Tag: Fiction

The Gravy Canoe of Wild Wyoming – 9

Photo by Negative Space on Pexels.com

Carrie Gould in her tight red dress resembled a hot stuffed pepper oozing melted cheese as she sat across from him at the Rambler’s Ranch Buffet on the traveler’s edge of Berlin, Wyoming.

Steel Brandenburg III couldn’t believe his eyes as he looked over at the enormous platter in front of her — a massive mountain of mashed potatoes with gravy, pieces of fried chicken, a thick ham slice, fried shrimp, catfish, hush puppies, golden corn, yam wedges, three buttery rolls, pasta salad, cottage cheese, pickled beets, peach halves in heavy syrup, fried okra, a slice of pizza, two tacos, orange gelatin with fruit cocktail pieces inside, and along with it all, an extra-large lemon-lime diet soda.

She seemed oblivious to his presence as she shoveled and slurped and smacked and swallowed like a farm animal. Steel forked at his salad and ate some of it. He chewed a radish. He cleared his throat because someone just needed to say something. “Can I ask you a question?” Steel said.

Carrie Gould suddenly looked up at him, her mouth still moving in a chewing motion. She wiped at her oily lips with a paper napkin and smiled. “Yes, darling. Anything at all.”

“How much do you weigh?”

She coughed and sputtered a bit. She hadn’t expected such inappropriate bluntness. “How much do I weigh?” she repeated.

“Yes. I’m curious. I watch a lot of My 600-Pound Life because I’m always just so fascinated about how people let themselves get to such an awful state. And frankly, it makes me feel better about my own life… You know, seeing others in such dire circumstances. It makes my failures seem far less potent.”

Carrie Gould was mortified. She looked down at the pile of food in front of her and sighed deeply. “Do I embarrass you?” She looked around the room and in her own mind it seemed like everyone in the Rambler’s Ranch Buffet was staring at her, judging her. But in reality, everyone was lost inside their own little bubble of emotional pain, mental anguish, and physical discomfort.

Something twitched between Steel’s legs and his stomach smiled up from its pit. “Not at all.” He leaned in closer to her. “Truth be told… I’m imagining what you must look like out of that dress. Mmm… The thought of all that plumpness sprawled out before me.”

Carrie Gould blushed and stuffed an entire buttered roll in her mouth. “Oh, Steel,” she said once she swallowed. “You’re just saying that to make me reconsider the lawsuit and the pressing of criminal charges. No one would ever imagine that. Not ever.”

Steel sipped at his iced water with floating lemon wedge. “No, it’s true. I’d like to see you whaled out on my bed completely naked… And I’d like to feed you an entire pumpkin pie with a bucket of whipped cream.”

Carrie Gould’s hand jerked unnaturally, and her glass of soda tumbled over, and the liquid raced across the table. “Oh, shit,” she whispered loudly. She grabbed up a wad of napkins and worked to absorb the spill.

Steel grinned. “I bet you cause a lot of spills.”

She beamed at him. “Why are you being like this? It’s a bit over the top.”

“Aren’t you glad I’m interested?”

“I was hoping for some romance, not straight up gross pornography. I’m not a circus act. I want a relationship, not a one-time fling.”

Steel rattled his fingers against the large plastic maroon cup of lemon water. He turned his head and sighed.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

“Plenty of things. But you never answered my question… How much do you weigh?”

Carrie Gould leaned back and puffed out her puffy mouth. “Five-hundred and forty-eight pounds.”

Steel jerked forward. “Really?”

“Yes, really. Don’t make fun of me.”

“I’m not… I want to see it. I want to see all of it. I want to bounce up and down on it.”

Carrie Gould scowled at him like an evil witch. She grudgingly pushed herself away from the table and got up and walked over to the dessert bar. She piled a wide bowl high with cherry cobbler and then went to the ice cream machine, pulled the lever, and slathered the cobbler with a turd-like glob of vanilla dairy treat. She went back to the table and sat down and worked the cobbler into her mouth without looking at him.

Steel snapped at her. “I said I wanted to feed you pumpkin pie… Why did you go ahead and get dessert?”

Still without looking at him and with her mouth crammed full of cherry cobbler and vanilla dairy treat she said, “I have a mind of my own, Steel. Get used to that fact if you want to be with me.”

“Be with you?”

“I’ve decided to up the stakes,” she began. “You’re going to be my boyfriend. My steady boyfriend. We’re going to have a completely exclusive relationship. And I’ll give myself to you when I’m good and ready and when the Lord lets me know the time is right. Until then, you will support me emotionally, day and night. You will be available to me when I need you, not the other way around… Do it, or I’ll sing like a bird.”

“Wow. Threats. So, I get nothing out of this so-called relationship that you’ve just suddenly created? That seems unfair, and I’m not sure I’m willing to do that. Doesn’t seem very Christian of you either.”

“You leave the Good Lord out of this… I’m not the one with my backside on the line. This is all because of your actions, Steel. None of this would be the way it is if you hadn’t pranked me with that trick gum. Now, you pay the price.”

“But I’ve already made it clear that I want you… In a very bad way.”

“Don’t be so disgusting. And I’m not a plaything to satisfy your sick desires. I’m a human being with feelings and needs.” She suddenly and uncontrollably released a giant, long-winded belch that echoed throughout the restaurant. Horribly embarrassed, she covered her face with her hands and sank down in her seat.

“Here piggy, piggy, piggy,” one of the other restaurant patrons called out from somewhere. There was a communal cloud of laughter.

Carrie Gould peeked out at Steel. Tears were streaming down her face. “Let’s just get out of here,” she said.

TO BE CONTINUED

By
Aaron Echoes August
Ms. Grundy and the Bone Ghosts (1)

The street ran through a neighborhood drenched in summer. At one end it crested slightly toward a hopeful, golden horizon smeared with emergency room gauze. It was a quiet street mostly save for the children that came out of the boxes to play. The boxes lined the street on both sides and had windows and doors and chimneys and yards of green grass and flower beds and bird baths and one even had a mysterious round green orb that sat atop a pedestal with futuristic soft curves.

The old woman who owned this particular box, a red box with a white fence, well, her name was Allison Grundy and Allison Grundy spent a lot of time in her yard holding a green hose like a snake and watering things. Allison Grundy liked to wear a straw hat and dark sunglasses. She usually held a cigarette in the hand opposite the hose hand, the drooping ash half the length of the entire cigarette itself until it just fell. She also liked to look at her green orb as it sat there so peacefully, shining like it did. She would hold her face close to it and her eyes widened as they drilled though the shimmer and into a land of future fortunes. But her concentration was then often disrupted by the sounds of play. The youngsters with their whistles and their shiny bells and their harvest balloons and toy bazookas. It all soured her soul, like lemons in vinegar.

Allison Grundy didn’t care for noise and mischief and if any of the neighborhood children were up to any mischief at all, which of course they usually were, she would go right inside her red box, lift the yellow phone receiver from the wall and dial the constable. “Those kids are going to end up killing someone,” she would complain. “They’re rowdy rebel rousers the whole lot of them.”

“Now, now Ms. Grundy,” Constable Harley O’Shea would say on the other end. “They’re just kids. And kids get a little wild sometimes. Why don’t you just draw the curtains so you can’t see them and settle in with a nice cup of hot chamomile tea. Play that album you like. What is it? … A Farewell to Kings by Rush.”

“Yes, yes… But it’s the middle of the day,” she grunted with the hoarse voice of a smoke addled horse. “They shouldn’t be allowed to ruin my life, constable. It’s your job to keep the peace now, don’t you know.”

Constable O’Shea released a big sigh from the depths of his big belly. “Please, Ms. Grundy. You must understand that it’s all part of living in a community. If you don’t want neighbors, then perhaps you should consider moving to that isolated farmhouse on the edge of town.”

“The old Grady place?”

“That’s right. It’s still for sale. Very private. Very quiet. No neighbors and no young ruffians running about. Consider it, won’t you? I’ll talk to my wife. Bye now. I’ve got to run.” He hung up.

Allison Grundy stared into the receiver as if she might be able to see him deep inside there. When she finally realized she couldn’t, she slammed it into its holding place. It was right after that when a rock came flying through one of her front windows. The cacophony of broken glass made her drop to the floor in fright just like she did in the days of the war and the screaming bombs that fell from the dark sky. “You little bastards!” she howled from her position of defense. “You’ll pay for this you little bastards!”

Mary O’Shea, wife of the constable and part-time real estate agent, pulled up to the old Grady place and shut down the car. She addressed the condition of her face in the rear-view mirror. She reached into her purse for her latest lipstick. Her eyes caught the looming figure of Allison Grundy as she applied the redness to her mouth. The old lady was up on the porch and peering in through curtainless windows.

Mary O’Shea got out of the car and braced herself. She took a deep breath and called out. “Hello, Ms. Grundy. What do you think so far?”

The old woman grunted. “It needs a lot of work. I’m not sure I’m up to it. I’m without a man these days.”

Mary O’Shea smiled. “Some fresh paint would make a world of difference. And I’m sure you could find someone to hire. Would you like to go inside?”

Allison Grundy didn’t answer right away. She was too busy looking off at the vastness that surrounded the place. It was indeed isolated on its grass-swept hill, a wide bulge in the Earth that afforded one a wide view of the varied surrounding landscape. It frightened her somehow. There was so much distance. She sighed. “I’m not sure if it’s for me,” she said. “There’s an awful lot of nothingness.”

Mary O’Shea grimaced in her own guts. “But I thought that was what you wanted. Isolation. Quiet. Is it not?”

Allison Grundy craned her neck upward. The house was three stories high with a pointed turret in one corner. A peeling white. Dusty windows. Disjointed shingles. Dwindling memories of other lives lived within its walls. “It’s an awful big place. Hollow. End-of-day doldrums in the face of a falling sun.”

Mary O’Shea went for the lockbox on the door and worked it open to retrieve the key. “Plenty of room for you to spread out,” she said, trying to remain positive despite the fact she felt like biting the old lady’s head off and spitting it out over the edge of a sea cliff. She pushed the door open, and they moved inside. “There’s been some walls removed to provide for this wonderful open concept. Isn’t it just grand?”

Allison Grundy’s head moved around like a cat following a laser pointer. “It’s somewhat obscene,” the old woman commented.

“Nonsense,” Mary O’Shea replied. “I think you deserve to live lavishly, seeing that you’re…”

“That I’m what… Old? Near death? About to climb into my coffin for an eternal nap?”

“Of course, not, Ms. Grundy. I meant that, well, you deserve to spoil yourself a little.”

Allison Grundy peered up the grand staircase in the center of the main floor. “I could slip upon and fall down these velvet steps and break my neck,” she said. “And no one would ever know.”

“Oh, Ms. Grundy. Come now, don’t be so bleak. Would you like to see the chef’s kitchen? All the appliances are new and oh so shiny and bright…”

The first thing that Mary O’Shea did as she drove away from the old Grady place was light a cigarette. She cracked the driver’s side window and exhaled. The wind sucked the smoke away. “Crazy old bitch,” she said aloud to herself. “I hope she does fall down those stairs and break her neck. But then again, I’m sure she won’t even make an offer.” She shook her head at herself for talking to herself. She reached for the power button on the in-dash stereo and pushed it. An old Led Zeppelin song filled the car — Black Dog. Mary O’Shea suddenly wanted to have sex with someone. Anyone. She raced back to town and a place called The Village Fig. She parked her car a block away and walked. When she pushed the pub door open and allowed the light of day in, it was as if she had startled a coven of sleeping warlocks. Heads turned. Eyes squinted. Someone said in a surprisingly polite voice, “Hi there.”

The animals inside sniffed the air as she walked toward the bar. The bartender stepped out of the shadows and stood like a well-dressed mummy. His name was Lloyd and he looked dead, but he wasn’t dead. “What can I do you for, Mary?” he asked. His grin foretold of bad times perhaps.

She looked to her left. She looked to her right. She turned in a full circle and swept the entire scope of the pub with her Irish eyes. There were men everywhere and every one of them was looking back at her. She felt a pulsation between her legs.

Mary O’Shea turned back to Lloyd and smiled. “A whiskey on the rocks,” she said. She climbed into a barstool, retrieved her cigarettes, and lit one up. She exhaled her second puff directly above Lloyd’s strange head as he set the shot glass down in front of her and poured from a green bottle. Mary O’Shea snatched it up and tossed it back. She slammed the glass down and said, “Hit me again.” Lloyd did as he was told, and she threw that shot back as well. “Again,” she said. Same, and the same. “Again… Again… Hey, Lloyd,” she leaned in and whispered but spoke loud enough for anyone near to hear. “Can you recommend a good man? I mean, one who’s in here right now? I’m aching for a breaking.”

TO BE CONTINUED

By
Aaron Echoes August
A Proper Breakfast Though Alienated

Photo by MikeGz on Pexels.com

I woke up with a Kodak moment in my guts. The sun was shining bright, harsh, with a gauze on a wound sparkle that I had not experienced in what seemed like centuries. Yes, I am alive again in a modern age, but I come to this place from such a long time ago. I know it makes no sense, but I believe it has something to do with reincarnation or resurrection after a long metabolic pause. Something akin to those little creatures the Russians sent to space to test their toughness against solar radiation and the chill of the star soup — the tardigrades.

But I am not a water bear or a moss piglet — I’m some kind of an altered human being sitting on a red vinyl stool pad connected to a silver pole in a diner that itself is silver and red and all the waitresses are made to wear pink uniforms and heavy lipstick in order to replicate some slice of time when they actually did do those things on Earth.

I looked down and there was coffee in a white cup on the counter. I reached a trembling hand to grasp it and lift it to my waiting mouth. I could smell bacon and wet eggs cooking. I could hear the clink and clank of dishes, the liquid voices of cooks and busboys scrambling about upon the Astro vinyl and stainless steel of the universe. I looked up at a clock on the wall and the numbers were all out of order. The 9 was where the 12 was supposed to be, the 3 was where the 7 was supposed to be… and so on and so on all messed up like that.

I wondered if I was perhaps invisible or maybe in a dream. I raised a hand to get the attention of a raven-haired waitress with a Garden of Evil apple mouth and eyes that glowed orange like ripe fire. “What’s it going to be then, heh? What’s your pleasure, Johnny Oh?” she said when she noticed me.

I wasn’t invisible after all. “A proper breakfast served in an improper way,” I said, and then for some reason I laughed like I was out-of-control high on grass. I brushed something away from my silver suit.

She looked at me like I was the strangest man on Earth which I probably was. She leaned in and shook her chest at me. “You mean like this… With my tits up in your face?” She withdrew and scowled, then suddenly smiled when a menacing busser the size of an ancient Malta giant brushed by her from behind and palmed her backside. “Ooooh,” she squealed. “Knock it off, Rapture Jones. I’ll report you to the boss for ass grabbing.”

I reached into my pack and pulled out a book with a shabby cover. I put on some Welsh readers and began to flip through the pages as if I was in a library instead of a silver and red diner in the downtown sector of Pandemonium Linear North. It’s a place like on the far outskirts of London but in perhaps a false reality; it was a different planet or maybe even a dream, someone else’s dream. Jennifer’s dream? It was hard to keep track of anymore these days. My life recently has resembled fizzing chemistry and often bright colored clouds of magic and it almost seems like yesterday that I was riding my horse through the dismembered town of Van Norton that lies on the shores of the great Sahara Sea. I suddenly felt sand in my teeth, and I took a big gulp of the coffee from the white cup. I felt the grit slide through the valleys of my soul.

The waitress slid a large, white, oval plate in front of me. The food looked wonderful. I set the book aside. She took interest. “What are studying, Johnny Oh?”

I removed the Welsh readers and looked up at her. “It’s a book about the most beautiful woman in the world. Her name is Jennifer, and she spends most of her life sleeping in a big bed high up in a castle that sits on a lonely hill overlooking an ocean. Some people think she’s actually a cat because she sleeps so much. But she’s not a cat. She’s a woman. A very beautiful woman.”

The waitress made a contorted face, and she wiped her hands on a white apron tied about her waist. “Doesn’t seem very exciting… I mean, reading a story about a woman who just sleeps. Don’t you have better things to do?”

I cut up some of the sausages and ruptured egg yolks with the pieces and then ate. She studied me as I worked my mouth and then swallowed. “It’s much deeper than that. It goes into her crazy dreams and her longing for real love. She has a very complicated mind.”

“But how does everyone know she is the most beautiful woman in the world if all she does is sleep and never go out?”

I took another bite of sausage dipped in warm yellow yoke. I wiped at my mouth with a paper napkin. I took a careful sip of the coffee. “It has something to do with blind faith,” I said to her in due time. I scooped up some beans. I gnawed on some mushrooms. I began to cut into a peppered tomato slice. “Wait a minute… I hate tomatoes. Why am I about to eat a tomato?”

The waitress scoffed at me. She shook her head. “You’re so weird, Johnny Oh. I might need to pass you off to someone else. I don’t think I can take you much longer.” She laughed in a teasing way. She scrunched her nose like something smelled bad but good as well and then she walked off.

I sat on a bench near a fountain in a park across the street from the red and silver diner that I mistakenly hadn’t told you had the name of The Oasis. The sun was bright, warm, brilliant, dazzling, nearly blinding. The growing heat of the day was beginning to make me fidget. Soft traffic ran along the street between the park and the diner. Tall, thin trees, like green hypodermic needles, lined the street on both sides. The street had the name of The Capshaw Veranda. Some quibbling birds gathered at my feet in anticipation of crumbs. “I’m sorry,” I said to them. “The only seeds I have seem to be locked away tight in my soul… Too far down for me to reach and toss out among your kind.”

A woman sitting with a young girl on the lip of the fountain’s circular stone wall leaned in and said to her: “That man must be crazy. He’s talking to himself, my dear. Don’t look over at him or he might get the wrong idea and follow us home. We don’t want that, now do we.”

I could hear her speaking perfectly. It was as if she were whispering the words in my very own ear, where the ocean roared. Then the young girl moved her mouth and said, “No, mama,” but then disobeyed her mother or aunt or legal guardian or whoever she was anyway. She glanced at me and halfheartedly smiled. The woman tugged on her arm. “What did I say!?” Then she slapped the girl’s face. The crack of the impact startled the birds at my feet to flight. The girl began to cry. A circus motorcade crawled along the street. People cheered. The girl asked if they could just leave the park and get a red balloon or maybe an ice cream. The woman stood and then reached down and yanked the girl to her feet. “Red balloons are a tool of the devil! Why can’t you ask for a golden balloon, girl. Golden balloons are the champagne blood flow of our universal god.”

The girl looked up at her. She rubbed the tears away from her face with a small fist. “The one that comes in the bright light in the sky at night… Oh, heavenly night?”

The woman went to her knees to be on an equal level with the girl. Her heart was suddenly heavy for being angry with her. “I’m sorry.” She kissed her forehead. “You’ve been seeing the ships again?” the woman asked.

“Yes, mama.” The girl turned and pointed right at me as I sat in wondering stillness there on the bench. “That’s when I saw him last time. He came out of the light. He’s following us after all.”

END

By
Aaron Echoes August
Independent writer and photographer.
The Gravy Canoe of Wild Wyoming – 8

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Steel’s hatred for his boss Jarrod Creep grew by the millisecond as they sat at a table at Dong’s Thai Palace in downtown Berlin, Wyoming. They stared at each other from within the cloud of a menacing chill. The air that surrounded them was incredibly uncomfortable. The silence was like autumnal mud—heavy, thick, dirty, sloppy, brown, cold—and finally broken by the annoying sound of Jarrod Creep spilling and speaking another glob of nonsensical bullshit.

“I wanted us to meet here today because I thought it might be a better arena for us to speak to each other more openly. More casual. Without the constraints of an office.” He tossed a hand in the air. “Don’t think of me as your boss right now, just consider me a friend, a guide really, in getting you back on the path to success.”

A waiter brought them each a Thai iced tea the color of an arroyo discharge after a heavy western summer rain. The ice cubes slowly turned. Steel took a long sip. “I love this stuff,” he said.

“Right… But look at me when I am talking to you, Steel.”

“Okay.”

“I’m really putting my neck out for you here and sometimes I wonder why I even do it. I mean, you’re a bad person. I can’t say I like you in the slightest, but being that I’m a good person, I feel that as your mentor and the captain of the ship, so to speak, I should at least give you the opportunity to prove yourself. Doesn’t that seem extremely fair and generous of me?”

Steel’s emotions took a serious blow. “You think I’m a bad person?”

“Generally speaking. Yes. A lot of people do. In the office, around town…”

“Around town?”

“Yes. Word spreads. Word gets to me. People say you give off bad vibes, that you’re unprofessional and have a salty attitude about life.”

“Bad vibes? Unprofessional? Salty? I find all that hard to believe, Mr. Creep.”

Jarrod removed his glasses and cleaned them with a napkin. His tiny eyes of inherent evil squinted, and it made him look like a burrowing mole in a delicious garden. He replaced the spectacles on his face and looked at Steel with a full load of seriousness. “Believe it. My sources are credible. Honest people live in this town.”

“Well, if we’re going to be open and honest here,” Steel began. “I would have to disagree with you on all counts. I feel I’m a good person and this talk of me giving off bad vibes in public and all that other garbage… It’s all just so inaccurate. In my opinion, people in Berlin, Wyoming don’t take kindly to outsiders… Regardless of if you’re a monk or a rapist. Newcomers just don’t have a chance.”

The waiter approached the table, looked down at them, and cautiously smiled. “Are you ready to order?”

“Get whatever you want, Steel,” Jarrod told him. “The newspaper is paying for this lunch.”

“Then I’ll have the most expensive thing on the menu… Dong’s Crispy Duck.” Steel smiled like a grimy Old West cowboy who had just won the poker pot at a rowdy saloon.

Jarrod acted like he was hot shit to the waiter. “And I’ll have the Tom Yum Soup with shrimp. Make sure it’s hot and fresh. Last time I was here it was a tad bit tepid. Thanks.” He turned to glare at Steel. “The Crispy Duck? Are you even going to eat all that? It seems a bit excessive to me. Have you ever heard of manners or etiquette?”

“You said I could have whatever I want. I can take the rest home if I don’t eat it all… Geez Mr. Creep, don’t have a panic attack. I thought we were here to have a productive conversation and it’s just turned into a relentless attack on me.”

Jarrod laughed, humorously at first but then ending it in a serious and judgmental way. “Look at us. We sound like an old married couple.”

Steel made a face. “Gross.”

“But seriously… If you feel so mistreated here, why not just quit?”

“You’d love that wouldn’t you?” Steel said. “I feel like that’s what you want me to do. You want to take joy in defeating me, in crushing my soul.”

Jarrod Creep sighed and leaned back in his chair. “It’s not, Steel. I’m not trying to crush you. I’m trying to groom you, like a horse. Right now, you are this awkward, dusty pony and I want to turn you into a shining stallion. I just wish you would see me as someone who wants to help you, not hurt you.”

Steel chuckled sarcastically at that sentiment. “Yeah. Right. And I can’t just quit. I need the money. There’s a woman who’s got the screws on me for a kid.”

“You need to keep that thing on a leash.” Jarrod now leaned forward and in almost a whisper said, “Look. We’ve got a bit of a problem.”

Steel eyed him suspiciously. “What’s that?”

Mr. Creep looked around before speaking. “Carrie Gould came to me. She told me that you assaulted her with some trick gum, and then said some pretty nasty things to her. She was very upset. So upset that she’s threatened to sue the newspaper for sexual harassment and emotional distress.”

“Oh please. That whale is a drama queen.”

“Perhaps, but this whole thing could really blow up. It could be very bad for the newspaper, the company, the town… And especially me.”

Steel looked at him halfheartedly. “So. What do you want me to do about it?”

The food arrived and filled the table. Mr. Creep unfurled a napkin and tucked it into his shirt collar before dipping a spoon into his soup and slurping it into his puppet-like mouth. “Oh yeah… That’s good. This makes me excited.”

Steel cut into the duck and lifted a hunk to his mouth with his fork. He put it in and immediately made a face of disgust. “Oh, God. That’s awful.”

Mr. Creep was worried and wanted to know. “What do you mean it’s awful?”

“I mean it tastes awful.” Steel pushed his plate away. “I’m not eating that.”

“It cost 24 dollars! You can’t just not eat it,” Mr. Creep protested. “Do you think money grows on trees?”

“Well, it is made from paper. And if you’re so upset about it, just take it with you. I don’t care… And what’s this stuff about Carrie Gould?”

“She’s agreed to not sue and not press charges… If you go out with her on a date.”

“What!? A date!? Are you kidding me. Gross!”

“Come on, Steel. A lot of shit is on the line here. It wouldn’t be that bad.”

“Ugh. Forget it. I’d rather go work at Taco John’s.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” Jarrod berated. “And it’s just one lousy date. Her body may be grossly distorted, but she’s got a decent face.”

“She stinks,” Steel complained.

Jarrod nauseously grinned. “Maybe you can give her a bath. I bet she’d really like that.”

“Oh, please. Do you want me to barf right here at the table?”

Mr. Creep eyed Steel for a moment and then smiled. “Wait a minute… I think this whole acting like you’re grossed out thing is just that… An act.”

“What?”

“I think deep down and in a creepy secret way, you really like her. I bet you fantasize about her all the time, don’t you.”

Steel was flustered. “No.”

“It’s okay, Steel. We all have sick, twisted thoughts at times. And here I am giving you the opportunity to live out your lurid fantasy… And keep your job. Seems like a decent offer to me.”

Just then, Steel glanced toward the window of the restaurant because it seemed some large object had crossed in front of the sun. He only saw her for a moment… It had been Carrie Gould looking in on them. Why did he want her the way he did? What was wrong with him? “Okay. I’ll do it.”

TO BE CONTINUED

By
Aaron Echoes August
Immigrant Wonder Woman and the Broken Man

Immigrant Wonder Woman worked the jewelry counter at Walmart because she had lost her touch with taming galactic evil. The Russian space robots had gotten to her, and the damage to her soul was irreparable. But this new job… This was salt in the wound.

An old man dressed in all black wept at the counter because his wife was terminally ill, and he wanted to get her something nice before she rolled over to the other side. He trembled as he spoke. “A pendant with our picture.” That’s what he told her. That’s what he wanted. He wiped at his nose with a white handkerchief. He sniffled. He coughed.

Immigrant Wonder Woman leaned in and whispered to him. “If you really love her…” And she looked from side to side. “Go somewhere else.”

He cupped a hand against his ear. “Huh? What’s that you say?”

She leaned in even closer, and the old man could feel her warm breath on his face. “This is all junk. If you want to give her something nice, go somewhere else.”

“Somewhere else?”

“Yes, sir.”

The old man wiped at his tearing eyes with his knuckles. “Everyone I love lives somewhere else. Did you know that?”

“No. I didn’t. I’m so sorry. Doesn’t anyone ever come to visit you?”

“No,” the old man grunted with distaste. “They have no use for me anymore.”

“They don’t even want to come visit with their sick momma?”

He blew his nose into his handkerchief, and it sounded like a funny trombone. “My wife? She’s not their momma. That woman is in the looney bin in San Antonio… The one in Texas.”

“Oh wow. That all sounds pretty wild.”

“Yes, mam. And from where do you originate? Doesn’t seem from around here by the looks of you.”

She laughed and did a little dance. “I come from the wild imaginations of men.”

He leaned in like a curious llama. “Huh?”

“Hollywood, California, mister.”

“Oh. I’ve never been out west that far. Too much open sky and sin… Do you know how old I am?”

“How old?”

“Seventy-nine.” He looked at her body and wondered if she could shoot bullets from those breasts. Her nipples stood out through her Walmart uniform top like the rigid barrels of erotic pistols. He tried to shake the weirdness out of his head and asked her again about the pendant. “I have the photograph right here.” He carefully retrieved it from a yellow envelope. “You can cut it up however you like. You know, just our smiling faces. I’d like it to be silver and with an adequate chain because she tends to be reckless and break things.”

Immigrant Wonder Woman laughed then sighed. She looked at her cell phone. “You know. My shift is almost over. Why don’t you let me take you for a coffee. I know a place right by a nice jewelry store. It’s not far. I’m sure they would have exactly what you’re looking for.”

The old man looked at her face. Then he looked at all the things there in the jewelry case. He seemed confused. “You’re not going to kidnap me and do unspeakable things to me, are you?”

She thought he was being old man cute and laughed at what he said. “No. Of course not. I’m a good person. You can totally trust me.”

The old man sipped at his expensive coffee as would a child with an overly full glass of Ovaltine. He sat bent and innocent. His gray eyes were reddened and puffy from too much weeping and lack of good sleep. Immigrant Wonder Woman bit into a cheese Danish and chased it with an iced caramel concoction. “How long have you and your wife been married?” she asked.

He wiped at his mouth with his sleeve. “Twenty-four years… May I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Were you once a man?”

Immigrant Wonder Woman nearly choked on her iced caramel concoction. She quickly corrected his suggestion. “No. A man? Why would you think I was once a man?”

The old man’s head wobbled as he studied as much of her as he could, even bending to look at the other half of her below the edge of the table. “You’re muscular. Men are muscular. Women have wrinkled fingertips. Yours seem fine.”

“Oh boy,” she sighed. “Now, I know you grew up in a different time and with different ways of thinking. But let me just right your wayward ship… You know, I never got your name.”

The old man sipped on his coffee without looking at her. “Eugene. My name is Eugene Folklore.”

“Okay, Eugene Folklore. This is 2023 and don’t you know women can do anything men can do. And they usually do it better. Women can do anything they want. I have muscles because I go to the gym and work out. I have muscles because I’m a strong, independent woman who’s dedicated to my physical health. And why in the world would I have wrinkled fingertips?”

“Like prunes,” Eugene chuckled. “All that washing of the dishes and the bathing of the babies in the bathwater. But when it comes to the Baptismal font mind you, well, that’s when a man takes over. Washing away sins is the work of men. It’s the work of men because the sin showed up and invaded the world because of the women. Don’t you know anything?”

“Are you feeling all right, Eugene?”

“Sure I am. Why?”

“Because you’re not making any sense at all. Don’t you know a real man cherishes the contributions of a woman. A real man leans on her when he’s weak because he knows she’s strong when he can’t be. And just to be clear, it’s going to be women that clean up all these messes of these damn foolish men… If you’d all just get out of our way and get your shoes off our necks!”

Eugene physically retreated within himself. “You’re angry with me.”

She beamed at him for a moment. She sighed. His frailty nearly broke her heart. “No, I’m not.”

He looked up at her and blinked his run-down eyes. “Will you be my daughter? Just until I die?”

She didn’t know what to say at first, but then it was easy. “Yes, Eugene. I’ll be your daughter.”

He breathed a sigh of relief and smiled. Then his cell phone rang, and he moved a trembling hand to reach for it and put it to his ear. “Hello… Yes… All right then… I’ll be there as soon as I can… Thank you for calling.” The phone fell from his hand and heavily bounced against the table. He began to shake and gasp for air. Immigrant Wonder Woman jumped up and went to put a hand on his bent back. He leaned into her and began to cry just as she said he would.

END

By
Aaron Echoes August