Boss Burrito, Naked Like My Yearning

I wish I could put my arms around your neck, like those aprons you’re so fond of, snug around the back of you, close but not suffocating. I always stand too close, people tell me, but for you I’ll keep my distance, try to make sure you’re comfortable.

I really like spending time with you.

And I know it’s not like the other people, the being too close. We’re not even in the same town. That’s why I follow you online instead, why I know this week you’re celebrating. I sit staring at the photographs, complete with foil taco-shaped balloons declaring ‘Taco bout a party’. I try and peer around them to see what else I could know about you, see who you’re with, to no avail. 

Is there anything sadder than watching a party you weren’t invited to, hoping someone is going to tap you on the shoulder and say ‘Why aren’t you here yet?’ Then I could laugh and put some shoes on and go be part of the fun. The closest I can get to you now is zooming in, but that’s just letting me get closer to the things I can’t reach.

Like you, my precious Taco Bell.

I go to your website and browse out the menu. I don’t like doing it, it makes what we have feel so transactional. I’m greeted with the Naked Chicken Taco, the kind of abomination I want to get my hands dirty with. I wonder if it’s actually crunchy, or if it’s that soft crumbed chicken that melts in your mouth instead. I study the pictures carefully, wondering what I would order if I could go. Right now the Boss Burrito looks amazing, but I know I have days where the Crunchwrap Supreme would be the answer to my problems.

I find videos on YouTube. I see the worker who licked a stacked pile of taco shells and got caught on camera, and I get it. Imagine soft tongues on rough shells, the heady scent of Taco Bell taco shells right up against your nose, mixed with heat and the scent of saliva, like a passionate, stolen kiss in a supply closet. I briefly watch the video fallout to that incident, news presenters with staid tones, and I’m bored by the bureaucracy. Bored by the drama. Angry at people who went to Taco Bell and complained about things that didn’t happen, instead of savouring the things that did.

I lie in bed at night, thinking about what I would do if I could sneak into the kitchen when no one else was there. I think about burying my hands deep into the guac trays, cold, protein-rich sludge sinking between my fingers and under my nails. I think of leaning on flat palms in the metal bean containers, feeling their fragile little skins give way under my hands, spilling their pulpy innards into a muck that I squash against the bottom of the tray as my hand slides across the yielding metal surface. Floury fingers from tortillas. Stolen moments with crispy grilled cheese that stayed too long on the cooktop, browned crusty forbidden snacks. Even the drinks fridge is alluring, bright lights flickering like batting eyelashes.

Can a kitchen flirt?

I wonder if they’d understand why I did it, why it was better that I go to the kitchen when no one else was there, keep my sins to myself, rather than sneak in while it was open and full of people and let them see what you do to me, and the inverse. Instead, this lustful night-time orgy of touch and smell, even though everything would be tainted by the weird, muted dusty smell of refrigeration, is just one more step into the alienation. I wonder how long I would need to leave things out of the fridge to feel them at room temperature, closer to the heat of a living thing? Would it be the same if I microwaved them? I’m sure they have microwaves in their kitchens, even if they barely use them. I wonder how many Cheesy Swirls I can microwave at once, and what I’ll do with them when they’re all ready, warm enough to eat, but not hot enough to burn me. Or maybe they will be, and that can be the punishment for my transgressions.

Maybe I’ll eat them as I rest on piles of crushed taco shells, crumbled into tiny sharp points for me to kneel on as I eat my stolen bounty. The pain will remind me that what I’m doing is wrong, that in another world I could have been lining up at the front counter, mulling over my order, changing my mind as each person in front of me was served. Maybe the toughest choice would have been deciding when it was worth the extra $2 for guac (of course it is). Instead I’m sitting here, in my mind, bare legs on crushed tacos in the kitchen of an abandoned restaurant, hands full of bread wrapped in cheese, juices running down my hands. 

Until then, it’s just a screen between us as I move my finger across my phone, stroking you away and back to me, pinching you to bring you closer.

Already Human

I remember Audrey’s blue jeans hanging really low off her waist. So low, in fact, the streetlight casts a shadow on her naked pelvic bone. That was right before her body just shut off, and she passed out right on the sidewalk. It happened in a matter of seconds, but the first sign that showed me something was about to happen was when her head tilted back. The fur scarf hanging over her pullover falls and her with it, her head knocking against the pavement. Not being in a right state of mind myself, I don’t even try to catch her. I’m so out of it, her falling loops around in my head a couple of times before the logical side of my brain finally catches, and I realize I gotta do something. So I get on my knees, and for a brief few minutes I have the clarity to check her pulse which is faint but there beating steadily like the stars shining in the middle of the forest without any light pollution to drown out the sky. As I’m feeling around her skull for any cuts, my hands must’ve caught against her quartz, dreamcatcher necklace because clattering is heard, and I see beads rolling off the curb.

We had been waiting in line to see a special art exhibit featuring a live musical performance when the drug hit us like a semi-truck. In the car, parked about a mile away in an open lot, we had pulled out these funky-smelling, dried up roots of a plant and were studying them in the palm of my hand. I had gotten them from a strange-looking dude in the city square one night. It was a part of town where all the cool, grungy people hung out, selling their respective wares of tie-dye shirts, home-made jewelry and, of course, drugs. The particular guy I had gotten the roots from was a very thin, old, white guy who called himself, “The Shaman.” He wore a light blue hoodie and a Scottish-skirt-looking thing for pants. He was mumbling something about gold coming down like rain, and I wasn’t sure if he was trying to give me directions on how to take the thing or if he was zoning out on his own supply. At the end of our meeting, “The Shaman,” waved his hand all around me like he was blessing me or cursing me. I couldn’t tell the difference. He was muttering seemingly made up gibberish with such a mix of aggression and sensitivity that I seriously had second thoughts about doing them as I walked away from the crowd.

I didn’t tell all this to Audrey as we sat in the car. The art exhibit was her idea. I was and am still not an art guy. Drugs were my art you could say. It just made everything more colorful and interesting. Anyway, she wasn’t wholly new to taking stuff, but she was looking at the thing and was seriously having doubts. But I was taking a long time, deciding whether to take them or not. In the end, with music bumping inside the car, I just popped them inside my mouth without warning, and that was how this whole crazy thing began.

We finally both began to “sober” up just as the line to get into the art exhibit started to move. The exhibit was inside of a multi-level parking structure and the now-moving line was wrapped around the building. I thought for a moment maybe we should ditch the thing since we were still in no condition to be looking at framed paintings on a wall. That was my thinking as I slapped Audrey on the cheeks to bring her back into waking consciousness. Her eyes rolled back into place, and her breathing became sudden as if the lungs were in full operation again. With her arm around my shoulder, I was helping her walk down the sidewalk, past the people in line when she mumbled where we were going.

“Home,” I said.

Audrey garbled some kind of response. She was conscious now but still high—as was I. But I could make out that she wanted to go in with the moving line.

“No,” I said.

We got into a little heated argument out in front of the multi-level parking structure with all the people in line staring at us. Thinking back on it now, we must’ve looked like possessed ghouls, muttering incoherent words like grunts somehow getting our words across to one another. A big-bellied guy with a white goatee came over to us then and asked if we were okay. He gave us some cold Gatorade in an unnaturally blue color which I had to pour into Audrey’s mouth like I was pouring coolant into the lips of a radiator.

He sat us down on the curb as the line continued to move. I swore I could’ve heard him say to someone behind in line to go inside without him and that he would meet them inside. Things started to get hazy after that. Time started to fast forward, or maybe, skip forward, at least in my memory. All of a sudden, we were walking down the ramp of the parking structure with parking attendants waving blinking, red batons, waving us to go down. I don’t even know what happened to the big-bellied guy with the goatee. The next thing I remember is reaching the bottom floor where it’s completely flat and a bunch of people are continuing to file in from the ramp. The lights are hot and bright at first. Then, it’s dark save for the blinking red batons which appear as if they’re floating in the black air. A single, distorted guitar string is strummed. Then, whole chords ring through a crowd as bluish-white spotlights shine down on the band playing on stage. I’m still holding Audrey by the waist while she has hers around my shoulder. She’s able to stand on her feet now, but she’s still a little wobbly. Then, wet things start falling on our heads. For some reason, I just accept this fact without even considering that we were in an enclosed space, so rain should’ve been impossible. But I just accepted it—as did Audrey.

The band continued playing, the lead singer’s voice raspy like it was an organic, human, distorted guitar. I don’t know what I mean by this, but that was what I was thinking at the time. We cover our heads with our hands to shade us from the rain, but it’s obvious it isn’t helping because we are getting drenched. Puddles are starting to form under our feet. Drums are being pounced on on stage. A guitar riff flies fitfully through the sky as the singer repeats the chorus. Clouds smolder in the sky.

The songs stops. Music stops. But the rain comes down in a torrential rainfall. The water which was slapping against our drenched shoes is now up to our necks, and on the surface of the water is a wooden ship. Someone’s thrown overboard. Time skips forward again, and I’m standing in front of a cashier at a coffee shop who’s staring with this dumbfounded look in her eyes.

“What size, sir?”

“Tall,” I say.

I don’t remember paying for the coffee, much less actually getting the coffee. I know my memory of that time is completely messed up because, after that, I recall looking up at a framed painting on a matcha-green wall. So, I must be mis-remembering or re-ordering the chronological chain of events. However, in my brain, it’s placed here for some reason. All the planets are spaced together around an invisible sphere. I don’t know about constellations and stuff, but I do know Saturn isn’t bigger than the sun which is how it’s depicted in the painting. The piece after that is of a woman reading a book at the beach, laying on a chair, under the shade of an umbrella. She is nude on top. After that, I remember looking at a black and white photograph of black people in suits and dresses entering into a church.

The last thing I remember, and I swear, I felt like this was really happening. I heard thunder. Lots of it, and I realized it was really bombs exploding. They felt really near. I didn’t look back to see what it was. It was that close. People were running past us. I was still holding up Audrey by the waist who still couldn’t walk properly and kept stumbling. The people running past us I began to make out because they were so different from each other: a small, dark, Asian girl; a beautiful blonde white woman; and a lanky soldier in a World War Two officer’s uniform. At the end of the dusty yellow road, some guy was waving people through a doorway. But the doorway was crooked as if my head was tilted to the side, and the man had a long white beard and a long flowing robe like a wizard.

H₂S Blues

One night, a horrible stench awoke Sam from a deep sleep. He glanced over at Claudette and assumed it was her and had a hard time falling back asleep the smell was so bad. He awoke the next day slightly put off, indeed hating Claudette a little. Though she was no more or less flatulent than anyone else, she had never passed wind that smelled so awful. Was it a precursor of things to come? 

On another night, Claudette was awoken by a stench so terrible she thought she might puke. She covered her nose and mouth and glanced at Sam. She felt like punching him in the face. She couldn’t fall back asleep, and was so disgusted she wouldn’t talk to Sam for the next two days. 

Neither came forward to discuss their concerns. Then one night both were awoken by a familiar stench—that one, that horrific stench they had both experienced. 

“Was that you?” Sam asked, his eyes watering. 

“Me?” Claudette exclaimed, pinching her nose. “You thought that was me? I would have left me if that was.” 

After a pause they both burst into laughter. 

“You mean to tell me that it wasn’t you?” Sam said, holding his belly.

“No,” Claudette said, snorting with laughter, “I thought it was you!” 

They both laughed until their abdominal muscles ached. Then they lay there in silence, both looking up at the popcorn ceiling.

The Spokes Critter Killings

Detective Dirk Wagmore dumped his coffee cup in the trash before donning nitrile gloves. The forensics team had been on site long enough to wiggle into their bunny suits, cover the body, and cordon off the area with police tape.

“Victim’s some kind of cartoon rodent,” his partner said. “Fisherman found him floating in the river and called it in.” Detective Liz Torres wore a jacket that covered the 1911 pistol, chambered in 10mm, she wore on her hip but nothing could cover her disdain for Mexican food. It didn’t take Dr. Freud to realize that the heiress to the Guillermo’s Taco empire had daddy issues. The police academy was her way out of a life of carne asada and refried beans. Once she got her badge, she never looked back. “Victim has no ID but from the animation style, I’d guess he was in his mid-forties.”

“What do we have, Joyce?” Wagmore asked the coroner kneeling by the body.

“Choked to death on a 42-ounce cannister of oatmeal.” Dr. O’Brian pulled back the sheet to expose the rodent’s face and neck. “Bruising indicates it was forced down his throat. Lack of swelling means he can’t have been in the water too long. Open sores and bleeding gums indicate the victim had diabetes. Finding his identity’s going to be tough. Cartoons don’t have fingerprints. I’m not sure about DNA and dental records. We might try to run the ink through a gas chromatograph.”

“You must not have watched Saturday morning cartoons in the 80s,” Wagmore said. “That’s Lenny the Cornflake Chipmunk. He was always running scams to get breakfasts that rodents weren’t supposed to have. Looks like we’ve got ourselves…”

“Don’t say it, Wagmore.” Torres put her fingers in her ears.

“…a cereal killer.”

***

The demon Mephistopheles appeared in the scholar’s study.

“What is your wish?” 

“That you will provide me with Bruckner’s Cornflakes as long as I live.” The disguised Lenny the Chipmunk closed a leather-bound book of spells.

“I am a servant of great Lucifer and may do nothing without his command.”

“And what would convince Lucifer to command thee?”

“Your immortal soul.”

“I would be damned a thousand times for just one bowl of Bruckner’s Cornflakes,” Lenny replied.

“Then sign this contract in blood.” Mephistopheles handed Lenny a parchment and a blade to nick his finger.

“Woo Hoo!” Lenny ran around the study and his robe fell off revealing a rodent body.

“Foolish Chipmunk. Cornflakes are for humans!” Mephistopheles disappeared in a puff of smoke.

“Bruckner’s Cornflakes – So tasty you’ll sell your soul for just one bite,” the announcer said.

 “That’s one of the tamer ones.” Captain Barkless turned off the VCR. “No doubt, Lenny made a lot of enemies with the Decency Council. Start by interviewing people who knew him.”

“Got it, Captain.” Wagmore and Torres left Barkless’s office.  

***

“Seen this chipmuck before?” Wagmore slapped a photo on the bar.

Of all the cereal cafes in all the world, Skim City had to be the worst. Even in mid-afternoon, teens with pimply skin, gaunt women with bitter frown lines, and overweight bikers whose denim vests revealed prison tattoos crowded the dimly lit room with their desperate craving for sugar, corn syrup, and carbohydrates. A TV over the dispensers showed an animated Wanda, the Woke Walrus, emphasizing the importance of inclusive language. The cereal tender picked up the photo.

“Naw, we don’t serve no rodents in here.” He was too skinny to be sampling the product.

“Look again.” Wagmore tapped the photo.

“Hey!” A biker sprang from his stool and grabbed Wagmore by the shoulder. “The man said he didn’t see him!”

Torres swung the biker around. After two quick slaps, she captured one of his hands in a wristlock and pointed her big pistol at his eye.

“Nice place you’ve got here.” Wagmore showed his badge. “Be a shame if the health department found some expired cereal containing red dye number two. We’re investigating a murder so look again.”

“All right. I seen him.” The cereal tender wiped spilled milk off the bar. “Understand we can’t keep rodents out of here if they wearing disguises like top hats, football jerseys, of they dressed like pirates. Always going on about how he used to be famous and hitting up my customers to buy him puffed rice. Felt sorry for the guy so I gave him a little oatmeal now and again.”

“When did you last see him?”

“About a week ago. Said he had some big score that would put him back on top.”

“Any idea what?”

“Said something about getting the old gang back together.”

The TV cut to a commercial with a man in a plaid shirt standing by a horse.

“Seems five-hundred-million dollars doesn’t buy as much as it used to. Like you, I’ve had to cut back by buying my daughter a Porsche instead of the Bugatti she wanted.” He placed a saddle on the horse and continued talking while tightening the straps. “Used to be, you could kill a hooker and pay the police chief to make the body disappear. Those days are gone thanks to the Washington elites and their big-government allies. I still believe America is the land of opportunity where anyone from a wealthy family can build a sweatshop or dig a strip-mine in a national park. That’s why I’m running for mayor. Even though I’m a billionaire, I need your checks for twenty-five, a hundred, or twenty-thousand dollars. I’m George Kintsugi and I approve this message.”

***

Disguised in a trench coat, Lenny entered the Soviet embassy. The scene cut to an interview room where a man with a large jaw sat behind a bust of Lenin.

“You wished to see the resident?”

“These are the specifications for an x-ray laser used in the Strategic Defense Initiative.” Lenny slid an envelope across the desk. “I can get more.”

“And what do you want in return?” The KGB agent opened the envelope and studied the papers.

“A lifetime supply of Bruckner’s Cornflakes.”

“We prefer an ongoing relationship. How about a month’s supply for every batch of documents you deliver?”

“Woo Hoo!” Lenny danced around the room and his trench coat fell off revealing his rodent body.”

“Foolish Chipmunk. Cornflakes are for humans!” The KGB agent pocketed the secrets.

“Bruckner’s Cornflakes – So tasty you’ll betray your country for just one bite.”

***

“Dean Shumway?” Wagmore showed his badge. “I’m Detective Wagmore and this is Detective Torres. Mind if we come in?”

“Sure.” Shumway ushered them into a living room, gestured to a leather sofa, and took a seat on a bearskin rug in the middle of the floor. He was wiry with blue eyes and a beard that was white with age.

“Do you own a gun, Mr. Shumway?” Torres pointed to the antelope and cape buffalo heads mounted on the walls.

“Bow hunting,” Shumway replied. “Just like our ancestors did for thousands of years.”

“When was the last time you saw Lenny, the Cornflake Chipmunk?” Wagmore asked.

“Saw it on the news. Real tragedy but it was bound to happen.”

“What do you mean?” Torres asked.

“If somebody didn’t kill him, the processed foods would have gotten him eventually. After I starred in all those cornflake commercials, I realized the human body wasn’t designed for that kind of diet. Tried to convince Lenny but he wouldn’t listen. Had a blow up three years ago. Haven’t spoken to him since.”

“Where were you on Tuesday night?” Wagmore asked.

“Giving a seminar at the Mukherjee Center.” Shumway pointed to a hardcover he’d authored, titled The Neanderthal Diet.

“Know anybody who would want to hurt Lenny?” Torres asked.

“You might check with our costar, Maggie,” Shumway said. “There were rumors of sexual harassment on set.”

As they were leaving, Wagmore noticed a Kintsugi for Mayor bumper sticker on Shumway’s Porsche.

***

The interview had to wait because Wagmore got a call about a dead body in the hills. The deceased was none other than Wanda, the Woke Walrus. Her maid found her unresponsive by the pool and called it in.

“Energy drinks, Adderall, and methamphetamine.” Dr. O’Brian pointed to the cans and bottles strewn by the body. 

“Could it be foul play?”

“My guess is an overdose or suicide. I’ll know more after the autopsy.”

“Seems like she couldn’t get woke enough,” Wagmore said.

***

Adolph Hitler shook his fist and ranted in front of a giant eagle and swastika while thousands of fanatical followers cheered. 

“Excuse me, Mr. Fuhrer,” Wanda, the Woke Walrus, raised her hand from the front row. “You forgot to tell us your pronouns.”

“He, him, his.” Hitler slapped his forehead. “Mein Gott! I’ve been wrong all this time.”

Black-and-white, newsreel footage played backwards. A building reassembled as a bomb rose and attached to a Stuka’s belly. German troops marched backwards retreating through the Arc de Triomphe. 

“Always remember.” Wanda wagged her finger. “Language has power.” 

***

“Two advertising mascots dead in two days! There has to be a connection, Captain!”

“Damn it, Wagmore! Homicide doesn’t have the budget for you to chase wild-goose chases. Dr. O’Brian said the walrus died of an overdose so drop it.”

“Yeah, just like the aardvark killer. The department never has the budget when it comes to saving toons’ lives.”

“That was thirty years ago.” Barkless fixed Wagmore with a stare he’d perfected over decades as a beat cop, a stare that could fill gangbangers’ intestines with icicles. “These deaths are isolated incidents. Now, get out of my office.”

“Come on, Dirk.” Torres put a hand on Wagmore’s shoulder. “We’ve got work to do.”

***

“My parents never liked him.” Maggie Haywood sipped her drink through a straw. Taking a break from shooting a toonbang, she’d covered her nudity with a blue, nylon robe while a herd of toon rhinos and their ox pecker fluffers waited for the next scene. “Lenny and I were both sixteen but dad said he was over a hundred in chipmunk years. Anyway, the studio offered a cash settlement for my parents to forget the whole thing.”

“When was the last time you saw him?” Torres asked.

“Twenty years ago. After the settlement, my parents moved us to Ohio. Said it was a more family-friendly atmosphere.” Air bubbled in the straw as Maggie finished her drink. “I followed his career, though. He was more than a mouthpiece for cornflakes. He wanted to play King Lear.”

“Know anybody who would hurt him?” Wagmore asked.

“My parents but they cashed in that big poker chip in the sky after a fifth-wheel sideswiped their minivan in Vegas.” Maggie nodded toward the director. “I got to go back to work. If I can help, let me know.”

“Thanks for your time,” Torres said.

***

His hair cut in a mohawk, Dean approached Lenny, who was disguised in a fedora and muscle shirt.

“I’m looking for some action,” Dean said.

“Officer!” Lenny held his wrists together as if in handcuffs. “I’m clean.” He showed that his arms had no tracks. “I’m just waiting for a friend.”

“I ain’t a cop,” Dean said.

“Then why are you asking me for action?”

“She sent me.” Dean pointed to Maggie who wore sunglasses and shorts.

“One box of Bruckner’s Cornflakes for fifteen minutes. Two boxes for twenty-five.”

“I don’t know,” Dean said.

“I promise you ain’t never had pussy like that.”

“All right.” Dean produced two boxes from beneath his olive-drab jacket.

“Woo Hoo!” Lenny danced around and his fedora fell off, revealing his rodent head.

“Foolish Chipmunk. Cornflakes are for humans!” Dean retrieved the boxes.

“Bruckner’s Cornflakes – So tasty you’ll pimp your sister.”

***

“Looks like a flightless bird took a swan dive off the thirteenth floor.” Dr. O’Brian pulled back the sheet for the detectives to see the body bleeding purple ink.

“Can’t say I feel sorry. That’s Oscar, the Obedient Ostrich.” Torres leaned forward for a better look. “When I was growing up, my parents told me and my sister to be more like Oscar. Funny thing. They never said that to the boys.”

“Detectives, I think you should see this.” A uniformed officer motioned Wagmore and Torres to a stairwell marked with an arrow and a sign that said, “This way.”

The detectives trudged up the stairs, followed the signs to exit onto the roof, and stopped by one that pointed over the edge saying, “Step here.” 

“That dodo was too dumb to live,” Wagmore said.

***

Oscar and an eel sat in a secure room.

“These documents prove our government has known the Vietnam war is unwinnable for decades.” Eelsberg pointed to a stack of papers marked Top Secret. “We need to inform the public.”

“Don’t do it.” Oscar grabbed Eelsberg by the shoulders. “Even though we have security clearances, President Nixon knows more about the situation than we do.” 

“You’re right. We must trust our superiors.” Eelsberg sat down.

The following day, Oscar showed the headline on the New York Times that said, “Hanoi Surrenders!”

“You were right all along.” Eelsberg shook Oscar’s wing. “Always obey the authorities. They know more than you do.”

***

“So, you were right, Wagmore,” Captain Barkless said. “What do you want? A citrus, caramel sundae?”

“With toasted almonds.”

“Damn it, Wagmore!” Captain Barkless left and returned thirty minutes later with Wagmore’s sundae. “There! So, some serial killer is bumping off the most annoying cartoon characters in Jupiter City. What are we going to do about it?”

“Shame we have to do anything at all.” Torres picked an almond off of Wagmore’s sundae. “Jupiter City would be a better place without those lowlifes.”

“Agreed!” Captain Barkless looked at the dessert and touched his expanding waistline. “The citizens don’t care but mayoral candidate George Kintsugi’s making noises. If he gets elected, it could affect our budget.”

“We could. Excuse me.” Wagmore swallowed. “Stake out potential victims.”

“Who are the most annoying cartoon characters in Jupiter City?” Captain Barkless stroked his chin.

“For my money, they would be Barry, the Union-Busting Bear, and Gilbert, the Gospel-Quoting Gopher.” Torres answered.

“Sounds like a plan,” Barkless said. “Wagmore, take the gopher. Torres, you’ve got the bear.”

***

Wagmore parked his Ford Crown Victoria in front of an A-framed church on Inspiration Way. He entered and found the cartoon gopher kneeling in front of a large cross behind the pulpit. Even in animation, Gilbert’s suit looked drab and unflattering. 

“Excuse me, Mr. Gopher. I’m Detective Dirk Wagmore. We’re concerned about your safety. Have you received any threats?”

“Do you believe in Jesus, Detective?” Gilbert adjusted his plastic-rimmed glasses.

“I don’t think about it much.”

“Whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

“Right.” Wagmore realized it was going to be a long day. “Let me check the locks on your windows.” 

***

Later that night, Wagmore’s cell phone rang.

“Dirk, I’m screwed,” Torres said. “I stepped out for fifteen minutes to get some chicken and waffles. When I came back, I saw Barry, the Union-Busting Bear, getting into a limo with George Kintsugi. I tailed them to the abandoned plutonium mine on Racine. I need backup but if I call it in, the captain will have my ass.”

“On my way.” Wagmore dashed to his car.

Even with lights flashing, it took Wagmore twenty minutes to drive across town. When he skidded to a halt in the parking lot, there was no trace of a limousine or Torres’ Dodge Charger. He rushed to the entrance and peered inside.

“Hello.”

The only response was the sound of his echo and smell of alpha particles. Wagmore called Torres but there was no signal. His police radio had no reception, either.  It must have been the radiation.

“Shit!” Wagmore slapped his head. “The gopher!”

He jumped in his car and raced back to the church.

***

“Drop your gun or the gopher gets it!” Torres held Gilbert from behind with her pistol to his head.

“We can talk about this, Liz.” Wagmore placed his pistol on the floor and raised his hands. 

“Sucker!” Torres fired two rounds into Wagmore’s chest. The hollow points expanded as they ripped through his lungs and he died choking on blood. 

Torres scooped up Wagmore’s pistol and executed Gilbert, the Gospel-Quoting Gopher, just like she’d killed Lenny, Wanda, and Oscar. She’d hated cute characters who propagandized little minds, too young for fact checking, ever since Marco, the Manteca Marmot, had crashed her quinceañera. Once the heat cooled down, she’d introduce Barry, the Union-Busting Bear, to an industrial shredder. After that, she’d knock off Frances, the Family Values Fox and those porcupines on the toilet paper ads. She wiped her fingerprints off Wagmore’s pistol, placed it in his dead hand, and prepared for the best acting of her life.

“This is Torres,” she sobbed into the police radio. “It was Wagmore. He killed all of them. I tried to save Gilbert but I was too late.”

The Golden Child

The name’s Waterloo Clyde. I’ve been working these hills for longer than anybody. I didn’t take up with too many women in all this time. Women found my countenance disagreeable. The hills have always been the warm bosom what grabs me and holds me through the long nights.

I had some lean times and some boom times, striking a nugget here or some flakes there. Whenever I had had the gold in my pocket, I drank and fucked it all away, until I had to go back into the hills for more.

I did call on the Widow Vern a few times to go for evening strolls. She and I would saunter past the gas lamps on the cobblestone plaza of The Town. She was fair in manner and presentation, and carried an ebullient air.

I asked her one evening, “Will you be my wife? There’s no use in both of us being alone.”

She replied, “Waterloo Clyde, I can look past the face, but you are too dirty and too poor to marry.”

I didn’t take too much offense to it. She was right. I was dirty from living in the dirt, and I was poor from not having enough money.

This happened out on her porch, where we could have iced tea within the quiet scrutiny of The Town, who needed to know we weren’t up to any funny stuff. Such were the morays of the time.

“You’ll see, ma’am. I’ll get a big payday and buy me a bathtub. I’ll wash up real good, so you’ll be proud to be around me.”

She said, “If you can get me a baby, I’ll marry you. My insides ain’t fit for childbirth, according to Doctor Tom. So that’s the deal. You have my word.”

I figured I could find a baby. Babies wasn’t as rare as gold and I found that plenty of times. So I went to the hills and started mining for babies. 

I spent years digging thousands of holes. I found some gold here or there, but mostly it was just mud.

One night I heard the holler in the dark. It was a baby’s cry. I followed it and found its source were under the ground, there in the clearing where the pines gave way to the stars. 

I began to dig. I dug like I dug into the grip of a bottle: with fury and trepidation. I hacked through roots and bramble, digging toward that plaintive wail. I used my hands when the cry got louder. What was born from that hole was a lump of gold 19″ long, roughly the size and shape of a child, there in the full moonlight. I knew what I had to do. 

I went back to The Town. I shaved part of the nugget off to pay a metal worker to sculpt me a golden baby. He had it finished within a fortnight and I presented the baby to the Widow Vern.

“Why Waterloo Jones, this not what I meant. I wanted a human baby, not a decadent facsimile of a baby.”

“Is it not as expensive as a baby? Love it like a baby. Everything is transactional.”

“Yes I suppose there is love to be had in a golden child. I think I’ll call her Goldie.”

And we paraded the baby through the streets, all hailed it as a triumph, and the Widow Vern became Mrs. Waterloo Clyde.

“We need a new house for Goldie,” she said as she nursed the metallic child.

And so I went, hat in hand, to the bank to ask for a home loan. 

Mr. Bankman, the owner of the bank said, “That’s no problem, Mr. Clyde. We’ll just need the golden baby as collateral.”

“Mr. Bankman, sir, that’s quite gracious of you, however, I don’t think I can square that with the wife. You see she’s become very attached to the baby. She’s not going to take too kindly to being separated for the duration of the mortgage.”

Mr. Banksy Bankman thought on this a second. “I’ll tell you what we’ll do because we do want your business. We will place the baby under glass and put it in our lobby. That way your wife can visit the baby during business hours.”

I thought this was a good compromise and presented it to Mrs. Clyde. She said, “So We need a bigger house to accommodate the baby, but if we get a bigger house, we have no baby to accommodate.”

“True.”

“How does that make sense?”

“I guess it really doesn’t. But we need to choose one or the other.”

“Why?”

“Because Mr. Bankman says it is so.”

“Oh. Well let’s get the house then. I can go visit the baby all day every day. Or whenever it suits me.”

This meant I had to work digging up them hills for enough gold to make the payments on the house. This was difficult because the hills was picked over like a Thanksgiving turkey, days after the feast. It wasn’t just ol’ Waterloo Clyde roaming the hills anymore. Word of the golden child spread far and wide. Now every pissant with a shovel was combing the hills, eating up all my glory.

I had to go so far to find gold, I never even visited the house I was paying for. I sleep still in a hole in the ground.

Meanwhile, throngs gather to see the golden baby. People swear they hear the baby crying still, like it did that night below the ground. Others claim to hear nothing but the echo of a marble bank lobby packed to capacity.