Ambulance Masters

by Raymund Hensley

THE woman has no bones in her hands, and she walks around like Mr. Burns from The Simpsons. She comes by once a week. I try not to look at her droopy eyes. This place has a weird odor. Disinfectant. Where am I now? What is this desk I’m setting behind? What do all these forms mean? Why does that elevator open every minute? Will it ever stop vomiting people? Will they ever shut up? Is this a dream? Am I dead?

  I’m working at the Department of Human Services because if I don’t—my mum constantly reminds me—the government will cut off my health and dental benefits. I can’t be here. I’m no good with people. I can’t talk to people. When I try, I always end up shitting in my mouth.

  It’s this office gig or a real job at the mall. The cushy job is a no-brainer…for someone lazy…uncertain.

  Why worry? The future is bright. If the Japanese religion, Happy Science, is right, I’ll only have to work four hours a day in the year 2200. The future is a bright, shinning place.

  I’m very young. Early twenties, if I’m remembering correctly. I hold off my filmmaking and writing activities, and every day at the office makes me nauseous. Who are these people that come in to apply for health benefits and whatnot? Who are these ex prisoners with their crazy eyes? These sad-faced geriatrics? These mothers with their obnoxious babies? These people in depressing wheelchairs?

  I feel like I’m at a hospital.

  DHS has an aura of struggle and frustration.

  People stand in a long line, waiting, angry, grumbling, fake-coughing, hips cocked to one side. Gadzooks, man. There’s always a sense that someone’s gonna explode—go totally BATTY.

  Take me away from this dreadful place. Help!

  (no answer)

  I work the files—that’s my main job. Here, I learn that Nguyen is properly pronounced as No’when, not Nee’gu’yen. I travel down the aisles, from cubicle to cubicle, taking out files and putting in files, wondering how long I can milk this before I have to go out and get a real job at Sears. Little did I know it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. My coworkers—these Case Workers—seem to understand that we’re all on the same sinking boat.

  One person I don’t like: An old woman with light, death-skin. Cranky, cranky hag. I am told she was just diagnosed with Cancer, and—scold me if you wish—I think good riddance to bad rubbish. She radiates negativity. You could hit it with a sledgehammer and it would bounce right off and smack you in the noggin. Why torture yourself? Why piss in your cereal? Instead of hanging around or even thinking too much about this evil crone, I make my time with the other workers—the positive ones.

  We are all smiles.

  At lunch, they all gather in the meeting room and watch disgusting things on the large TV—things like Faces of Death and Banned from Television. Are they trying to tell me something? I don’t participate in these breaks…just continue working so I can get the hell out of Dodge. I distinctly remember hearing a surprised female voice shoot out from that room while they all ate pizza:

  “Jay’sus! That train hit her and she just exploded!”

  Is this what you want, boy? Working your days in cubicle after cubicle your whole life? It makes you so sick. If so, then get to it. Do something. MOVE. If you’re not growing…you are dying.

  The main honcho in charge is a 50-ish Asian woman. One day she summons me into her office to discuss my situation. As we talk the talk, she plays a fine classical tune on the stereo.

  “Hear those violins? They represent horses slaughtered on the streets.”

  I like this lady. This is the type of woman I can see myself growing young with. Such wonderful years ahead of us.

  I never see her again, though.

  I’m out of DHS after three months.

  I learned a lot from my stay. How much of a selfish bastard I can be sometimes, for example. But there was a more pressing lesson. I had to move my feet. Get BUSY. Use life well. If you are not growing, you are dying. What did I want to accomplish? What was my calling? My purpose? Was there a deeper meaning to my work? Is it true that passion makes the universe run? Are we all connected? It would be years before I would learn the secrets of the universe. Who was God or Ishvara or Yahweh or El or Ra or Shangdi or Tenri-Ō-no-Mikoto or El Cantare or, as Hunter S. Thompson once said, the Great Magnet? I could use this ‘Magnet’ to my use. It/he/she would help me. That was the promise, wasn’t it? But what direction should my life go in? What to focus on? Whatever it was would be pure zaniness. That much I knew. Indulge. Damn everyone. Damn the masses. Damn the rigid Left Brain thinkers. My soul begged to be set free. At last! My imagination could take the wheel. Where would they take me? To the land of milk and honey, where you can do what you love until the cows come home. And what medium would I work in? I had many choices—many interests.

  Yes, there would be many distractions. I knew this.

  But I was young. Time was on my side.

  Wasn’t it?

  Around seven years later, I snag a gig folding clothes with kids seven years younger than me…although I look seven years younger than them. I try not to have regrets. It could be worse. I could be a bum.

  Gadzooks.

  SINCE I was a little boy, I’ve had scary dreams of a man sitting on my chest. It was a beast from the dream world, interrupting my fantasies of making love to pure women and of flying across the sea and of riding on the backs of lions.

  Whenever this man appeared on my chest, an intense fear consumed me. It was amazing. My body was frozen—except for my eyes: Wide and wet and wild and blinking constantly. Sweat was inevitable. Maybe I was being abducted. I had skipped most of high school to go to the library and learn about ESP and the occult and aliens. That was my schooling, growing up. Maybe this was it. The big one!

  This monster had surprised me ten times before, in the span of a week, throwing such a fear at me that I wished for the taste of cringing, cheap vodka and OJ.

  If I ever wished to not feel, it was during those paralyzing nights.

  I was a man of 28?

  Whenever I have that outrageous dream, the beast’s face comes into view through a gloom of heavy darkness that blankets my cold, concrete bedroom.

  This night was no different.

  It was a weird man—the head structure opaque.

  The beast-man’s drool was cool on my chest. I was afraid that if I screamed, it would startle the monster and give it the bright idea of tasting me. Luckily, my mouth was frozen with a mighty fear that kept it open for God only knows how many seconds. Jesus Christ…don’t let it have been hours.

  I remember suddenly shaking and letting loose a fury of wild blinks. I was in control now. Or was IT controlling ME? The thing laughed or maybe cried, I’m not sure which. In any case, I was able to move my toes and the ghost vanished. But not before throwing its head back and throwing up a silent scream, then throwing its head forward and producing an audible string of airy vowels—its quivering lips mere centimeters from my now unblinking eyes.

  It simply said, confusingly:

  “The Universe is in a giant body, and your body is The Universe.

  And then I woke up, my mouth still ajar. I made a scared scarred sound: A soft, drawn-out, vibrating moan that grew louder and louder. The pitch also rose.

  “Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

  To my surprise, I was more wet than ever before. Was I shaking? It was like nothing I had even seen: My entire bed was drenched in my own liquid, my own clear filth. I shook my head like a wet dog, trying to forget that weird, unlikely, nightmarish reverie. It worked. I thought of flowers and turned on my fan and it cooled the wetness dominating my sheets sticking to my skintight skin, forcing a smile on my lips and a wiggle in my hips. I fell back to sleep and, this time, dreamed of women. But not normal women. Alien women. Women with no torsos—just a pair of legs that forever bent over, inviting me to goose, enticing me with sexual horror.

  And horror it was.

  My body said Yes, but my mind said No.

  And yet I found myself thrusting vigor into those jigglin
g alien thighs from the rear. Did I vomit in my mouth? The mind is strong, but the body is weak. A smart man once said that, and he was right. God forgive me. I wanted to cry but nothing came out my mouth, only weird raccoon sounds. SHAME. All over my face that dripped down my neck and stained my shirt, if I was even dressed at all. Was I still thrusting power? I didn’t want to look down. I think what disturbed me most was the fact that this mystery-lover had no head…whatsoever. Not even a stump for me to play with. And yet it was laughing at me.

  A dove flew over my head.

  “Policía,” the bird said.

  It was in a black man’s voice, and I was instantly soothed. I smiled and looked down. She—it—had vanished. A team of cows ran by, singing in high girly voices, “Let bygones be bygones. Do whatever you want. Leave me alone. Whatever that means,” and jumped into a UFO. The cows cried at me, pointing.

  I punched into a nearby wall and yanked out a giant syringe, shrieking profanities at them.

  “Profanities!”

  I was jumping up and down, so embarrassed. There was a giggle at my back and the sound of eating. It was the ghost-man from my other dream. My heart screamed, and I inhaled a sharp gasp. The syringe fell from my wet hands in slow motion. The man was coming at me in wide steps, a yellow box in his hands.

  I woke up, but this time I didn’t scream or move my strong legs. It was still dark. What time was it? The street was busy with passing cars, their headlights illuminating my dreary bedroom.

  I needed help—mental help to clear these ghosts from my dreams…and I knew who to turn to. I had the money for it, since I only used my paycheck on three things: Food, rent, and karaoke. I thought about work that night, and my heart sank. The idea of folding clothes until four in the morning drained all the energy out of me; drilled my belly; made my back feel like my front; made my swollen, Virgo tongue heavy and burdensome.

  Could things get any worse?

  I took a shower. Three black worms—two inch slugs or something—crawled on the floor. What were these things, and what did they want with me? I dried my hair with an overused, stiff towel, and a roach crawled on my foot. I kicked it away like any old thing and walked through the kitchen. I stepped on something that crumpled like a candy wrapper. Another roach? Did these fiends want to die?

  My phone screamed. I ran into the room, holding onto the towel around my waist. It’s a friend and fellow co-worker. Romel.

  “I have a riddle for you,” he said. “How do four people use the toilet at the same time, and one of them is taking a dump?”

  “I…”

  “Maybe you’ll get the answer at work tonight. I’ll pick you up.”

  He hung up. I was pretty sure I wouldn’t get the answer that night. So what, who cares? I had a ride to work. No more spending $2 to ride next to crazies on the bus. At least not tonight.

  I stretched-over a yellow shirt I got from Japan and put my blue jeans on, two legs at once. I could hear the local news coming from the living room.

  “More cattle mutilations today…” the sexy news anchor said. She sounded so calm. She had to—it was her job to sound professional, meaning: Hide all emotions of joy in times of utmost horror, and show utmost happiness during news of utmost glee.

  It was important they didn’t mix it up.

  I palmed my bus fare from a three inch pile of change on my dresser table and slipped on my shoes—careful to shake out the roaches first—then sauntered to the bus stop. The neighbor’s dog barked, scaring the piss out of me, and I wished so many evil things on him/her/it.

  I like animals…but, like people, some are assholes.

  Or as they say in England: Arse-holes.

  THE psychic shop on king street was called Look Into My Eyes, Not At My Chest. I had heard about it from some forgotten face long ago. There were all kinds of interesting statues and books inside. A bell sang as I walked through the door, and a tall, white male walked out from a back room, his face covered by a yellow veil. He was carrying a limbless statue of a dog, and shaking his head in what I could only assume to have been sadness.

  “Mo’ning,” he said.

  “Hello.”

  He looked up at me and froze.

  “Youuu…”

  “Me?”

  “So you’ve come. Yes, you have. So good!”

  “Have we met before?”

  “Indeed.”

  “Pull the other one.”

  “I’m serious!”

  He yanked off his veil in three smooth moves, and I understood then his weird demeanor. That face. That messy, scary face.

  The ghost-man from my dream(s).

  AS we sat at his psychic table, the news anchor sounded serious.

  “More bad news this morning, maybe,” she said. “More cattle mutilations. Their owner and raiser, Henry O’Poper, was on the floor of his house.” She paused as the camera zoomed in on her Asian face. “He was found bleeding.” She turned to another camera, cheery. “Animal owners from all over the island are gathering at Ala Moana beach today to celebrate the passing of the ‘No Murdering Animals’ bill. We now go to our very own German correspondent, Lady Hans Hans. Ohhh, Hannnnnns?”

  The psychic, whose name was Cakers, shook his head and raised a seizuring fist to the heavens.

  “So much death!”

  Then he looked at me—looked at me with those scalding and scolding blue eyes.

  “I have dreams of killing you.”

  “And I have dreams of you killing ME. I hate it. It gives me fever. Do something about it?”

  “Dear friend, I think we both need help.”

  “All I ask is that you stay out of my Goddamn dreams. Please? I don’t like it when you’re there. It’s my personal heaven! Where I can ride on the back of the lion. Having you there just makes it weird.”

  “You’re horrible.”

  “Did you just call me whore-able?”

  “I don’t have time for this. Yet.”

  “I’m so sorry. I don’t mean to offend,” I said. “I don’t even know you.”

  “Believe you me, I don’t like it either. I feel like shit.”

  “You are!” I said, eyes blazing, then cooling. “You dare to strangle me?? I want kids one day, you know! Just not right now. I have to learn how to take care of myself first. That’s what life has taught me. So what, who cares??”

  “There’s something about you…”

  “I’m a Virgo.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.” He showed teeth. “You remind me of someone. Hmm…so familiar. Please: Make a face for me—one of icy indifference.”

  “Here.”

  “There. But I can’t put my finger in it. I can’t touch it. Something’s missing. What is it?”

  He held his hand up in front of my face, making a circle with his fingers as if staring at me through a camera. He made a clicking sound.

  “I got it! Were you ever in Uruguay?”

  “Who?”

  “Blimey! I was so on tenterhooks.”

  “Who?”

  He put his hand down, shaking his head. I felt that I had failed him somehow. He groaned. “Oooooh, if only I could remember. See? This shall bother me all the way to bedtime.”

  “And then you’ll dream and invade me. Thank you, but no. I’m hating this already.” I looked around. “An old friend of mine told me you could tell the future. Maybe you can read mine? I want to know if I’ll be normal in the future.”

  “Yeah, no. I can tell the future, but only if I feel like it.”

  “Yeah, no?”

  “Yeah, no.”

  “Well, which is it? Yeah or no?”

  “Yeah, no…it’s true, but only if I feel like it.”

  “Note to self, don’t ask about the future. This human be a charlatan. This be charlatan country…and I’m a stranger in a strange land. Now to you: I have some questions I’d like to ask.”

  “I heard all of that. And yet, ask away these reversal of answers.”

  “Why are
you uploading yourself into my mind during night hours?”

  “Why are you uploading yourself into my mind during night hours?”

  “Touché. Very good.” I went for my wallet. “I think coming here was a large mistake. I shall now bid ye adieu, kind sir. Must I still pay?”

  “No,” he said, looking at me in a weird way, as if hatching a plot. “No, not yet. My gut-vines are tingling—sending such fine threads of electricity up and down my being, telling me something…something fat, something filled with such wowing—an abdominal stretch of the supernatural.”

  “Is this something about my future?”

  “Is a glass of water the height of width?”

  “That’s true.”

  Cakers tilted his head back.

  “Get ready, here it comesssssssssss. Are you even listening to me? This is important!” He closed his eyes. “I’m shaking now all over, from the waist down.”

  I sat. Maybe this one was real?

  “Oooh,” I oozed, interested. “OOOOOOOOOH.”

  He kicked the underbelly of the table.

  “Excitement!” I said.

  He kicked again, this time missing and hurting my knee. I bit my tongue. “I’m okay. Keep going. Don’t stop. Don’t you ever stop. Understand? This is the secret to life.”

  And it was as if he didn’t even know what happened. That made me a little angry, but I forgave him due to the circumstances. His eyes sprang open! Then closed. There was an odd feeling about the place. Was this amazing? I stared at his face—which was extraordinarily sweatless and bubbling metaphors. The lips trembled. Were wisps of smoke spilling from those lips? Spelling unknown future happenings that no rigid-thinking human should learn of?

  Yes.

  I nodded.

  “Yessssss.” Eyes still sealed, he snaked out his hand, feeling for mine. I took it, not feeling at all homosexual. “Oh yes, there is a point in our lives where certain events magically bang us,” I said. “But these are not random—these are not mere trials of chance. Oh no….No. These are the words of The Universe, sexing us on all fronts to offer so many pure choices. I’m whispering. And it is up to us—US, mind you—to choose. For brain-thinking is the only action we have total control over. Let me ask me this: Am I on trial here?…Yes, no, yes, no, yes, no. Yesssssss.”

  His mouth produced a strange jelly. He smiled a little, maybe embarrassed. A trick! I thought. This pretender was hiding packets of jelly under his mouth-slug! I just didn’t notice until now. Oh Jesus, what a fool I be. I believe in you now, Jesus! You hear me, boy? Will you still accept me into your fold (or flock)—into those soft, manly arms? Allow me to rest my weary head against those washboard abs? I trust you now. Not like the last time. What was that? I should leave right this instant, sans payment? Lord! Here I come! Wow!

  And then he did something that made me think thrice. He opened his eyes again, this time not so fast. He also stopped quivering his physique. He spat the blue jelly out, slowly, onto a tiny plate.

  “Well?” I said, face covered in mystery and intrigue. “Have at you.”

  He spread the jam onto a slice of albino bread with a black knife that was fashioned with an infant’s skull for a handle, or an adult rat. His pinky was in the air. “The future is a cruel mistress—with so much grease between her legs, down south, where the ice be. She is generous today for some reason, and she tells me this—are you ready for this, boy? This is important. I fear you are insolent.”

  “My ears beg for this. Please, forgive my insulin.”

  “Your health issues do not concern me.” He looked up to the area above his head, moving about as if avoiding an invisible hawk that meant to harm. “What did you just say to me! Oh, yes, I shall tell him.” He brought his awesome chin down, those eyes of hope and freedom begging to soothe my fear. “The mistress says that we should go to a dream expert, one who is better than me. Because I am not so good. Does this make me depressed?” He laughed. “No. At least, not after I eat this. I suggest you stand back. Whatever happens, do not flee.”

  He ate the bread and collapsed onto the table. I jumped back, then sat back down. Everything in my body and mind screamed and wept for me to vamoose. But I refused and punched myself in the face, tenderly, hushing the voices. They were whispering predictions, but nothing I couldn’t take like a real man. I was back in the moment. I could think clearly. This man—this Cakers—that now slept knew the name of someone who could help me—help BOTH of us. Probably help Cakers more, for not only would his dream-killing be cured, but his dream-knowledge would be made plump by a powerful teacher.

  Unless the Mistress of The Future was a fucking liar. Then I’d rethink suicide. Using words of shame, I excused myself to the bathroom as Cakers snoozed, but I stopped halfway, realizing I didn’t know where it was.

  Then, friends, it knocked me.

  All those tears for fears rushed out like a geyser of unbiased ache, and I fell to the black carpet that smelt like so many years of glue and mango and freshly opened bags of rice and open cat. I was on my belly, arms to my sides, my face frozen in a chilling wrinkle of sorrow, throat forcing out unintelligible soundings.

  This fool calling himself Cakers couldn’t help. I was cursed to have him ransack my kind dreams. There would be no way for me to stop him from polluting the one place I fly to—to escape the vehemence and numbness and evilness of this so called waking-reality one calls Earth Living. What kind of female would find this attractive? A fool of a tuke contemplating suicide because his playhouse of the mind was threatened? It was disgusting. It was depressing. It was digressing. Focus, boy. Must…focus.

  Women could sense such patheticness; it was one of their super powers, much like their super anger that consumes them whenever the woman’s blood flows from their southern lands. I wished for a dame then—so full of lust, was I. Indeed, to feel the slither of a lady-tongue against my own—our two slugs twisting a seductive rhythm.

  I feared no amount of alcohol would ever cure this current dilemma diploma. Giving in to a sort of angry weeping, I began to string together lyrics. It was my way—when depressed—to help soothe the soreness of the soul with a gentle vomit of song…a vocal dance.

  “Awwwmust pharadusch muuching yuin eveannnsd fkiiioo1984.”

  It was useless. The pain dominated the sweet, as well as the sweat. However, I was determined to win. I inhaled a deep, shaky breath…and whispered.

  “Almost Paradise. Ann Wilson and Mike Reno. Copyright 1984.”

  There. I was now well-versed in the art of crying.

  This was the worst day of my life.

  I’M walking to work, past the strip club, past McDonald’s, past Wal-Mart…like I’ve been doing for the past few years. How many steps have I walked—on this sidewalk?

  Attractive Asian women walk by, high heels clicking—business-looking types, coming away from smoky bars. How do I get a woman like that? Maybe if I was taller. Whiter? Maybe if I didn’t look so young. Maybe if I looked like a man they’d stop me and ask for my number. Do people even do that anymore?

  I go to the ATM at Subway and print out my balance to check the time.

  It’s 9:15 in the pm.

  Will I be late to work?

  I told myself yesterday I’d work on my book Ambulance Masters. All I did was master, and sleep. Did I even eat? Yes. I did. I had saimen. Chicken flavored. Or is it called ramen? I don’t even know anymore.

  Please, God, or whatever your name is, have a car hit me as I cross this street.

  I’m tired.

  I slept 14 hours today.

  When I go to work, I know what I’ll say. The thought is like a needle in my brain:

  “Why does it feel like I was just here?”

  TWO