The Detectives

(SCENE: Three detectives walk into the basement, where the girl is laying dead in the oversized bear trap. She's fat, but wearing one of those shirts designed so you look like you have a hot body. Semen (Light mayonnaise) is everywhere--on the cupboard, the bear trap, and even in the big pot of chili (big pot of imitation chili)--Gross!)

Detective one: The bear trap killer.

Detective two: That’s the third one this month.

Detective three (beating his chest in incredulity): When will people learn that if there’s a dollar in an oversized bear trap, they can’t just go all willy-nilly and pick it up?! (Sighing) The toughest part of a job--(pauses, looks thoughtfully at the bear trap)--is detecting things.

Detective two (Rubbing detective three’s back sensuously): I hear you buddy. The detecting. And the semen.

Detective one: Do you think if we just quit, anyone would notice?



(SCENE: The detectives are now sitting around a table at a diner, silently eating sandwiches. This goes on for several minutes.)

Detective two: Good sandwich.

Detective three: Yep.

Detective one: Mine has pesto!

Detective three: Eating sandwiches is much more fun than being a detective.

Detective two: You can say that again.

Detective three: Eating sandwiches is much more fun than being a detective.

(The detectives erupt in laughter. Milk shoots out of detective two’s nose, causing more laughter.)

Detective two: I say we quit the detecting racket forever--just eat sandwiches all day, every day, right here at this table. The Sandwich Club!

Detective one: Yeah, fuck detecting. Fuck it in the ear.

Detective three (beating his chest in excitement): Sandwiches!

(Outside the diner, a patron notices a dollar in an oversized bear trap. When he bends down to pick it up, it snaps shut, killing him. The detectives don’t seem to notice. Pan to guy in bear trap, bleeding to death.)

Shorty

    I saw shorty from a distance, I in the VIP section of the club, popping bottles with the clique, she moving sinuously on the dance floor. The movement of her body struck me not as that of a human being, but of some unwieldy force of nature--of a cyclone, perhaps.
    Oh, and her booty. Her booty in them jeans, it jiggled temptingly, in a way that, years later, I would liken to jelly. She was no ordinary chickenhead, this one--no, she got it from her Momma, endowed with ample laffy taffy--which, in those days, was what we called the parts that kept jiggling once she, herself, had stopped moving. “Shake that laffy taffy,” we’d cry, in those golden years just after the war. “Shake that laffy taffy.”
    I approached her, and assured her that I was enormously wealthy, pulling a wad of hundred dollar bills--what we called a knot, or a bankroll, in those years--out of my pocket and, in a show of detachment and apathy, threw it in the air.
    “I know you paid,” she whispered.
    “What you wanna do?” I asked.
    Only an hour later, we were back at the crib--what we would call a house, or dwelling then--engaged in a game of erotic truth or dare. Though I could see in her eyes, and the detached way she fellated me, that this was not love, I didn’t mind--because, as I well knew before taking her home in my Benz, even before seeing her gelatinous posterior moving this way and that, contained only by those Apple Bottom jeans, in the club-- that she, shorty, curvaceous and good-smelling as she was, was nothing more than a bitch. It ain’t tricking if you got it, and it ain’t misogyny if it’s popular enough.
    When she finished, I gave her a few hundred for a shopping trip, turned over and fell asleep.
    I often wonder about shorty, now. How did she get home that night? What was her name?

The Gunfighter

    The gunfighter strode into the street, an ominous hush settling over the gathering townspeople in the square, a quadrangle closed off to the prairie by brothels, cathouses, saloons, and of course, the chapel.
    “Townspeople,” the gunfighter exclaimed, “You have gathered here to watch either me, or that guy over there get shot to death in order to resolve a dispute. But I’m afraid that will not be happening today as planned. You see, I just came from Dr. Radner’s, and he diagnosed me with a terrible fever.”
    “No I didn’t,” a voice rose over the bristling crowd. It was Dr. Radner. “No, I have never seen you before in my life.”
    “Well, you see my appearance has been altered a good deal since I saw you. Remember, the guy with the mustache. The big, bushy mustache.”
    “So you shaved your mustache before coming to the gunfight.”
    “Yes.”
    “All the same, I haven’t diagnosed a fever today.”
    The gunfighter scratched his head.
    “Six patients, six cases of syphilis,” Dr. Radner said.
    “Oh yes!” the gunfighter exclaimed. “Syphilis, it was syphilis.”
    The doctor shrugged and took his place back in the crowd, which was bristling more intensely now for fear that there may not be any bloodshed. “Hey,” another voice yelled, “That’s no excuse! Ringo’s got syphilis too!”
    “It’s true,” the other guy said, scratching at his crotch.
    “Yes, but, uh, I have this disorder, too.”
    “What kind of disorder?!” demanded the gunfight fan.
    “Well, you see, my trigger finger sometimes falls off.”
    The townspeople were confused.
    The gunfighter stood forward and bent his index finger back. He then bent the thumb of his left hand at the knuckle, placed it where the rest of his right index finger might be, and glided it back and forth, drawing gasps from the crowd. “So you see, I can’t be expected to fight here today, or anytime. Ever.”
    The crowd booed, and demanded that the fight go on anyway.
    “Look over there!” the brave gunfighter yelled, and ran away to safety.
    But the luck of a gunfighter never remains for long, and the next week, when he died of some combination of syphilis and being shot 14 times, we all wondered, “How does someone’s finger just come off like that?”

What's Important To Me

 I think it’s important to be honest with people. That’s why, when Carol served me that gross chicken salad sandwich last week, I told her that her cooking makes me want to puke, and suggested that her chicken salad tasted like “mayonnaise-covered dog turds.”
    I think it’s important to communicate with your partner, and that is why I said all that stuff through a megaphone.
    I think children are our future, but we shouldn’t tell them that, because then they’ll get all cocky.
    Speaking of children, I think they’re already a bit self-satisfied, and I think it’s important that we all join together as a society, and put them in check.
    I think it’s important to examine oneself, ask oneself the tough questions, like, “Am I getting a little fat?” and, if yes, I think it’s important for society to mock that person, so as to motivate them to be the best they can be.
    I think it’s important to be quiet in movie theaters, unless you get scared and scream and throw up on the person in front of you. And if you’re sitting in a movie theater and someone behind you throws up all over you, I think it’s important that you forgive that person, and not make such a big fuss over it. He said sorry.
    If you decide you want to murder someone, I think it’s important to go through the proper channels, and get a permit, so you don’t get into any trouble.
    I think it’s important to have a plan in case of a home fire. My plan is to cry and cower in my bed until the firemen arrive.
    I think it’s important to live, but not so much to laugh, or love.
    Most of all, I think it’s important to agree with what I think is important--because if not, it will become important to me that your front door is covered in eggs.

Not The Best Tuesday

    I watched as Delvin threaded the needle, noticed the point. It looked sharp. This is going to hurt, I thought. Maybe I don’t really need those wings, I thought. Maybe I could just fly on airplanes like most people do. Delvin thought otherwise.
    “It’ll be great,” he said. “Flying. Nothing impresses the ladies like a man who can fly.”
    If I told you I wasn’t having synthetic wings sewn onto my back to be a more attractive mate to the opposite sex, I’d be lying. And Delvin knew that. Delvin had had no such problem. He did have a unicorn-like horn protruding from his forehead, which I assumed had a great deal to do with the women always flocking around his cage. Still, he believed that wings were the answer for me, and he was more than willing to help in the creation, and now, attachment of the planks of wood, on which we glued all those feathers, on which we'd attached silk, for luxury and comfort.
    Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. And so forth until, my back covered in blood, Delvin stood. “We’re all done.”
    “How do they look?”
    “They look great. Let’s test them out.”
    We walked up the stairs to the roof of the old glove factory. “This is gonna be awesome,” Delvin said.
    I stepped to the edge and looked down. Then I leaped, the possibilities of my new life with wings dancing through my mind. I’d rob banks with impunity. I’d be the best wide receiver the NFL has ever seen, despite my whiteness. I’d be surrounded by women, all of them gifted in the jugs and butt and face areas. “Yabba dabba doo,” I said in my best Fred Flintstone voice.
    Then I heard Delvin laugh in a sinister tone. At first I thought he was laughing at my Fred Flintstone--but, no, not that laugh. That laugh would have gone “Hee hee.” This laugh went, “Muhahaha.”
    Then I remembered how mean I was to Delvin all the time. And, just as the pavement approached my face, I felt an unfamiliar feeling, which I’d later find out was something called regret; for mistaking his visiting mother for an intruder and cursing at her, and punching her with a roll of quarters. For calling him “Hornface” all the time when he regularly, tearfully begged for me to call him by his given name. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. I didn’t know his name. Delvin is just something I made up, for the sake of my story.
    I regretted impregnating his sister, then selling the baby to some guy I met at a Blink 182 concert. Most of all, I regretted that he had tricked me, that I was rapidly plummeting to my death. “Stop, drop, and roll,” I thought. In case of falling (or willfully jumping) off a building, you’re supposed to stop drop and roll. I think I read that somewhere. But then the pavement hit.
    I woke up to a river filled with damned souls. A three-headed dog was growling at me. A guy named Charon told me the dog's name was Cerberus. I petted Cerberus, and he bit me with each of his three mouths. Then Charon asked for some coins. The coins!
    No, I didn’t have any coins. So now, I’m just hanging out by this river of wailing corpses.
    Not the best Tuesday.

Sorry

    Judge Connors, members of the jury, law guys, witnesses and victims. I stand before you today an humbled, apologetic, but mostly a convicted man. Stealing that bulldozer was a mistake, and I’d like to apologize to the construction workers, the foreman, the architect and anyone else who may have been affected by my actions. I’m sorry.
    I realize now too, that, when I drove that bulldozer onto a busy city street, causing a 16-car pileup--most of which was part of a funeral procession--I was behaving irresponsibly. I’d like to apologize to the hearse driver, the Harrison family and most of all, the deceased Saul Harrison, for, as the widow so accurately described, “ruining the funeral completely.” Additionally, I’d like to apologize to the good folks at the Scheffer Family Funeral Home for my actions, and may I just say, you were all very professional and efficient in getting Mr. Harrison back in the coffin as quickly as possible.
    I’d like to apologize also to the George Washington Carver High School football team, whose bus was stranded behind in the pileup, and who were forced, because of my actions, to forfeit their semifinal playoff game, thereby eliminating any chance they had to play for a state championship. My bad, guys, my bad.
    Further, I’d like to apologize to anyone and everyone affected by my abandoning the bulldozer in the ambulance lane of the emergency room at Sacred Heart. I realize now that I could’ve easily left the bulldozer virtually anywhere else, that, had I done that, fewer people might have bled to death, as confused and frustrated paramedics wondered, “Hey, where’d that bulldozer come from?”
    I’m really, really sorry for that.
    I’d like to give a particularly sincere apology to those in attendance of Jeremy Holland’s Halloween party. When I burst in, without a costume, you were completely justified in politely asking me to leave--and now, I wish I would have. I apologize to all guests for my language, my obscene gesturing, and my punching several of you. Most of all, I’d like to apologize to Mr. Holland himself. Mr. Holland, I’m sorry for kicking your dog and grabbing your wife’s boobs, as well as for the accompanying “Honk honk” noise I made. I hope you’ll accept my apology.
    But most of all, I’d like to apologize to the people of Somalia. When I ran into who I believed was a friendly black fellow with a funny accent, but turned out to be a brutal Somali warlord, I was pretty drunk, from the beers I stole from Mr. Holland’s house, before trampling his flower bed and keying his car--oh, yeah, Mr. Holland, sorry for that stuff too, and the beer thing.
    Anyway, when General Abuukar Tahlil Saadaq approached me asking for $10,000--for what I believed to be an investment opportunity, but was in fact a large cache of outdated Soviet weapons--I was a sheet past three sheets and, frankly, I can’t tell you why I took out my checkbook. But I did, and I’m sorry.
    Of course, Abu--that’s what I call General Abuukar--Abu used my $10,000 to supply his militia of fundamentalist guerillas with weapons. Now, hundreds are dead, thousands have been displaced and martial law has been declared in Mogadishu. For this, I am sorry. If anyone in the court today speaks Somali, please pass that on to those guys.
    As sentencing approaches, I throw myself on the mercy of the court. And though I cannot defend my stealing a bulldozer, causing a multiple car pileup, ruining a funeral, robbing some high school kids of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, blocking the entrance of a busy emergency room, ruining a Halloween party, or helping to fund a ruthless Somali militia, when deciding my fate, just know this: I’m really, really sorry.

Few Remember My Stint On Family Matters

The Future

I like to think about the future.

The occasional whirring of flying cars the only sound outside of my space house, my space wife, 46 years my junior, fixing me the futuristic equivalent of chicken spaghetti casserole. Our 17 children, all boys, are outside floating around, playing the futuristic equivalent of baseball. All of them will go onto to the Major Leagues, because my space wife is Dominican and those guys are still really good at baseball. I’m 89-years-old, but due to advances in medicine and the healing powers of whiskey, which they discovered in 2041, I’m still in great health. I’m virile, svelte and spry as a cheetah, which is what we call cheetahs in the future. And what’s this? My Dominican space wife is pregnant again!

We’re pretty busy what with the sex and the casseroles and the passersby who recognize me immediately for something great I did. I’m not sure what yet because, you know, it’s the future. “There he goes!” they say, doffing their caps.
    My Dominican wife finishes the casserole and calls me to dinner. She starts to call the kids too, but I scowl at her and shake my head no, because they’re getting on in years and they need the practice if they’re going to make the majors. “It’s a little dry,” I say after a bite, and she hangs her head.
    “Just kidding,” I say, and we have a hearty chuckle. Then I say, “But seriously, order some pizza.”
    The pizza smells delicious, and I dive in. “Mmm,” I say, “What’s this meaty type stuff on here?”
    “Grilled puppy, of course,” she says in her cute accent.
    “Blech,” I say, spitting the chewed up pizza onto the floor, frantically wiping my tongue with my space napkin.
    “But honey,” my hot, rich Dominican wife says, as she cleans the chewed up pizza from the floor. “Puppy is an acceptable pizza topping in the future.”
    “Of course,” I say, and laugh. But I wonder for a moment if life wasn’t better in the past, before I could describe the taste of a puppy*. I’m scratching my awesome, silvery future-beard in thought when the civil defense sirens begin to wail. “Heavens to Murgatroid,” I say, because that’s what we say in the future, and run to the bedroom to grab the ray gun.
    I fight valiantly but the robots win the war. They take me prisoner, and force me to mine for sand, which is a treasured commodity on their planet. Occasionally, I spit at them, and say, “Get your goddamned metal hands off of me.”
    Only later will I figure out that they speak English after all, and that explains all those beatings. I have several torrid love affairs with exotic ladies and a few of the sexier robots, but I never see my hot, rich Dominican space wife again, and I wish someone would have told me how hot robot genitals can get during coitus. Working in the sand mines, we’re forced to subsist on a diet of seagull beaks and robot water, which is just like  regular water, only it’s vodka.
    So I guess that part’s not so bad.

    Anyway, I don’t like to think about the future.

    *It’s like chicken, only more soul-scarring.