As soon as that first sentence hit the page, I felt a wave of inspiration unlike anything I had ever experienced. All the self doubt and pathological need for procrastination seemed to just fade away, if only for the time being. I might have considered this a miracle if I were a person of faith. Alas, I'd given spiritual matters a great deal of thought over the years and have come to the conclusion that if a god exists, he or she is no more than an absentee landlord who beats off to human misery.
Whatever the cause, I was not about to let this moment pass. I focused my mental energy on putting words on paper. Meanwhile, people came into the bar. People left. Songs were played on the jukebox. There were whispers, shouts, jokes, and laughter. I was barely aware of any of it.
The closest I came to having my concentration broken was when I felt a woman's hand on my thigh and her voice murmur in my ear, asking what I was writing and if I wanted a shot of tequila. At least I thought it was a woman. I was so consumed by my work that I couldn't tell. It didn't matter. I was not to be disturbed. With the simple white lie "I have scabies," the hand retreated and I was left in peace.
An hour and a half passed. I dropped my pen and rubbed my tired eyes. The story was done. Except for putting a title and byline at the top of the page, I never backtracked. There were no rewrites, no second thoughts. Kerouac would have approved, except for when I turned down that drink.
Whatever spell I was under broke when I finished writing and my recent memories began to fade like the hazy morning recollections of a dream. So when I looked down at the fruit of my efforts and began to read, it was like seeing the words for the very first time:
* * *
HOT LEAD, DEAD SPED
By D. Shithammer Jennings
It was a dark and stormy night at the donut shop. Ernie, the older and fatter of the two cops, sat in a chair made for a much smaller man, his gelatinous buttocks spilling over the sides. He turned, and with chocolate-stained lips that looked like a puckered unwiped sphincter, blew kisses at Trixie, the pert young cashier behind the register who worked 12-hour shifts so she could help pay the medical expenses for her mother who had cancer and AIDS.
"You're doing it wrong, Ernie," said Bert, who was considerably younger than his partner and rail thin from a metabolism that vaporized every calorie that went down his gullet. "If you want to make a favorable impression on a lady, you have to demonstrate an interest in fulfilling her needs."
"You don't say," said Ernie, wiping his upper lip and smearing the bits of chocolate into a dirty Sanchez.
"Totally," said Bert. "I read it in Hustler."
With that, Bert slapped the palm of his hand down on the table. When Trixie turned to face him, he brought his jelly donut up just below his lower lip. His gaze met hers and his tongue descended toward the jelly hole. It started working it gently at first, almost lovingly. He then grunted and his tongue kicked into overdrive, its now rapid-fire jackhammer thrust penetrating the gooey orifice, tearing it wider, and causing a high-fructose hemorrhage to spill down over the lanky cop's bony fingers.
Trixie averted her eyes and went back to her original task of making sure that all the dollar bills in the till were facing the same direction.
"Yeah," said Bert. "That's the shit."
Just then, a voice crackled in on the walkie-talkie hanging from Ernie's belt. It reported a domestic disturbance at 821 N. Piojos Avenue and was requesting a unit to respond.
"No rest for the wicked," said Ernie, reaching for the walkie-talkie as he rocked one butt cheek up off the chair and cut the cheese. Unfortunately for the police dispatcher on the other end, Ernie had his thumb pressing the talk button when his ass tuba was sounding the call to arms.
"Unit 47 is on it," Ernie said into the speaker. There was no utterance from the dispatcher other than an utterance that sounded like "eww," or perhaps "ugh."
"Let's go, Bert," said Ernie.
"Ready to roll," said Bert, who drew upon his high-school basketball experience and lobbed a hook shot of his jelly donut toward the trash can. It was a near perfect throw and he sank the pastry in the wastebasket easily. The watercolor Trixie had painted and hung over the receptacle provided an excellent backboard, the donut bouncing neatly off the portrait of balance-beam gold medalist Shawn Johnson planting her dismount and leaving only a small red stain between the young gymnast's supple thighs.
Ernie and Bert left the donut shop and sped away in their patrol car.
Meanwhile at 821 N. Piojos Avenue, a woman with a pair of garden shears was chasing her husband around the dining-room table. After flushing her medication a few days before, she decided that her husband was having an affair with their pet parrot and that the only way to restore domestic bliss was to emasculate him. Her husband's emphatic denials only served to fuel her rage.
"Give us a kiss," said the bird.
The husband knew he had no chance of fighting off his wife, who outweighed him by at least 50 pounds and possessed a feral strength common among those who have gone berserk. Earlier on while she was busy arming herself in the garage, he had managed to lock her out of the house and dial 911 before she used her Billy Blanks Tae Bo Workout training to kick in the front door. Now as the two did laps around the table, he was confident that he would only have to stay away from her for a few more minutes until the cops arrived.
He was sadly mistaken because at that very moment, Ernie and Bert's police car was pulling up in front of the driveway at 821 S. Piojos Avenue, home of Mrs. Mongo and her son Lloyd.
Lloyd Mongo, a 25 year old man with a learning disability, was crouched on the floor inside the house with his nose about a foot away from the TV screen. He was watching his favorite show, "Spartacus: Blood and Sand." His mother had outfitted his protective retard helmet with one of those paper snowflake decorations that folds back upon itself, giving his headgear the look that it was topped with a Roman gladiator's crest. Lloyd wore that helmet with pride and wielded a wooden yardstick as a makeshift sword.
Mrs. Mongo was not at home. She had gone to the store to pick up a quart of cheap vodka. Purchasing liquor was a violation of her parole, but she had found that the dull haze of inebriation provided a little vacation from the stress of caring for someone whose heart was good but was able to nothing but need.
Lloyd's lower lip folded down almost to chin level and thick rivulets of drool streamed from the corners of his mouth, as often happened when he saw full or partial nudity on television. Alas, this moment of prurient joy was cut short when Ernie and Bert's shoulders smashed through the screen door and the two police officers propelled themselves into the living room. Ernie staggered forward, barely able to stay on his feet while Bert was steadier and immediately assumed a firing stance with his weapon pointing directly at Lloyd Mongo.
Lloyd, startled by the commotion stood up and turned to face the two policemen. He had never had a gun pointed at him so he decided to introduce himself.
"I am Tardacus!" he said.
"Freeze, fucknugget!" commanded Bert.
Lloyd wanted to dance instead of freeze so he bounced up and down while waving his yardstick sword around over his head.
"See ya later, gladiator," Lloyd said, singing the words as much as speaking them.
Bert responded to these shenanigans by unloading his his service revolver into Lloyd Mongo's chest. The impact of the six bullets knocked Lloyd straight back. Marrowly missing the television, he landed on the floor with his feet crossed at the ankles and his arms outstretched at the shoulders. His heart stopped beating, his IQ dropped 57 points, and he was dead.
"Jeez," said Ernie, catching his breath and steadying himself. "I think you just shot an unarmed man."
"Yeah and I'd do it again," said Bert, illustrating his point by pulling the trigger a few more times so the hammer would click over the empty chambers.
"If we don't fix this up, it's gonna be a royal pain in the ass," said Ernie. "I've been through this before. There will be questions, internal affairs, community-oversight committees. I better go get the throwdown kit."
Ernie went outside to the trunk of the police car and returned with a black nylon sack. He opened its zipper and planted its contents on Lloyd Mongo.
"He doesn't look so innocent now. Does he, Bert?" said Ernie.
"He sure as hell doesn't," said Bert.
It was true. Lloyd might have been sprawled out in the same position as Jesus on the cross, but he looked decidedly un-Christlike with a loaded gun in one hand and a DVD full of kiddie porn in the other.
The hearing over the shooting would prove to be a mere formality, a rubber-stamp affair that ended with the suggestion that Bert be awarded with a citation of merit. The blame was to fall elsewhere.
Even though Lloyd Mongo was allegedly an armed and dangerous pedophile, records showed that his mental handicap was too severe for him to be held responsible for his actions. Culpability must therefore fall squarely on his mother. She was tried and convicted of parole violation and criminal neglect, which qualified as her second and third strike and she was sentenced to 25 years to life.
Mrs. Mongo gambled with alcohol and lost. Can you afford to make the same mistake?
And there it was, the finest piece of fiction I had ever penned. I had clearly outdone myself with this work of unparalleled savage beauty.
What separated the story from my lesser efforts, and in fact, propelled it from its opening as a charming if innocuous cop bromance toward its tragic conclusion and cautionary coda was an honest appreciation for an oft overlooked segment of humanity. In short, I owed it all to retarded people, the learning disabled, the mentally handicapped, dipshits, or whatever one chose to call them. It was their spirit and zest for living that I gave a face to in the form of Lloyd Mongo, a simple man who was denied the right to live his own simple dream.
"I love retards!" I blurted, unable to contain my gratitude.
My outburst garnered a few odd looks from a couple of other bar patrons, and approving nod from Henry Silt, and a perplexed smile from the lipstick-smeared face of Carl.
What? I could hardly believe it. I wondered how Carl, who had arguably one of the least kissable faces on the planet, ended up with a ruby-red smudge that went all the way from his mouth to behind his earlobe. That question was answered when he went back to making out with the woman sitting next to him. She was older but still attractive. In fact, she looked a whole lot like...Marlo Thomas? I'm not saying that it was her, but the resemblance was uncanny. Perhaps there was plenty of magic on this night of nights to go around.
At that point, my elation ebbed and I realized what a fool I'd been. I left Chuck E. Cheese in a huff because I didn't care for the Huey Lewis karaoke crowd. Well, that was the old me. From this point forward, I was going to cease being so petty and judgmental. I was going to march back to Chuck E. Cheese right then, order myself a slice of Hawaiian, and give a standing ovation after every Huey Lewis song.
Or rather, I would if it wasn't already too late. Bar time was ten to eleven, so it was probably actually fifteen minutes before that. There was a good chance that Chuck E. Cheese was closed. Maybe they were staying open later because of karaoke night. It was worth a try.
I put my notebook in my backpack and left the bar. It was raining harder now and had been for some time, judging from the size of the puddles in the intersection the traffic went splashing through. I hurried along at a brisk trot, almost slipping and falling on the wet sidewalk a couple of times because the soles of my shoes had worn to the point where there was almost no traction.
Chuck E. Cheese was closed when I arrived. The doors were bolted and there were no lights or signs of movement inside.
However, the Huey Lewis singers had not gone home. They stood outside in the rain, presumably waiting for their ride. The scene made me think of domestic turkeys and how they tend to drown when left outside in the rain because of their habit of staring up in the sky with their mouths hanging open. These birds are known for their low intelligence ('tard and feathered, if you will) and I hoped my friends standing across the street would not suffer a similar fate.
Let there be no mistake. These were my friends and I owed them so much. I decided to give them my thanks the best way I knew how. I burst into song, a Huey Lewis song, one I hoped they would enjoy. I am a terrible singer, utterly talentless, but I could think of no better way to express what I felt.
"The power of love is a curious thing," I sang off key. "Makes one man weep, makes another man sing..."
They were delighted and by the time I got to "Stronger and harder than a bad girl's dream," they had joined in, making up for my shortcomings as a crooner with their powerful backing vocals.
I walked across the street and by the time we finished the song, I was standing right in front of them. They clapped and laughed, and then in unison, opened their arms wide to take me into their fold. I stepped forward and let my friends envelope me. Never in my life had I felt so accepted. Arms wrapped around me, hands patted my back and pinched the softer parts of my torso. My armpits were sniffed and one person used my hair as a handkerchief to blow their nose. I felt a finger start working its way between my buttocks. I clenched at first then relaxed, welcoming it as one should any friend in need.
The power of love is a curious thing. It is a curious thing indeed.
