Chapter 6
| The Story | The Authors |
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| Over the years Sherri became, in Hickey's mind, another specter gnawing away athis very sanity. As his squad car closed in on Jeremy Crink's ambulance, Matthew Hickey's festering hatred for all his tormentors, real or imagined, dead or alive, boiled inside him and focused like a laser beam on the wicked Jeremy. Today would be the day, God help Jeremy Crink, that Officer Hickey would get his pound of flesh. | |
| Unbeknownst to the increasingly deluded Officer Hickey, the injuries Crink had sustained in the (really quite humorous) accident, would not be sufficient to to claim his life; however, they would prove fatal to the hapless ambulance attendant. This life of chronic ill luck culminated in the unfortunate reaction of the oxygen leaking from Crink's face mask, and the volatile gases floating about in the ambulance's close quarters, which originated from the vicious curry of the attendant's lunch, by way of his lower digestive tract. This caused the atmosphere in the ambulance to detonate explosively, claiming the attendant's life and causing the walls to acquire an outward bulge, but sparing the already injured Crink. | |
| Crink layed at the side of the road, bewildered and extremely hurt. He already had severe injuries to his buttocks, legs, and back from the toilet accident just less than an hour ago. Now, he had new injuries - a bleeding head and perhaps a broken arm. He began crawling towards the pay phone like a drunken snake. Fortunately for Crink, a police car pulled up from seeing the explosion from the freeway. It was officer Hickey, who originally helped Crink at the scene of the first accident. He quickly called another ambulance and tried to find out what happened to Crink. Crink could not speak clearly, so Officer Hickey decided to wait until he was feeling better. Crink's pereptual bad luck came into play again. It started to rain and hail. The golf ball sized hail was hitting Crink's injuries with the severity of a bowling ball hitting pins. Officer hickey began to pull him into his squad car, but before he had a chance to do so, Crink's ex-wife, who has multiple personalities, was having another one of her episodes. She ran Officer Hickey over with her caddilac and threw Crink in her car by his broken arm. Crink screamed with pain, and apparently, his ex-wife enjoyed that because she became "Esmerelda" her sado-masochist obsessive-compulsive control freak hooker personality. This is the one Crink referred to as personality number 6, when they were married. | |
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He wondered to himself whether he created that personality, when he married Wives No. 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, without telling her. Perhaps so, he thinks so himself while patting his blonde hair to make sure not a strand was out of place. | |
| He liked her hair and asked if it was real, she said no and neither am I. I am not a girl so please believe that Bob will be your next wife. | |
| They each had eaten more styrofoam than anyone could have ever imagined. | |
| Yet, despite hardships in life. They continued to believe things would only get better Stupid fools... | |
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...and on and so on went Jeremy Crink's dijointed thoughts. He giggled
helplessly to himself and ambulance sirens blaring passed a yellow Honda Golf
on the left. Inside the other car he caught the cringing look of horror on a
sallow human face. No matter to him.
He was quite enjoying this little chase of his with Hickey trailing behind. But where to lead him was the next question. This little lark had to have some ultimate destination. A sign. He needed a sign from Fate of some sort to show the way. He gave a grunt and leaned closer over the wheel. The double line snaking underneath him like an endless yellow anaconda. It was almost hypnotic the way it gently undulated. Almost alive. In the back of the ambulance Mother Hickey's gurneyed corpse rattled with the road vibrations. Crink snapped his gum in time with it. | |
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...and on and so on went Jeremy Crink's dijointed thoughts. He giggled
helplessly to himself and ambulance sirens blaring passed a yellow Honda Golf
on the left. Inside the other car he caught the cringing look of horror on a
sallow human face. No matter to him.
He was quite enjoying this little chase of his with Hickey trailing behind. But where to lead him was the next question. This little lark had to have some ultimate destination. A sign. He needed a sign from Fate of some sort to show the way. He gave a grunt and leaned closer over the wheel. The double line snaking underneath him like an endless yellow anaconda. It was almost hypnotic the way it gently undulated. Almost alive. In the back of the ambulance Mother Hickey's gurneyed corpse rattled with the road vibrations. Crink snapped his gum in time with it. | |
| ...As the ambulance sped away from the mess behind them Crink praised himself for being so smart. But had he gotten away with it? Did they really think that he had been a helpless victim in all of this, like Mother Hickey?? Yeah, he got away with it. He got away with murder. He began to congratulate himself again. Mother Hickey, out of his life forever. No more sickening stench radiating from the back room... | |
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of the laundry mat were he resided at. No more slaving all day over a hot
washer, entering clothing, by clothing, hour after hour. No more struggling
all day, feeling like no end, for a 5 dollar washer. Know he owns the washer,
and he went to extreme to get it.
You see, all his life Crink has been washer and dryerless. Always hang drying his clothing, so he got tired of it. He decided he would do anything that he had to too get one. When Mother Hickey found him laying in the street, screamin, she decided to get him one, but not for free. | |
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Was he to labor for this? So ironic it is, that his long labour is what has
caused him to reek of sweat and earth, and he shall have to labour so much more
to simply remove the evidence of his hard work.
And so, he sighed, his face crumpling into his strong weathered hands which engulfed his face like a wretched mask. A mask. How many masks has he worn? | |
| His worn to meny for his time.He must learn to face the world and to speek out for what he wants. | |
| His worn to meny for his time.He must learn to face the world and to speek out for what he wants.Today he must learn and today I sir Max Maniaxe shale teach him how to face the world.And today I will be free of this body as the ledgernd said I will be free if I teach a man afrade of the world. | |
| His worn to meny for his time.He must learn to face the world and to speek out for what he wants.Today he must learn and today I sir Max Maniaxe shale teach him how to face the world.And today I will be free of this body as the ledgernd said I will be free if I teach a man afrade of the world. | |
| Thusly quoting Sir Reginald Blunderbebe (1697-1753) Crink slammed the brakes and turning a wide left that sent the back wheels of his speeding amublance skittering amongst the last few brown leaves of Autumn and headed East on Tarmac Blvd. The two lane country highway fled before him in a series of gut wrenching undulations with pasture land on either side as if he were driving down a stripe on some vast coverlet. A gentle mist was rising from the dew kissed grass as the first limp rays of dawn tripped and fell over the edge of the green backed mountains. Even over the blaring whinny of the ambulance siren Crink could hear the sickening crunch of Hickey's cruiser flattening a mailbox as he tried to make the same turn. "Poor Matt," sighed Crink, "he always was a shitty driver." | |
| "Damn," Matt yelled as he was thrown forward against the steering wheel of the beaten cruiser. Smoke steamed out of the front hood, but Matt gritted his teeth and pushed the gas pedal down as far as it would go. The car lurched forward, tires spinning, leaving a gentle flutter of junk mail in its wake. Ahead of him, Matt could see the flashing lights of the ambulance as it screamed into the distance. "It's time you stopped thinking with your balls, Matt," a little voice told him, "after all you don't have any. Use your brain!" Somehow his glove compartment had opened, and the contents had spilled out. Registration papers, sunglasses, life savers, condoms, moldy donut ends and maps were strewn over the front seat of the car. One of the maps caught Matt's eye. | |
| Idly, he started talking to himself, "Why do I still have a map of Nevada? It's not like I'm ever going back!" | |
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I don't know what this map is for? he said
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"For all I can guess, this is the road we're on right here," he said to his
girlfriend as he pointed to it.
"Just a sec, I've got to keep my eyes on the road you know" she she said as if it were the most obvious thing in th world, in other words, sarcasticly. The car slowly pull over to the side of the road. "What are you pulling over for?" he asked, "You can look at the map at the same time as you drive." "I don't know about the former girlfriends you have had," she said chuckling, "maybe they could putting on their mascara, and blush, while drinking their coffee and driving, but I can't, it's agaist the law, and it'll cause me to drive slower which will get the drivers behind me mad at me, just like you get mad at those drivers, and I really perfer to be thought of as a model driver by anyone." she continued to chomp away at her gum while smiling at her boyfriend victoriously, as if trying to say 'come on, BRING IT ON!'. "I don't know how you managed to get that out in one breath. But once again, I can't and won't argue with you because your moral side is quite right, and that's one of the things I love and hate about you." he said leaning forward for a kiss while making the mistake of closing his eyes. She responded by popping the piece of gum out of her mouth and plugging up his mouth with it. As he opened his eyes wide in surprize trying to respond while accidentally letting the guim escape his mouth and getting it stuck between his fingers, she turned her attention back to the map which, she noticed, looked a little small for a street map, and as she looked it over, her suspisions were verified. "Man, how long have we been fallowing this map?" she asked. "Couple hours, why?" he asked puzzled. "Take a good, long, look at it dope! I think you need some glasses, BAD!!" she said doubling over laughing. He snatched the map that she was holding out, and inspecting it closer, and started laughing also. "I can't believe we've been fallowing a fun house map!" she said laughing, "you're so dumb, oh man, it's hilarious!" | |
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...The memories of Felicity, the second and last woman Matthew had attempted
use his prosthestic genitalia with came flooding back to him as he looked at
the crumpled, coffee stained map of Nevada. The road trip to Reno.(he'd sung
endlessly on the trip the lyric from "Folsom Prison Blues" about shooting a man
to watch him die.)The idea had been to get gamble a bit and relax. And then get
married.
Felicity was a proper girl. She was saving herself, so the issue of Matthew's little "problem" had never exactly come up. He really believed he loved her, and was really loathe to have to explain. so he hemmed and hawed until the final fateful moment that he asked her to marry him. And she had been wonderful about it. She was saddened that they wouldn't be able to have their own children of course, but that was what adoption was all about, andbesides sex was just a little part of what a good marriage was. Besides, she blushed, she'd gone this long without it it wouldn't be like she'd know the difference. Matthew had wept withjoy. After all he'd been through, his life was about to make the turn. They had arrived in Reno in the late afternoon. Stopped in a burger joint to have a bite and dropped a couple of quarters in the ubiquitous slots that dotted every stray corner. Hickey won a couple of dollars with hisfirst quarter. he tok this for a good omen. With a shy giggle and a deep blush of anticipatory embarrassment, Felicity had allowed him to rent a single room for the two of them for the night. "Well, I suppose we can, provided we do it, get married that is, (a deeper shade of crimson) before we come back here." The ceremony itself had lasted less than ten minutes from registration to "I do's" with music provided by a gum snapping octegenarian playing a battered electrolux in her stockng feet. The minister's mumbled cadence buzzed past them hollowly in such a hummingbird buzz that before they couldeven draw a proper breath, they were being told to kiss. Then they went back to their Honeymoon motel room. Matthew still had nightmares of her screams. They had haunted him for the last twelve years in a way that time would never ease, never quell. | |
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In time, he'd come (by virtue of the reaction his little 'problem' got time and time again) to assume the female of the species a sort of faulty Rebate coupon, to be Sent Home to Mother, every time, while you watched the mailbox day after day for your rebate check or your coupon good for "$3.00 off your next purchase of a 110-lb. bag or larger..." Every day you rose and shuffled to the door of your trailer and stuck your face out into the dry desert heat of 11:30-in-the-morning, whistling "Please Mr. Postman" to yourself; and every day the mailbox was empty save for another notice from the phone company threatening to suspend your service for non-payment and another one of those insinuating hate-missives made from words and letters cut out of magazines and newspapers and clumsily pasted together... Hickey sighed audibly as he thought back on the stifling lassitude of those first difficult years of eunuchdom, when not even Jim Thompson's similarly-predicamented The Nothing Man could provide him with the kind of empathic companionship he so desperately sought. And so it was, in exile out there in the desert, that he took to the bottle like a farm-raised salmon first set loose in the sea. | |
| ...At first it was only as something to do. Likening himself to the listless narrator of Bob Dylan's "Stuck Inside Of (a) Mobile (Home) With the Memphis Blues Again," and too fraught with unspoken despair and unrelievable desire to entertain any notions for the future, he purchased a small used TV set from Ginchell's Electronics and found a liquor that delivered cold beer by the case. Rising at the crack of noon and popping the tab on a 16-ounce can of Tall Toad Malt Liquor for breakfast, he flipped on the first of the day's parade of soap operas and talk shows and settled down on the sofa to the complex and indisputably American alchemical process of transforming neural tissue into adipose -- a dim month later his own equatorial regions displayed inarguable proof of his success in these delicate matters, but his pants no longer fit. | |