Month: May 2023

The Celestial Salad Bar (Two)

Photo by Cats Coming on Pexels.com /

Albom Riff handed over the cash for the room at the Robin Hood and took his key. It was a real key, a brass key, attached to a yellow piece of plastic shaped like a diamond and with the room number 9 etched into it. “Thanks,” he said to the woman behind the counter, and to number 9 he went.

He sat on the edge of the bed and looked out the window at the cold, gunmetal, western town with its hints of beauty, isolation, mystery, loneliness. Loneliness. He was lonely. But no one knew it. He thought about Hollywood Helen on Wheels at the J-Bob’s restaurant and wondered if he should call her. He dug out the piece of paper with her number and looked at it. Maybe she could help him figure out why his driver’s license claims he’s a resident of Raton, New Mexico. How can that be? he wondered. “I’ve never been here in my whole entire life,” he whispered aloud to himself.

The room phone suddenly rang, and Albom nearly jumped through the ceiling. It was a clanging, obnoxious ring that broke the pure silence catastrophically. He went to pick up the receiver. “Hello?”

“Did you enjoy the salad bar, Mr. Riff?” The voice was deep and slow, like a dangerous cover up.

“Who is this?”

The line went dead. Albom hung the phone back up. He went to the window and peered out. There was a man standing on the edge of the parking lot. He wore a black jacket and sunglasses. He seemed to be staring right at him, Albom felt. He moved to the door and opened it. The mysterious man had disappeared.

The phone rang again. Albom rushed to answer. “Hello!”

It was the man with the deep voice once again. “What was your favorite item on the salad bar, Mr. Riff?… The iceberg lettuce perhaps? Do you know what happens to icebergs, Mr. Riff?” He didn’t wait for a reply. “They fall apart when the heat is on.”

The line went dead once again.

Albom marched back to the J-Bob’s, a haunting howl from the bottom belly of the city followed him there. He found Hollywood Helen on Wheels at the salad bar, and she was just standing there still as stone and staring.

He took hold of her wrist, and she suddenly came out of whatever hypnotic state she was in and turned to him with a look of fear and surprise. “What are you doing?” Albom asked her.

“I was… I was looking at the salad bar.”

“Why?”

“It’s part of my job,” she answered. “I must make sure the items are well stocked and appear fresh. It’s very important work.”

“There’s something weird about this salad bar,” Albom said, and he pulled her over to an empty booth and they sat down. “What the hell is going on around here?”

Hollywood Helen on Wheels stared at him with a blank expression. “You just couldn’t wait to see me again, could you?” Then the stiffness of her face came undone and she smiled. “Do you want more salad bar?”

“No. I want to know if you’re fucking with me!”

“What!?”

Albom retrieved his wallet from his pants and pulled out his driver’s license. He slapped it down on the table before her. “Why does my driver’s license say I live here in this town?”

She picked it up and looked at it. Her eyes shifted to Albom for just a moment and then back to the license. “Wait. You live here? I thought you were from somewhere else. You sure did make it seem like you were from somewhere else.”

“Somewhere else,” he mumbled.

“What?”

“It’s a song… ‘Everyone I love lives somewhere else.’”

“You’re not making any sense.”

“And someone strange called me at my motel. Twice. And there was a man outside in the parking lot. I think someone’s watching me, following me.”

“Why would anyone do that?”

“I don’t know, but I really believe this all has to do with your god damn salad bar. What else do you know?”

“I don’t know anything. Maybe you’re just crazy. Hollywood Helen on Wheels got up out of the booth. “I have work to do,” she said, and she walked off.

Albom Riff leaned back in the booth for just a moment before his eyes were drawn back to the salad bar in the center of the restaurant. It appeared to glow. He heard Tibetan meditative music in his head. Then a voice repeated the word “Iceberg, iceberg, iceberg…”

Albom quickly got up and rushed over to the salad bar. It glowed delicious before him. He snatched up a white plate and began crazily filling it high with iceberg lettuce from the large clear plastic bowl set in a swamp of crushed ice.

Hollywood Helen on Wheels noticed him from afar and called out to him, “Hey! You have to pay for that.”

He swept an annoyed glance toward her. “Oh, I’ll pay for it. I’ll fucking pay for it!”

Heads turned in the restaurant as joyful cowboy music softly played overhead.

Albom topped his lettuce with croutons, sunflower seeds, bacon bits, some shredded cheese, black olives, pieces of hard-boiled egg. He ladled orange French dressing over the top of his little salad mountain and watched it run down the sides like lava flows down the side of a volcano. He set that plate aside and grabbed a clean one and began to fill that with other salad bar items: Tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, oiled mushrooms, a spiral pasta salad, pickled beets, banana peppers, cottage cheese, cling peaches, gelatin with grapes set inside that looked like monster eyeballs, and finally a clumpy potato salad.

He took both plates back to the empty booth and sat down. He waved a hand in the air to catch the attention of Hollywood Helen on Wheels. “Excuse me miss? Could I get some service over here?”

An exasperated Hollywood Helen on Wheels approached the table with attitude. “Just what the hell is your problem, mister?”

“I don’t have any silverware, or a napkin, or anything to drink.”

She glanced at the two heaping plates of salad bar food. “I sure hope you plan on eating all that. Be a god damn shame to waste all that. That’s enough to feed four people. You should be ashamed of yourself. Pure gluttony.”

Albom pointed at her. “Look, I’m telling you. There’s something about that god damn salad bar that isn’t right… And I’m looking into it. There’s also something not right about this whole town and why I’m here. And I’m looking into that, too.”

Hollywood Helen on Wheels scoffed with a chuckle. “What are you… A salad bar detective?”

Albom Riff laughed out loud. “That’s a good one, baby, but you’re not wrong. Now can I please get some silverware and a Coke.”

TO BE CONTINUED

By
Aaron Echoes August
The Dreamers of Fortune Street

Photo by Engin Akyurt on Pexels.com.

Is it me causing all the ruckuses?

Is it me blowing down all the brick walls?

I went to the Centrifugal Theatre downtown because I wanted to watch a movie that made me spin. Halfway through the picture, an old black and white, the usher came up to me in his red uniform and monkey hat. He pointed his flashlight right in my face and inquired if I was a doctor.

“What kind of doctor are you looking for?” I asked.

“A doctor that can deliver a box of popcorn to that young lady right over there.” He nodded with his head and smiled. “Isn’t she just dreamy?”

“Why do you need a doctor for…”

And then I realized I was mixing reality with what was happening up on the movie screen. The usher was really telling me to get my feet off the seat in front of me. The movie scene had a guy buying popcorn for his date. It was a centrifugal mixing of the thoughts in and out of my head. Then I looked around the theatre and I was the only one there. Then the projector started acting up and the film became all tangled and warbled. I got up and walked out. It had been a decent piece of cinny up to that point though.

The next thing I did was walk out into the night air of Fortune Street and that made me think of fortune cookies and then I became incredibly hungry for some good Chinese food. So, I walked and walked and walked along the dirty sidewalk of the big, big city until I came upon a place called the Alabaster Wok. I went inside and the host, a small man in a red uniform, seated me at a round table covered in a red tablecloth. Everything seemed to be red and golden. There was a Buddha shaped candle jar in the center of the table. The flame inside flicked like a fiery tongue being unfurled from the mouth of the Egyptian sun god Ra. It was mesmerizing to someone like me.

A waiter brought me a menu the size of a small book and I flipped through the sticky, plastic pages. There must have been a thousand items to choose from. I noticed a lot of misspelled words. I suddenly had to go to the bathroom and got up and went to find the restroom.

The entire restaurant was bathed in a dim, yellow light, and the same went for the bathroom. I stepped up to the urinal and started to make pee when suddenly, a man came bursting out of one of the stalls and he made a wicked Kung Fu stance and then started wildly chopping and kicking at the air. He did spins and jumps and flips while he jabbed at the space around him, and the whole time he was shrieking at the top of his lungs: “Hiiiiiiiii Yahhhh!” repeatedly.

I jumped back out of his way, and I was pressed up against a cold tiled wall when one of his feet came bolting toward me in a high kick and smashed into the area right next to my ear. “Don’t fuck with me, bro!” he hollered. Debris crumbled down to the floor. “My name is Hai Chin and I’m a badass Kung Fu master.”

I was shaking at this point, and my heart was pounding so hard I half expected it to burst right out of my chest cavity. “Jesus, man,” I said. “You scared the shit out of me!”

He took great pride in that and grinned wide. He slapped me on the shoulder. “Sorry about that. I was just practicing for an upcoming territorial gang rumble… But hey, I’ve got to get back to work. I’m the dishwasher.”

With that, he slammed his way out of the restroom chanting some crazy battle tune.

I braced myself at the sink and tried to regain my composure. After a few calming breaths, the door to the restroom burst open and Hai Chin was now soaring through the air, and he planted both feet into my back. The blow was intense and caused me to violently jerk forward and my face smashed right into the mirror and broke the glass. I fell to the floor with a thud and my hands went immediately to my face to assess the situation. When I pulled them away to look at them, there was blood.

Hai Chin was standing above me, hands on his hips and he had the biggest smile on his face. “Gotcha mo’ beans!” he said, and he laughed out loud.

I yelled at him. “Dude! What is your fucking problem? I’m really hurt here. Give me something to press against my face.”

“Huh? Like what?”

“Like a warm, wet towel!”

“Okay… Be right back!” And with that, he ran out of the restroom again, but quickly popped his head back in just to say, “Don’t forget to jiggle the handle!”

I got up and steadied myself against the sink. I looked into the busted mirror and the jagged reflection made me look like a cut up monster. It wasn’t long before Hai Chin returned with the warm wet towel. He handed it to me, and I put it to my face. “Thanks,” I said.

“You are welcome, sir. Welcome to the Alabaster Wok. Can I get you something to drink and perhaps an appetizer?”

I turned my aching face toward him. “We’re in the bathroom. Can I at least get back to my table before you take my order… And I thought you said you were the dishwasher.”

“I am the dishwasher… But on slow nights like this, waiter go home, and I take over for him. I’m what you say—multi-tasking. And the boss man cheap.”

“Right. I’m going to go sit down at my table now. I haven’t even had a chance to look at the whole menu yet.”

“It’s big, like my woman whopper… Ha ha!”

I just shook my head and brushed by him. I was hurting and very hungry and in no mood for his bullshit outlandish behavior.

When I returned to the table, there was a bag of frozen stir fry vegetables there with a note attached: Sorry for the brutal attack. You can use this to relieve any swelling. No charge. Hai Chin.

I looked up and saw him peeking at me from behind a red curtain on the other side of the restaurant. But I was hungry and so I gently pressed the bag of frozen vegetables against my now swelling face and looked over the menu once more. What was I thinking? I had made my mind up long ago, before I even got here. Orange chicken with a side of fried rice. Why don’t I ever just trust my own gut? Why do I always second guess myself? Sometimes I could just throw myself out of a window, or in front of a speeding train, or into a flock of doves.

And that’s when Hai Chin suddenly appeared behind me like a flash of lightning. He just seemingly popped up from some portal beneath the floor. “It’s because you lack confidence in yourself,” he told me. “You need to explore your spirit. You need training.”

My head whipped around. “How did you…”

“It no matter,” Hai Chin said, and he raised his little notepad and pencil. “Are you ready to order?”

“I’ll have the orange chicken with fried rice… And throw in a side of the crab Rangoon with some sweet and sour sauce.”

“Something to drink?”

“How about an oolong tea.”

“Yes, sir. Anything else for you?”

“No. That should do it.”

He bowed and scampered away. A moment later I heard him shouting my order to someone in the invisible back.

The food arrived quickly. The chicken was steaming, the rice was steaming, the tea was steaming. I moved the plastic broccoli aside for it was an unnecessary addition to the plate. The crab Rangoon called to me, and I took one of the starfish shaped treats and dipped it in the sweet and sour sauce. I took a bite. It was glorious Heaven upon glorious Heaven, oh my friends. It too, was hot. But sometimes a craving overtakes a burn.

I ate as much of my dinner as I could. There was still a mountain of food left. Hai Chin came to the table and bowed. “Everything fine then?”

“It was delicious. May I get a to-go box?”

“Certainly.”

Hai Chin went away and quickly returned with the box, check, and a fortune cookie. “You pay up front,” he said. “Thank you for dining at the Alabaster Wok… And I hope your face is better. You can keep the vegetables.” He bowed again and walked off.

I was too full to even eat the fortune cookie, so I put it in my pocket for later. I went to pay and was soon out on the gory gloryhole of neon Fortune Street again. The lights sparkled, the air was cool, a breeze cautiously touched the city. Other people moved by me like in a dream. I heard their voices, their laughter—as if it were coming from another realm. I felt like Ichiban Kasuga in Tokyo on New Year’s Eve. (Even though he was Japanese, not Chinese Yes, Karen. There is a difference). My stomach was stretched, my face still hurt. I walked toward home.

I decided to cut through the park and sat down on a bench to rest. I placed my bag with the leftovers beside me. The stars above managed to squeak a bit of their ancient light in through the treetops. The moon breathed through the veil of backlit moving clouds. I reached into my pocket and retrieved the fortune cookie. I unwrapped it and pulled out the small slip of paper inside. It read: You’ve got a big surprise coming to you, Wendy. A very big surprise.

“Who the hell is Wendy?” I thought aloud to myself.

And that’s when Hai Chin, the dishwasher and fill-in waiter from the Alabaster Wok, came dropping down from out of the trees above me like a runaway elevator heading toward the ground floor. He was suddenly right in front of me on the walkway, and he was furiously whipping around a set of nunchakus, and he cried out “Hiiiiiiiii Yahhhh!” The end of one of the sticks grazed the tip of my nose.

I leapt up and backpedaled away from him. “What the hell are you doing!?” I screamed. “Are you trying to kill me? I sort of thought we were friends.”

He suddenly stopped whipping the nunchakus about and tucked them neatly under his arm in one svelte move. “Friends?” he said.

“I mean, yeah you kicked my butt, but you were still kind enough to give me that sack of frozen stir fry vegetables.”

He bowed to me. “It was the honorable thing to do.”

There was moment of uncomfortable silence before I said, “That thing you were saying about my spirit and training… I think I need that. I need to get out of this damn city and away from all these idiotic fools and clear my head and cleanse my soul. Where shall I go?”

Hai Chin put a finger to his own chin and thought about it. “You will come with me to the great mystical mountain in the clouds and there I will teach you the ways of Kung Fu.”

“For real. You’re not fooling with me, are you?”

Hai Chin became dejected and sat down on the nearby bench. His usual Wisconsin bubbler-like personality drooped. “I only wish I could. But the truth is, I really am just a damn dishwasher. I’ve never been able to fulfill my dreams of being a Kung Fu master. I’m a fraud.”

I sat down beside him. “I know what you mean. I wanted to be a million other things than what I turned out to be. It sucks, but society presses it into us. Society strips of us our dreams in exchange for meaningless work. We’re all just loaded into the boxcar and shipped off to Doldrums City, merely pieces of a machine.”

He nodded his head in agreement. Then his face suddenly brightened. “What if we just say, ‘fuck it,’ and do it anyway. Let’s not let society tell us what to be and how to act. Let’s go be Kung Fu masters. Let’s go to—Bhutan, Nepal, or Tibet. Let’s find a new way to live. Let’s find our true selves… I’m sorry, what’s your name?”

“David. David Pearce Goliath.”

“Let’s just do it, David Pearce Goliath.”

We both paused and thought about it, and then I asked the ever deciding question, “Do you have money?”

“Money,” he repeated bitterly. “No.”

I shook my head. “Neither do I. You got to rob a bank to have a dream come true in this fucking world.” I looked up to the sky and some green comet or spaceship arched over us and across the banner of night. “Can you imagine what the world would be like if we could all just be what we really wanted to be?”

“But instead, we putter away at mostly pointless things. It will never change,” Hai Chin said. He started to get up. “I must get back to the restaurant. Boss man want me to clean kitchen.”

I looked up at him. “Why don’t you just say, ‘fuck it’ and come over to my apartment and we’ll have a few beers, maybe watch a documentary about monks.”

He nodded his head in excited agreement. “Right, right mo’ beans! Let’s do it. Let’s get what we can get while we can get it.”

I grabbed my sack of leftovers and stood up. We started walking to the other side of the park and across the wide avenue and to where my apartment was in a low-key high-rise called Vandenburg Arms. What arms are those? The arms that squeeze us tight and hold us against our will. The arms that keep us cold and make us tired and ready for another day as small brass gadgets in a big and ferocious world of dreaming saints and sinners.

END

By
Aaron Echoes August
Brain Fumes

Photo by David Cassolato on Pexels.com.

I built a chair today in my workshop

I made it out of milk skin and aggression

God was my co-pilot but then the plane crashed

I wrestled with tangled earbuds

I woke up at 2 a.m. and ate English muffins with butter and honey

It’s hot outside but I’m cold

I like to play but I’m old

I want to be like everyone else but then again, I really can’t stand most of humanity. Humanity? Insanity in a skin wrap. Like a spring roll from a Chinese food joint. I need some Jade Wok and their orange chicken with a side of fried rice and an orange soda.

This is just an exercise in scrambled egg brains. I’m just tossing thoughts out there. Senseless, whimsical, ancient thoughts like from the time I sat atop the Sphinx and ate a bagel and watched the dip of the Egyptian sun. Then I turned to look at the great pyramidal power station. It’s so much more than a pile of rocks, Indiana Jones.

I wish I would have done so much more. I wanted to get a worthless English degree. I wanted to be a geologist. I wanted to be an architect. There was even a time I thought I wanted to be a priest. Whew! Dodged a bullet there.

I was once going to be an airman, a drag racer, a mountain climber, a boxer, a cartoonist, a photographer, a psychiatrist, a chef, a monk…

And now I’m this. A man who pecks at illuminated letters on a keyboard in concert with the thoughts in my maniac head.

Yes, I’m a sane maniac.

But at least I’m not maniacal about serving up the world’s best fried chicken.

By
Aaron Echoes August
The Liquid Lust of an Ordinary Day (2)

Photo by Pavel Danilyuk on Pexels.com.

Liquid Pablo Pablum worked in an insane asylum. He had his own office in the deepest part of the building where the deepest minds of darkness dwell. There was blue carpeting on the floor and walls. He had a mattress on the floor with a pillow and a thin blanket in case he wanted to sleep. There was a desk with a metal lamp sitting on it. Papers and files were sloppily strewn about. He had been staring at the ceiling light and eating Spree candy when the commotion broke out. It was a screaming and banging kind of commotion and it was coming from the female ward.

He ran out of his office and went to where there were two sets of heavy doors, each with a square window of thick glass. They had somehow gotten through the inner door and were pounding on the outer door. The woman whose face was closest to the glass was yelling that she wanted a knife so she could cut herself. Liquid Pablo Pablum looked at her neck and saw a series of thick, raised scars. Sirens started to wail. Lights began to flash. Deep echoing booms rolled like waves throughout the facility as the inmates pounded on their cages like animals…

Liquid Pablo Pablum suddenly woke to the sound of someone tapping on the driver-side window of his car. It was Rose the CVS clerk. He opened the door and got out. “Wow. Hi. Hey,” he said to her as he worked to pull himself together.

“Are you okay?” Rose asked.

“Yeah… I must have fallen asleep and was having the craziest dream.” He leaned in to kiss her.

“Wait,” she insisted. “How about some mouthwash first.”

“Right. Right. Well, just get in the car.”

A stockboy named Stockdale was in the process of dumping some trash when he noticed Rose climbing into a car that belonged to a man who wasn’t her husband. “Gosh darn it all, Rose,” he mumbled to himself. “Who the hell is that?”

The motor hummed and made Liquid Pablo Pablum’s testicles tingle. “So, what do you feel like doing?”

“I thought we were going to go make out.”

“Right. Do you want to go bowling?”

“Are you sure you’re, okay?”

“Yes, why do you keep asking?”

“You seem different.”

“I may be a bit nervous.”

“You weren’t nervous at all earlier in the day.”

“Look, when we get to the bowling alley let’s just have some mouthwash and make out for a while. I’m sure that will settle me right back down… You look hot, by the way.”

“Hot? I just finished an eight-hour shift and I’m wearing these stupid CVS clothes. I doubt I’m very hot.”

“Oh, you’re hot all right. Can’t wait to taste you.”

Rose was a bit shocked, a bit frightened. “I just realized that I don’t even know your name.”

“It’s Pablo. Pablo Pablum.”

“I’ve never made out with a Pablo.”

“Have you made out with a lot of guys, Rose?” Pablo asked with a wondering grin.

She bowed her head and sighed. “Not really. Not for the last 20 years or so.”

Pablo cocked his head and gave her a shifty look. “Strange answer.”

“What’s so strange about it?”

“It’s like you want me to know something but you don’t want me to know something.” He then noticed the ring on her left hand. He waited for her to tell him.

“Maybe you should take me back to CVS.”

“Why?”

She gathered herself and turned to him. “I’m married, Pablo. M-A-R-R-I-E-D. I shouldn’t be doing this.”

Liquid Pablo Pablum put a hand on her leg and squeezed it through her polyester work pants. “You can’t be that married if you’re with me… On your way to make out in the bowling alley parking lot. Seems kind of sleazy don’t you think?”

“Sleazy!? You think I’m sleazy?”

“No. I don’t. I think you’re lonely, unappreciated, overlooked, undervalued. I think you’re not very happy… What’s his name?”

“Jim. He’s a cop.”

Pablo scoffed, then chuckled. “Great.”

“Don’t worry. He’s not a very good one. He’s a fat, lazy one.” She laughed out loud at last.

“Wow, Rose. Way to lighten up. Don’t worry about it, baby. We’re almost there and Pablo will make you feel good.”

Once in the parking lot of the bowling alley, Liquid Pablo Pablum reached behind his seat for the bottle of Close-Up cinnamon-flavored mouthwash. He screwed off the plastic lid and took a swish. Then he passed it to Rose. He opened his door and spit out the rinse. She did the same.

“Well,” Pablo said. “Come here and give me some Stevia.” He laughed because he thought it was funny that he said Stevia instead of sugar because Stevia is a sugar substitute, and he was sort of a substitute man for Rose. Yadda, yadda, yadda.

Rose leaned closer to him, and they playfully rubbed the tips of their noses before their mouths parted and the kissing was on. The passion went from 0 to 176 in a few furious seconds. They clamped their hands to each other’s faces and kissed and sucked and slurped and licked and smooched and smacked like the end of the world was marching over the horizon. The hands slid from their faces and went to grope crotches and breasts and thighs and ass cheeks, and the windows of the car were steaming up as the kissing went on at a hot and ferocious pace.

Pablo began to undress, and he wanted her to do the same, but she just caught her breath and suddenly refused. “No… Not here. Not now. I’m not ready.”

Pablo panted. “What? Why?”

“I told you. I’m not ready. Just please respect how I feel.”

Pablo slumped back in his seat. “Geez, Rose. Sometimes you can be a real square.” He made an invisible square in the air with his pointer fingers.

“I’m sorry… No. I’m not sorry. It’s how I feel.”

“What if we were to go somewhere private?”

“No. I really all of a sudden want to go bowling. It’s been so damn long, and I used to love to go bowling. Why have I stopped going bowling?”

“My guess is Jim. Huh?”

Rose made a frowny smirk. “Jim. Talk about a square. He’s the king of squares.”

“All right,” Pablo said. “Let’s go bowling. I wanna see how you handle those big, heavy balls.”

TO BE CONTINUED

By
Aaron Echoes August
Strawberry Safari

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

The African safari was ridiculous. Hippos in high heels? They had them listening to Pearl Jam songs from the 90s. I just looked at the scenery, which was decent enough, as the savannah carriage bounced along the rough road.

I tapped the driver on the shoulder. “When do you take us back to the hotel?” I asked him.

He gave me a quick look of disbelief. “But we’ve only begun. You want to go back? I can’t go back. Not until the tour is done. The other people, they want to see the animals.”

“Can you stop and let me out then?”

The driver braked. “You going to walk back? I can’t let you do that. There are wild animals out there. This isn’t Disneyland my friend. No.”

“This won’t be on you. I’ll take full responsibility. I’ve already written my family a certified letter stating that I may do something crazy in Africa, but it’s no one’s fault but my own. You and your company are absolved. Bye now.” I jumped out of the vehicle, and he drove away slowly. The other tourists stared at me as I just smiled and waved goodbye.

I walked like a bruise through the sky. I walked liked a man with purpose who didn’t want to die. The sun bore down it’s yellow tentacles of high heat. I suddenly missed the relative comfort of the safari vehicle… That was now but a speck of whirling dust in the distance.

I came upon a herd of elephants at a watering hole. I watched them from the brush. Some were bathing, some were playing. Some were trumpeting their agonies over what vile man has done to the Earth. The pool of water grows ever smaller.

I came upon a pride of lions, and I was very careful because I did not want to get eaten. But I knew they smelled me; I could tell by the movement of their noses. I was a dead man for sure I thought, but then they caught wind of a herd of something else out on the hallucinatory flats and they went for that. I don’t even have a gun, so I have no idea how I’d even be able to defend myself. I suppose I would just let whatever beast it was that attacked me rip me to shreds. And that’s all I’d be in the end. Shreds. Like chicken meat for chicken enchiladas.

I kept on walking toward a sun mirage… I kept on thinking about why I was where I was. The money problems. The family problems. The job problems. The health problems. Too many problems all at once.

My friend Jim ‘Sanitizer’ Santiago went out to get drinks with me one night back home in the city, and lo and behold, both our wives strolled in with different men on their arms. Isn’t that just great?

“Looks like I’m no longer on the menu,” Jim said in his deep, monotone, straightforward way. “But what can I do, my hands are tied… Care for some hand sanitizer?” He retrieved a small bottle from his pocket and squirted a small glob in my waiting hand. He had a thing about hand sanitizer.

“Thanks,” I told him. I rubbed vigorously. “Can’t be too careful in places like these. But seriously, let’s get out of here. I don’t want to seem my wife rub her body all over him if they decide to dance.”

“I’m with you on that one,” he agreed.

Jim ‘Sanitizer’ Santiago was the best-groomed man I’ve ever known. His hair was as dark as an evil witch and sat in perfect form atop his head. He had the most perfectly sculpted goatee and always smelled like an expensive men’s clothing store in a nice mall. We worked together at the magazine publishing house. Only problem is, no one reads magazines anymore. “How long until we get the axe?” I asked him as we walked along a dirty sidewalk through a neon haze.

“I’ve already got my resume up to date and ready to go. It could be any time now,” he answered.

“I’m not going to bother,” I told him. “If they can me, I’m just going to go to Africa for a while. I’ve always wanted to go on safari.”

“Hmm, animals. Nothing wrong with animals. Are you going to be animalistic and mount prey?”

“I could never be as much as an animal as you are. And I’m afraid my mounting days are over.”

He smiled at me funny. “Why don’t we just go to my place. I’ve got some new cigars I been wanting to smoke.”

“Why the hell not,” I said.

He had the cleanest apartment I’ve ever seen. Nothing was out of place. There wasn’t a dirty dish or speck of dust anywhere. His bathroom was spotless and smelled of bleach. When I came out, he was on the balcony smoking his cigar. I joined him. We gazed at the lights and listened to traffic. He then asked me a very strange question. “Do you want to look at some dirty magazines?”

“What?”

“I’ve got some dirty magazines. Do you want to look at them with me?”

I laughed because I thought he was joking. But when he squeezed at himself through his pants and said, “I might need to take care of this,” I knew he wasn’t joking.

“No. I don’t, Jim.”

“You won’t have to do anything. You can just watch.”

“I think I may just go. Seems like you might need some privacy.”

He clamped a hand on my shoulder as I turned to leave. “Please… Or we could watch a porno if that makes you feel more comfortable. I just want you to stay.”

“What kind of porno, Jim? If it’s guys with guys forget it… Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Just not my thing.”

He stubbed out his cigar. “All right then. Maybe I do want to be alone. Sorry if I’m being a weirdo drag.”

But I understood in a way I suppose. “It’s okay, man. I’ll talk to you later.” Seeing his wife with another guy at a bar. We all deal with it in different ways.

Maybe the animal isn’t always what it portrays itself to be…Until you find yourself in the middle of a safari wildland trying to get back to the posh hotel to live a life of luxury when you don’t even deserve luxury and can barely afford it anyway. I raped my credit cards for this trip, and I’ll be paying for it later. Literally. Why can’t anything enjoyable ever come easy. I curse the imbalance… Bad things happen so frequently and with such ease, but why is it such a battle in this life to get the good? I suppose like everything else; it all comes down to money. If you don’t have it, you suffer. If you have it, things are always easier. That’ sad, or maybe I just misunderstand everything.

I was back in my room, and I took a shower. My wife called and said she wanted a divorce because I was no longer the man she married and I just ‘didn’t do it’ for her anymore. I suppose I didn’t care, but then I did. I was suddenly all alone in the word, but then I have been for a very long time, so it sort of felt the same except that I was in this expensive hotel in Africa and I didn’t know what to do with myself.

I decided to call Jim ‘Sanitizer’ Santiago.

“Well, look who the cat dragged in,” he said when he answered which I thought was strange because it was a phone call and not an in-person event. “How’s it going?”

“I’m in Africa and I’m bored. Can you believe that?”

“Maybe you need to go out and hook up with some jungle babes.”

“Nah… What are you doing?”

“Oh, I was just watching some pornography.”

“Anything good?”

“It’s called Mr. Clean the Sex Machine.”

“Oh, sounds interesting.”

“Why don’t you come by some time when you get back.”

“I don’t know if I’ll be back, Jim. I may go stick my head in a lion’s mouth.”

“That would be an awful way to go.”

“I suppose it would… I’m going to go now, Jim. Enjoy your porn. Bye.”

I ended the call and sat on the edge of the bed and looked through the big glass windows of the sliding veranda doors and the sky was strawberry red with clouds, a wound of humanity sopped up in gauze and bandaged with another wishful goodnight kiss.

END

By
Aaron Echoes August