Part I: Viva Kentucky!
I quit smoking yesterday and gorged myself on food every time I felt like having a cigarette. I went from 170 pounds to over 700 in one day — so I decided that, instead of eating every time I craved nicotine, I’d just masturbate.
Last night, I got really drunk at Spanky’s Saloon, and when I woke up this morning, I found myself in a trashy little motel in Kentucky. There wasn’t any coffee in the motel lobby, so I rushed to the nearest “convenience” store to get some.
After drinking a few pots of coffee that tasted like tepid piss, I went to an antique store, on a whim, to see if they had any interesting trinkets — and, much to my surprise, I spied a beautiful pink vase that had a mouth shaped like a vagina . . . but when I peered into its orifice, I somehow got sucked inside and transported through time to over two thousand years ago, and Jesus tried to sell me a set of encyclopedias, and when I declined his offer, he got pissed and smashed the vase, so the antique store owner made me pay for it.
That experience really freaked me out, so I scampered to the first phone booth I could find and masturbated to calm my nerves.
Later, while waddling around the town (which, as far as I know, didn’t have a name), I saw a herd of religious fundamentalists gathered outside the high school protesting the feminist literature their children were being forced to read. They found it offensive and didn’t want it “infecting” their kids. So they stood there chanting, “No more fucked-up clit-lit — God says, ‘Fuck that shit!’”
I headed to the nearest phone booth.
Two minutes later, at the public library, a bald proctologist from New York pointed to what he thought looked like a huge cyst on my left ass cheek. Just then, I realized that I’d been in such a hurry this morning, the only articles of clothing I’d remembered to put on were my shoes.
The proctologist insisted on taking a look at the lump.
The librarian anesthetized me. (She just used local anesthetic, saying she didn’t want me to be unconscious while she cracked jokes about the size of my penis.)
“Hey,” I said to the New Yorker, “I thought proctologists only dealt with the rectum and the anus.”
“Oh, did I say proctologist? I meant prophylactic.”
“What?”
“You see, a lot of guys have me copulate with their wives and girlfriends so they don’t risk catchin’ any kind of sexually transmitted disease or anything.”
“You gotta be shittin’ me.”
“Well, think about it: A condom costs fifty cents, but I only charge twenty-five. It makes perfect sense — just do the math.”
“Hey, wait a minute! If you’re not a doctor, you’re not licensed to operate on me.”
“I didn’t say I wasn’t a doctor.”
“Oh, so you are a doctor?”
“No.”
“But — ”
“Oh my god,” said the bald prophylactic from New York.
“Mine too,” said the librarian.
“What? What is it?”
“This ain’t no fuckin’ cyst!”
“Well, then, what the hell is it?” I asked.
The New Yorker turned to the librarian and said, “Remember that one girl who used to live a couple blocks up the street — that really nice crack whore?”
Oh shit! I thought to myself.
You see, yesterday, after getting blitzed at Spanky’s, I hopped into my car, drove down to Kentucky, picked up a prostitute, tossed her into the air, tried to catch her, dropped her, picked her up and flung her into the air again, lost my balance, fell on a huge shard of glass and got a big-ass gash in my big fat ass, and while I was writhing in agony, the hooker must have fallen into my open wound without my noticing, and then I reflexively grabbed the bottle of Krazy Glue from my car’s glove compartment and sealed up the enormous gash — so all this time, I’ve been walking around with a one-hundred-pound harlot in my ass without even realizing it. Goddamn, I am one fat motherfucker.
“Goddamn, you are one fat motherfucker,” said the librarian.
“I think you have some explaining to do,” said the New Yorker.
I told them what had happened.
The librarian started sobbing.
“What? What’s the matter?” I asked.
“That’s how my mother died.”
“Wow,” I said. “I guess truth is stranger than fiction. Is there a phone booth around here?”
Part II: The Obituaries
I’m back in Cassandra. I started smoking again . . . and, within hours, I was back down to 170 pounds. I read this week’s obituaries in the Cassandra Times for breakfast:
Clarissa Cockburn, of Cassandra, took a one-hundred-foot rope, tied a running noose at each end, put one of the nooses around her neck, and used the other to lasso a speeding motorcyclist. She was 23. Surprisingly, the motorcyclist was uninjured. Even more surprisingly, the motorcyclist was a top-secret U.S. Military cyborg.
V.D. Cockburn, of Cassandra, doused himself with gasoline at the Kum & Go on the corner of West East St. and North South Ave. and lit a cigarette. His parents, who are staunch environmentalists, were shocked — he didn’t use the super-unleaded gasoline that contains ethanol. He was 97.
Fidel Castro Cockburn, also of Cassandra, died of multiple stab wounds in the back, multiple gunshot wounds in the back of his head, and popular music. Local police are calling it a suicide. He was Communist.
Furthermore, police think these three suicides may in some way be related, since all three were Sagittarians.
After smoking three packs of cigarettes this morning, I was so lethargic, I didn’t feel like going anywhere. So I just stayed home all day, licking my genitals like a dog. (I guess those yoga lessons paid off after all.)
Part III: Post Office
This morning, I quit smoking — yet again — and every time I felt the urge to have a cigarette, I knocked down an elderly-but-not-yet-retired prostitute and stole her money. But after the seventeenth time, she called the police.
I was arrested and fined twenty-five cents for each of those minor breaches of etiquette.
After I’d paid my fines, I went to the post office to get my mail, and I ran into my old high school principal. I ran into him pretty hard.
“Haven’t seen you in a while,” he said, as I helped him up off the floor. “How come I never see you in church anymore? It’s been at least ten years.”
“Well,” I said, “I read quite a bit — and lately, I’ve been working assiduously on an acidulous book inspired by acid: Lucy in the Sky with Dysentery — and as the preacher says in Ecclesiastes 9:10, ‘Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.’ And besides, I don’t believe in God.”
“Well, I’m sure someday you’ll see the light,” he said, shaking his head pityingly, as he walked out of the post office and got hit by a low-flying plane.
Just then, one of the many Chads I’d graduated with back in ’91 walked into the post office. (This particular Chad was voted “Most Likely to Remain a Few Sandwiches Short of a Full Deck — and to Marry a Girl Who’s a Few Cards Short of a Picnic.”)
“Wow,” he said, “I haven’t seen you in years. What have you been up to?”
“I’m a writer — I’m writing right now, as a matter of fact.”
“Hmm . . . you don’t look like a writer.”
“And I probably don’t look like a naturalistic empiricist, a pragmatist, and a neo-Nietzschean quasi-existentialist either, but — ”
“Hey, remember the time you turned on that fire hose in the lower elementary building and flooded the place, so we started callin’ you Fireman?”
“Yep, those were the days.”
“And remember the time you tried havin’ sex with that fourteen-year-old girl when you were a senior — but you found out you can’t get it up for fat chicks, no matter how drunk you are — so we started callin’ you . . . um . . . León, ’cause that’s your Spanish name?”
“Huh?”
“Oh, and then there was the time you got caught smokin’ behind the school, and the principal wanted to make an example outta you, so he had you crucified — but three days later, you arose from the dead, so we started callin’ you the Messiah.”
“(°_¤)”
Part IV: God’s Gynecologist
This afternoon, when I went up to the post office to get my mail, I saw one of the many Dicks I’d graduated with back in ’91.
“Hey,” he said, “I haven’t seen you in ages. Do you work outta town or somethin’?”
“Actually, I work outta this world: I’m God’s gynecologist.”
“Whoa, that’s a little over-the-top,” he said, looking genuinely offended. “There are limits, you know.”
“Just self-imposed limitations. And besides, you know I’m just fuckin’ around — that’s what fuckers do.”
“But there are some things you just shouldn’t joke about. Haven’t you found God?”
“Nope. I’ve looked all over the place, and he’s nowhere to be found. But who knows? Maybe he’s hiding under a rock somewhere — I’m sure I’ve left at least one stone unturned.”
“Well, I’m sure someday you’ll see the light,” he said, shaking his head pityingly, as he walked out of the post office and got hit by a low-flying plane.
I got my mail and was just about to leave when one of the many Jennys I’d graduated with back in ’91 walked in. (Dick was voted “Most Likely to Succeed” — Jen was voted most likely to suck something else.)
“Hey,” she said, “I remember you. Weren’t you the Class Clown?”
“Yep, that’s me. But I don’t know if that’s anything to be proud of. After all, Class Clown is just one step above Class Asswhore — no offense.”
“Well,” she sputtered, “I remember the time you said Richard Burton was an attractive man. Maybe we should’ve voted you Class Queer.”
“Just because a guy says another guy’s attractive, that doesn’t mean he’s gay. Sometimes when I look at myself in the mirror, I say, ‘Hey, I’m not a bad-lookin’ guy,’ but that doesn’t make me asexual. The fact that I have both male and female reproductive organs and often fuck myself makes me asexual.”
Part V: The Inconvenience Store
Here in the Midwest, they’re test-marketing what they call an Inconvenience Store. It was the middle of the night, and I needed some smokes — and there’s an Inconvenience Store right here in Cassandra, just across the street from the post office — so I thought I’d go check it out.
I pulled up to the gas pump, got out of my car, and started pumping gas. Then I noticed the gas was $4.99 for the first gallon and $1.99 for each additional gallon — except for the third, seventh, and ninth gallons, which were $6.66 (just to spite the pope). I filled the tank up anyway.
When I pulled the nozzle out of the gas tank, the gas pump somehow turned back on, and the nozzle started spinning around, spewing out gas till I was completely drenched. I threw the fucker onto the ground.
As I walked into the store, the clerk just laughed and flung a lit match at me. By the time I had said “What the fuck?” I was consumed in flames.
I dropped to the ground and rolled around to try to extinguish the fire, but to no avail.
Finally, everyone in the store gathered around and pissed on me. The fire went out, but goddamn did it stink!
I was burnt so severely, my body looked like one giant scab. It’s a good thing I’m a fast healer. . . .
“Why the fuck did you set me on fire?” I asked the clerk.
“Sorry, I thought you were a Jehovah’s Witness.”
“Yeah, I get that a lot,” I said. And it’s true. “Okay, I had $42.88 in gas, and I’d also like a soft pack of Marlboro Reds.”
“Sorry, we don’t sell that brand here.”
“Okay, how ’bout a hard pack of GPC Light 100s?”
“We don’t have those either.”
“Well, then, what cigarettes do you have?”
“We don’t sell cigarettes.”
“You gotta be kidding.”
“Would you like some chewing tobacco instead?”
“Yeah, I guess that’ll hafta do for now. How ’bout some Red Man? Golden Blend, if you got it.”
“Sorry, we don’t sell any tobacco products here.”
“Then why in the hell did you even ask?”
“Actually, I was lying. We do have some over there in the corner.”
“In that corner?” I asked, pointing to the barren southwest corner of the store.
“No, the other one.”
“But you pointed to that one.”
“Sorry, I’m a compulsive liar. I’m lying right now, as a matter of fact.”
“Fine. I’ll find ’em myself.”
I walked around the store for half an hour without finding anything even resembling a cigarette. But I did finally get used to the smell of burnt piss.
Eventually, the clerk said, ”Okay, I’ll give ya a hint: They’re underground.”
“What?”
“See that trapdoor over there?” he said, pointing to the floor in the southeast corner of the store.
“You mean this store has some sort of subterranean stratum?”
“Yep, that’s where we keep the good stuff — alcohol, tobacco, Hello Kitty vibrators. After all, we do have a reputation to uphold.”
I opened the hatch. There was a ladder that went down at least three hundred feet. I didn’t care — I needed a cigarette.
I descended the ladder.
The lower level of the store was a labyrinth. And, as far as I could tell, there wasn’t anything down there but bare walls, with an occasional loudspeaker blaring the most annoying and obnoxious country song I’ve ever heard — “Achy Breaky Heart.” The song just kept playing over and over, ad nauseam.
Myriads of rats, snakes, and badly burnt Jehovah’s Witnesses scurried around, doing everything they could to avoid me and my nauseating smell. Never in my life had I thought that someday I’d be grateful for having been set ablaze and then pissed on.
I began walking through the maze of corridors.
I soon came upon a tripwire. My eyes followed it to see what it was for. It was attached to a ten-foot-long, upside-down axe in such a way that, if I had tripped that tripwire, it would have released the axe and I would have been impaled — and more than a little annoyed.
Later, I came upon another trap. This one consisted of a thin laser beam that served as a tripwire, which led to a tiny explosive device on a small canister that contained sarin nerve gas.
I hopped over the beam.
Fortunately, the floor I’d hopped onto wasn’t one of the many pseudo-floors that I’d seen one of the snakes try to slither over, and which were actually nothing more than holograms. If anyone were to try walking on one of these faux floors, they’d wind up falling into a pit of hydroflouric acid.
I eventually came upon a tunnel with a sign above it that read, “Cigarettes Ahead.”
I entered.
After three hours of following the winding tunnel, I finally found the cigarettes.
I started the trek back.
Unable to wait any longer for a dose of nicotine, I lit up a smoke as soon as I was out of the tunnel. This set off the sprinkler system that I had somehow failed to notice before, which wound up thoroughly soaking me and soggying my hard-won carton of Marlboros.
Much more inconvenient, however, were the hundreds of moisture-sensitive land mines, which I had also failed to notice, scattered around the corridors. Once the water came into contact with them — kaboom!
I barely managed to escape the explosions, and by the time I had scaled the ladder and gotten back into the upper level of the store, it was closed.
I looked at the store’s hours, which were posted — in fine print — on the ceiling: 1:23–3:21 a.m.
As soon as I walked outside (after smashing the store’s glass front door with a six-foot-long neon-pink dildo they had on display), I noticed my car had been towed.
Well, I figured, as long as the post office was just across the street, I might as well check my P.O. Box before marching the mile or so home.
“That is it!” I said to myself, after getting my mail. “I’m quitting smoking, once and for all. I’ll never smoke another cigarette for as long as I live!”
Then, suddenly, I heard a loud roaring noise, like an engine or something — and when I looked up into the western sky, I saw a flashing light heading right for me.
Oy.
