Cosmic Vomit

Tomorrow segued into today without question and without looking both ways. It felt a lot like an extraterrestrial tennis sandwich. I knew something bad was about to bubble over. And I knew that it was mass-hypnosis. What I didn’t know was that it was mass-hypnosis bubbling over.

I suppose if I took my self less seriously - and took more tranquilizers - I could get through each day without thinking that part about the demons and the venison. I’d be able to pour Parmesan on my shoes, my shirt and the newspaper. Drinking wine would be the most difficult part. That and pouring Parmesan on my shoes.

I could eat my shoes, but I’d rather pour Parmesan on them and watch them melt. Then I’d dip my fingers into the pie... ¡Ecstasy!

I put on my shoes instead. I had decided not to eat them.

I didn’t want to keep thinking about how “I” is another. I just wanted to push some pie into someone’s face and lie back.

This old house is good, I told my self. Very good.

Now I had to wash my teeth and brush my penis. I had to go to the bathroom.

I had only gone to the bathroom three times before this: one time, another time at the dentist and another time when I was eating pasta with the dentist. Six times, ¿right?

Right. More or less. I didn’t have much time and the dentist didn’t have much patients.

I washed the pasta from my teeth with what could only be described as a pen. I pushed and pulled until my teeth started coming loose, and then I washed them.

My teeth didn’t seem to be in any danger of leaving me. I ask them all the time, and they always say they’re only going to school.

I moved past a ladder, and Mom called out for me to put on something plastic for lunch.

-Your father and I were talking the other night, and we decided that you were more of a joke than an accident.

Great, I thought. First she tells me I’m a bastard and I don’t know what to think. Then she tells me that it’s my fault she got pregnant with me.

-You were the most irresponsible baby I ever had. At least your sister had the common sense that God gave dogs -She told me-. But you thought you knew everything before you could even make a good fondue and before you could talk like the animals. Just imagine it: a kid who doesn’t even know how to pass gas.

Man. It felt like I had been hit by ten deputy sheriffs from nowhere.

-Thanks, Mom -I told her. Then I opened the door. I had to concentrate, but I was able to get through the doorway unscathed. I concentrated some more, and there was cold goo all over the door handle, so I rang the doorbell.

-Ah, a celebrity -I heard someone inside say.

I turned around and saw Eric dressed in a big red robe that had more than its share of cold goo on it.

-Oh -He ventured (I obviously have overlooked Eric’s loquaciousness!).

-You’re the sort of dickhead I usually don’t run into outside of class, if I can help it -I grunted.

-Yeah -He murmured-. And you’re not the type of candy-ass that something something.

Eric talked like a rodeo rider who had had one too many pastas interspersed with five too many shirts. He tried to push a piece of paper into my hand.

-¿What is this? -I asked him.

-The debris from my math homework -He said-. I have to try to engage with it this afternoon.

-¿You have to do what? -I asked.

-No -Eric corrected-. What I have to do is nothing. What you have to do is my homework.

Despite the pounding I was about to take for it, I felt defiant.

I took his math paper and urinated on it.

-You’ve got to be on Alpo®, Sterner -Eric said, looking like a vulture.

-¿A what?

-Don’t try to make me seem stupid -The stupid motherfucker said-. No one makes me look stupid, except on the rare occasion that my aunt does. And that’s very rarely.

I looked at the paper. I don’t know what had gotten into my head, but whatever it was had better leave by dusk.

Or by noon.

I could be in the mountains by noon.

I was so desperate, I tried telling Eric that math was only for traitors and dope users.

On paper, a “mountain” is just a symbol. It has no abject familiarity. But, off paper, a mountain looks pretty fucking huge.

That is the kind of encounter I had with Colin. He knew that I knew that he had passed wind. And he told me to write it down.

It took me as a total surprise that I could’ve used the escalator to get in. I had gone through a door, through two holes in the ground, and ended up passed out somewhere in Illinois. At least that’s what I told Miss Scott when I came in after the bell had rung. I said that it was all Colin’s fault. And when she told me that I’d best stop lying, I knew that I had been had.

-¿Will you be on time tomorrow? -She asked me. Alex passed me a note that said, “Tell her that the sunrise sleeps with the fishes”.

-¿Tomorrow? -I asked-. ¿What time tomorrow?

-Come on with the smart-ass remarks -She told me in a burlap sack tone-. ¿Why don’t you just go home and start studying for the garbage collectors entrance exam? Admit it, Al. You don’t want to be a gentleman, like your sister, you just want to mouth-off at every opportunity.

-Suck my dick, no -I murmured-. Suck my dick, no.

The bell rang and I ran out the door. Miss Scott immediately gave chase.

This time I really couldn’t talk to Colin.

¿And now what the hell does Scott want?

Eric wants me to quit doing math problems while I’m eating. And I want to stop talking ants with Colin.

I’m so intent on being miserable, I thought. Where everyone else sees a sunny day, I see debauchery. I have to concentrate just to make sure I don’t start any fires.

¿Why do I continually crucify my self? ¿And why on earth am I wearing linen when I might have to punt a football at any moment?

I could send an Ant-Gram to Eric, if nothing else. I wouldn’t have to sign for it. Nothing. I would just have to fill up an envelope with ants.

The hours before it would be time to eat again were passing rapidly. If only I was able to believe that when it rained, it poured.

-The least you could do is pretend to open the door, Elizabeth Hurley -Eric grunted.

I had been called many things before: a book that had had milk spilled on it three weeks ago, simp city... but never an English celebrity. I was going to have to ask Eric to be my biographer. That and to eat the rest of this gum I found slapped under the table. I would need to organize my memoirs and my files and my Gummi Bears.

¿And when was Eric going to kill me? ¿Did he know that if you take a cantaloupe and place it over a doorway that you could just kill a man? ¿Or was he going to spare my life until Kingdom come?

-Al -Miss Scott told me-. ¿Are you horny?

It sounded like she wanted me to come back to her house. All the women want to check out my habeus corpus.

-I’m not sure what you just said -I said-. ¿Did you just say you wanted to touch my love handles? Because I’d like to test drive your flat duo jets.

-You are a bastard, Al -Miss Scott said-. Now get on your knees, crawl over here, and tell me how horny you are. And that is an order, mister. Get your lard-ass over here.

I must be levitating. I started trembling like a Honda 90. But who died and elected Scott president? I’ll crawl when I damn well feel like it.

-Damn it, Al -Eric’s lard-ass said in what sounded like a Saltine-falsetto.

-No. Fuck you. You can’t make me -I was a little late with that-. You can’t fucking make me.

-Respect your self and slow down on the Vicadin, Alvin -After Miss Scott said that, I couldn’t think of another word, all I could think were images.

I had to agree, for the most part, that my shirt was more of a shoit. I sallied through a corridor looking for the cafeteria. When I went through the door, I felt as if George W. Bush had given me a lap dance and then told me that I was a poor excuse for an Otter Pop®.

A group of students were descending on me from an escalator. I opened the door to let them in and two or three of them pelted me with Clark Bars.

-¡Hey! ¡Use the other escalator! -I told one of the students.

-¿Are you saying I don’t know which escalator is up? -Another student said-. ¿What’s up with that? ¿Are you an idiot?

At least I don’t molest kids from beauty pageants.

At least when I open a door, people pelt me with Clark Bars.

I looked for someone who at least seemed like a man. Eric was too fond of escalators, so I marked him off.

-¡I’m going to tear you apart with your own disposable razor, Sterner! -Eric sure was gripping.

It was crucial that I get through today without getting torn to bits, or riding on an escalator. Escalators are from Hell, but even Hell can get you from one place to the other - and, excuse the phrase - a hell of a lot faster. I was determined to put my best foot forward, but then I ran smack into the side of my school at full speed.

That wasn’t about to stop me from getting to the peace and quiet of home. Mom and Dad were working and Michelle had been institutionalized.

¿What is going on in my head?, I thought. ¿What is going on in Hell? I had to think, and all I had was goo.

I was in the middle of counting to ten when I stopped. I couldn’t remember what came after 5. ¿What do I care what comes after 5, when I know that my fangs are a much greater problem?

I couldn’t answer my self.

Not only was I a dumb-ass, I was also stupid.

And I was becoming stupider with every second that I couldn’t count.