by Bruce Salter

SAN FRANCISCO, CA (Weekly Hubris)— 11/22/10—A slug. A grotesque human slug. That’s what he was now, that’s what he had become. A series of singular accidents, to abhorrent to relate here, had plucked his limbs from their sockets, one by one, like so many pieces of over-ripe fruit from a neglected tree, leaving him a bloated torso, a tight sausage of flesh lacking even rudimentary stumps to remind him that he once had a proper body, that he had once been a man.

“A slug has no memory,” he thought, inching his way down the sidewalk like some nightmarish meal worm, “so why should I? Why should I, indeed.”

He wriggled clumsily over a broken curbstone, flopping about like some gaping Mackerel seeking water, trying desperately to avoid the legions of potentially lethal boots, loafers and athletic shoes flying past his face with such abandon. Through carelessness or malevolence, a steel-toed Tony Lama had recently shattered his cheekbone in front of the corner Laundromat and, while not adverse to pain, he didn’t relish the thought of losing another body part to the capriciousness of fate.

After several hours he finally dragged himself over the sharp rocks lining the riverside and into the box beneath the overpass that was his home. The stars had come out but he didn’t look at them. He didn’t look at anything. He just closed his eyes and listened to the cars racing by overhead.

The following morning, with his stomach still raw and ulcerous, he emerged from his box, floundered down the steep riverbank and, with a heart-rending gasp, threw himself from a projecting boulder into the swirling black water below. Bobbing like an otherworldly cork he repeatedly tried to force himself under, but the eddying currents always returned him to the surface. Without arms or legs he was helplessly out of control, a speck of useless flesh in the swirling tide. With a sigh of resignation he rolled onto his back, watched the wispy clouds stretch their fingers westward and let the relentless river carry him away to the sea.

How much time passed he could not tell. He remembered an eclipsed moon and a howling storm that capped the embracing waters with icy foam, foam that pitched him into the air and spun him through the twilight on playful liquid fingers.

“I am in a womb, a womb ripe with monsters,” he thought, as he caught vague glimpses of others not unlike himself, coiling and writhing through the churning flood. “But borne to what end . . . to what destiny?”

He opened his mouth, let the water rush in and lost himself in blackness.

When he awoke his face was half buried in wet sand. Thundering waves crashed against the strand behind him and a vast yellow beach littered with the twisted skeletons of inexplicable machinery disappeared into the distant mist. A tall woman draped in swirls of blue linen stood before him, her long red hair framing her face like a ruby nebulae. A delicate green snake coiled around her neck like a necklace and she clutched a dead seagull to her chest with an almost tender reverence.

He shook the sand from his face and raised his eyes to hers, his cloudy blue sorrow melting into her yellow fire. She stood in silence as he slowly lurched over the sand, grunting and groaning with each painful lunge, until he came to rest at her feet.

“Mother?” he sighed, resting his cheek against her toes.

“I am not your mother,” she whispered.

“Daughter, then?” he asked, trying to hold back his tears.

“Nor am I your daughter,” she answered, as the snake slid from her throat and wound itself around his own pulsing neck.

“Then who are you?” he coughed. “Where am I? Will you let me die?”

“You know who I am,” she smiled, a droplet of blood congealing at the corner of her lip. “You always have known. You have come home. You have returned to me at last. And . . .”

“Yes, yes . . .” he choked, as the emerald snake tightened its grip.

“. . . and, no, I will not let you die. Like everything else, you cannot die. Now, it is time. You must go.”

Stepping away from him, she entered the waves, letting the seagull slide into the billows swelling around her knees and pointing up the beach, past the broken machinery toward the glimmering horizon where the gold and azure merged into shadow less light.

Twisting around, the man who wasn’t a man, the living torso, the human slug, fixed his eyes on that distant point, a point only he could see, and began to worm his way across the sand, straining with every heave of his tortured body as the emerald snake whispered love songs in his ear.

by Bruce Salter

SAN FRANCISCO, CA (Weekly Hubris)—10/25/10—

This heart pumps gasoline ignited by a dream

These lips lock tightly, suffocating sound

This eye cries in silence, shedding no tear

This soul recoils before diving into the night

By Bruce Salter

EN ROUTE TO SAN FRANCISCO, CA (Weekly Hubris)—9/13/10—I had been in Los Angeles for only two days and my beleaguered brain was already beginning to scream for mercy. LA is usually a place I avoid like the plague but, when Ollie Stone called begging me to fly down and work up a treatment for “Toilet Full Of Jesus,” my recent Texas triumph just optioned by his production company, I couldn’t, in good conscience, refuse. The poor devil’s career had been spiraling into a black hole of mediocrity for years and I certainly didn’t want my humble work tainted by his sledgehammer attempts at subtlety. Besides, I kinda liked the big lug.

I was attempting to unwind by the teardrop pool (filled with actual teardrops) at my Topanga bungalow, when an obviously distraught Raul, my miniscule manservant and biographer, came skidding across the marbled tile like a water bug on a bender.

“Sahib! Sahib!” he cried, his tiny arms flapping like hummingbird wings and his puckish little face drenched in sweat. “You must help me, please!”

“Calm down, My Pithy Paesan,” I smiled, patting the velvet chaise next to mine. “Hop up here, take three deep breaths, and tell me what this is all about.”

Raul climbed onto the lounge, gulped down the Long Island iced tea I had just ordered, and stretched out his bantam’s body with a shuddering sigh. The California sun quickly worked its magic and, with his composure restored, he loosened the red polka-dot bowtie he always sported and addressed me at last.

“I . . . I don’t quite know how to explain this, Sahib,” he began, struggling mightily to describe his plight. “You see, it’s a rather delicate matter, one involving, er, physical intimacy, if you take my meaning.”

“Say no more, Raul. I understand completely,” I winked. “Just look in the top left drawer of my bedroom dresser.”

“The top left drawer, Sahib? I’m afraid I do not understand.”

“Why, Viagra, Raul, Viagra. There’s more than enough to meet your modest needs, I assure you!”

“SAHIB!” Raul gasped, his usually ruddy face draining white. “I am not in need of such . . . such enhancements!  No one from my country would dream of using such an artificial stimulant, and no real man should need to!”

“Of course, you’re right,” I protested, retreating like a Frenchman on the Rhine. “The supply was already in the bedroom when we arrived, right next to the Gideon Bible. I guess that’s standard service here in Tinseltown.”

Raul studied my eyes, shrugged, ordered another Long Island, and continued.

“Be that as it may, Sahib, my problem does not involve deficiencies in my personal anatomy, which is in fine working order, if I may say so. No, my problem involves the ribald attentions or, more accurately, fixations of a female of some repute.”

“Do you mean someone I know has the hots for you?” I exclaimed, hardly believing my ears. “Who is it, Raul? Tell me at once!”

“This is a bit embarrassing, Sahib, but the lady in question is the famous actress Julia . . . Julia Roberts.”

“Julia Roberts!” I roared, spitting my iced tea across the teardrop pool in a spray of arcing brown mist. “Julia Roberts! But this is incredible, Raul! How do you know her, of all people, and . . . and why does she want to, um, ‘baste her chicken’ with you?”

Downing his second Long Island in a single swig, Raul removed oversized sun glasses from his shirt pocket, balanced them precariously on his button nose and, with a sigh of resignation, related his tale.

“You must understand, Sahib, that this is a most sensitive matter,” he began, nervously whipping his chin over each tiny shoulder, assuring himself no one else was within earshot. “It is a subject I have a great reluctance to discuss.”

“Oh, out with it, Raul! This is no time to beat about the proverbial bush! We’re men here and this is exactly what men talk about. Hell, it’s about all we talk about! Buck up and let it fly!”

“You are right, Sahib,” he replied, wiping his silken sleeve across his nose and spitting disdainfully into the sweet-scented fuchsias ringing the pool. “We are indeed men!”

“Men!”

“Men!”

Applying a dab of sunscreen to his reddening cheeks, Raul cleared his throat and, affecting his best Barry White imitation (albeit a Barry White sounding somewhat drunk on Helium), continued. “It all began in my formative years, the years of my most tender youth, when I frolicked over the Andes with all of the abandon innocence and youth entail.”

“Cut the poetry, Raul, and get to the point,” I barked impatiently.

“As you will, Sahib. I realized at an early age that, despite my diminutive stature, I was born with certain, er, attributes that most ‘full-sized’ males would deem a blessing, although I would later come to regard this condition as something of a curse.”

“In other words, My Little Friend, you’re telling me that your little friend is not so little?”

“Well-endowed is not even the term, Sahib. To put it bluntly, saying I am well-endowed is like saying the Titanic was a ‘big boat’.”

“But,” I replied, trying to hide my surprise, “I never noticed anything especially, er . . .”

“I hide it well, Sahib. For my own survival, I have had to learn all the tricks of subterfuge. But size is not the worst of it, I’m afraid. The prodigious-ness of ‘Little Raul,’ as he has come to be known, is something I could easily deal with,” he sighed. “No, the true bane of my existence has been my cursed libido.”

“Your libido?”

“Yes, my libido. My bloody libido! After years of Tantric meditation, Jungian psychotherapy and, of course, my prolonged sojourn with the Dali Lama, I have learned to control its unbelievable power, but when I was young, long before my professorship at Baden Baden or my induction as a Grand Master of the Knights of the Freemasons, I was a veritable rutting machine, carving a path through Europe that would make the Russian army blush with envy.”

“I had no idea,” I gasped, regarding this Lilliputian Lothario in a new and unexpected light.

“Yes, it is too true. In fact, and I don’t want to seem immodest by saying this, my reputation with the fairer sex, especially the socially elite and, in particular, the goddesses of the cinema, was inestimable. Garbo, Dietriech, Bergman, Bardot . . . why, they worked me to exhaustion and, when I was dragged to America by that crazy Mansfield woman, dangled in front of those horny Hollywood hussies (she-wolves in season, the lot of them) and forced to service them in ways even your fertile imagination, Sahib, could not envision, I thought that my sad days in this vale of tears had reached their exhausted end. My little body had become an empty husk, a pitiable shadow of its once proud self.

“Fortunately, a well-known game show producer took pity on me and managed to smuggle me out of the country disguised as one of his own precocious offspring. Traveling incognito which, due to my size and international notoriety as a priapic profligate, was far from easy, I eventually made my way to the Orient and blessed anonymity. The rest I think you know.”

“But Raul,” I gaped, trying to digest this unbelievable tale, “how does Julia Roberts fit into all this?”

“Ah, Sahib, it is almost too incredible to credit. I was strolling down Hollywood Blvd. earlier today, reminiscing as I saw the names of so many former paramours floating beneath my feet, when I came upon a lanky, toothy woman down on all fours spit-shining one of the more remote stars on the sidewalk. I tipped my hat and smiled as I passed when she suddenly grabbed my ankles, pressed her face against mine and hissed, ‘Raul?’

“I assured her that she was mistaken, but she was persistent, saying that she was the Julia Roberts of movie fame, that she has just finished reading the memoirs of Ava Gardner, Billie Holiday and Eleanor Roosevelt, that they had all described me and my distinctive physiognomy in most intimate detail, that she has been unfulfilled as a woman for most of her adult life and that she HAD to make what she called ‘hot monkey love’ with me right there and then!

“Well, Sahib, I was scared! I tried to flatter her, saying I admired her remarkable cleanliness as a prostitute in Pretty Woman, but it did no good. The horror of those chomping equine teeth so close to my face made me long for a bridle and all but froze my blood.

“ ‘I must have you now!’, she wailed, burying my head in her chest. I bit down hard on the heaving flesh smothering me. She screamed, loosening her grip enough for me to pivot and escape up the street, weaving between the legs of a dozen or more Japanese tourists as she shrieked and pounded her tarnished star in frustration.”

“A singular tale if I ever heard one, My Trenchant Transcriber,” I smiled, signaling the waiter for another round of drinks. “That was a lucky escape indeed!”

“Yes, Sahib. I almost . . .”

But before my stunted satyr could finish his thought, a wild howl rang out and Julia Roberts, herself, her mouth foaming and her red eyes spinning like whirly-gigs, leapt through the fuchsias and stood panting before my terrified little friend.

“Raul, My Buttercup,” she trilled, desperately trying to keep her lolling tongue within her mouth. “Come to Mommy, my scrumptuous little éclair! You know what she wants!”

“Save me, Sahib!” screamed Raul, cowering behind my chaise like a puppy.

“Don’t be afraid, my little fever blister,” she cooed, pulling her skirt up to her shoulders and rolling her wide hips suggestively. “Mama’s got an itch only her Raul can scratch!”

“Now, see here, Woman,” I thundered, popping to my feet and blocking her path. “This is no way for a lady, an actress of your stature, to act! I demand you abandon this carnal assault immediately and leave poor Raul in peace!”

But Julia was beyond reasoning. After brandishing a dozen or more deep pelvic thrusts, she whinnied, tore off her clothes, slapped her palms on the tiles at her feet and waved her hindquarters to the sky, frothing and snorting in the pangs of primal lust. Dogs for blocks around began to howl and several disoriented bats, lost in the bright sunshine, attempted to seek refuge in the dark recesses now proffered.

“I want you, Raul!” she snarled. I NEED you and I WILL HAVE YOU NOW!”

I began backing away from this steaming succubus, fearful of being ground into fodder beneath her flaming loins, when little Raul, who had been clinging to my calf for protection, sprang forward.

“It is OK, Sahib,” he cried. “She will kill us both if I do not submit. Do not worry! I know what to do.”

Leaping upon her back and grabbing a fistful of her auburn hair, he pointed her toward my bungalow and barked “Giddy-up!” Before I could blink, they had disappeared through the door and, within seconds the entire structure began shaking like Pompeii. I leaned back into my chaise to catch my breath, sipping at my drink as the bungalow rattled and rolled.

After half an hour, the cacophony finally stopped and Ms. Roberts, wrapped in one of my imported kimonos, emerged into the sun, her eyes vacant and her body glistening with sweat. Like a ghostly shade, she silently drifted past the teardrop pool, back over the fuchsias and into the surrounding wood.

Raul soon appeared, looking none the worse for wear, and hopped onto the lounge next to mine, an inscrutable smile shadowing his lips.

“Well?” I asked.

“Well, what, Sahib?”

“Well, don’t you have anything to say about all this?”

“Only that I thought these days were long behind me,” he sighed. “The next time you must come to Hollywood I believe I will remain behind and brush up on my Mandarin. The women in China at least have the courtesy to ask for eighth, ninth or tenth helpings.”

“Quite right, Raul,” I nodded. “Quite right.”

by Bruce Salter

“. . . Love has pitched his mansion in/The place of excrement;/For nothing can be sole or whole/That has not been rent.” —William Butler Yeats, “Crazy Jane Talks With The Bishop”

EN ROUTE TO SAN FRANCISCO, CA (Weekly Hubris)—8/30/10—A pair of sandpipers strolled through the lapping foam, and the gentle north wind painted whitecaps on the waves as I stretched upon my lime-green sun bed and gazed across the isolated stretch of beach behind the Pallazzo de Saltier, my sanctum sanctorum on the central California coast. My trusted chronicler and sometime manservant, the indubitable Raul, approached bearing a silver tray, his tiny legs buried to the knees in the powdery sand, a massive Panama hat shading his cherubic face.

“Would you care for a wine cooler, Sahib?” he smiled, bowing almost imperceptibly.

“What flavor do you have today, Raul?” I yawned, following the sandpipers with an indolent eye.

“Cognac, Sahib. I believe it is your favorite.”

“Ah, Raul,” I sighed, snatching up the plastic blue cup and sipping from the straw with a vengeance, “you have read my mind. What would I do without you, my little friend?”

“That is a question only the gods can answer,” he replied with an inscrutable wink.

As I sucked down the dregs of Raul’s delicious cooler, my cell phone erupted in a chorus of Nick Cave’s “The Mercy Seat” and I sensed my relaxing day at the beach was about to end. Recognizing the incoming number as that of one of my former paramours, I cursed under my breath.

“Hello, Blanche! Lovely to hear from you after so many years, My Dear! How are you?”

“There’s no time for small talk now,” she snapped. Her breathing was fast and her tone anxious. “Something strange is going on here, something you’d definitely enjoy, and I fear it may turn serious.”

Blanche had recently moved to the boondock backwaters of Kerrville, Texas, the ultimate melting pot of all things obtuse, and had apparently succumbed to the dreaded local condition popularly known as Lone Star Vacuity.
What is it, Blanche? What’s happening?” I asked, trying to feign interest.

“You still don’t listen to the news, do you?” she sighed. “Well, there’s no time to talk now. Just get yer ass down here pronto and I’ll explain it all. And Bruce . . .”

“Yes?”

“Buy a friggin’ newspaper at the airport!”

I tucked the phone into my beach bag, cast a last wistful glance at the sea, and called out, “Raul!”

“I am here, Sahib,” he chirped, appearing as if by magic at my side.

“Pack our bags, Raul. We’re leaving immediately.”

“Leaving? But the afternoon is so beautiful. Where is it we must travel?”

“To the heart of Redneck Country, I’m afraid.”

“Rednecks again?” Raul gasped, downing his own cognac cooler with a mighty gulp. “But it is so soon after our Sacramento encounter, Sahib.”

“I know, but that’s life, My Diminutive Dandy. By this time tomorrow, we’ll be breathing the miasmic air of Kerrville, Texas.”

My recent seclusion had left me ill-prepared for the headlines screaming out the story that was on almost everyone’s lips (as well as in 78-point type): “HOLY VISION IN TEXAS STOOL!”

I read on: “Thousands are flocking to the small Texas town of Kerrville to witness what many are calling irrefutable evidence of Christian glory. The unmistakable image of Jesus has appeared for all and sundry to behold in the toilet of Gaynard T. Plank, a retired fence-mender, part-time Walmart greeter, and husband of Eunice Maynard-Plank, the well-known Kapellmeister of the Kerrville Autistic Tabernacle Choir.”

“When interviewed by this reporter yesterday, Mr. Plank described his epiphany: ‘Well,’ he beamed, ‘it was like this. I had just taken a helluva dump—I’d been all bound up with the constipation fer more ‘n a week, ya see, and Momma had just gave me a good flushin’ out with her rutabaga root enematical juice—so I did a nice healthy job in there. But, for some reason, I didn’t flush right off like usual. I guess I just wanted to admire what I just done for a bit first. And then, when I looked into the crapper, well, praise the Lord, I saw the Savior’s face a-lookin’ right back at me from what I just done, smiling’, peaceful an full of love, an I had ta just drop to my knees. I’m tellin’ ya, the tears a joy started flowin’ and they still ain’t stopped!’”

“The Plank home has since become a shrine, a focus of pilgrimage for thousands eager to gaze upon their redeemer, and the phenomenon shows no signs of letting up. As this issue goes to press, reports of at least three more deific defecations have come in from neighboring suburbs, and a religious frenzy unparalleled in history has gripped this once quiet community like a holy fist of feces . . . .” Etc.

“Have you seen this, Raul?!” I cried, waving the newspaper in his studiously pinched face. “These people are certifiable!”

“Yes, Sahib, that is most true,” my biographer chuckled, entertained beyond measure by the follies of the Western mind, sub-genus Redneck. “Just look at these!”

He handed me two magazines he’d been perusing, the current issue of People with a smiling picture of Gaynard Plank above the caption “Texas Cowboy High In The Saddle Over Second Virgin Birth!”, and the latest New Yorker, its usually sophisticated cover now sporting a finely wrought chocolate-looking bust of Jesus beneath the blazing headline “#1 SLUMS AS #2.”

“I can’t wait to see what Maxim and Playboy do with this,” I quipped, leaning back and closing my eyes.

“I can only imagine, Sahib,” Raul replied, scrutinizing the current issue of Scientific American, “but it says here the toilet of Mr. Plank has been carefully drained, his ejecta sprayed thoroughly with a powerful fixative, and reproductions cast from the ensuing mold are being marketed nationwide as icons, powerful symbols of mass adoration and spiritual fulfillment.”

I contemplated Raul’s observations for several silent minutes, horrified by the potential repercussions of Gaynard Plank’s fateful feculence. “Damn, I wish this plane would fly faster,” I muttered, shifting uncomfortably in my seat. “I can’t wait to reach Kerrville and see this for myself.”

“You’re here at last!” Blanche cried, as we disembarked in San Antonio and fought our way through the swelling crowds of hopeful supplicants seeking spiritual sustenance in the toilets of Kerrville. We piled into her Land Rover and sped across the prairie, the setting sun turning the twisted manzanita and sagebrush into flame-drenched portents of a coming apocalypse.

“We’re like three kings journeying to honor a new divinity,” I observed, straining to see if an appropriate star shone in the distance to guide our way.

“Not a divinity, Sahib, but the physical embodiment of one. The earthly manifestation of a godhead, if you will.”

“Bullpucky!” Blanche snapped, her poetic sensibilities stretched to their limits. “It’s a friggin’ piece of s**t!”

By the time we reached Kerrville, night had descended, but battalions of spotlights pushed back the darkness and bright Klieg lights hung from every roof, tree and telephone pole, illuminating the town like Times Square on New Year’s Eve.

Word of the phenomenon of the blessed ejecta seemed to be spreading like wildfire. The fecal face of Jesus was populating toilets at an astounding rate as Kerrville residents were touched, en masse, by the Holy Spirit (and letting their colons run rampant). Rabid crowds were rushing from house to house, their tongues flapping and their eyes rolling, anxious to witness the latest canned incarnation of their Savior. News cameras whirred and reporters trilled, interviewing everyone from befuddled theologians to apostolic Burger King fry-cooks, seeking somehow to explain the glorious sanctification bestowed on the porcelain thrones of their humble community.

As Raul had noted earlier, fixatives were preserving many of the specimens for posterity while teams of archaeologists worked feverishly to rescue the most waterlogged portraits with the most water-resistant plasters available. The local high school, like most Texas institutions of higher learning, remained virtually abandoned to the elements, converted overnight into “The Kerrville Metropolitan Museum Of Sacred Art,” its empty halls and classrooms suddenly filled with the most inspired examples of prophetic poop the city had to offer.

“At last,” I thought, “these poor souls may finally be exposed to the creativity so long gestating within the community’s collective bowels. They can bask in the snippets of culture they so richly deserve.”

“This thing is getting out of control!” Blanche screamed, snatching up a mystified Raul just before a stampede of ranting Baptists trod him underfoot.

“It’s madness,” I answered, swinging my trusty aide onto my shoulders and out of harm’s way. Some were rolling in the gutters and speaking in tongues, others foamed at the mouth as they waltzed with snakes, dogs, and the occasional unwilling billygoat, and still others wandered aimlessly, lost in ecstasy as they sought redemption in a steaming bowl of bowel candy.

“This is mass hysteria on an unheard of scale!” Blanche cried. “I don’t think the police can control it much longer! In fact, I think they’re starting to join in!”

“I’m scared, Sahib,” Raul gasped, pulling my ears and turning me away from the insanity. “Please, let us make a hasty exit. These possessed Rednecks disturb me deeply.”

“Yeah, let’s roll,” Blanche hissed. “My place should be safe, at least for the time being.”

Little Raul’s heels dug into my armpits as we swung up an alleyway, across a parking lot littered with “Gaynard For Mayor” T-shirts (hopelessly outdated now that his singular distinction had gone bubonic), and into a tangle of nettled sagebrush, the full moon guiding our way to Blanche’s prairie trailer, her mobile-home-on-the-range.

“What are we going to do?” Blanche shrieked, bolting the door behind her as we fell, exhausted, onto her azure sofa. “It’s become an epidemic and it’s spreading fast! Forget Kerrville . . . I’m wondering what will happen when it crosses the state line and spreads into Oklahoma, Kansas and,” gulp, “Utah! We’ll be lost!”

“Get a grip on yourself, Woman!” I barked, shaking her by the shoulders. “This is mass hysteria. It’s psychological, and psychology will be our weapon against it! Don’t you agree, Raul?”

“I concur completely, Sahib,” Raul smiled, able to relax at last. “I have made a lifetime study of these kinds of delusions and it is certainly most treatable.”

“You see, Blanche, we can beat this thing if we stay calm and formulate a plan. Now, I have an idea that I think may just work . . .”

We immediately manned the telephones and, by 10:00 the next morning, an impressive stage has been constructed on the 50 yard line of the Kerrville High School-cum-Art Museum’s football field, complete with a half-dozen 200-foot television screens strategically placed around its perimeter. All media outlets were apprised of the mammoth revival, “LIVE DUNG,” to be held at 6 p.m. sharp that evening and, by noon, almost every soul within 1,000 miles was making the pilgrimage to Kerrville in the hope of being born again and baptized into the fold of the most holy of holies, the Church of The Divine Excrement. A 30-foot scaffold, sheathed in gold lamé, was erected atop the stage, crowned with an oversized latrine shining resplendently in the purity of its porcelain whiteness.

By five o’clock, anxious adherents filled the landscape from horizon to horizon, pressing ever forward toward the stage and their salvation. Opening acts, featuring a string of Nashville wannabees, tent preachers, American Idol rejects and the ubiquitous Elton John, shone across the massive screens and, with anticipation reaching a fever pitch, Blanche, dazzling in rhinestone-encrusted vest, cowboy hat and hot pants, mounted the stage, approached the microphone and began to speak.

“Wheeeeee Haaaaaaa, y’all!” she yodeled. “I’m Blanche from the insurance company? . . . yer hostess with the mostest tonight! How’r y’all doin’?”

The crowd roared like a thunderclap.

“Are ya ready to be washed in the Redeemer’s blood?”

Another deafening thunderclap.

“Well, ya’ve come to the right place! Now, we all know how Kerrville’s been blessed by the Lord, how His very face has smiled out at us, bathing us in divine light from nearly everyone’s crapper in the last couple a days, right?”

“Tha’s right, Blanche,” the flock screamed, waving their arms in pride.

“Well, let me tell ya, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet! Tonight we got the Big Dawg, The Pope of Poop, the saint among saints himself, who talks at God on a daily basis and actually predicted, more than a month ago, that our Savior would use our own doo-doo to enlighten us an’ wash away our sins! God sent him here tonight to give a personal demonstration of his power! Now, put yer hands together an’ let’s give a big-ol’ Texas welcome to the man hisself . . . the one an’ only Pastor Bubba!”

The crowd erupted into a frenzy of screams, sobs and squeals that reverberated from the Rockies to the Appalachians, as I entered the stage through thick purple curtains (disguised, of course, in a padded costume that made me look like the unfortunate victim of a gene-splicing experiment between Limbaugh and Snookie, gone horribly awry), bowed to the audience and slowly trudged up the stairway to the immaculate toilet like a purse-snatcher ascending a gibbet.

The rolling mass of onlookers, most crying openly, stood breathless as I dropped my pants, sat upon the pristine pearl seat and began producing the loudest gasps and groans I could muster. After about five minutes of huffing, I unleashed an ear-shattering screech, stood (a bit dizzily) and, while bowing to the crowd, lifted the seat with a theatrical flourish that would have made Houdini proud.

The crowd, not knowing what to expect, stood frozen in rapture, awaiting a sign.

A low moan rose from the toilet, gaining strength until it became a fractured wail . . . a wail of life . . . a wail of birth.

“Lordy, it’s the Judgment Day!” someone screamed.

“Look!” another cried, pointing up in disbelief. “Something’s movin’!”

And indeed, something was moving. Slowly, like a baby squeezing from the womb, Raul, his body caked in Texas river mud and drenched in chocolate syrup, climbed from the toilet and stood, tiny microphone in hand, before the incredulous throng.

“Hear me, People of Texas and beyond,” he announced, wiping a thick glob of mud from his eye. “I am your savior, alright. Pastor Bubba, with great effort, has brought me here before you. Now, listen up. I’m sick of all this stuff! First, you see me in some tree bark. Then you see me in a twisted sweet potato or rhubarb. Then, it’s in a puddle of oil, some dirty underwear, a grilled cheese sandwich, or your dog’s half-eaten food. But now you’ve gone too far; now I’m showing up in your own excrement! Get a grip, Dogpatch! Do you think I like being seen in your s**t? Whatever happened to clouds and sunsets?”

“Anyway, I want you to stop it. Now! Go home, wipe your behinds and give your toilets a good flush. Break out your Drain-O! And if any of you sees me in your poop again, I won’t like you and you won’t go to heaven. Period. Now, Git! Good-bye! Adios!”

With that, Raul climbed back into the toilet, and the disillusioned and chastened crowd slowly shuffled off back home.

“Did I do well, Sahib?” Raul asked as he wiped the mud and syrup from his body an hour later.

“You were brilliant, Mon Petit Prince. I’m very proud of you. There will be plenty to write about after this adventure, My Boswell of The Bog!”

“Thy will be done, Sahib.”

We said our good-byes to Texas and were back on the beach at Pallazzo de Saltier early the next day. Blanche got a gig on “Dancing With The Stars” after her own superlative performance, I bought myself a new lounge chair and a magnum of cognac wine cooler . . . and Raul was given his own personal bathroom (no more sharing with the dyspeptic gardener).

It was the least I could do.

by Bruce Salter

EN ROUTE TO SAN FRANCISCO, CA—(Weekly Hubris)—8/16/10—It was a pleasantly warm Sunday afternoon, the finches chirping as they gathered up insects to feed their hatchlings, and squirrels barking playfully in the shade of the swaying pine and spruce trees blanketing the steep mountainsides, as I made my way over the Sierras with my loyal chronicler, Raul, a three-foot-tall intellectual dynamo (and former philosophy professor at the prestigious Baden Baden Academy of Scientific Anomalies) recently retired from academic life to devote his exceptional observational talents to document the incredible, and often unbelievable cases encountered by Yours Truly in my ongoing travels through the American underbelly.

I had recently resolved the strange matter that came to be known as “The Brighton Transformations,” and was looking forward to enjoying a brief holiday at my seaside Valhalla, Pallazzio de Saltier (just north of that tacky Hearst monstrosity at San Simeon), when a frantic text message from the 12-year-old daughter of a longtime friend changed my plans and sent me careering into yet another exotic encounter with the absurd.

“You must come quick, Uncle Bruce. A funny man is here with Mom. I’m scared!”

“Hmmm,” I muttered, rereading the message several times while we replenished our supply of champagne-flavored Pringles at a roadside market. “What do you make of this, Raul?”

The diminutive annalist snatched up my I Pad, pushed his glasses over his nose and studied the missive carefully. “It looks serious, Sahib,” he cautioned. (He loves addressing me as Sahib and I saw no reason to discourage the practice.) “I think we’d better check this out.”

“My thoughts precisely, Raul,” I smiled, taking back the I Pod and sending a consoling reply to the distraught child. “Bust open the Pringles, Raul, we’re heading for Sacramento!”

“Your will be done, Sahib,” Raul nodded, stepping on the long accelerator extensions I had had installed for him and plunging down the mountain into the smog-shrouded valley below.

We arrived just before nightfall. The modest two-story house stood in a nondescript suburban court in the eastern recesses of the California capital. The profusion of non-operative vehicles littering the neighboring driveways spoke volumes about the sad decline in the fortunes of Sacramento piteous inhabitants.

“I don’t like this place, Sahib,” Raul whispered, as he killed the headlights and silently eased the car into the shadows of a spreading Maple. A scrawny pit bull, the victim of too many fights and too few meals, immediately approached to urinate on our front passenger tire, marking us as one of his own.

“Look!” I gasped, grabbing Raul’s shoulder and pointing to the behemoth parked in front of my friend’s garage. “We didn’t arrive a moment too soon!”

“But I see only a truck, Sahib. There’s nothing unusual in that.”

“Ah, Raul, my tiny friend, you have much to learn about the real world. That is not simply a truck. Observe its size, the massive tires, the extended bed, the extra-wide cab with back jump seat and gun rack. Why, look at those chrome rims glistening in the moonlight and those customized mud guards, each flourishing a naked woman in silvery profile, behind each wheel. Don’t you see it, man? The signs are unmistakable. There is a Redneck here!”

“A Redneck!” Raul gasped, crossing himself and bowing silently toward Mecca. “No, Sahib, it can’t be! We must leave at once!” His tiny fingers clenched the steering wheel like mini-vices and the terror in his eyes was palpable.

“Get a grip on yourself, Raul,” I hissed, ready to slap the panic from his cheeks if necessary. “Rednecks are not so dangerous, especially in isolation. It’s when they herd together in groups that they can be a problem. This looks like a lone wolf trying to infiltrate the respectable world, slinking his way into a nice family like a damned tapeworm, feeding off of it and getting fat as long as it can before moving on and, God help us all, maybe producing more little Rednecks in the process. We must stay and fight, Raul. Are you game?”

“Yes, Sahib,” he replied, taking a deep breath and mopping the perspiration from his troubled brow. “I won’t let you down. Just tell me what we must do.”

“The first thing is to gain its confidence. While Rednecks are undoubtedly the most imbecilic things on two legs, they actually believe they’re smart, and that is their weakness. This one likely thinks it’s not recognized for what it is; that it can maintain a pretense of intelligence and sophistication—and that is where we can strike. Once we expose it for what it is, reveal its true unshaven face, we can drive it out. But the unmasking is dangerous; that’s when they can turn on you if you’re not prepared. Now, do you remember that book I gave you last winter, the one about inflated egos and the limited self-awareness of those who possess them?”

“Yes, Sahib! I’m Stupid: Therefore I Am! I studied it thoroughly and remember it well.”

“Good. Just apply those principles to this situation and follow my lead. If we’re lucky we can wrap this up tonight.”

On guard against any rogue Rednecks lurking amidst the rusting shells of the surrounding cinder blocked autos, we cautiously made our way to the front door and rang the bell.

“Why, what a surprise!” Brandy cried, throwing the door wide and giving me a great bear hug. “You didn’t tell me you were coming, you naughty boy! What brings you here?”

“Oh, we were just passing through and I thought I’d stop to say Hi,” I smiled, scanning the living room behind her for signs of Hillbilly spore.

“Well, I’m sure glad you did! And who is this little cutie?” she laughed, dropping to her knees to give my embarrassed biographer a pinch on both cheeks.

“This is Raul, a physicist, philosopher and current unofficial recorder of my exploits. He also likes to drive my car.”

“Glad to meet you, Raul. I guess size doesn’t matter if you have a brain, does it? Ha Ha Ha Ha!”

“The pleasure is mine, Madame,” Raul hissed, bowing slightly and stepping behind my leg to escape Brandy’s motherly caresses.

“Well, come on in, you two. I can’t have you standing out here in the dark.”

We followed her into her well-lit family room and seated ourselves on an overstuffed orange ottoman (after first removing several layers of soiled laundry and a pair of lethargic grey hounds). The telltale signs of Redneck presence were everywhere: the “Rambo” collector’s series of DVD’s spread across the coffee table; the half-eaten plate of chili rotting beneath the replica Disneyworld floor lamp in the corner; the pressed velvet Elvis painting framed above the 72” projection TV; and the commemorative set of George W. Bush coffee mugs, half-filled with tepid light beer. All were sad testimonials that a pestilence of the worst kind had entered this house. And Brandy, herself, her eyes glazed and her uneven smile permanently fixed, bore witness to the damage already done.

“Let me get you boys a drink,” she hiccupped, dashing into the kitchen. “I know you must be thirsty!”

A movement from the corner caught my eye and I gasped as I recognized Kelly, the little girl who had summoned me, crouching behind a recliner, her lips twitching and her eyes sunk in ennui. They say that children are more sensitive, and thus more vulnerable to malicious forces around them, and never was this more clearly illustrated than in Kelly’s disquieting reaction to the Redneck scourge.

I exchanged glances with Raul and was heartened to see his resolve had strengthened. He recognized the horror we were dealing with and the urgent need to expel it. “Courage,” I whispered, clenching my jaw and smelling the air. The faint aroma of gin-drenched perspiration, Old Spice and K.C. Barbecue Sauce began to fill the room: I knew it wouldn’t be long.

A loud thumping could be heard descending the staircase from the bedroom above and, almost before I could catch my breath, a large, ungainly, Australopithecine-like man swaggered into the room. About 50, with a pinched cloying face, close-set vacant brown eyes, receding hairline and compensating goatee, an array of poorly drawn tattoos sprinkled over his mostly naked body and a large faux-silver ring dangling from his left nipple, he tightened the bath towel sliding down from his ample waist and blushed (full-body) at the sight of his unexpected guests.

Taking the initiative (for aggressive action is crucial in dealing with infestations of this sort), I leapt from my seat, extended my hand and said, “Howdy, Pardner! I’m an old friend of Brandy’s come for a visit. How’s it hangin’?”

He paused a moment, looked around nervously, and replied, “How do you do. I am Trey. It is very nice to meet you. Please make yourself at home while I change. Thank you.”

He exited, and I whispered to Raul, “This guy is good! He knows if he’s revealed it will mean banishment, so he’s really on his guard now, choosing every word carefully.”

“I can see that, Sahib. This one will be a tough nut to crack, I’m afraid.”

“No question about that, but you may be the key. He’s wary of me but you might be able to catch him by surprise. I’ll keep him distracted and you jump in when the moment’s right.”

“It will be done, Sahib!”

Here you are, boys!” Brandy chirped, gliding into the room with several long-necked Buds in her arms. “Drink up!”

We sipped at the beers and made small talk until Trey finally reappeared, dressed in a long velvet smoking jacket with an Ermine collar and puffing abstractedly on an ivory pipe.

“Sugar Plum!” Brandy cried, rushing to his side, throwing her arm over his shoulder and presenting him to us like a prized Hereford bull. “This is my boyfriend, Trey! Isn’t he just too wonderful?!”
“We’ve already had the privilege,” I said, standing again and approaching him with caution. “How’s it goin’, man? I love your jacket! Here, want a swig of this beer?”
I am so sorry,” he said, trying to make a disdainful face and failing miserably. “I do not care for, um, spirits, thank you.”

“Ah, that’s too bad, man. These suds do taste mighty damn good!”

His eyes began to tear up but he maintained his composure remarkably well.

“Where did you say you were from, Bro?” I asked, gulping down half the bottle and unleashing an echoing burp.

“Why, I am from Tex- . . . er, I mean, I am from Connecticut.”

“He was a professor of music and even conducted the Hartford Symphony,” Brandy gushed.

“Is that so?” I smiled, finishing my beer and opening a second bottle with my teeth. “I know a little about music myself. Who’s your favorite composer” I’m partial to Merle Haggard and good ol’ Lynyrd Skynyrd, myself.”

“I . . . I like Ramsey Korsokaff,” he replied, licking his lips as the sour smell of beer filled his nostrils.

“Never heard of the dude,” I shrugged, grabbing a fistful of bacon rinds and stuffing them into my mouth. “Damn, this stuff tastes good. Sure you don’t want some, Trey?”

“No, thank you,” he replied, his rigid body trembling with temptation.

As Kelly watched from the corner, a silent prayer on her lips, Raul slid down from the ottoman and circled around the loutish imposter, who was now sweating like an Arkansas hog and swaying back and forth like a reed in a hurricane.

“Ya do much huntin’ up there in Connecticut, Trey?” I asked, waving a foaming bottle beneath his nose.

“No, I . . . I do not believe in that kind of thing,” he yammered, biting his lips until they bled.

“Too bad,” I smiled, taking another gulp while belching and farting to beat the band. “I love that stuff! Deer, moose, rabbits, quail . . . you name it, I’ve shot it. And huntin’ with beer! Damn, there’s nothing’ better, I tell ya!”

Trey was practically in convulsions now, trying desperately to maintain his poise, when Raul made his move. “Damn it!” he cried, dropping his long-necked bottle of Budweiser at Trey’s feet. “The whole damn thing’s going to waste!”

Trey looked down, saw the precious ambrosia gurgling out into the rug, let out a heart-wrenching scream and dropped to the floor to lick the carpet dry.

“Aha!” I crowed, pointing down at the pathetic figure groveling beneath me. He had thrown off his velvet smoking jacket and was rolling about like a spastic eel trying to absorb every molecule of beer through his badly-tattooed skin. “You /are/ a Redneck! Admit it now!”

“I am!” he cried, leaping to his feet and strutting proudly around the room. “I was born one and I’ll die one, by Jiminy, and all you damn Yankees can just kiss my sweet Texas butt!”

“A Redneck?” Brandy screamed, the color draining from her face. “A Redneck? You told me you were from Connecticut!”

“Well, I ain’t from Connecticut, Little Lady! I lied! Hell, I don’t even know where Connecticut is!”

“Get out of my house, Trey! Get out of here, now! I never want to see you again!”

“Fine by me,” he sneered, grabbing up what was left of the beer and striding toward the door. “I’m gonna do me some coon huntin’! Sure is better than lookin’ at yer sorry face, I can tell ya!”

And with a howl at the moon and a slam of the door, he was gone.

Brandy and her daughter, Kelly, thanked me profusely for saving them from almost certain indigence, and eventually entered the local chapter of RA, Rednecks Anonymous, to help them overcome the emotional and physical scars inherent in such encounters with Redneckism. Fortunately, I was able to thwart the danger before any Redneck progeny ensued but, as most Rednecks are either physically incapable of performing acts of intimacy with anyone other than close relatives, or are intellectually maladroit at executing such acts, this was not my prime concern in the case just related.

It should be remembered, however, that Rednecks are increasing in number at an alarming rate and vigilance must always be maintained if one is to avoid their defilement.

As for me, I set out once more for my beloved Pallazzo de Saltier, and some well-earned R&R. While Raul had yet another chapter to add to his chronicle, I would have preferred avoiding this most unpleasant incident and enjoying the breakers of the grand Pacific in peace. I fear it will take a lot of sun, sand, and salt water to cleanse my spirit of this most noxious taint, but that is a small price to pay for saving two fine ladies from the prospect of a life filled with Tea Party rallies, Miley Cyrus, and endless reruns of “Cops” on Cable TV.

by Bruce Salter

EN ROUTE TO SAN FRANCISCO, CA— (Weekly Hubris) —In a parched landscape a solitary figure sat on a rock beneath a twisting Cottonwood tree, vainly trying to shade himself from the relentless sun.

“Jeez, it’s hot,” he snarled, wiping his face with a soiled kerchief. “Where the hell is he? It must be Tuesday by now . . . or maybe even Wednesday. I can’t tell the days anymore, dammit. If only this heat would let up I’d be OK. Damn, I sure do wish he’d get here . . .”

Several hours passed and a second figure appeared through the rolling waves of heat, approaching from the mountains far to the south. The man on the rock stood. Shielding his eyes from the glare, he took a sip from his canteen and squinted into the sun.

“Nope, it’s not him,” he spat, slinging the canteen into the sand and returning to his rock. “Damn.”

“Hello there,” cried the stranger, skipping into the Cottonwood’s meager shade. “I do say, it’s bloody hot out there, isn’t it? Glad to find a bit of company, I don’t mind saying. Been on this road a terribly long time, you know, and haven’t seen a soul till now. Quite a relief, I must say.”

“Ain’t many folks about in this country, it bein’ so hot and dry an’ all,” the man on the rock replied, staring at the cracked ground. “My name’s Sam.”

“Where are my manners,” the stranger blushed, pulling up a rock next to Sam. “I’m McGill, Ledditbee McGill, but everybody calls me Nancy.”

“Nancy? That’s a hell of a name for a fella.”

“Don’t get me started! The stories I could tell you! But, never mind. Just call me Nan and that will be fine.”

“Any way you want it, Nan,” Sam shrugged. “Pleased to meet ya.”
Oh, the pleasure is mine, I assure you,” Nan smiled. “If I may be so bold, may I ask what you’re doing out here in this dreadful wilderness all alone?”

“Waitin’.”

“For whom are you waiting?”

“Waitin’ for LeBron.”

“LeBron?  Why, who is that and why are you waiting for him?”

“Who is LeBron? Who is LeBron? I thought everyone knew who LeBron is.”

“I’m sorry,” Nan replied. “I guess I’ve been wandering out here longer than I realized. I’m afraid I’ve never heard of him.”

“Well, LeBron is the . . . no, he’s a very . . . no, um, he’s everyone’s, uh . . . hell, he’s LeBron! There’s nothin’ more to say than that.”
And he’s coming here to meet you?”

“Sure he is,” Sam crowed, retrieving his canteen. “I admit he’s a little overdue, but if he says he’s gonna do something, he does it, sure as hell, and I’m expecting him to show up any time now. Ya want a taste of this water?”

“Thank you, no,” Nan smiled, pulling a silver thermos from his belt. “I have my own. If I’m not being too nosey, may I ask how long you’ve been waiting?”

“How long? Hell, I don’t know, hours . . . days . . . weeks. Time don’t mean nothin’ when LeBron’s involved. The sun rises when he smiles and sets when he takes a dump. The birds learned to sing from him, and heaven itself was just a dream some people had until LeBron came along with his perfect physique and amazing ball-handling abilities and made it a reality. If it wasn’t for him we’d have nothin’, we’d be nothin’. Why, he defines us, makes us what we are, and we love him for that. And any minute now, LeBron is comin’ here!”

“You are a very patient man,” Nan observed, sipping at his thermos like a hummingbird.

“Patient? Hell, yes, I’m patient. I gotta be. I’ve got more nieces, nephews, cousins and kin than I can count, suffering and struggling just to stay alive, an’ LeBron’s the only one who can help them. He can lead them out of the valley of shadow into the light of hope itself. There ain’t nothin’ he can’t do, and I’m waitin’ right here on this rock, sweatin’ under this poor excuse for a tree until he comes.”

“Bravo, my good man! I admire your tenacity. This LeBron sounds like a most extraordinary chap. Perhaps, if it’s not an inconvenience, I’ll just flag out here with you for a bit and hopefully meet this fellow myself.”

“Suit yourself,” Sam yawned, stretching his cracked fingers to the sky. “It don’t matter to me. It’s a free country, I guess. But tell me, Nan, what are you doing wanderin’ about on your own in this blasted desert?”

“Well,” Nan grinned, betraying just a hint of embarrassment, “I’ve been conducting a, how would you say it, a kind of quest.”

“Quest?”

“Yes, dear man. For the longest time I’ve been searching for a Bieber.”

“A what?”

“A Bieber. Apparently it’s a quite common creature, sightings of the bloody thing everywhere, don’t you know. But I’m finding it to be quite the elusive little bugger and, confidentially, I’m almost to the point of calling it a day and quitting the chase.”

“But why do you want to find this thing, Nan?” Sam asked, swatting the ubiquitous sand flies from his face. “Is it worth something? Does it have some power? Can you eat it?”

“Eat it? Oh, heavens no,” Nan sniffed, shuddering at such a repugnant thought. “No nutritional value there, whatsoever. But the Bieber is in demand. Although it has no intrinsic value, produces nothing of merit, and is intellectually, artistically and socially bereft of worth, it does possess an amazing appeal, principally to the more mentally challenged members of my society which, of course, constitute the outstanding majority. A Bieber is a sort of security blanket for the emotionally vacuous, quite like a pile of excrement would be to those flies buzzing about your face, and it was my charge to safely secure one. But my mission has, up until now, been fruitless and, truth be told, waiting here with you to meet the wondrous LeBron seems a more rewarding alternative.”

“Well, just make yourself comfortable, Nan,” Sam grinned, shifting to follow the Cottonwood’s shadow. “I’m glad for the company. Waitin’ for LeBron is way better than lookin’ for this little Bieber critter. Hell, there’s no comparison, far as I can see.”

“Why, thank you Sam. I must say, I’m not averse to a bit of intelligent conversation after my long sojourn in this bloody wasteland. Seeking out the crafty Bieber to validate the shallow lives of its admirers is a thankless task—mind-numbing, really—and I could use a little intellectual stimulation. Now, tell me more of this singular fellow LeBron.”

“Well,” Sam began, crinkling his brow in the deepest of thoughts, “it all started way back in Akron, Ohio on December 30, 1984, the day of LeBron’s nativity. He opened his eyes for the first time and right away started bouncing a rubber ball around the room like nobody’s business, and people from everywhere came to watch him. Then, when he got a little older . . .”

For many hours, Sam amazed Nancy with tales of the remarkable LeBron, driving all thoughts of the phenomenal Bieber from his mind and converting him into a true apostle of the divinity incarnate.

Days passed as the pair waited patiently under that Cottonwood for LeBron. The sun was blistering, the heat merciless and the hardship almost intolerable, but they persisted, hanging their hopes and the hopes of the world they represented on the materialization of the god they had grown to love so much.

Finally, their water ran out and the pitiless sun did its work, leaving the adherents of LeBron prostrate in the sand, gasping for breath as their lives slipped away.

Suddenly, Sam, his eyes almost swollen shut, saw a shimmering figure approaching from the west. Could this be LeBron at last? Had their savior arrived to grant them transcendence? He tried to rouse Nancy but the vultures were already picking at his bones.

“Hello,” he rasped, barely making a sound. “Is that you, LeBron?”

The figure drew closer.

“I’m still here waiting for you, My Lord.”

The stranger, walking erratically, staggered up to Sam and cast a deep shadow across his face. This didn’t look like LeBron, he thought. This appeared to be a girl, and a rather repellent girl at that. Her stringy hair framed darting, listless, black eyes and saliva ran freely from the corners of her twitching, chapped lips.

Raising himself to his elbow, Sam gasped, “Are . . . are you LeBron? My Redeemer? Please, I beg you, help your humble follower . . .”

The girl cast a disdainful glance down, flung her hair back with a snap of her neck and laughed. “LeBron? LeBron? Do I look like LeBron, you idiot? I’m Lindsey and I have a date with Oprah, if I can ever find her.”

And with a “Harrumph” of contempt, she spun on her heels and disappeared back into the light, her echoing calls to Oprah fading in the sweltering afternoon heat.

by Bruce Salter

EN ROUTE TO, CA—(Weekly Hubris)—7/12/10—The long needles she used for her intricate embroidery had no eyes. The clock she kept at her bedside had no hands. And Susan, her long brown hair braided tightly behind her head, had no heart.

Her chest was a void, a black chasm containing only a hammering fist that circulated her blood and fed her body. It was an indifferent thing, that muscle, mechanical and aloof, content to do its work with numb regularity. It was not a heart. She knew that as well as she knew anything. Her true heart had been ripped out, chewed and gulped down by something she now refused to remember, something that had skipped away laughing just before she cried the blue from her eyes. Her glow had faded. Her shoulders had grown tight, rigid, stiffer than the straight-backed chair she always sat in. And her dreams . . . well, the less said of them the better. The loss of one’s heart is no small thing.

Without a heart, Susan found the world a cold place, a place whose narrow palette of color ranged from slate gray to the palest of blues, whose music was swallowed by the inner silence that was her life. Her skin was hard, too hard for any to penetrate or for her to escape, a cloak of protection and imprisonment. But none had any wish to enter a soul without a heart and Susan, her eyes fixed blankly on the emptiness around her, had no desire to desert her sanctum. As I’ve said, the loss of one’s heart is no small thing.

Despite her emotional isolation, there was one other creature that inhabited Susan’s world. A small yellow cat had been given to her by a concerned relative shortly after her heart’s abduction and had shared her barren apartment in the long years since. Her sister had feared for Susan’s sanity and thought the kitten, whom she christened “Pearl,” because its eyes resembled opalescent jewels, would provide companionship and possibly rekindle a spark of feeling in Susan’s soul. But there was no love in Susan to extend, no empathy to offer. She fed the cat, brushed her routinely every evening and took her to the doctor when vaccinations were necessary, but Pearl was no more to Susan than the dishes she scrubbed or the towels she folded after washing. Pearl was just another thing to deal with, another duty to perform, and she had absolutely no sentimental effect on Susan or her blunted sensibilities, no effect at all . . . until she died.

Susan awoke one morning to find Pearl curled in the corner behind the straight-backed chair, her eyes closed, her mouth open and her body stiff and cold. Without the smallest pang of remorse, Susan wrapped the cat in an old piece of blanket, squeezed the bundle into a plastic grocery bag and carried it to the corner dumpster, where she deposited the creature without ceremony and quickly made her way back home. After finishing her morning cup of coffee, she mixed some disinfectant in a bucket of water and went to the corner to clean away any “unhealthy” residue Pearl might have left behind. She had just begun scrubbing when she noticed something small and dark by the baseboard where Pearl had died.

“What could this be?” she wondered, blowing the dust away and examining it closely. It was no bigger than the end of her thumb, soft and even a little moist. Turning it over in her hand, she held it up to the light and studied it carefully but, despite her best efforts, she couldn’t identify the tiny thing.

“It can’t be healthy,” she thought as she walked to the bathroom to flush it into oblivion. But something stopped her. She opened her hand and looked at it again. Then, with a sniff, she turned into her bedroom, folded the strange object into a handkerchief, placed it on her bed table and returned to her cleaning job.

What Susan didn’t realize was that Pearl had bequeathed something very special to her mistress. Pearl had given Susan her heart.

As the weeks passed, Susan began to change in subtle, yet undeniable ways. The tight lines around her permanently pursed lips softened, the gray in her eyes began to take on the faintest hint of azure, and random locks of hair, usually knotted tight, escaped with increasing frequency to flit and flutter about her face. One evening, as she routinely drew her curtains, she noticed the twilit stars playing above the neighboring apartment and, for the first time in memory, the most fleeting of smiles danced across her lips.

Pearl’s heart, now dried and hard as an acorn, remained in its handkerchief cocoon next to Susan’s bed. Not understanding its nature, she often thought of throwing it out, fearing that it might, in some way, be unclean, but something always stayed her hand. It seemed somehow familiar and she slowly became attached to the funny little thing, often touching it for luck before retiring each night,

One day, as she was walking home from the bus stop up the street, Susan saw a tiny kitten, its eyes barely open, struggling in the garbage at the mouth of an alleyway. Normally she would have looked away, quickened her pace and put it out of her mind but, this time, she stopped. She bent down and watched the creature staggering through the refuse. It reminded her of Pearl. Somewhere inside her, pity, concern and compassion were finding a voice, a voice that was really her own, and, before she knew what she was doing, she’d scooped up the helpless thing and run back to her apartment to give it some food. She later named the kitten Pearlette, and the two became almost inseparable. Susan’s heart had returned at last.

It wasn’t long before he arrived. He was tall and handsome, in an offbeat, angular sort of way, with a smile dripping charisma and eyes aching with hunger. His name was Charles, or was it John . . . or perhaps Mark? It really didn’t matter, because names were all the same and he was always the same; dark, ravenous and irresistible. When Susan first saw him across the park he was wearing a rumpled black coat that fell past his knees, looking, in the afternoon glare, more like a pair of folded leathery wings than any customary attire. She spun away and then, not quite knowing why, turned and looked at him again, sensing a vague half-remembered familiarity. Her pulse quickened as she met his gaze and felt his dark eyes upon her, both embarrassed and exhilarated at the same time.

He watched her in silence, rigid and calm, until she finally turned away and disappeared around a corner. He, too, sensed recognition, but recognition of a different order, for this man with no name and every name was a collector; a collector of passions, a collector of dreams, a collector of hearts.

When Susan next saw the dark man it was at her door the following evening. There had been a knock and then she saw her neighbor, Mrs. Lockley, smiling through the peek hole, undid the bolt and swung the door open only to find him looming above her with the most unnerving smile she had ever seen. They regarded each other in silence, he measuring up his trophy and she melting beneath his gaze. His long coat rustled like dried leaves as he grasped her shoulders and pulled her against him, leaning his face down to hers.

Her eyes searched his and she realized she knew this man. Or was it another very much like him? She couldn’t be sure. But she had been mesmerized, seduced, plundered by a creature like this before; had lost her heart to something predatory, unnamable, and now it was happening again, against her will.

She found herself submitting to his embrace, yielding to his pleading eyes and laughing mouth, and she knew that her heart, which had risen into her throat to welcome him, was about to be stolen again. It almost wanted to be stolen.

His breath was hot and wet on her cheeks as he forced his open lips against hers and began to probe with his tongue, hungrily seeking another heart to devour. He knew he possessed her completely, that there would be no struggle. Tightening his grip, he could feel the warm sweetness of her heart drawing closer and he smiled. This was getting too easy . . .

A heartrending scream flooded the stillness, and sent a terrified Mrs. Lockley rushing to her door in dreadful panic. She had been quietly watching TV and sipping her nightly glass of Merlot when the wail from the hall outside all but tore off her ears. Seeing nothing through her peek hole, she inched the door open just in time to glimpse a tall dark figure stagger around the far corner and plunge down the stairwell, his black coat flapping behind him like a pair of broken wings. Just to the left, in the doorway opposite hers, stood Susan, her chin and chest red with blood and her eyes alive with fire.

“My God!” Mrs. Lockley shrieked, throwing her arms around the girl. “What happened?”

Susan calmly straightened her sweater, pushed the tangled hair back from her face and removed a sizeable object from her mouth (Mrs. Lockley couldn’t determine its nature), casually tossing it over her shoulder into her apartment. “It was nothing, Dear,” she smiled. “Just a thief in the night. Don’t worry; he won’t be coming back.”

“But all of this blood . . . that terrible scream . . .”

“Everything is fine, Mrs. Lockley. I’m fine, you’re fine and even little Pearlette here is fine. Now go back and finish your wine. It’s getting late, and tomorrow’s another day!”

Mrs. Lockley reluctantly returned to her apartment as Susan picked up little Pearlette, who had been scowling intently at the stairwell, and went back inside, bolting the door securely behind her. A sense of serenity filled her, and her heart, which remained intact, beating with a peace and assurance she hadn’t known before.

“It is getting late,” she thought, removing her sweater and putting it into the sink to soak. “I must remember to get Pearlette a nice toy tomorrow. She deserves it.”

After giving the kitten a kiss on the nose, Susan indulged in a long hot shower while little Pearlette occupied herself by ferociously batting the dark man’s tongue across the kitchen floor.

Susan lived a long life. Her heart had been lost, recovered, and defended from a second irretrievable theft, and while she guarded it carefully and never again gave it away, she shared it freely and let it shine out through her radiant blue eyes.

by Bruce Salter

EN ROUTE TO, CA—(Weekly Hubris)—6/28/10—She said she was a dancer.

I studied her legs, her magnificently strong alabaster-white legs, stretching from the mountaintop on which she reclined to the smudge of forest, gleaming like a viridian jewel on the western horizon, and saw no reason to doubt her. Those legs could charm the light from the darkness, I thought, and inspire poetry in the coldest of hearts. But I, being a fool, couldn’t let her statement go unchallenged.

“Then dance,” I snapped, leaning against a landslide and digging my bare heels into the depths of a nearby sea. “I’d like to see you dance, if you can.”

She fixed her gaze on mine, her eyes alive with coiling green cobras, for a brief eternity, and smiled. A thousand larks escaped her parting lips. The icy crags beneath her palms crumbled as she calmly lifted herself into the sky.

I tried to appear disinterested, shearing away great tracts of beach with casual abandon while dolphins darted playfully between my toes, but I am a poor actor and my feigned indifference was as transparent as a rival’s kiss.

Pushing the clouds aside, she stretched into the aether, letting its magnetic eddies course between her tingling fingers. With the sun full on her face and her hair streaming around her head like a shimmering red halo, she took a deep breath and leapt into the air, ascending until she was almost out of sight.

I held my breath for a dozen heartbeats or more, turning from the sea and focusing on the white speck that was my dancer as she paused for an instant, almost lost in the blue, before beginning her descent.

A broad mesa exploded beneath her foot as she landed, pivoted on her left toe and sprang over the desert to the mountaintop she had just vacated, twisting through the air with an elegance more akin to song than motion. Flitting from peak to peak, she spun, extending her arms to the winds and flashing a smile that froze my heart.

I wanted to tear my eyes away, to plunge face-first into the churning foam and let the sea’s icy indifference break her spell, but I couldn’t. That miraculous ballet transfixed me. She twirled like a dervish of pure light, leaping and pirouetting as if made of air, leveling mountains and carving out vast ravines whenever her delicate toes strayed too close to the earth.

After yet another triple spin above the sun she landed on the plain before me, gouging out a great canyon with her impact, and then sprang into the sky once more, splitting, as she did so, into twin halves of herself, one male, one female, and continuing in an exquisite pas de deux across the searing sand.

I sprang up and raced after my love, crushing forests and cities underfoot as I strove to witness every sensuous strain and nuance of her performance. Her strength was boundless, her delicacy ravishing. Her two selves joined, separated, and joined again in a seemingly endless exploration of her soul’s duality. If motion is song, this was symphony.

At last, she merged together as one and stood facing me across that desolate plain, her wondrous dance apparently at an end. Again we locked eyes, but the green cobras in hers had now turned to black flames silhouetted against the cerulean blue I knew so well. Once more, we stood frozen in a desperate eternity, each afraid of what was to come.

“It was beautiful,” I said. “You were beautiful. You are beautiful.”

“I’m sorry,” was her only reply.

Without another word, she gathered the evening clouds about her, turned her face to the sky, and was gone. The clouds spread around me and, with a single flash of lightning and roll of thunder, dropped their rain until the plain became a verdant grassland swaying about my feet.

Returning to the sea, I stretched against the darkening mountains and let the now-infuriated waves crash against my side. Wiping the mist from my cheeks, I closed my eyes and began dreaming of the dance and what it meant. The rising tide slowly washed into my mouth, filling my lungs until I slipped into its current and let it carry me away.

The moon cast its million diamonds on the breakers as my body stiffened and froze, but I wasn’t worried. My dream of her dance would survive. It would play in the eddies and swirl in the foam until another song, another poem, another love came to awaken my heart again.

That, after all, is the nature of the dance.

by Bruce Salter

EN ROUTE TO, CA—(Weekly Hubris)—6/11/10—My return to Michigan, specifically to the atrophied hamlet of Brighton, was not voluntary. If geographic locations possess their own personalities, which, of course, they do, then Brighton, with its glistening patina of superficiality and prosaic intellectual retardation, would easily qualify as a front runner on the planet’s “Places Devoid of a Soul” list. I had every intention of avoiding this borough of banality at all costs, but when the local Michigan authorities, with desperation in their voices, urgently requested my presence to assist them in a most singular matter, a case “unique in their experience,” as they put it, I could not, in good conscience, refuse their summons.

I had flattered myself that my reputation as an explorer of the imagination’s more exotic corridors had spurred the Michiganders to seek my assistance, but my briefing by the two uniformed officers escorting me from the Detroit airport to the bowels of the Brighton Crime Center (if such a superfluous structure can, indeed, possess “bowels”) shattered that illusion. It was not my arcane insight that was required in stemming an extraordinary and mysterious epidemic sweeping through central Michigan, but my biological connection to the centerpiece of this unfolding tragedy: my notorious half-brother, Wurt.

But I am getting ahead of myself. Let me lay out the facts of this remarkable case and the measures taken to bring it to its most curious end.

Lieutenant Jerry Block, a large pasty-faced man with swinging jowls and a lazy left eye, whose office was heading the investigation of the “Brighton Blight” (as it later came to be called), met me on the steps of the Crime Center (before I could inspect its problematic bowels) and, with a nervous smile, hustled me into his gleaming ATV.

“I’m sorry for all the secrecy,” he grinned, “but this whole deal has thrown me and the force for a loop. I never seen nothin’ like it, I tell ya. It’s the damnedest thing, an’ that’s fer shure!”

“But what is this all about?” I asked. “Your officers told me next to nothing.”

“Just wait till you see ‘em,” he sighed, wiping at his brow with a University of Michigan pocket flag as he swung the ATV across oncoming traffic and turned onto a tree-lined lane. “Just wait!”

Road kill is a treasured sport among the Michigan aristocracy, and the Lieutenant exhibited a well-practiced proficiency by adroitly running down two unfortunate squirrels, a spring Robin just out of the nest and a slow-thinking raccoon before screeching to a stop in front of an imposing building bearing the title “Brighton Sanitarium for the Physically and Emotionally Distressed.”

“This is a mighty big place,” I observed, impressed by the gray multi-storied edifice stretching far back into the trees.

“That’s nothin’,” Lt. Block grinned. “You should see all the basements underground! We’re adding on all the time! But, come on . . . we need to get movin’ before it’s too late.”

The Lieutenant certainly wasn’t exaggerating about the building’s dimensions. The cramped elevator carried us at least 20 levels down into the Michigan bedrock before its doors swung open and we made our way past several well-armed guards to an imposing steel door. Lt. Block motioned to an attendant who slid a large bolt aside and ushered us into a narrow ward containing a dozen or more curtained beds.

“Look at this,” Block gulped, swinging a curtain aside and throwing back the cover on the nearest bed. “What do ya think of that?”

At first, I didn’t understand what I was looking at. What occupied the center of the mattress below me resembled a sort of bloated peanut, albeit a peanut measuring no less than three feet in length. Upon closer inspection, however, I realized that what lay before me was flesh, swollen pulpy flesh, and that . . . it was alive.

“What is this abomination?” I cried, jumping back from the unspeakable thing.

“That,” replied Block with a complacent shrug, “is your nephew!”

The shock of the incredible revelation must have momentarily unhinged me. When my senses returned, I found myself stretched out on a sofa with the meaty face of Lt. Block hovering overhead like a porcine moon,

“What . . . what happened?” I groaned, trying to sit up. “I remember that armless, legless, headless blob of quivering flesh. Yes, that horrible blob, and then your saying it was my nephew. . .”

“That it is,” Block sighed, “that it is.” And then he told me the whole story.

I learned that Ward W, the ward I had so recently visited, housed not only my nephew but my two nieces, sister-in-law, a second cousin and several of my brother’s neighbors, friends and clients as well. All were, to varying degrees, duplicates of the amorphous lump I had beheld earlier. Ward W was filled to overflowing with these. . .creatures . . . and additional wards were being populated with similar human simulacra at an alarming rate.

It was almost too much to credit.

“But how is this possible?” I cried, leaping to my feet. “What’s causing all of this? How is my half-brother involved?”

“Well, we all know your brother, Wurt, is a real asshole, not to put too fine a point on it,” Lt. Block spat, dropping onto the sofa with a thud. “I don’t have to tell ya how full of himself he is.”

Lt. Block would certainly get no argument from me there. Wurt was a loud, obnoxious ego-driven, know-it-all who was famous—infamous, really—for subjecting anyone in his orbit to haranguing diatribes on every conceivable subject; vomiting forth streams of insufferable platitudes until the listener was all but reduced to mental Jello.

He also, I might add, had the IQ of a lug nut.

“Yes, yes, Lieutenant, there’s no disputing that,” I replied. “But what is his connection to those other poor wretches in Ward W?”

“I don’t really understand it, not bein’ a doctor or scientist or nothin’,” Block groaned, “but accordin’ to the experts, Wurt’s ego has . . . crossed the line.”

“Crossed the line? What do you mean ‘crossed the line’?” I choked, trying to follow his rapidly darting eyes.

“Well, his big ol’ ego just got so huge it’s actually affecting people physically. The docs call it a “Turtle Syndrome.” You know how turtles pull themselves into their shells when the world gets too much for ‘em? Well, that’s what people are doin’ when they get too much of your brother, only they got no shell to hide in, so they just curl up into their own skins and don’t never come out! The big-headed bastard is actually turnin’ folks into slugs— PERMANENTLY PULPY PEOPLE SLUGS!—with his big mouth and we can’t do nothin’ about it!”

“But can’t you catch him? Isolate him? Limit his exposure to the populace?” I cried out, hardly believing my ears.

“Nope,” Block sighed, hanging his over-sized head. “Soon as anyone gets near him, he commences to talkin’ and rantin’ on an’ on about this ‘n that and, before ya know it, my officers are floppin’ about on the ground, their arms ‘n legs ‘n heads pulled up inside themselves for protection. It’s like a damned plague, I tell ya, an there’s nothin’, nothin’, we can do to stop him!”

“But what can I do?” I gasped, dropping onto the sofa next to the Lieutenant. The prospect of encountering my vainglorious brother was far from appetizing, even in the best of circumstances, and the added probability of being turned into a human slug by his raging conceit, now gone nuclear, was quite beyond contemplation.

“We thought that, as his relative, ya’ know, you might be able to reason with him somehow. Maybe you got some clue about the guy, something we can use to stop him. He’s already made snails of his whole family an’ everybody who knew him, and now he’s movin’ through Michigan like friggin’ Colonel Sanders, turnin’ everyone he meets into boneless human chicken nuggets. You’re the only hope we got left, Man! If we don’t do somethin’, soon the whole state will be a worm farm!”

I considered telling the poor man that Michigan was already deemed a giant worm farm by most of the civilized world, but I held my tongue, not wishing to add to his woes.

My instinct was to catch the first plane west and get as far away from the “Brighton Blight” as my credit card would take me, but I thought again of those pathetic devils in Ward W, those quivering lumps of flesh stripped of all humanity, and realized that Wurt’s contagion would eventually find me if I didn’t stop it here and now.

“OK, Lieutenant,” I smiled, patting him soundly on the back. “I’ll do what I can.”

Tears of joy poured over his cheeks as he dropped to the floor and began kissing my Birkenstocks. “Oh, thank you!” he cried between his sobs. “You don’t know what this means to us! Thank you so much!”

“Don’t mention it,” I smiled, helping him up. “I’m always ready to do what I can. Now, I have an idea, but there are a couple of things I’ll need. . .”

“Anything at all!” he beamed, pulling the Michigan pocket flag from his vest again and giving his nose a mighty blow. “Just name it and it’s yours!”

“OK, Lieutenant Block…let’s go find my brother.”

The sun was starting its decline behind scenic Mt. Brighton, a molehill of dirt the town had thrown up years ago to create the illusion of having a winter ski resort when the snows came, when the local SWAT “team,” Henry, radioed that Wurt had been sighted in the vicinity of a nearby Wal-Mart, turning patrons into flopping bratwursts at a fearful rate. With blue lights flashing and sirens wailing, we screamed into the parking lot, sideswiping a couple of pizza delivery vans and screeched to a stop about 50 yards from the entrance.

“Stay back, boys,” I barked, stepping from the car and sliding my “weapon” under my left elbow. “This could get nasty!”

I had taken the precaution of sealing my ears with thick gelatinous wax to filter out my mad sibling’s bombastic rants, covering my eyes with protective goggles to block all but the most extreme infrared wavelengths of light, and encasing myself in state-of-the-art body armor designed exclusively for Michigan college footballers, but I knew these measures offered scant protection from the platitudinous salvos my brother Wurt would likely hurl. Advancing slowly but deliberately, I stepped around and over dozens of once-proud Wal-Mart shoppers now reduced to piteous human Hot Pockets floundering helplessly on the asphalt.

“Come on out, Wurt,” I screamed, trying to avert my gaze from the superstore’s yawning mouth. “This is your brother! I’ve come to help you!”

The glass doors parted. Through my special goggles I saw a red-outlined humanoid form emerge into the twilight, its mouth, nose and ears spewing forth a steaming toxic gas, and I knew . . . Wurt was upon me. Even though I was still over 30 feet away, I felt my skin suddenly tingle and the bones in my extremities begin to soften. He had grown powerful indeed. I instinctively leapt behind an abutment and before he could begin speaking (which would have undoubtedly initiated my demise) shouted out, “Wurt! I’ve brought something for you! It’s a present; something you’ll like better than anything else. Please . . . just have a look, Bro!”

I slid the large blanket-covered parcel from under my arm, gently leaned it against the store’s façade, dashed off to what I hoped was a safe distance and pulled off my protective goggles, hoping he would take the bait.

Talking wildly, his booming voice echoing from the nearby Big Boy to the corner Arby’s, and gesticulating like a spastic Gooney Bird, Wurt eagerly approached the waiting gift, his curiosity clearly aroused. He bent down, untied the string securing the covering and threw the blanket aside, exposing an ornate and beautifully polished mirror. Still talking non-stop, he raised the glass up and gazed lovingly at himself with an expression that even Narcissus would envy. But the mirror’s reflection was powerful, more powerful than even Wurt realized and, within seconds, his body began to twitch. The mirror fell from his hands, crashing like a bomb at his feet, as he collapsed to the ground and began thrashing about like a beached Mackerel. Before our unbelieving eyes, his fingers, toes, legs, arms and, finally, his head shrank into his expanding bloated body until he, like his many victims, became the wretched product of his own conceit.

A bed was quickly reserved for him in Ward W and I received a special commendation from a thankful Lt. Block and the Key to the City (plus three discount coupons at a local  day-old bread store) from the mayor of Brighton, himself. I quickly said my good-byes and left Michigan in a cloud of mosquito-infested dust.

Of Wurt and the army of mindless slugs he created, I have little more to report. Official statements ascribed the strange transformations to pollution seeping into the ground water from an infected Lake Michigan, but that doesn’t explain the fact that state inhabitants are continuing to devolve, although at a much more modest rate, slowly but surely becoming lumps of senseless clay. Whether Wurt’s contagion has somehow been passed on to others or nature herself is mercifully stepping in to speed up extinction’s inevitable hand no one can say.

I know only that these poor unfortunates have gone to a better place, a place where sensory deprivation reigns and memories of Michigan are, as Jimi Hendrix would say, relegated to a purple haze.

by Bruce Salter

EN ROUTE TO, CA—(Weekly Hubris)—5/24/10—Jack and Jean were what some people might call typical. Jack was 27, worked in a loan office, liked to drink imported beer while watching sports, and always worried about his weight, which tended toward the excessive. Jean was 28, worked as an auditor for a faceless corporation, liked to watch cartoons, and always worried about her weight, which tended toward emaciation. They had been married for three years, had no children and considered themselves reasonably happy, although each had settled for considerably less in a partner than either would ever admit.

One thing they both loved was going to garage sales. They had plenty of disposable income, and the possibility of fantastic bargains and rare finds added a little excitement to their otherwise mundane lives. Together they would scrutinize the classified ads every Friday evening after dinner, selecting promising targets and plotting itineraries for their regular Saturday “adventures.”

It was on one of these routine quests that Jack and Jean made the discovery that changed their lives.

The ad said “ESTATE SALE” and the address was in one of the older parts of town, so Jack and Jean circled it and put a red star in the margin, meaning it would have priority as an early Saturday stop. But, as they drove up Lime Avenue checking house numbers, they began to have second thoughts. These houses weren’t just old, they were ancient to the point of complete dilapidation. Many were boarded up and overgrown with wild hungry weeds, and the few that seemed inhabitable were barely so. Still, there was always the chance of finding “diamonds in the dust,” as Jean’s mother always said, so they proceeded on, expectant but wary.

Number 6646 was set well back from the road, concealed, or, more accurately, engulfed by a solid wall of exotic-looking vegetation. Jack would have driven right by had Jean not seen the small yellow sign with the red lettering reading “SALE” fastened haphazardly to the remains of a rusty gate leaning against a spreading willow, and shouted out. They parked beside a shallow ditch (there was no curb or sidewalk), studied the narrow stone path winding into the trees toward the unseen house, exchanged a silent glance and, taking a collective deep breath, clasped hands and walked into the shadows.

Not much of the house was visible, even at close range, due to the thick growth of vines and limbs enveloping it. Only vague hints of ancient wall or shingle peeked through the layers of foliage that likely held the building together. It looked to be two-storied, but even that was uncertain as the dense greenery completely swallowed everything above the top of the decrepit porch.

Jack tapped gently at the front door, fearing a more solid blow might knock the rotting thing from its hinges. After several seconds, steps could be heard approaching from within. A bolt was drawn, the door swung open, and Jack and Jean were confronted by what looked to be a very old woman. While the gender of the person was problematic, there was absolutely no doubt about the figure’s hoary age. “She” was quite small, little more than four feet tall, with a frail, thin body bent into impossibly absurd angles. Deep wrinkles filled a pale, almost transparent face, yet the gray eyes darting restlessly in their oversized sockets housed an alert and refined intelligence.

“Why, you must be here for the sale,” she whispered hoarsely, waving a twisted hand and bidding them enter. “Come in, come in. I have many a fine item you’re sure to want. Do come in and see!”

Hesitating momentarily, Jack and Jean smiled politely at their fragile host and, still hand in hand, crossed the threshold.

It was dark and clammy inside. It took their eyes several moments to adjust to the dim light and it would take their noses much longer to adjust to the stale, rancid air, longer than they intended to stay. The room they found themselves in was surprisingly large, with a ceiling that disappeared unseen somewhere in the coiling mists above their heads. They assumed it to be a living room or parlor of some kind, although it was hard to be sure. So engorged with furniture, statuary, crates and boxes was it that its original function was now of little consequence. There was hardly room enough to squeeze through the vast conglomeration of ancient detritus and the couple, growing more apprehensive by the minute, were hard-pressed to proceed.

“All must go . . . all must go,” the tiny twisted woman croaked as she shuffled up behind them. “Choose what you will! One per customer! All must go!”

Jack had seen enough. The putrid air was beginning to burn his throat and his head was starting to swim. He turned back toward the door but Jean tugged at his arm and pointed to a large, overstuffed, green chair partially buried under some disturbing paintings in the corner.

“That would be perfect for the new den, don’t you think?” Jean whispered. “Let’s see how much she wants for it.”

Jack really didn’t want to bother with the ugly thing. He wanted only to return to the sunshine and fresh air, but he was a compliant husband so he composed himself and, facing the woman, who was now shaking almost spastically, casually asked, “How much for the chair?”

“You want the crying chair?” the old woman purred. “Five dollars. Five dollars for the crying chair and it’s yours!”

Not one to pass up a good deal, Jack quickly pulled five dollars from his wallet, pressed it between the bony claws of their host and said, “Sold!”

Wasting no time, Jack and Jean cleared the clutter away from the chair, made a path across the spongy carpet to the door and half-carried/half-dragged the heavy thing out of the house, through the trees (which seemed to have grown even thicker while they were inside) and back down the path to their truck, only resting when they finally reached the roadside. After catching their breath, they managed to wedge the chair into the back, jumped into the front seat and raced home with their new acquisition.

Jean made sure the chair was thoroughly cleaned before allowing it into her spotless house. There was no telling what might be living in that thick upholstery and she wasn’t about to take any chances. She vacuumed, shampooed, fumigated, de-flea-ed, de-loused, scrubbed, scoured, sanitized and sterilized it until, after a full week of “quarantining” it in the garage, she was satisfied that it was safe to admit into her home.

The thing was so bulky that Jack and Jean had a great deal of trouble simply maneuvering it through the front door. But they were persistent and, after several attempts, at last had the chair where they wanted it, positioned neatly in the far corner of the den, between the birdcage and the aquarium.

Jack had never noticed it before, but in the bright morning sunlight streaming through the south window the chair looked positively other-worldly. The curious patterns in the fabric, now discernable after the thorough cleaning, seemed to shift obliquely, and the subtle greenish hues rippled almost like water. Even the finely carved mahogany feet appeared to flex, cat-like, against the yielding carpet. “It must be my imagination or a trick of the light,” he thought, saying nothing to Jean. The chair was her project and he didn’t want to dampen her excitement.

Jean was darting around like a sparrow. This was her first genuine antique and she had spent many hours making sure that its inauguration into their lives would be perfect. She would be the first actually to sit in it, and Jack was ready with the video camera to document her triumph. She had even made a cup of chamomile tea (her favorite) to sip as she luxuriated in the massive thing.

On Jack’s signal, Jean stepped boldly to the chair. Turning to face the camera, she smiled broadly, curtsied slightly, extended her teacup toward the ceiling, and gently lowered herself into the waiting green cushions.

The chair was surprisingly comfortable and Jean, who was a petite woman, seemed almost afloat in the voluptuous folds of its deep, soft skin. But as she sipped at the lip of her fine bone teacup and prepared to address the camera, a disquieting sense of sadness began to nibble at her.

Glancing at Skipper, her parakeet, hopping about on his little perch, she was struck by the pathetic nature of his life. Bred at a bird farm, taken from others of his kind, confined in his tiny cage for her pleasure—suddenly, Skipper’s isolation and loneliness came home to Jean. She knew what he was experiencing because she was in his head!

Panicking, she managed to tear her eyes away from the bird, thus breaking her newfound contact when, just as quickly, she focused on the fish in the aquarium to her left. “Poor pitiful devils,” she thought, “swimming around and around and around that little tank until they die.” The joyless, stagnant lives of the fish ate at her. She now realized that two were sick and in terrible pain and she could do nothing for them.

Wrenching her gaze away from the fish, she desperately turned to Jack, only to be overwhelmed by wave upon wave of oppressive sorrow. The grief over his mother’s death, the friends he had lost, the misfortune he had witnessed, the dejection at the very core of his being, of which he was consciously unaware, all penetrated her soul like so many nails being hammered into a board.

She covered her eyes, hoping to end this psychic assault, but that only made it worse. The anguish and despair of total strangers was enveloping her awareness now. The floodgates had been opened and the collective sorrows of the world poured into her.

She cried out once and then began to weep, inconsolable. She was still sobbing 15 minutes later when the ambulance came, an hour later as the doctors examined her in the emergency room, a week later while undergoing a host of tests at the psychiatric facility nearby, and she was still crying while being fed intravenously at the state mental institution four years later.

The doctors were never able to diagnose Jean’s condition with any certainty. Jack’s video, which was studied exhaustively, simply showed a seemingly normal woman taking a seat, violently jerking her head from one side to the other, dropping her teacup and facing the camera while attempting to stand, before unleashing a most plaintive wail and crumbling back into the chair in a burst of tears. It all took less than 20 seconds.

Jack tried to understand what he had witnessed, but he was at a total loss. He sat in the chair himself, but nothing happened. His attempt to return it to the old lady was completely unsuccessful. Apparently, the vegetation had won the day and thoroughly overrun the house, for there were only a few scattered pieces of rotting lumber amid the silent shadows where it had once stood.

The crying chair was finally sold at auction by a local charity and its whereabouts are unknown to this day.

Jack now lies alone at night and often catches himself sobbing softly in the darkness without knowing exactly why.