Barrel Fever and Other Stories Read online

  I am not a physician but have read enough to know that everything is not as complicated as it is made to sound. Most of it is just common sense. For example, I have given my daughter, Dawn, stitches several times. If you can sew a button on a shirt, then you can give someone stitches. Just make sure to use a clean, sharp needle and some strong thread. I recommend unwaxed dental floss. Do not, under any circumstances, use yarn. I found myself in a pinch last year and Dawn still blames me for that scar on her forehead. I said then and I will say now that there is no way I'm going to pay some doctor three hundred dollars just because my daughter got drunk and fell. She certainly doesn't have that kind of money, and whoever it was that pushed her didn't step forward and offer to pay. I am still making payments on the last hospital visit. I will probably be paying on that for the rest of her life. Doctors, hospitals, and insurance companies. The less we have to do with those people the better off we'll be. They have everything very neatly tied up and plan to keep it that way.

  Two years ago, when Dawn was fifteen, she fell off the roof. Don't look at me. I have no idea what she was doing up there. I thank God that she landed on her feet. I found her staggering across the lawn and was troubled by her ankles. They felt puffy to me so I set them and applied two fine casts, which, it turned out, were a little bit too tight. Eventually I was forced to carry her to the hospital, where some power-hungry surgeon decided that he needed to amputate both her feet. I am still convinced that her feet were that color not because of gangrene but because they were dirty. Whose feet wouldn't be dirty after three weeks in a cast?

  Anita O'Day is the first music I have listened to since I got rid of the stereo. I still have a bit of tissue lodged in my ear. I had to put it there to blot out the new music Dawn was listening to. The paper is lodged way up in the canal and I don't dare try and dig it out myself. Everyone says, "Don't stick sharp objects in your ear." I believe that this is sound advice (ha, ha). Seriously, though, the ear is a complex and delicate thing. My ears are, anyway.

  Lately I find myself wishing that, instead of paper, it was a scrap of metal inside my ear. That way I could draw it out using a powerful magnet held up against the side of my head. It would make a satisfying sound when it hit the magnet. Clink!

  When I listen to music I like to relax and imagine my place in it. I believe that this is fairly common. I like to imagine myself as the vocalist or, if the singer is a woman, I pretend that I wrote the song and play all of the important instrumental solos. I generally don't listen to music on the radio. It doesn't allow me the time I need to set the stage for myself. I like to know, for instance, where it is that I am performing. How many people are in the audience? What sort of a crowd do they make? As a rule I picture myself playing small clubs where the audience is not allowed to drink or move about freely during my set. They ruin my concentration with their damned tinklings. I almost always imagine Carol, my ex-wife and Dawn's mother, making an appearance during my nightclub act. Sometimes I allow her to stand shivering in the doorway until the end of my set, when she rushes toward me begging forgiveness. The trouble with this is that Carol wouldn't be caught dead drifting into any of the clubs I fantasize playing. She doesn't give a damn for ballads, for anything that isn't fast and dancey.

  It all becomes very complicated and tiresome to imagine, so I rarely listen to music anymore. I do, however, pay close attention to the radio and have quite an impressive collection of tapes. I have the entire Iran-Contra hearings on high-quality Maxell. I tried to draw Dawn into the hearings but she wasn't interested. Daniel Inouye is missing one of his arms and that certainly didn't slow him down or keep him off the radio! I have a complete three-year collection of National Press Club broadcasts along with several hard-to-find Noel Proctor commentaries. I have tapes of myself calling in on "Larry King Live!" and speaking personally to such guests as Ed Meese, Tommy Smothers, Bob Hope, and Jim Brady both beforeand after the accident. Which was the better conversation?You be the judge. The local radio hosts can recognize me by voice, and respect the way I have of challenging their guests. It isn't easy getting through to any of these shows, but if you are persistent and have something to say, then you'll find a way to voice your opinion.

  I often try and encourage Dawn to call a few shows and speak her mind about the issues. Stupid me, waste of time. Dawn doesn't even know what the issues are. She would sit glued to the television set or else she'd try and hog the phone, making calls to her so-called friends. I sometimes just want to shake the life out of her, to point at the radio waves in the night sky and tell her that, Goddamn it, people are thinking out there.

  After I got rid of the TV set Dawn took to listening to a lot of rock music. I can't remember the names of any of the bands. It was just one long, horrible record to me. All of those Englishmen with their weary voices remind me of someone walking very slowly through the garbage they have strewn over the face of this earth. Dawn would sit in her chair and listen to these records, one right after another, which was just not healthy. It is music that was popular during the time she spent dating a boy named Rusty Miller. She used to carry on and on about Rusty. The sun rose and set with him. Rusty wasn't the right type for Dawn but she, of course, couldn't, wouldn't, see it. In my opinion he paid too much attention to his hair. It was sprayed up on top and fell to his shoulders. Beautiful hair, like a girl's. Dawn's hair should look so good. She threatened more than once to run off with this Rusty character. Dramatic. She tried to convince me that she was pregnant with his child and that they would have to get married. They would cross state lines to do it. I knew she was lying. I have a better chance of getting pregnant than she does, but I said, "Fine, all right, you make your filthy bed and you lie in it." But where was Miller after my daughter lost her feet? You tell me. He was just a fairweather friend and I tell her it's a good thing she found out before it was too late. I found that out about Carol too late. I said, "Look at me."

  I figured Dawn had taken up with someone else when she started playing this new music. She hears it on the radio and has gotten hold of some records, too, big 45s the size of regular LPs. These are songs that have been retouched so that the singers stutter and the music falls back on itself. The same lines repeated over and over again as though they were intended for memorization. Simple, stupid lyrics repeated over and over again. "I I I I I I I, I Need, I Need You." It's as though the record were scratched intentionally. Normal, thinking people might ask themselves, "Haven't I heard that phrase already?" They might notice that this relentless repetition is, at best, redundant and, at its worst, an insult to one's ability to concentrate on anything of value. Dawn says that the beat is good to dance to. Dance? Her? I say, "Excuse me for nitpicking, but doesn't one need to have two feet in order to dance?" This music encourages her to live in a fantasy world where everything is rosy and brightly possible no need to work, just sit back and dream, dream your life away.

  She's getting these records from some kid down the block. I've seen him around a few times on the street barefoot and shirtless but with a big hairbrush sticking out of his gym shorts. He's not going anyplace barefoot so what does he need with a hairbrush? He's just begging to step on a nail or on some of the broken glass I've set outside Dawn's window and I can't wait until he does.

  The songs Dawn played gave me a headache, gave us both a headache. Mine went away after I placed the record player on a high shelf in my bedroom. There's no way Dawn can reach that shelf. I, personally, have to use the stepladder, which suits me fine because it forces me to work for the music I once took for granted. When Dawn's headaches persisted I figured it probably had something to do with her wisdom teeth. Do you have any idea how much it costs to have wisdom teeth removed by a dentist? I've done some research and the procedure is really not as complicated as you might think. I can handle it. Those teeth have to go. If left untended, they could work their way through her skull and into her brain, wiping out every decent idea she might be capable of.

  The Last You'll Hear from M
e

  DEAR Friends and Family,

  By the time you receive this letter I will be dead. Those of you attending this service are sitting quietly, holding a beautiful paperweight, a gift from the collection, which, in life, had been my pride and joy. You turn the paperweight over in your hands, look deep inside, at the object imbedded in the glass, be it a rose or a scorpion, whatever, and through your tears you ask, "What is death like?" By this time I certainly know the answer to that question but am unable to give details. Know only that I will one day meet you upon the grassy plains of Heaven, where, with the exception of Randy Sykes and Annette Kelper, I will be tickled to embrace you and catch up on all the news. When the time comes I probably won't be too thrilled to see my mother either, but we'll just have to cross that bridge when we come to it.

  If my instructions were followed the way I wanted them to be (see attached instruction envelope #1), this letter is being read to you from the pulpit of The Simple Shepherd Church of Christ by my best friend, Eileen Mickey (Hi, Eileen), who is wearing the long-sleeved Lisa Montino designer dress I left behind that always looked so good on me. (Eileen, I hope you either lost some weight or took it out some on the sides or you're not going to be able to breathe. Also, remember it needs to be dry-cleaned. I know how you and your family love to skimp, but please, don't listen to what anyone says about Woolite. Dry-clean!)

  Most of you are probably wondering why I did it. You're asking yourselves over and over again, "What could have driven Trish Moody to do such a thing?"

  You're whispering, "Why, Lord? Why take Trish Moody? Trish was a ray of bright sunshine, always doing things for other people, always so up and perky and full of love. Pretty too. Just as smart and sweet and pretty as they come."

  You're probably shaking your heads and thinking there's plenty of people a lot worse than Trish Moody. There's her former excuse for a boyfriend, Randy Sykes, for example. The boyfriend who, after Trish accidentally backed her car over his dog, practically beat her senseless. He beat her with words but still, it might as well have been with his fists. He struck her again and again with words and names such as "manipulative," "jealous," "childish," and others I wouldn't justify in print. The dog's death was a tragic accident but perhaps also a blessing in disguise as Randy tended to spend entirely too much time with it. The dog was in danger of becoming, like Randy himself, spoiled and disobedient. Besides that, being a registered breed it was headed for unavoidable future hip problems.

  What did Trish's mother say when her daughter, heartbroken over her breakup with Randy, came to her in search of love and understanding?

  "If you're looking for sympathy you can find it between shit and syphilis in the dictionary."

  Perhaps my mother can live with slogans such as this. I know I can't.

  Neither can I live surrounded by "friends" such as Annette Kelper. Poor, chubby Annette Kelper, who desperately tries to pretend that nobody notices the fact that she's balding on top of her head. That's right. Look closely balding just like a man. Perhaps Randy feels sorry for chrome-dome Annette. Maybe that's why he was seen twice in her company in a single five-day period. Seen standing together in the parking lot of the Burger Tabernacle (her home away from home) and seen huddled together, laughing on the escalator of the Crabtree Valley Mall. Annette, my supposed best friend, who secretly wanted and coveted everything I owned. Annette, always in my corner, the balding, chubby girl who said to me, in the spirit of friendship, "You've got to loosen up a little, Trish. People aren't things that you can own and control and arrange to stay a certain way." I remember she said it to me in the bedroom of my own home, her hand on my shoulder, facing left so that I could clearly see how those two top teeth of hers are turning brown as a result of a cheap root canal. I remember feeling sorry for her.

  Is everyone on earth as two-faced as Annette Kelper? Is everyone as cruel as Randy Sykes? I think not. Most of you, the loved ones I left behind, are simple, devoted people. I urge you now to take a look around the room, Are Randy Sykes and Annette sitting in the audience? Are they shifting uncomfortably in the pew, shielding their faces with the 8–1/2-by-1l photograph of me I had reproduced to serve as a memento of this occasion?

  (Eileen, read this part real fast before they have a chance to leave.) Randy Sykes's dick is the size of my little finger and that's when it's hard. And I'm not counting the nail, just the finger! He had sex two times with a boy at Camp Ticonderoga when he was in junior high school. Maybe that explains why he loves it when somebody sticks their finger up his butt. He used to beg me to do that but I refused. I said, "No way, Randy." He used to do it to himself all the time. That's why I never held hands with him. His hands stink! He secretly thinks he looks like Marion Brando, but take a good look a young Marlin Perkins is more like it! Maybe that's what he sees in Annette Kelper he's an animal lover. She used to come to my house crying, her breath smelling a mile off like her uncle's dick. She said he forced her but that's a lie because you don't force whores and that's what she is a whore. Annette and Randy deserve each other. Dick-Breath and Stinky-Finger riding up and down the escalator at Crabtree Valley, up and down, up and down. Fancy little shitheads! Look at them, take a good hard look at them. It's their fault I'm dead. They are to blame. I urge you now to take those paperweights and stone them. Release your anger! The Bible says that it's all right to cast the first stone if someone dead is telling you to do it and I'm telling you now, pretend the paperweights are stones and cast them upon the guilty. I've put aside my savings to pay for damages to the walls and windows. It's money I was saving for my wedding and there's plenty of it so throw! Hurt them the way they hurt me! Kill them! No one will hold you responsible. Kill them!

  (Eileen, I'm going to allow a few minutes here because it might take a while for certain people to get into the swing of it. Pop in the cassette marked "Stoning" and wait until both Randy and Annette are lifeless. Wait until everyone has finished with their paperweights and then I want you to hand the microphone over to my mother. Watch the way she trembles and stutters and remember every gesture as if you were me.)

  My Manuscript

  OH, CHAD," Mrs. Holt called brightly in her irritating and bright voice. "There's someone here to see you!"

  Chad groaned and stepped out of the shower, taking special care to dry hisfour inch his seven inch his enormous thirteen-and-a-half-inchpenis cock. He was a stud andhe knew it. His ass was still a little sore from last night's marathon drill sesh with the guys at the auto plant, but other than that he had no complaints. Wearing only a scant towel, he stepped into the kitchen, where he received a gigantic shock at the sight of his entirehideous nosy hateful family surrounded by a dozen naked but heavily armedguys studs.

  "SURPRISE!" they all yelled. And surprised he was!!! Chad had completely forgotten about his birthday. His father stepped forward and handed him an alcohol cocktail. "We thought maybe for once we'd give you exactly what you wanted," the elder Holt said, and everyone laughed in a good-hearted way.

  Chad finished his potent highball in one swallow and then he turned his glass upside down, giving the secret signal, which meant for the studs to open fire and kill everyone in the family except for him.

  When they finished Chad said, "Thank you, men. You've given me just what I've always wanted," and then stepping over the bodies, Chad and the studs headed toward the master bedroom to begin agreat fun filled sexy sexsational orgy that none of them would soon forget!!!!

  Last Christmas I received a set of golf clubs that, my father likes to remind me, cost a goddamned fortune. He says that he would give his right arm for such a beautiful set of clubs. The obvious solution would be for him to take the stinking golf clubs and give me what I wanted in the first place. I had asked for a typewriter I didn't think it was asking for too much. Terry Glassman got one last year and he's the same age as me. Terry used his typewriter to compose dull, misspelled, and unimaginative letters, which he sent to his father in Arizona. I don't blame Dr. Glassman for never respondi
ng. When he got bored with it, Terry threw the typewriter off the roof of his house.

  In my manuscript, Terry Glassman plays a minor role as an ungrateful and spoiled Boy Scout who learns the meaning of the expressionHard Times when he is discovered nude and vulnerable by a group of randy park rangers who prepare him for a merit badge in give and take! Terry should be grateful to appear in my book but, knowing him, he'll probably threaten to sue. That's Terry Glassman all over. Here I've given him a good eight inches and a shot at immortality and he'll turn on me the same way he did last year when I asked him to pose for a few nude sketches. Ingrate.

  A few months ago, for my fourteenth birthday, I asked for a portable tape recorder with a discreet suppository-sized microphone; but did I receive one? Of course not! That would be too obvious, to give someone what he wants. My father told me that if I want to listen to music then I should learn to make it myself. Who said anything about music? Dad said that the guy who can play guitar is going to be the life of the party. He's confusing life with death. The real life of the party is flattened beneath the bed, taping actual sex encounters, not sitting crosslegged on the floor with a guitar, embarrassing himself and others.

  I took guitar lessons for two months from Mr. Chatam, an actual midget who teaches at Instrument City over at Northgate Plaza. Mr. Chatam sat perched on the edge of a footstool and wore outfits that a child might wear: checkered suits with clip-on ties and buckled shoes. The guitar was huge in his lap and I would almost feel sorry for him until he opened his wee mouth to say something stupid like "Here's a little number those girlfriends of yours might enjoy hearing!" and he'd force me to follow along as he played another tiresome ballad from something calledThe Young Person's Contemporary Songbook.