An empty Coke bottle sits on a worn, brown Formica table in a restaurant booth. The resting back and seat padding of the booth is a sickly mustard color. A half-used plastic bottle of generic brand ketchup sits at the table’s edge along with a silver napkin holder, a miniature silo of sugar, salt and pepper shakers, and three plastic menus ripe with human disease.
The walls of the restaurant are half wood paneling—on the bottom half—and a pale-yellow paint job on the upper half. Crooked pictures depicting old time western scenes hang on the walls in various places. And old television set that no longer works is perched on its dusty metal cradle in one corner. The unplugged cord dangles behind it. Country music moans through the dusty speakers of a dime-store stereo that sits on the end of the lunch counter among a tangle of green vines from an overhead hanging plant in dire need of watering.
The windows along the booth are oily and smudged with the fingerprints of unruly, messy children. The scene through the windows is one of dry desolation, wayward desert brush, and purple-blue mountains rising in the distant haze. Sunlight streams in and casts perfectly cut geometric glows across the tables.
There’s the murmur of broken passions among the patrons that sit around there. Many are hard-working people with bitter assessments of the world and their talk of rebellion comes from deep within troubled, trembling souls encased in dusty work clothes. Others are merely travelers, passersby with no hint of what it’s like to live in a town that is merely a speck on a map, a quick piss stop on a highway, the dead end of a dream or two. These are the people on their way to somewhere more like paradise, bigger, brighter. They’ll talk about Feldspar, California with scathing laughter and jokes. “How can people live there…?”
People are living there, some have lived in Feldspar for a long, long time. People like Brady Gander who sits in the restaurant of bitter souls and eats a chicken pot pie with a cup of black coffee. People like Brady Gander who works on fixing cars at his very own Gander Auto Repair on the far-flung edge of town. The Brady Gander who spends his days beneath a propped-up hood and goes home every evening with greasy hands and beat up knuckles. The Brady Gander who once he showers all the grime and pain away goes into his padlocked secret room to have secret meetings with his Council of Mannequins. They love to talk about guns, and the government, and patriotism. They vote on their own brand of law making and they have a binder stuffed with papers that Brady Gander, being the official secretary, meticulously types up and prints off. But the newly enacted laws of pretend never leave the secret room. The only thing that ever leaves the secret room is Brady Gander, and maybe a mannequin or two or three or four or even five.
Brady Gander never married because he has problems with socializing and relating to others, especially women. They make him nervous, and he acts brash. His house is a squat place of little stature out behind the business. It’s the color of the desert around it so it blends in and sometimes vanishes all together, which Brady Gander likes. On the hottest days of the year, the house simply vibrates and moans like a highway mirage. Brady Gander has lived there for 23 years, and tonight he has a visitor.
The honking of the horn out at the fixing garage was incessant. Someone was desperate and determined, Brady thought as he walked with his LED lantern to see whoever it was. They must have seen the house lights on and put two and two together.
He arrived at the front of the shop to find a young woman leaning against the outside of her convertible and reaching in with her arm to press the horn. “Oh, thank God!” she said when she saw him. A nearby streetlamp cast her in a pinkish, yellow glow.
“Were you fixin’ on honking that thing all night,” Brady said to her, and then he spat at the ground. “Because if you were, you’d better think twice about it.”
She immediately straightened herself. “I’m sorry… It’s just my car keeps doing weird things and I need to get to Phoenix and, well, I was hoping you could look at it.”
“Weird things?”
“Like stalling out, jerking.”
Brady rubbed at his chin as he looked her up and down. “Shop’s closed until morning.”
“Ah shit,” she said, and then she started looking around as if she was going to find someone else more willing. “Ah, shit… Can I leave it with you for the morning then.”
“Sure,” he said, and he stepped closer and reached out his hand.
She didn’t know what he wanted her to do.
“Your keys,” he said.
“Oh, right. Here you go,” she hesitated to let him have them. “You aren’t going to steal it, are you?”
Brady laughed and turned his head and pointed. “Do you see that house back there. I’ve lived there for over 20 years. I’m not going anywhere, sweetheart. This is my business, my livelihood. I don’t steal people’s cars.”
She was looking around again. “Is there somewhere I can stay?”
“Hmm,” Brady thought aloud. “Well, I’ve got a spare room if I don’t creep you out too much.” He let out a nasally snicker.
Her expression soured. “Maybe I’ll just sleep in the car.”
“No, no, can’t let you do that,” Brady said. “All sorts of weirdos wander around here at night… All sorts. This happens more than you might think. People wander into my life. I never eat them if that’s what you’re thinking.” Again, he let out the nasally snicker. “What’s your name by the way? I’m Mr. Gander, but everyone just calls me Crazy Brady.”
“Lillian. Lillian Hampton.”
“Lillian Hampton? That sounds puffy and annoyingly self-important… Did you say something about Phoenix? Are you planning to rise in Arizona?”
“What?… One of my best friends is getting married there Saturday. In the hot city it is.” It was Thursday. “That’s why I need my car fixed. I’m in the wedding party.”
Brady watched her underweight body as she went to open the trunk and retrieve a bag. “Here, let me get that for you,” he offered. He could smell her feminine flowery scent as he got closer to her and grabbed the duffel. “Anything else?”
“Nope. I travel light.”
“Follow me then.”
The moment they got into the house Lillian sensed something was off. There was a strange smell, it was dimly lit, and someone was sitting on the couch, but they didn’t make a move when she approached to say, “Hello.”
“Is that a mannequin?” she asked Crazy Brady.
He whipped around to look at her as he worked to clean some of the mess in the kitchen. “A mannequin? Yes, it is a mannequin, but he’s much more than that. That’s Councilor Troy Brisbane. He’s a very important member of the board. Very powerful.” He watched her as she just stared at him. “Well, don’t be rude… Say ‘hello.’”
“Hello,” she breathed cautiously.
There was no reply from the plastic person. Councilor Troy Brisbane just smiled his fake plastic smile and said nothing.
“He’s just tired from all that impactful decision making he does,” Brady told her.
“Is this the couch I’m going to sleep on?” she wanted to know. “It seems dirty.”
“No, no. I told you I have a spare room… Right next to mine. Come on, I’ll show you.”
She followed him around a corner and down a short hallway. He opened a door. It squeaked. “Here you go.” He motioned with his old head. “Bathroom is right back over there if you want to clean up before going to bed. You know, get all that sticky road grime off your silky, sweet-smelling skin.”
He turned on the light for her and she poked her head into the room. There was a double bed, a dresser, a chair, a desk. It smelled funny, she thought, like musty old furniture, like musty memories.
“Do the doors lock?” she asked him.
“No, no. I removed most of the locks because… Well, my plastic friends tend to close themselves in… And if I’m not around when it happens, well, they can get violent and break things. But then again, without the locks, they often wander the house. It’s a challenging situation.”
She half scoffed; half laughed at him. “Are you being serious, Mr. Gander?”
He was very serious, and his eyes twitched in telling her so. “Yes.”
In the deep of night, Brady Gander went before the Council of Mannequins in the secret room. He walked back and forth across the cranberry carpet, tapping his knuckles together as he thought. Councilor Troy Brisbane tapped a yellow pencil at his center seat in synchronicity. “Will she still be here at the dawn of hounds?” he wanted to know. “You don’t plan on eating her, do you?”
Brady stopped where he stood and turned his head to look at the council. “I’m not a bad man,” he began to tell them. “I just have all these crazy thoughts in my head. I’ve tried to get help, but you know how it is out there in the real world.”
Pencil thin and eyeglassed Councilor Eduardo Greep leaned forward. “We really don’t.” He looked at the other mannequins before turning back to Brady. “But you didn’t answer the question, Mr. Gander… Do you plan on eating her?”
Brady took a moment to breathe. “I’ll try not to.”
Uptight Councilor Stella Spaceport smiled at his haphazard answer. “Does she have any weapons? Does she have anything of use to us?”
“Not that I’ve seen,” Brady answered. “But we are running short on time. She’s planning on leaving in the morning.”
“Have you considered gassing her?” Councilor Greep asked.
“It’s crossed my wicked mind,” Brady said.
“But what’s the goal here?” Sharp-shooting Councilor Adam Eve demanded to know. “What is the end game for this girl? And for us? Do we simply want to play with her and send her on her way, or will she serve a greater purpose? If she is to serve no purpose, then let’s just get it over with. But if you simply want something pretty to look at, get yourself a plotted plant or a dirty magazine.”
“Orgy!” Rough around the edges Councilor Karl Capshaw stood and declared. “It’s been eons since we’ve had a decent orgy around here.”
There was a communal sigh. “Sit down, Karl, and oil your joints,” Councilor Spaceport said.
“Look,” Brady began to speak. “She expects me to fix her car, but what if I can’t. What if I purposely keep her stranded?”
“I thought she was attending a wedding,” Councilor Brisbane pointed out. “Surely, she’d find alternative transportation. No. Something more drastic, something more physical must happen to keep her here. And I for one will make it happen if no one else has the wax to do it!”
There was a grumbling rumble among the council.
Councilor Eduardo Greep stood and pointed a finger straight up into the air. “I for one am tired of outsiders bothering us. We have more important things to consider. We have important work to do. A revolution doesn’t happen overnight! I say we beat the hell out of her and leave her in a ditch.”
Stella Spaceport leaned forward in her place. “Mr. Greep, that seems a bit drastic.”
He threw his plastic arms in the air. “Fine! But can we at least just go watch her sleep?”
Lillian Hampton felt a presence and stirred in the sheets. Her sleep in the strange place was restless and full of cracked dreams. Her hand rested against something out of place, it was like skin but cold and hard. She heard wedding bells in her head. Then she felt something move and there was a pressure upon her, a weight. Her eyes flickered into focus, and someone was inches from her face. “Hi there,” came the voice. Lillian screamed and bucked and leapt out of the bed. And then she saw him there in the bed, naked plastic and with a smile stretched across his fake face. “What’s the matter?” Troy Brisbane the mannequin councilor wanted to know. “Don’t you think I’m sexy?” Lillian screamed again and rushed for the light switch at the wall.
The room illuminated and then she saw that it wasn’t just Troy Brisbane in the bed, the room was occupied by the entirety of the Council of Mannequins, and then coming toward her with a grin of his own, Crazy Brady.
Lillian went to pull the door open, but Brady slammed a wide hand against it and forced it shut against her will. “I’m afraid I can’t let you do that. My friends here are looking for a good time and we need you to stay.”
She hurled a fist in his direction, but he gripped her by the wrist and spun her around, pinning her arm behind her back. Brady hissed like a rabid porcupine. “Now listen. I am strong and you are weak. Got it?”
Lillian scanned the room. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing—mannequins come to life and holding her captive—“What do you want from me?” she whimpered.
Pencil thin and eyeglassed Councilor Eduardo Greep stepped forward and touched her face with his dead hand. “We want your respect, we want your loyalty, we want your warm, moist love.”
“Love? I could never love a mannequin!” she snapped. Then she screamed again, and Brady tightened his grip on her.
“We want to mate with you!” Rough around the edges Councilor Karl Capshaw cried out as he jumped up and down like a lunatic. “Won’t be any babies, but there sure will be some noise!”
“Cool your jets, Karl,” Sharp-shooting Councilor Adam Eve said. “But it’s obvious we need to put her out. Bring me the Huff ‘n’ Puff cloth with the magic juice on it.”
Stella Spaceport stood at the ready and handed him what he asked for. Adam Eve held Lillian’s bony jaw with one hand, and then with the other, he smothered her mouth and nose with the cloth until her eyelids came down over her glazzies and her body went limp.
It was incredibly hot as Lillian’s car broke past the city limits line of Phoenix, Arizona. Councilor Adam Eve drove, Troy Brisbane sat in the front passenger seat, dirty Karl Capshaw, Crazy Brady, and Stella Spaceport filled the back seat. Lillian Hampton was gagged and bound in the trunk, her eyes wide and crazy with fear, the sweat beading on her face.
“You did a good job on this car, Brady,” Adam said. “It drives like a dream.”
Karl was restless in his seat. “You should have let me put it in her tailpipe,” he laughed. “Why didn’t you, huh? She was still okay to take it.”
“Shut up, Karl,” Troy said, and then to the others, “Why did we bring him?”
“Because I don’t trust him enough to be alone at the house,” Brady said. “Now, you have that church punched into the GPS?”
“I got it, I got it,” Adam answered, and he tapped at his fake plastic head. “I may be a mannequin, but I’m not stupid.”
When they arrived at the Church of the Great Alabaster God, a white torpedic building that reached high into the sky with great stained-glass motifs of universal love, they quickly jumped out of the car and scrambled to the trunk. They opened it and Lillian, always the screamer, screamed through her gag cloth.
“Hurry up and get her out of there,” Brady ordered. “Quick now before someone sees.”
Karl and Adam lifted her out and carried her toward the front of the church. They laid her down on the cement walkway. She wriggled like a worm. Karl kicked her in the side and then leaned down near to her face. “You should have been nicer to me,” he said to her.
They all got back in the car and as they drove away and left her there, the front doors of the church suddenly burst open, and the wedding parade emerged, and the celebratory rice flew high into the air, the grains coming down atop her like rain. Lillian rolled and watched as a crowd quickly gathered around her, and the eyes that looked down upon her were no longer real.
END
CEREAL AFTER SEX 
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