The Buck Chronicles pt 5

Roger Kilson works at the deli counter at Grews Supermarket. He once overheard this conversation.

“Hey, Nice baby.”

“Thanks.”

“Can I have it?”

“Sure.”

Roger lived with his brother Susan in a townhouse in a place that was named Westfester . Susan was an aerobics instructor. Sometimes Susan would tape his classes and send them to TV stations. He hoped one day to be on the television; like Richard Simmons.


Roger was tired. He had been sitting all day and his butt hurt. “Damnit Stacey, my butt hurts like christmas.” he said to Stacey the seventeen year old girl who lays out the donuts.

Stacey was an attractive girl, brunette, five eight one hundred and twenty pounds. She often wore college sweatshirts under her work clothes.

“I hope you get hit by a bus today, and for some reason the bus has a big spike on the front of it so it can skewer you, you jamoke..”

Roger sighed. “Stacey my butt.” he said. “I’ve been sitting on it all day, doing absolutely nothing. I watch the slicer girl cut the pastramis, the bread kid do the bagels, and I see the cheese girl lay out the cheese. All I do is watch. This is my job.”

Stacey threw a heavy paper weight at Rogers head missing by inches and cracking a hole in the plaster wall behind him. “I wanna watch you die mothafucka!” She said, thrusting her pelvis and flapping her arms.

A bell rang and Stacey went out to deal with the customer.

“I’m just not sure exactly what I’m being paid to do. “ Roger said. “Should I stand up? Or will they fire me if I stand up? They’ve paid me to sit here and do nothing for three years.”

Roger hadn’t noticed that Stacey had left the room until after he was done talking,
The clocked turned to six. Roger was off work. He took off his white deli coat and put it in his locker. He put on his mustard colored sweater, his green knit hat and took off for the wintery outside.

“Moses malone!” he said as he stepped into the chilly winter breeze. “It’s pretty gosh darn cold out here.” A young lady walked past him. She wore a pink ski cap, lowcut jeans and a white shirt with the word “Delicious” emblazoned on the front of it. Over this she wore a wool coat with a fake beaver tail on the back.

“Hello miss.” Roger said to the young girl. “Watch your step theres ice all over the ground.”

She smiled wanely and walked into the supermarket. Unbeknownst to Roger she was immediately clotheslined by a cart pusher sending her crashing into the soup display. The cart pusher followed this up with an Irish whip, and finished her with a german suplex. He went on to become the world champion. She died that day. Not from the suplex but from a hunting accident that happened later .

Roger jingled his keys and whistled as he patrolled up and down the parking lot trying to remember where he had parked his car that morning. He drove a white minivan. His license plate was 456 789. As he was walking he took the opportunity to take in the Christmas decorations that had been left on the light poles in the parking lot. Green thistles and red bows adorned each nineteen foot pole. “Marvelous.” He said to himself. “Marvelous.”



---

Though Susan was a man, Susan was not a mans name. Susan, who was a man, had been named Susan after his father who was killed in world war 2 before he was born. Susan was an aerobics instuctor amd had been since he was a young man. He never took off his one piece spandex aerobics suit. He wore it to his best friends wedding; with a tie.

Susan was watching TV. Specifically he was watching Law&Order. It was the one where the guy got killed. He had seen that one. As he was watching TV he was also doing deep squat thrusts. He kept his long auburn hair out of his eyes with a sweatband. A pink fluffy one. Susan was in extremely good shape. His waist was slim, his calves were powerful and his lungs were those of an astronaut. He had a ridiculous mustache, like one you might see on an american civil war general. Wherever Susan went people thought he was a Gaylord. Traipsing about in his little lime green spandex suit he went about his day with a pixie like quality to his step.

“Man look at that fucking Gaylord over there.” A man in a brown leather jacket remarked, seeing Susan skip  out the door of a CVS with a bag of unsalted peanuts. The man jingled his keys and got into his red Sedan.
Susan didn’t understand why everyone assumed he was gay. “Having sex with a man is gay.” He would say sipping his dry martini lazily. “Wearing spandex and having fun is deeply heterosexual.”


3
Roger was driving. He did not have a licence. He never, for some reason, took the time to take the drivers test. “Whatever.” He thought to himself. “Who cares?”

He pulled up to a stop light and started rubbing his bald spot with his giant meaty finger. Twist and curl. To and fro.

He picked his nose. “Mercy me.” He said. Roger stared at the red light straight on. “You think you’re tough?” He said to the red light.” I’ll punch your forehead off.” He muttered.

The light turned green and Roger continued on his way towards home.

Roger turned the radio on. “Hey guys and dolls its wally in the afternoon” An alarm sound comes from the radio. “Uh-oh, time for todays Super Quiz!” Roger fantasized about a ham sandwhich with mustard and pickles. Roger was so hungry.

“Holy gee, I could use a bite.” Roger says to himself outloud.

“The question is…” The radio blared on.

Roger takes a left turn. A red van passes, driven by a woman who was probably forty and had a pixie haircut.

“Is it duck slipper twister?” Asks caller number nine. “No, so sorry.” The radio man answers.

Roger changes the station. BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Roger eventually pulled into his driveway.
4
The weather for the day was cloudy and sunny. It was beautiful. As superman has his fortress of solitude so too; does a barber have his shop. This barber had the distinct pleasure of working on the bountiful curls of Susan the spandex wearing openly straight aerobics instructor. His name was Timothy.

“Timothy?” Susan asked, staring at his own expertly crafted ridiculous mustache, in the mirror.

“Have you heard about this business with my brother and the gym teacher down at the middle school?”

Timothy squinted his eyes and clipped off a lock of Susan hair. “Nope.” He said

Roger and Susan lived across the street from the gym teacher of the local middle school. The gym teachers name was Buck, or Mr. Dreel to his students. The students all made up stories about how Buck liked to watch them shower. They would say that Buck masturbated into a packet of sourpatch kids. It wasn’t true.

Buck was a big man, pound for pound with Andre the Giant, and he often smelled things that probably did not need to be smelled. This was very funny to the middle schoolers.

“Well Roger said that this gym teacher sucks duck eggs.” Susan said

“Does he?” Timothy asked.

“tis an expression,” Susan answered.

“I heard he watches them kids shower..” Timothy said.

Susan sneezed. “Bless ya,” Timothy said.

Roger and Buck had gotten into an argument the week prior. Roger knew for a fact that the Japanese lived under the earth and had mastered the art of squaring the watermelon. Buck had contested this statement, and harshly critiqued Rogers point of view by throwing a shot glass at his face. It missed by an inch and shattered at the foot of the TGIF hostess. The argument had taken place in a TGIF

“Rogers a madman.” Timothy said.

“Well Buck’s a drunk.” Susan said

“Them two is like water’n oil.” Said Timothy.

“I just hope.” Susan said. “I want them to be friends but they just don’t like eachother.I don’t understand it.”



Timothy removed the bib from Susan. “Good?” Timothy asks Susan.

Susan pats his mustache and eyes Timothys handywork on his dome. “Awesome.” He says.

“Thank you sir,” Timothy says.

Susan leaves.

Somewhere in the world a plane crashes, a woman is given the news that she is going to have triplets, a cigarette is lit. The sun rises, the sun sets, every modicum of creation performs its duty in a mindlessly mechanical fashion on par with a watch or a coke machine. Snow falls in mountains, a Cheetah grows tired and lets an antelope live for that day.

Roger Kilson was pooping. Every one must poop. If we did not poop we would be full of shit. We would explode and send shrapnels of globby poop all around us, showering the land with poop and exploded human guts which due to the sheer volume of poop that had built up prior to the explosion, would also be covered with poop. There would be poop everywhere.

Be grateful for the miracle of pooping.

Roger finished pooping.

Later he found himself staring out the window at the moon. It was still day but the moon was visible in the sky through the specks of streaky clouds that peppered the blue. Winter was almost over. Life seemed safe for the moment but Roger was not content. Pooring himself a glass of four dollar brandy he sat down and tried to cross his legs. Unable to do this he shrugged and climbed off the chair. He got on the floor and laid on his belly, slowly rocking back and forth on the fluffy mound of his midsection. A meteor broke through his window and would have concussed him  had it not missed by inches, harmlessly dashing itself against the cast iron Dalmation statue near the wall. Roger did not react. Susan was not home. Roger got back in the chair.


Susan even showered with his spandex unitard still on. His absolute devotion to his craft was, in his mind, best symbolized by the eternal wearing of his uniform. The water cleaned both him and the unitard. He felt at one with the unitard, at one with instructing aerobics. He and his passion became one being, flowing together in a cosmic harmony not unlike chocolate and milk. Susan felt the way about instructing aerobics the way Jean d’arc had felt about talking with god. A fanaticism for leading (often) homely fat woman in various exercises filled him up with such divine ecstasy he could scarcely contain the fierce vigor that drove him. “Fabulous,” He would say to himself in a breathy, low whisper, “I can taste the light…” He would scream it. People could hear him, and wondered “what kind of crazy shit is that gaylord up to?”. Susan didn’t care, couldn’t have made himself care as he serenely caressed his ridiculous mustache. Susan had found his way.


Roger couldn’t sleep. Images of Hamburgers, hotdogs, custard pies, apples pies, b.l.t.’s flooded his thoughts with force. A cheesy double melt with bacon slices and onion rings on the side. He thought he was just hungry. Sitting on his fat ass all day was his job and he took pride in what he did, despite not knowing exactly what it was he was supposed to be doing. However he found himself constantly fantasizing about delicious morsels. Triple stacks, Fried Turduckens, red snapper on baked potato all shoved into a pie made of steak and eggs. “Oh, gee.” He said to himself, his enormous bloated tongue licking his lips and chins. Hallucinations of dancing buckets of popcorn, veal cutlets singing the halleluiah chorus, a brass section composed entirely of polish sausages wearing matching tuxedos.

He thought back to his earliest child hood memory, trying to change his focus. His father sitting in the bath. He was wearing a top hot and monocle, splashing around. A rubber ducky also wearing a top hat and monocle floating next to him. A cigar is lit. “Someday Roger this will all be yours.” A fine chardonnay is opened. The dream passes.

Roger is discontent. Something paws at his unconscious, and yet no finger can be put on it, no origin detectable. Roger sighs and puts on a Beatles record. He lies, open robed on his bed and slowly drifts in to a troubled and dreamless sleep.
---

Roger walked briskly through the morning mist, his great heaving stomache flopping and rippling like a great pale ocean of hair and belly fat under his blue and orange knit sweater.  Roger had woken up maddeningly early and he was troubled by a feeling of aimless anxiety and a tendency to wander. He would go around and around and around, looking, stopping, smelling, tasting, touching; just experiencing the world around him. “Maybe I’ll go down to the lake and go fishing.” He might say to himself, though he didn’t. He did say, “Shit I think the elastic snapped” when he felt a quick stinging pain and his sweat pants began the slow descent down his buttcrack. “Willickers!”  he exclaimed, attempting to pull his pants up.

“What is love? Someone had asked him the week prior. “I mean I know what it is. I know what love is, but what is it?” It was a woman who had asked him. She was blonde, beautiful, dressed in red and heels. “Is it just chemicals?” She asked. She was drinking something pale from a wine glass. It was a party, a mutual friend, a graduation, maybe a bbq. It didn’t matter.

“Or is it something more spiritual?”

Roger pursed his lips together, smiled , shook his head. His left nostril flared, catching a whiff of something tangy cooking in the proximity. He sniffed the air with great deliberation. “Relish?” He said softly to himself. Then nodding, “Definitely pork…”

The woman sighed. “I fear I’ve grown tired of …this.” She said sadly. “I get up, I lounge around the house, I wait for my husband to come home from work, I go to cocktail parties.” She tipped back her glass and finished her drink. “Do you ever feel like something is missing from your life?” She asked, suddenly placing full attention on Rogers bloated oblivious face.

“Do you?” She reiterated.

Roger looked at her. “What’s your name?” he asked, suddenly taken by her curious beauty.

“Tabitha.” She said.

Roger nodded solemnly. “And your asking me what…love is?”

“I am.” She smiled towards the ground.

Roger frowned thoughtfully, licking a bit of Dijon mustard from his upper lip with a quick tongue flick. “Hmmm…” He said. “Well, I guess it’s just…” He trailed off into silence.

Tabitha crinkled her nose.

Roger thought back to that moment as he huffed and puffed his way up the steep hill towards the walking path. He hadn’t been able to think of a satisfactory answer.

“Jesus loves you.” He had said.

“Mmm” Tabitha replied.

He looked at her longingly. Every last part of his being clamored for her, her hips, her eyes, her breasts. His chins quivered and he could feel great chunks of macaroni and ham digesting in his small intestine, swirling around madly like ball room dancers. He farted a little bit, but luckily he had sneezed at the same time so she never noticed. The odor was covered up by the smell of cooking food from the kitchen.  He wanted nothing more than to hurl his great bulk at her tender accepting body and give her his soul for keeping.

But here he was hauling his enormous self up an increasingly steep hill. He had chili stains on his draw string sweat pants, and he smelled like bologna and Windex.

The last thing she had said to him was “If you ever find out…” and then she had made a motion with her hand. Rogers heart melted. He was caught off guard by a woman and her young child trying to squeeze by him out the door and the sudden brushing of the boy up against his stomache made him fart again. It erupted like a geyser from hell, spraying hot wind like invisible bird shot into the boys face. “Oops.” Roger said. He quickly scuttled away.

Roger stood on top of the hill now, looking over the town; the part he could see at least. The sun was almost all the way up. He looked and he wondered.
--

The TV blares. On the news theres a short segment on a little girl who had been missing for three weeks who was found hung upside down by her feet, nailed, from a tree deep in the Colorado wilderness. A man walked into a bowling alley and shot three employees before turning the gun on himself. A fire burns in Jerusalem, Arab extremists cut the head off a Jewish bear.  A librarian is held at gun point and raped continuously for twelve hours before being tossed behind a dumpster, her throat slit, her body bruised and mutilated. The police suspect foul play. Phone book killers, free way snipers, the kids are all on drugs, the kids aren’t on the right drugs, people are dying everywhere and then the segment changes and the anchorwoman a boring looking but pretty Latina woman wearing a red jacket smiles into the camera. She talks about a celebrity hair stylist who has been outed as being not gay, a famous pig trainer (clients include, Cher, Madonna, Vin Diesel and Rod Stewarts cousin) gives an interview, suicides, more suicides, a murder of a wealthy record producer. A scathing row of image after image after image, dancing from one frame to the next with the grace of a bulldozer, feeding facts and facts and facts with no meaning given to them, unbiased, mechanical reports of death and sexual offenders prowling every corner of every school in the world. Every day. Continuous loop…
---

Susan was looking directly at his third eye, using the very same third eye to do so. The spirit had him, and he the spirit. “Susan.” The spirit said, with a voice as dense and rich as dark matter and as widely expressive as the very fabric of the universe.

“I know you can hear me Susan.”

Some one somewhere had once probably said that madness isn’t a distortion of reality, and doesn’t come from ill intent so much as it is a different view of creation and is sparked by curiosity. For instance what is it like to urinate on a pigeon, to believe something that clearly doesn’t mesh with facts as presented, or what is it like to slice up a human being? Madness thus exists in all people as so many know in their hearts that they’ve had these thoughts, dwelled on them, reflected and so on. Standing on a building, the sudden urge, a notion that says “Jump.” One doesn’t want to die, has no intention of killing themselves, it is merely the curiosity. “Will I fall or will I fly?”

Susan had never heard this. “Yeah?” He said to the spirit. “I can hear us.”

“Us.” The spirit said. “As all things are one, and then we hear us as well, do you see?”

“Yep.” Susan said.

Colors of all shades, colors that no eye can see or mind fathom swirled around in waves of stringy clouded confetti, exploding and reforming in the same moment, showering meaning and knowledge over and in the core of the universe and Susan scratched his balls, but not really as he was not in contact with his corporeal being. The thought of Susan’s balls were scratched by the idea of his slim and vaguely feminine hand.

“Spirit?” Susan asked.

“Yes, our us, son, father.”

“What?” Susan asked.

“Ask us our question.”

It was fucking shtick, spiritual, holy and shlocky.

“I ask the question that need not be asked and the answer that is present in all things, revealed through its concealment.”

“Why did the turkey cross the road?” The voice asked.

“The chicken was busy.” Susan answered.

“Whats the square root of 5?”

“I dunno.”

This went on for quite some time.