I had deviled the salads for far too long when the clock struck negative one. A perplexing complex of half octave nog ran amuck in the rosary room where the group had gathered to monotonously pray to a virgin. The egg sandwich shop across the street was blazing orange, and the sign outside depicted a large egg sandwich being held by a cloppity balding man with a big smile on his face.
It was ass class of the fiercest kind and with the help of devil’s lettuce in a wizard-shaped bong, my mind went taffy nuts, and I was exiled to the stratosphere of love and lust. I ended up at the record store on the tumble-weeded east side of town, and I was mindlessly flipping through the albums while Audioslave blared overhead. The place smelled of pot and glass and warm skin. The clerkies all had dyed hair and tattoos and face piercings. To each his own. Live your life. Let people be who they want to be without standing on their necks or defiling their liberties. That’s true freedom… to live as one truly is. Fuck the battle cry of hypocrisy. Fuck the battle cry of those who want to force their beliefs and so-called values on others. Mind your own fucking business.
After the record store I went to the deserted mall called The Citadel. There’s a chain-link fence all around it, but there are ways to get in.
And now I sit with the mannequins in the subversive shadows of an abandoned JC Penney store. The spinning dials that were their eyes brought me to the ashen dais to trumpet brokenheartedly that the chrysanthemums are falling from the sky, entangled in iron works, and pressed against the youthful angst of chalk hearts on brickyard walls. Now they melt in the summer sun, the colors drip like the blood of love.
They say nothing. The hollow air sits silently. The mannequins are motionless, emotionless… On the outside. But on the inside they feel everything we do. We the people. Struggling to survive in this sick, divisive world. At night they wander the ancient corridors of the once thriving mall. Their eyes ignite to light the way through the dust and debris and emptiness. This once buzzing temple of products, this grand basilica of consumerism is now gutted and void and those that once devoured the useless are ghosts.
I follow behind the well-oiled mannequins but am reluctant to be part of the group. They’re so odd and seemingly fictitious. The way they move though, it seems as if they are searching for something. Like midnight champagne goblins they are, sparkling green and full of tricks. But what would an obsolete, naked, plastic-skinned small herd of mannequins be searching for in a defunct shopping mall? Their clothes? Their souls? My body?
I fall asleep in the gathering rotunda of planters and benches tattooed with the memory of endless asses. The silent, motionless escalators lurch upward. A few hours later the sun cracks through the skylights. Now the mannequins have scattered to return to their places where they pose. I rise like the dead and my bones creak. All is quiet and still. Only the dust dances in the dawn, stirred up from last night’s activity and now slow to settle.
I stand and wonder if I had died and this is my afterlife. I turn west and walk toward the food court. It’s a dead hive of geometric cut-outs where they used to serve food from. Somehow the smell lingers. All those entwined scents of different kinds of cooking by captured hands. I glance upward to where the video store used to be across the way. I recall falling down in there or was it but a neon dream. Walls of film. Loud sounds.
The loneliness begins to take hold. Hollow howls spin like turbines through the air. Is something coming to get me at last? Am I ready to die again? No. I don’t ever want to die again. I want to go on and live in the ancient mall and go outside once in a while to look at the titanium sky and there I will wonder where it all went… My time, my life, my love.
Breck Cavalier sat in a chair across from his psychiatrist and began to tell him about the woman.
“As you know, Dr. Newhart, I live near a nuclear power plant.”
“Yes, Yes. We’ve established that. Go on.”
“I’ve always feared that the power plant was somehow affecting my brain and thus my mental state and thus creating all these personal problems I have.”
“And we have concluded that just isn’t the case, right?”
“Yes. But now something strange is happening and I’m not so sure how to deal with it.”
“And what is that?”
“A woman has moved in right across the street from me and she has this daily ritual of sitting out on her front lawn topless.”
Dr Newhart chuckled. “Doesn’t seem like a problem to me.”
“Even if it’s raining, she sits there on the grass and just stares at the cooling towers with her boobs exposed.”
“Do you watch her?”
Breck hesitated. Smiled effortlessly. “Yes. I can’t help it. She puts her boobs out there for the whole world to see. I’m just an innocent bystander.”
“Are you?”
“I mean… Am I being a pervert for peeking through the curtains at her?”
“Well, I believe most people would glance and then move on. You however seem to be obsessed.”
“I wouldn’t say I’m obsessed. I just wonder why she does it.”
“Why don’t you ask her.”
Breck Cavalier stood outside her front door. He was shaking with nerves as he reached out to press the doorbell button. Within a few moments, the door opened, and the woman was standing there smiling. She was topless.
Breck’s eyes immediately dropped. He couldn’t help looking.
“Hello,” she said. “My eyes are up here.”
“Right. Yes,” Breck stammered as his eyes moved to her face. “I’m your neighbor from across the street.” He held out a square glass pan. “I made you some brownies to welcome you to the neighborhood. I’m Breck Cavalier.”
“I’m Mindy Catterall. Please, come inside.”
The house smelled of bananas and shampoo. She led him back to the kitchen and showed him where he could put the pan of brownies down. “Thank you very much,” she said. “I love brownies.” She moved closer to him and gave him a big, friendly hug. “That was very nice of you.”
Breck felt her boobs crush against his own chest as she embraced him. “You’re welcome,” he said as she slowly backed away from him. “I hope you like them.”
She noted his nervousness. “I’m sorry if that made you uncomfortable. I’m just a very physical person.”
“No. Not at all. I enjoyed it.”
She looked at him funny. “You’re probably wondering why I’m topless, aren’t you.”
Breck fidgeted. “I have noticed you on your front lawn. Not that it’s a problem or anything.”
“Most people are put off by public nudity, and I just don’t get it. I mean, it’s the human body, right? We all have one. Why’s everyone got their panties in an uproar? It’s my body and I’m proud of it and I’m going to show it off wherever and whenever I can.”
“I like them,” Breck blurted out. He was immediately embarrassed. “I mean, you should be proud of your body. But can I ask… Do you go out in public like that?”
Mindy scoffed. “I’d love to, but they got this indecency law. Can you imagine.” She thrust out her chest. “Calling these indecent. They outlaw my boobs but kids getting shot in school, that’s applauded. It’s a sick and twisted society.”
“Yes it is,” Breck agreed. “How can these people stand themselves?”
“Exactly.”
“It seems being a horrible, hateful, violent person is in style these days. And that makes me a sad panda,” Breck said.
“You’re a panda?”
“Sometimes I’d like to be.”
“I totally get it. How wonderful it would be to get away from all the nutjobs, and the chaos, and the madness.”
“You and I seem to be traveling along on the same train of thought,” Breck pointed out.
“Yes,” Mindy smiled. “Especially when so many others have absolutely lost their minds. It’s nice to have an ally.”
And it was at that moment that Breck himself seemed to have lost his mind when he undid his pants and pulled down his underwear. “Look. I’m going to walk around without any bottoms on.” He reached down, gathered up his clothes, and smiled at her. “This is very liberating,” he said. “It feels great.”
She reached out and cupped him between the legs with her hand. “The human body is an amazing piece of artwork,” she said as she looked him over. “The engineering and creativity is awe inspiring. The aliens definitely knew what they were doing when they created us.”
“Hold on a sec,” Breck began. “You’re into ancient astronaut theory?”
“Yes, I am. It’s really the only thing that makes sense.”
“I totally agree,” Breck said with an air of enthusiasm. “Damn. We’re just like two peas in a pod.”
“It really is amazing how much we think alike… And since we’re already half naked, do you want to go upstairs and have some fun?”
Breck looks out toward the audience and grins. “Boy, would I ever!”
There’s subtle laughter and then abundant applause as she takes his hand and they disappear from the stage.
I went outside the other night to capture a photo of a very big moon and subsequently discovered this bluish orb with a small, white figure inside. Trick of light? Perhaps. I like to think it’s evidence of another dimension that thrives all around us.
CEREAL AFTER SEX 