If there were no clowns, then the children’s tears would fill up all the oceans and all the fish would drown. If all the fish drown, then there would be no rainbows, no place to water-ski or fall in love. If there were no place to fall in love, then the Universe would just keep expanding until it filled up the whole world with darkness. And if the world were filled up with darkness, then there would be no clowns.
Unless one child lit a candle for all the clowns in the Universe to come home—come home with rainbows and water-related recreation equipment in their arms—then love would fill the world once more. And fish could breathe.
I am crazy like chicken. Chicken with rabies and laser beam. Playing guitar loud—one chord, no chorus. I am sound of one hand clapping. Hand-clapping chicken with rabies. Theatre people talk loud in restaurants. Scraping metal car wreck loud. Flaying skin off live weasel loud. But I louder. The sound of death. With rabies.
I told him his thrift store furniture was too dirty for me to sit on. He wanted to wash my feet—I told him he was stark raving mad. While I was at it, I told him he could have at least put on a shirt for our first date. He said rats had eaten them all; I scoffed. He then wrote me a poem—only it didn’t rhyme. He said it was “modern.” I told him I was an old-fashioned girl.
He offered to write me a check. I laughed bitterly again and told him that a man had once killed another man for me. Shot him dead right out on the street. Not far from here. I also informed him that any man who wanted to impress me would have to get up early in the morning. He asked, “How early?” I said, “If you have too ask, sweetie, then you’ve overslept.” He went and found a shirt—it was covered with blood.
I said, “That’s a start…”
My friends call me Grimy Shoulders because my shoulders are always covered in grime. Don’t know what it is. Grease, maybe. Dirt from under a house. Don’t know. I would like to get a better nickname. Ran Grimy Shoulders by a couple of attractive women. Don’t think they were impressed. Too many syllables, for one thing. A man’s nickname says a lot about who he is. Got to think about that going forward. I’m thirty-five, now. Grimy Shoulders has become a liability.
Second grade sucked—I don’t mind telling you that. The teacher told me not to let the door hit my ass on the way out. I told her I’d had more memorable bowel movements than her useless class. What a joke! Ten more years of this crap! Ten more years!
I am Zoloft, whose lumpy gravy arms make you tremble! Bring me your leader so I may call him a she-woman in front of you and thrash him with my arms of lumpy gravy! Bring him so he may bow down and worship me! Not in love—but in fear! Let him see my gravy-like arms of lumps and worship!
The fish. It needed repairs. Maybe a week. Ten days, tops. Our butts were against it. Jimmy was freaking out about the hairpiece. “Fish don’t have hair,” I said. (Wasted half a day running down an encyclopedia to fact check that, but I was right.) Then the waiting game started, and at sundown we moved out. Took just the one flashlight. Sweating bullets the whole time. There were still many miles to go before we could sleep. I told them all, “If we pull this off, it means global domination. Nothing less.”
You could have heard a pin drop in the room.
I was tired of seeing it. Sex glands hanging out all over the place. Couldn’t turn around and spit without hitting a sex gland. I told one, right to her face, “Tuck back in what God gave you before I do it for you!” I said, “In my day, honey, we used to do a sex gland checklist before we left the house!”
I drew a picture of you. One where I made it look like you slept funny on your hair. The expression I put on your face would lead one to believe you were constipated. It is a difficult picture to look at: challenging. After a while, it began to frighten me. I showed it to several people and they felt the same way. They urged me to lock it away so no children would accidentally stumble over it. I did them one better. I put it in a box and buried it in quicklime and cement.
The rest, of course, is up to God.
Tell the attractive pharmacy people—the ones in the crisp white lab coats, the ones at the counter near the jelled insole display and the wart removal creams not recommended for genital or facial warts—tell them to bring the drugs to me. Tell them I shall be waiting on the side of the parking lot that has been freshly blacktopped and lined with bright yellow paint. This is where the drugs may be brought.
It was my idea: A spicy chicken sandwich with crispy bacon, ranch dressing, and Monterey jack cheese. Pure genius. It was all in my head. Locked away with my virginity. Then the suits came to steal it. They snuck into my apartment with a series of devilishly fashioned clothes hangers, speaking in a tongue unknown to me and my people. They liquored me up, said it was a backrub when it was really a Vulcan mind probe. You can guess the rest.
Why must you question me when I say I don’t believe robots can be good judges at beauty contests? Or that yodeling can’t be heard in the vacuum of space? Why must we always have these stupid arguments? Why...?
I should tell you that I bought a gun. It’s not a threat—I’m just telling you. I’m not a good shot, but with this gun, you don’t have to be. That’s something you should think about the next time you start shooting your mouth off about how dogs have two stomachs. Cows have two stomachs, you halfwit!
The eye laser surgery didn’t go well: I sneezed. Allergies, I guess. It’s that time of year. I’m allergic to cats, especially. Love cats, but it's just that I’m allergic to them.
You have a wet spot on your pants down round your privates. It kinda looks like Argentina or Peru. No, definitely Peru. Did you know I had forty-seven wisdom teeth surgically removed from my mouth? My sinuses now permanently drain into my throat. Ain’t that a hoot?