7.2
It was almost like a real room in the sense that there was a large (pink) sofa and a few (pink) beanbag chairs—these were the only chairs in the room. There was a large (pink) entertainment center, (pink) coffee and end tables. On the tables there were glass “crystals” and resin dragon sculptures. And everywhere a candle, all pink. Candles and cushions—it was amazing anyone survived here this long.
“Bill told me to bring this guy over right away,” Jesus called to her as they approached. “He’s going to be selling with me.”
Fulva put up one heavily-ringed index finger for silence. Steve Perry came skittering out of nowhere, nails catching and pulling over the cushion surface. She had one hand on her knee and the other hand was pushing one of her nostrils shut with the middle and ring finger. She took rapid in- and exhalations through the one clear nostril.
Rupert noticed a stack of books beside her, all featuring the name “D. Peterson,” with titles like Caravan of Depravity; Soap: A Prisoner-Curated Journal of the Pennsylvania Penal System; and what looked like a Japanese publication, subtitled Peen-Apple: Unexpected Phallacies in Food. There were two others facing the other direction that Rupert couldn’t read, but he felt like he knew too much about Fulva already.
* * *
Shit Pail interrupted. “I’ve read Caravan of Depravity and Koala Golem, which he didn’t write, but edited, just like Journal of the Pennsylvania Penal System, which I haven’t read, but keep meaning to.”
Rupert started at her for a moment. “Of course you have.”
“Don’t you judge me,” she said. “I’m a reader.”
“Peterson’s pretty prolific.”
“They’re long, too. You could kill a man with a single copy of Jonesin’ for a Diphthong,” she said, matter-of-factly.
“I don’t think Fulva had that one,” he said, his face blank. “Or the koala one . . .”
“Then she wasn’t the Petersonian she claimed to be.”
“May I . . . ?”
“Please do.”
* * *
Fulva finished and took a deep breath in, and as she exhaled, the monkey rang a large Tibetan bell which would have been a beautiful work of craftsmanship (and cost a few thousand dollars) had it not been spray-painted pink. Fulva stretched and opened her eyes. Steve Perry ran away. Rupert watched him shit in a corner, then run back to him, sniff his shoe, look like he was about to pee on it, change his mind, then run out of the room.
Rupert thought for a moment that he was, in fact, back at the Royal Courtyard Econo-Regency Chalet, sleeping fitfully and dreaming badly.
Fulva had smiled but stopped abruptly.
“Jesus,” she said, stern. “Bill doesn’t get final approval on anything.” Her voice grated in Rupert’s ears and then he thought, Is that sexist? Because if she was some old dude training someone how to box, I wouldn’t think twice about it. Rupert halted his nervous inner dialog and noted a large, ugly scar across her throat as she threw her arms in the air and croaked: “Welcome to Segue-La!”
“Thank you,” Rupert whispered, compelled to respond, but preferring no one heard.
Fulva’s enthusiasm dissipated like a firecracker went off—bang, then nothing but a wisp of smoke. Unimpressed, she stated, “You breakdance, don’t you . . . ” but then cut him off before he could deny it. “You’re fucking huge.”
“Um.” Rupert left it at that. He had a list of pithy, sarcastic comebacks stored away for such occasions, but he never used them and wasn’t about to start now.
“Um,” she repeated. “Well, you seem pretty harmless.”
Rupert felt insulted. He was huge, for shit’s sake. But he kept his animosity to himself. Who am I kidding? he thought. I am harmless. And another fragment of the self-esteem that had been coming apart all his life surrendered and jumped into the sea of pink cushions. It was disappointing, but he was used to it.
“This isn’t going to end like that whole Tito debacle, is it?” She glared at Jesus.
“Absolutely not.” Jesus crossed his heart.
Rupert hoped to die.
“Alright. Jesus, tell him what needs to be done,” Fulva said looking at her long, pink, manicured nails.
“Okay,” Jesus started.
Rupert turned to him, anything to avoid having to keep looking at this woman.
“We’re low on tickets, so we’re going to start in manufacturing. We cut out balsa wood rectangles, two inches by five inches in size . . . ”
Of course, Rupert thought. Balsa wood, not two-by-fours. That Tito was stupid.
“ . . . and we spray paint them gold. Then we take a Sherpie marker and write ‘Good for one admission to Crack Planet. Cannot be combined with other offers, coupons, or promotions, unless otherwise specified by the Merchant.” That’s us.”
“That’s me,” Fulva corrected, still fascinated with her thumbnail.
“And you just stand behind Florida Fried Gator franchises and wait for Junkies to come to you,” Rupert said.
“I like to sometimes change up the fast food joint, but, yeah, that’s pretty much it.”
Rupert’s overachieving brain, with which he felt little in common, grappled with this patently inefficient practice—the making and selling of Golden Tickets to Crack Planet. He needed to figure out how to improve it. The habit annoyed him, but it couldn’t be helped. As with the anxiety, there were some things his brain did on its own, independent of his will. And in that way, he mentally left the conversation and didn’t hear Bill as he and his HPSP partner Osceola, or 32 Cent, came in, having slammed the front door behind them, jolting Fulva on her mat and causing her to growl-yell: “You fuckers, I just finished meditating. I’m relaxing and you’re fucking it up.”
Rupert wrested his brain from the problem, and it resumed making him nervous and uncomfortable as more people entered the room. It didn’t matter how big or pink the room was. In fact, the pink compounded the problem. Rupert felt a slight tremor building in the fingers of his left hand. From here he could, with an uncanny level of accuracy, time when he would ultimately have his inevitable anxiety-driven meltdown. This was similar to, but not to be mistaken for, his pipe-driven meltdown.
Osceola wasn’t what Rupert had been expecting, considering the namesake. He was a shorter-than-average, sharo-featured white guy with shoulder-length auburn hair hidden beneath a beanie with one of those trucker mud flap naked woman silhouettes on it. He wore a DIY Splatter Farm shirt with the sleeves cut off and two tattoos, one on each shoulder—a howling timber wolf on the left and a dream catcher on the right, neither prisonesque, but neither very good.
Steve Perry came tearing in out of nowhere, climbed up Osceola, which wasn’t that far to go, and perched on his head. Rupert thought about the piles of monkey shit in the corners. These two were buddies.
Bill was super twitchy and tweaky, and talking to himself. He mumbled something about the mysterious MeeMaw, and then listened for a response. Osceola then turned to Rupert and said: “So, Bill told you about our Horror Performance Slam Poetry act.”
Rupert looked down at Osceola and imagined his real name was Randy.
“He has, yes,” he answered, refraining from bending down like he’s talking to a dog, or small child.
“Nice shirt,” Osceola pointed to the line of stern, gun-toting Native Americans gathered across Rupert’s chest.
“Thanks.”
Osceola said, “You’re a mutt; what are you?”
Rupert squinted at this little shitbag for a second, but started, “Well, my mother is—” Osceola cut him off.
“One-hundred percent Apache here.” He reached up and scratched the monkey who picked a bug off either himself or Osceola and ate it. “Must be why Steve Perry here likes me so much. I’m in touch with nature; it’s an instinct. He knows, you know?”
“Lots of Apache/Monkey interaction. Back in the day,” Rupert said, nodding.
“Yeah, I guess so.” Osceola appreciated Rupert’s apparent understanding and he tried to slap him on the back, like a pal, but the distance to reach proved problematic. Rupert pretended not to notice so he wouldn’t have to embarrass both of them by leaning over.
He hoped he wouldn’t have to hear an explanation of Osceola’s tattoos, when the latter said: “I notice you’ve noticed my tats.”
Rupert involuntarily flinched. “I did, yes.” But the dreaded conversation took an unexpected turn.
“My cousin once got a bitchin’ black widow tattooed on his face—” Osceloa began.
“Once…?”
“—said it was to help him get over his fear of spiders.”
“Did it work?”
“Yeah,” Osceola sounded as if he’d never stop being impressed by this fact, “Yeah, it did, but now he’s got a fear of welding grinders.”
I’m not sure I know what that is. “Oh?”
“Yeah, my other cousin had one and offered to remove the tat.”
“That’s . . . wow.”
“Right? Who knew a tat could cure a phobia?”
Rupert wished they’d just had the conversation about his tattoos that he’d expected but didn’t want to have. The thought of having a Native American ceremonial pipe tattooed across his face flitted through his mind, then was gone as quickly as it had come. What’s a welding grinder? Rupert shuddered.
Fulva yelled, not at Osceola, but at Bill, in her gruff, old-man voice: “Bildo, we’re talking business. Get that monkey-fucking honky-Tonto out of here.”
Osceola seemed for a moment to have been offended, but then looked at Rupert and said, “Man, I’d never fuck a live monkey.”
Bill had forgotten that anyone else was in the room and was surprised out of his private conversation with MeeMaw. Rupert noticed that the dildo had made its way out of Bill’s front pocket, revealing itself to be double-ended with the words “MeeMaw’s Whackin’ Dick” written down the side. Bill rubbed it with lubricant from a container labeled “Cooncunt Oil.”
Fulva continued yelling and Bill looked somewhat shell-shocked.
“Bill, get him out of here. He’s bothering me and he’s bothering Steve Perry. Get him out of here or . . . ”
Three seconds had passed and Fulva apparently concluded that Bill was not responding as promptly as, or in a manner which, she preferred.
“Bill, you get that honky injun out of here or I’ll call upon the powers of the Whackin’ Dick and MeeMaw will come to you at night, in your dreams, and ass-ream you with every dildo you’ve ever laid your hands on.”
Bill cowered and rubbed the cooncunt oil into the dildo faster. Rupert, for a moment, thought of Leenda, and then wondered why he’d thought of Leenda, and his face flushed before he could excuse the thought as his being in a strange, stressful situation and that his mind automatically went to her for comfort. Yes. Comfort.
So, Bill had recoiled, and Osceola and Fulva were laughing when she stopped abruptly and instructed Jesus to show Rupert where the sustainable canvas shopping bags were located. In what seemed like a cosmic act of mercy, Jesus led Rupert away from the pink chamber of Capuchin monkey shit and dildonic horrors.
Sock it to me...