Collected Fictions (53 page)

MAN ON THE GO

I DON'T KNOW, YOU FIGURE IT OUT
. All I know is I am not a spiteful person. At least not to my own mind I am not. A spiteful person, that is. Or maybe spiteful is not the exact idea of the thing. Maybe mean is closer to the idea of the thing as far as the spirit of it goes. Besides, why would I want to be mean to my wife? She was as nice a person as anybody could ask for. Which is another thing. Why would God come take her away from me when she was such a nice person? Go ahead and answer me that one, if you please. Anyway, it's all totally confusing to me, God's behavior as far as this thing goes. The point is, the wife's gone, is the thing, and I am where? I am here, is where I am. I am right here in the same place which the two of us used to be in, except now I am in it alone with just me and the washing machine and the other things, okay? Hey, it's a terrific washing machine. I am not for one minute saying it's not. The wife picked it out and nobody could take care of a job like picking something out better than the wife could. The wife was a whiz at all of that. She'd get these pamphlet things and these booklet things the companies put out and all night from night to night the wife would read up on it all about it and then she'd make what is known in the trade as the decision of an informed consumer. I'm telling you, the wife knew her onions forwards and backwards when it came to your home appliances. And the washing machine, I would have to say this washing machine was one of the wife's more outstanding selections. Talk about your service. This thing really comes across with the service. It's got the stamina and it's got the endurance. Hell, it's got performance up the wazoo, is what it's got, and that's no joke. Hey, who hasn't been wised up as to how these companies are always sitting there where they make these things like washing machines making them so there's down inside them like this death thing which they've built into them so the thing will just all of a sudden go ahead and rear up on you when it's been told and crap the hell out on you and leave you high and dry? I know the deal. You know the deal. Who doesn't know the deal is to get everybody to dig down in their wallet and go get themselves a new one to come in there and take the place of the dead one? Please, let us not kid ourselves as to what the score really is, even if, speaking economy-wise, they say it is all in the end for the best as far as it being in the best interests of everybody in the end, speaking consumer-wise as far as the economy. Fine. I am not arguing against it. I am not setting myself up as any expert against it. All I am saying is you couldn't pin a thing about anything like that on this baby which the wife got. It's a pip. You know what a pip is? It's a pip, which you can take my word for it, is the exception which broke the rule. And don't think I don't know it would probably be a hex on it for me to tell you how old this honey is. It would knock you right back on your heels for you to hear how many a year this honey has been operating for this household without a hitch as far as what is referred to as your daily operation—up until, fuck it, damn it, this morning. Which brings me back to spiteful—am I spiteful, or full of spite? Unless the crux of the thing is meanness which is at the bottom of it. Because what happens this morning is the fucking thing this morning, it starts screeching all over on me, wobbling and squealing and smoking and carrying on like the fucking thing is going to go totally nuts on me. I am serious. Hey, there is this, Jesus Christ, there's this, you call it, a catastrophe which is commencing to blow up the fuck all over on me. I'm telling you, all hell is busting loose. Shit, I as the sole resident in charge did not know if I am supposed to phone the people who run the insane asylum or the firemen. The thing is just going into its what the brochure has got the gall to stand there and tell you is its agitation cycle, when goodbye and good luck, it's fucking all of a sudden like sobbing out its heart at you and everything. I go fill this bucket and hit the thing with this broomstick I got to get the switch on it switched off. Hey, I was scared out of my fucking mind, let me tell you. Look at me, look at me, I am trembling from stem to stern, if you really want to know what was going on on the premises here. Shit, I am standing there waiting for the thing to come get me, is how I honestly as a human being felt in the situation. Okay, I overloaded it, case closed. I am not going to sit here and try to prevaricate to anybody about it. One thing about my nature, it's the truest thing about my nature, don't expect to ever catch me going around shying away from the facts and shirking them like your average man on the street does. Believe you me, one thing I am not like is like the Lord sitting up there and going ahead and taking a person's wife away from them and then, when they get their nerve worked up and ask Him about it, He stands there and hands them all this bullshit from the bible and so on. I come clean with people. If it's a bitter pill, I am the first one to walk right up to it and swallow it. I don't flinch. I don't look for excuses. I face the music and take my medicine. This is why I am so completely prepared to sit down and go over it with you and let the facts come out where there is no help for it but that they have to, whereas meanwhile the fucking chips can fucking fall where they may. To come totally clean with you, this is where individuals such as you and me have to take ourselves in hand and go over the idea of am I spiteful as a human being or mean. Because overloading the thing, because not under any circumstances ever overloading the thing, because take it or leave it, this was the wife's first and last word on the subject of the washing machine. Well, okay, you hear me not admitting it? I overloaded. As far as the various trials and tribulations, sue me, I overloaded. Hey, the wife was hardly in her grave when, go know, I could not as far as the facts stop myself from overloading. This is where the whole policy of me always sticking the broomstick next to the washing machine comes in. For tamping. For ramming. For getting the stuff packed in. Oh, the wife was always saying you overload, you overtax. This is what the wife used to say. The wife used to say not only do you overtax, not only are you overtaxing, but you as the consumer are opening the floodgates for scum to come up in there and build up in the pipes on you and wreck the whole fucking deal. This was one of the biggest things with the wife—start with the right appliance and treat it right right from the start. Otherwise, you get scum. Otherwise, scum starts rushing in at you through the floodgates and it goes and gets itself set up against you and then, buddy boy, then you got trouble. So be it. I went ahead and did it—so, hey, it went ahead and did it, didn't it? Oh, it's one thing for you to be all set with a bucket. I was all set to swing into action with the bucket. But forget it. The thing quit making all that rumpus when I got it with the broomstick and cut it off. No question about it, there's enough smoke out there for you to choke a horse out there, but we can relax about getting the firemen or the cops to come over or anybody from the loony bin. The flames and all that, it all, as far as one of your emergencies which gets out of control, it's all blown over as far as that. Tell you what. You want to know what? Because it could be it's high time I quit working the toilet handle so hard too. Don't worry, the wife didn't not give me all the lowdown you could use as far as that topic itself. Hand to God, she warned me, didn't she? The wife said things can't take a thing like that. The wife said the thing with people is them always putting too much rough stuff on things. Her philosophy was take care of them. Her philosophy was respect them. Her philosophy was use your natural intelligence on them when you have to go and deal with them and no, nobody in your house will be sorry and neither will the household budget. Easy does it was the by-word of the wife. That was it in a nutshell—easy does it, darn it, Gordo. The thing is, I was squinching too much stuff down in it, wasn't I? That's the whole story as far as the long and short of it, squonking too much down. Fuck it. I am probably moving out. They've got these laundries where you can go, don't you know. Since when does a man on the go need anything like a whole washing machine just for himself? And what's so wrong with a public toilet, I'd like to know? Tell me what is so unhuman and horrible as far as your public toilet in America? Sure, no one is stopping me from calling the toilet and washing machine companies for me to see what the bastards have to say. But won't they just stand there and ask me what the piss is wrong with me, didn't you never learn for you not to go back on your wife? Hell, when don't you know what people are going to say to you before the son of a bitches say it? Am I interested in these companies? I am not interested in those companies. I am all for America and I am all for the economy, but those dirty rats just want to say what they want to say behind your fucking back. Name me anybody which just can't wait to think the worst. You couldn't do it, could you? Do I as a customer have to sit here and live the rest of my life taking all that guff off all of them bums like that? Hey, you can count on it, I am definitely moving the first chance I get. Get out of here, is the thing. One thing I might take, maybe the one fucking thing I might take, it's probably going to be the broomstick in case the Lord makes me have to keep on dealing with any more of your average people. Or does a thing like saying this sound to you like the individual which said it is crawling all over with spiteful intentions? Big deal. I care a lot what you think. Oh, I am scared to death what you think. Oh, I am shaking in my boots what somebody such as you happens to think. You want to talk about spite and malice, how about we decide to make up our minds to begin with Him? Or meanness, if meanness is your thing. You want to see somebody get the hell out of somewhere, keep your eye on this individual here. Unless you think they made it, when they made it, with some burning time in it built into it. But then there's the toilet handle, isn't there? And the chairs and the tables and the walls and the sink. Listen, there comes a time when, face it, the party's over. Your household scum building up on you isn't the only thing. Whatever the companies do or don't do, forget it, what's it anymore to me? It is like there's this newborn running to the graveyard hollering its head off at everybody, screaming like a maniac at them I can't go, I can't go. You know what they stand there and say to you? Because they stand there and say to you hey, please—even at your age age-wise, pay attention, you already went already.

ORIGINS OF DEATH

SHE CALLS ME AND SHE SAYS TO ME
hey there's three words I hate, so I says to her yeah sure there are three words you hate, and so she says to me you want to know what they are, and so I says to her yeah sure tell me what they are, I want to know me what they are, and so she says to me sty, one of them is sty, and so I says to her which sty, and so she says to me what do you mean which sty, she says to me I said sty so what do you mean which sty, so I says to her well there's the sty you get in your eye and there's the other one, there's the pig one, oh she says to me, oh the pig one she says to me, I wasn't thinking of the pig one she says to me, it's the eye one which I was thinking of says she to me, so I says to her so which one do you hate more, the pig one or the eye one, and so she says to me can I call you back, and I so I says to her sure call me back so go ahead and call me back and so she calls me back and she says to me I don't know what got into me thinking I needed to think about it, why did I have to think about it, there is no reason for me to have to think about it, it's the eye sty, it's the sty in the eye one, the sty in the eye one is the sty I hate, but what about the other one says I to her, how do you feel about the other one, the pig one, how do you feel about the pig one, don't you as a word hate the pig one as a word, well says she to me as a word I never thought about the pig one as a word, you want for me to start thinking about the pig one as a word, I'm going to have to hang up and call you back about it after I have thought about it as far as the pig one that way as a word, no I says, I says to her no, don't get yourself upset about this subject anymore says I to her it's enough for me to know you wanted me to know something you hate, it makes me feel a lot closer to you hearing you tell me about a word which you really feel you hate, but what about the other two says I to her, the other two what says she to me, what do you mean the other two says she to me, the words says I to her, what words says she to me, the three words you're saying to me you hate, don't you remember calling me telling me there's three words you really feel you really hate, oh she says yeah I did she says, that's definitely right she says, thanks for reminding me she says, so what are they says I to her, what are they says I to her, I forgot she says to me, I can't think of them anymore says she to me, so I says to her maybe you were just trying to impress me, maybe when you said three to me all you were trying to do with me was just to impress me when you said that to me, maybe the thing of it when you said it was you felt saying it was just the one word would not impress me as much as saying it to me it was three words, maybe says I to her, maybe you never had any three words you hated to begin with says I to her, so I says to her don't worry about the other two, I'm plenty impressed with just the one word you already told me all about, okay can I change the subject with you she says to me, sure I says to her change the subject with me if you want to change the subject with me I says to her, it's okay with me if you change the subject with me says I to her, the bags she says, the bags I says, the bags she says, the bags they give you when you go get your stuff at the market she says to me you know those bags she says to me, you know those bags like tissue paper she says to me, they're these shitty plastic bags that are like tissue paper she says to me, okay I says to her, I'm with you all the way I says to her, shoot I says to her, the subject is the shitty bags they give you says I myself to her, the ones that are like this tissue paper shit says she to me, from the market says she to me, okay I says, okay the bags from the market I says, they used to give you like real paper bags she says to me, you remember when they used to give you like these nice brown paper bags says she to me, but now look, she says, now look, because do they give you real bags like that anymore, because they don't give you real bags like that anymore, now you go to the market and they give you what, because they give you like these next-to-nothing things that are like shit says she to me, so okay I says to her so now they give you these lousy things instead of giving you the real things, so what about it says I to her, so what about what says she to me, whereupon I says about the crappy bags they give you, what about the crappy bags they give you, you were saying they used to give everybody these great old regular paper ones and now they give you these shitty flimsy crappy ones, well they do says she they absolutely do and like I was just thinking the nerve of these fucking people, where do they get their nerve, these fucking people, you used to walk out of the store and you had a real bag at least, now what do you have, now you don't even have anything you can fold and put away and save anymore, these crappy flimsy shitty things they give you, you can't fold them and put them away like a regular bag anymore, ball them up says I to her, ball them up she says to me, yeah you ball them up and stuff them in a bag and save them that way says I to her, that's what you do she says to me you ball them up and stuff them in a bag and keep them that way she says to me, yeah sure I says to her that's what I do I says to her, you say you ball them up and stuff them in a bag and save them she says to me I never saw you ball them up and stuff them in any fucking bag she says to me, well I do says I, I do it all the time says I, oh so you do says she to me I don't believe it she says to me, you ball them up and stuff them in a bag she says to me, check I says that's what I do I says, really she says, really I says, so are you being sarcastic with me she says, because I don't like it if you're being sarcastic with me says she to me, come over and look for yourself I says, I can't go out she says I got a sty in my eye she says, I'm sorry I says, that's okay she says just don't start getting sarcastic with me she says, I can take a lot from people she says but people being sarcastic with me is one thing I can't take from people, okay I says to her I'm sorry about your sty I says to her, she says forget it she says it won't kill me she says all I want you to know is if there's three things I can't take it's definitely sarcasm which is one of them, okay I says I'll remember that I says, don't forget it she says, check I says I'll remember it I says, so she says to me don't you want to know what the other two ones are, yeah sure I says to her tell me what the other two ones are, she says okay so I told you sarcasm is one of them, somebody sassing me is another one of them, and anybody teasing me is the third one of them, so is that impressive enough for you or what says she to me, hey I'm impressed I says to her, I promise you I am definitely impressed I says to her, well make sure you are says she to me and another thing she says, what I says, tell me what I says, what's the other thing I says.