I’d heard in his voice that morning.
He stripped off his shirt and glided out into the middle of the floor. As everyone’s laughter died down a bit, the music seemed to get louder and Buddy started dancing, flinging his filled skin in all different directions. He made a series of raunchy faces. Buddy’s new figure made him look too middle-aged and weird to really be Buddy, but he continued dancing, rolling that gut in people’s faces while contorting his own.
It was simultaneous, I think, the feeling that we had all quickly come to hate the new Buddy.
Breakfast
The smell of breakfast fills my bedroom.
I go to the kitchen, my head aching from a three day bender.
Mother is hunched over the stove, working diligently to prepare the meal. My father, a foolhardy schizophrenic, has assumed the role of mad bomber. He is bent over his empty plate, anxiously twisting his crazy handlebar mustache. Quickly, he backs away from the table, crosses the kitchen and goes to the phone.
He has to call in a threat. His voice is vaguely Eastern European.
Mother serves breakfast. The toast is burnt beyond all recognition and the eggs are hopelessly runny.
Agitated, I shove my plate off the table and say, quite loudly, “What is this shit?!”
My father runs back to the front door, reaches into his rucksack and pulls out a black and shiny ball-shaped bomb. He lights the fuse after flicking a match on his teeth and tosses the bomb at me, flashing a dastardly smile all the while. It explodes on the table and knocks me out of my seat. My face is blackened. My hair stands straight up in the air. Smoke rises off my clothes. Mother leans against the sink and cries. Breakfast has been ruined.
Lawn Work
My neighbors offer to pay me for mowing their grass. They have a large riding lawnmower to match their expansive overgrown lawn. Wanting to hurry up and get out of the blazing sun, I hop right to it. It isn’t long until I become distracted by the clouds floating in the sky and pay very little attention to the grass itself. The lawnmower runs up over a giant bump and grinds to a halt. I hop off the gasoline reeking beast, swearing.
Horrified, I identify the bump as the neighbors’ golden retriever, Tammy. Using all of my strength, I force the lawnmower off the mangled animal. Now I’m panicked. I can’t let the neighbors see the dog before they pay me for mowing the grass. I pick the dog up, slinging its matted carcass over my arms, and carry it over to the edge of a vast cornfield where I haphazardly toss it, making sure it is not easily visible.
After wiping my bloodied hands off in the grass, I jog back to the lawnmower and quickly finish the job. I park the lawnmower by the house and walk to the back door. Suddenly, I’m gripped by an overwhelming sense of dread.
Tammy, apparently with one final burst of life, has managed to pitifully pull herself out of the corn, leaving a trail of blood behind her. The MacGregors are huddled around her, pointing down at the gored corpse. I contemplate running but I really need the cash. I contemplate denying the horrible incident altogether but I’m covered in blood. Slowly I walk over to the scene, delaying the inevitable, trying to act as though nothing too serious has really happened.
“Yeah, look, I’m real sorry,” I say.
“Were you ever going to tell us!” Mrs. MacGregor shouts in her snootiest Scottish accent.
“Look, the dog got in front of me. I didn’t even see it.”
“It? That is a living breathing thing... And we loved Tammy!”
At this point, she rushes me. Luckily, Mr. MacGregor holds her back.
“She was old anyway, dear,” he says. “There’s no reason to act juvenile about it.”
She cries onto his shoulder.
He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out his wallet, dragging out two bills and handing them to me.
“Don’t worry about this, kid,” he says. “I’m sure we’ll all look back on this one day and have a good laugh.”
“Thanks a lot,” I say, turning to head for home.
As I’m leaving I hear him ask his wife to go get the gasoline and matches. “We’re going to have a cremation.”
Mrs. MacGregor’s sobs fill the evening air.
Blood
We go see a movie called Bloodfest. The title is horribly misleading and it ends up being a four-hour documentary of people with all different ethnic backgrounds donating blood. Midway through, my date turns and starts making out with the man on her right. I tug on her sleeve and tell her she’s confused. A woman behind us shushes me.
Fatigued, we exit the theater onto the bright city street. From behind my date, I notice a large red blotch on the back of her skirt. I tap her on the shoulder and point to her behind. Lightning fast, she throws a right hook at my face. I stumble backward, lose my footing, and collapse onto the street. Once I can focus again, I look up at her. She has discovered the stain. “Oh, gosh, I’m sorry,” she says before coming over and lending a hand, helping me up. She then sticks her hand down the front of her skirt, bringing it back out and smelling her fingers. “Yep, that’s blood all right,” she says. “Damn, I don’t have a san nap!”
I am briefly taken aback by her crudity until I remember. “Here,” I say, reaching for my wallet. “I've got something.” I pull a pad from my wallet, warm and smooshed. She snatches it away.
“Oh, God, thank you,” she says.
Amazed once again, I watch as she pulls down her skirt and underwear in the middle of the sidewalk. I see an old couple walking out of the theater and I rush to shield them from my date, blocking their view with my expansive coat. “I liked the part where that Cuban fellow has a crisis of conscience when he realizes he can’t go through with the donation because he is getting over a cold,” the old woman says. The man casts a cold, suspicious glance in my direction.
“Hi there!” I shout, not knowing what else to say. He grabs his wife a little tighter and they move closer to the road.
“All ready,” my date says.
Relieved, I put my coat back on. I look at her and shake my head. She has merely used the device to mop up some of the excess blood and now has it fastened to her wrist like a bracelet.
“You’re hopeless,” I laugh.
Walking away, I notice she has hiked her skirt up in order to hide the stain beneath her shirt and now her buttocks are practically hanging out... but I can’t see the stain. I think about letting her borrow my long coat, its hem drifting just millimeters above the sidewalk, and then think better about it.
Obsolescence
I go home for the holidays. My brother and sister-in-law, Tina, will also be there. Rather than barging in, I knock loudly on the door. The door swings open and my girthy mother fills the entrance. I notice she is missing a leg.
“Son!” she says, holding out her arms.
“Good God, Mom. When did that happen?”
“Oh, it was a few days ago. I don’t know exactly how it happened. One minute I was driving. The next minute it just... fell off.” I notice she has also covered a fading black eye with thick makeup. Stitches run just below her hairline.
“Were you all right?”
“Oh, I’m fine. Just a little banged up is all.”
I go inside and discard my bags at the foot of the stairs. I greet my brother and Tina, both of them sitting on the couch, already drunk.
“Where’s Dad?”
“He’ll be along shortly,” Mother says.
I stand around the living room, making small talk with everyone, demonstrating the new pants I’ve created. I hear my father at the top of the stairs. He’s coming down backwards, clutch
ing the banister with his right hand. He reaches the bottom and says, “I guess we’re gonna have to get that thing all moved around now, eh?”
When he turns around, I realize he is missing his left arm.
“Not you, too?” I say.
“Oh sure, just a couple days before your mother. Wouldn’t you know it, I was trying to staple some documents, something I should never do with my left hand, and the whole damn arm just went kerplop. My own goddamn fault, I guess.”
“Maybe so but your whole arm shouldn’t have fallen off. Have you been to the doctor?”
“Of course, but he just gave me some pills and told me I shouldn’t drink so much.”
I stand there, completely puzzled.
“Is anybody else hungry?” Mother asks.
“I’ll help you get everything ready,” Tina volunteers.
Mother hops toward the kitchen. She’s pretty adept on just the one leg. Tina follows her.
After about a half-hour, my brother, father and I all go into the dining room. We begin eating but Tina isn’t sitting down.
“Okay. What’s wrong with you?” I ask, tired of the absurdity. “Your ass fall off?”
“Well, yes...” she says. “I was going to use the restroom and, splash, it fell right into the commode.”
“Did it hurt?” I ask.
“Well, not yet.”
The rest of the dinner is consumed in silence. Once finished, I offer to do the dishes.
“Oh, no, you don’t need to do that,” Mother says.
“I insist.”
“Let one of us get them.”
“You can’t be standing over a sink and Dad, he could barely cut his pork chops. For the love of God, let me do the dishes!”
Just as I’m reaching under the sink to get the detergent, Mother flings herself from her chair, groping for the cabinet door. Under the sink are their missing limbs and buttocks.
The Overwhelming Urge Page 6