First Sign of the Badger

First Sign of the Badger

  by Brock Rhodes

  Copyright 2013 Brock Rhodes

  ISBN: 9781301009053

  STORIES

  CAR WASH SAFARI

  THE FATHER'S DAY TO END ALL FATHER'S DAYS

  MIRRORS DON'T LOOK ALIKE

  THE NITTY GRITTY

  SPOON

  PERFECT

  AN HOUR AIN'T GONNA BE LONG ENOUGH, DAVE

  BIG JOHN LUTHER

  PSEUDOSTRANGERS

  ENEMY MIME

  HOWDY!

  This is my first attempt at an eBook. It's an anthology of short stories I wrote in my youth. I'm releasing this as a test case for this format. I hope to learn whatever I need to learn from it before I unleash new material upon this wicked world. Hopefully, it all goes well.

  I'm very pleased that publishing has evolved to a point where I can publish without the need to even consult a publisher. The old world where what was published was determined by central authorities with interests incompatible with my own is now dead, and I have arrived to dance on its grave. And dance, I will.

  All of this work is mine. From the content, to the images, to anything and everything, it's all me. No matter what I will continue to produce my material without anyone's permission and for my own amusement.

  This work, while surely being a part of my DNA, is juvenile in comparison to my new material. I wrote it while growing up, struggling through difficulties, and losing my faith in pretty much anything and everything. Like the brrrblings of most teenagers, the material here tends to be a bit on the dark side with incoherent experimentation and very little of the comedic flare which tends to arrive with maturity.

  If you're interested in a print copy of this book please email me at [email protected] or tweet @mbrockrhodes.

  Also, if this experiment goes well, please look for my releases for the near future, like Goddamn Finger Tube, the Eradicator series, What's A Dragon Gotta Do? and much much more!

  Congratulations to you and all your loved ones,

  Brock Rhodes

  P.S. Kill your television!

  CAR WASH SAFARI

  In the afternoon air of the outdoor driveway, the K-Man and I were imitating a sundial to celebrate one of the many essential contributions of indigenous civilizations.

  Suddenly, the big man hit me with a stumper which ended up detonating an explosion of realization. "Yeah, I've been meanin' to ask you somethin' for awhile. What kind of car you got, dude?"

  He called me "dude," his slang for man.

  Although this was not the time or place for this, I did what I could to keep things from getting dramatic by trying to satisfy his misdirected lust. "Well," I proceeded with caution, not wanting to incriminate myself, "the kind with two doors."

  It was a correct answer. My ride had only two doors. My next answer would point out the bench seat, but I wouldn't volunteer it. Pacing myself and cooperating with no false information, I planned to continue this way until forced to stop all communication if he resorted to torture.

  The K-Man wasn't satisfied with the answer I had willingly provided. He could see all the entrances as well as I could. To ignite one of those silent rivalries common among men, the K-Man called me ignorant, "I bet you don't even know what color it is."

  "Sure I do," I reasoned, playing along as I studied my car on the street. "I can see it as well as you, man. It's uh... It's brown. A little gray. White for polka-dots."

  I felt violated by being forced to explain my car to this horny beast, but he was right. This was my car, and I didn't know any of the intimate things about it like color.

  I tried to picture the car in my mind, coming up with how I acquired it. It cost me five-dollars to rent with no intention of giving back. But, just like any rental car, what it looked like clean was masked behind a finger smudge on my mind.

  "I'm sorry, dude," giggled the K-Man, "but that's the funniest looking car I've ever seen. It looks like a bird-head on wheels."

  What a sick man for imagining such a thing. I worried about how many drugs were synergistically contaminating him. As I questioned what he was searching for I self-inflicted deadly optimism. Perhaps, he had good intentions and wasn't out to get me. In any event, it was an obvious cry for help.

  I wasn't going to judge him, but I knew to be careful from there on out. It's beyond his control, poor bastard, and I feared that any unexpected wind-gust could snap his twig of sanity.

  K-Man was bent on knowing my car better and put his heavy hand on it. Some of the Goddamned body broke off by his actions, if not his will.

  Playing with fire, I had to stand up for myself or risk being a chronic doormat. So I responded, "You chipped my paint. What kind of man are you? I'll cripple you for this!"

  The message was given, but his sedation said I was overreacting. Although, he never apologized. "Nah dude, that's not paint, that's dirt. It's just caked on here. I want to see what's underneath it. We must wash this thing."

  "Good God man, that's harsh," shot out of my mouth by instinct.

  To keep the peace I had to play friendly. Careful, still a virgin never even kissed by this practice, I agreed, "If you say so. If we can figure this thing out. If we plan, plan, plan. Because anything worth doing is worth doing right."

  Even though I could see that the K-Man had the stability of a high-wire act during a hurricane, he was driven and he knew how to get these types of things done. I once went to his house and he was doing the dishes for no other reason than they were dirty. I watched in amazement as he finished up. He asked me to dry, but I didn't know where to start. Despite his ongoing displays of emotional trauma, I've admired him ever since and felt that he was the key to a new understanding.

  "How do you think I wash it? In the sink like you with your dishes? Toothbrush! Up and down, not side to side? Isn't God supposed to wash it?"

  "No."

  "Then why do I pay taxes and what is all that rain for?"

  Then the testament came. My partner had a plan, the single step to open the throttle on this twisted journey.

  "Look, dude. Let's just go to the car wash."

  I'll be honest, the first word of this vehicle bathhouse and my blood pressure fluctuated. Not very cosmopolitan of me, but it's something I hadn't considered before. I had never been to one of these so called car washes. Like many others, I first heard about them on the bus ride to school.

  As any leader with a mission, K-Man was eager to attack, "Are you prepared?"

  "Gee, I don't know. I have a diploma."

  "No need for that. We need quarters, and lots or them. Then maybe we'll crack the surface and see what kind of pea is inside this pod." He grinned at me and added, "Let's break this butterfly out of its cocoon."

  He had taken control by revealing that he knew how the system works, but showed he'd lost himself by unleashing those analogies. I was just grateful that the K-Man was still functional, even with his obvious symptoms. Progress had to be made for the man to keep it together. So, I accepted that I wasn't in charge. I was simply there to follow orders, to keep morale high, and help the ideas along to their ultimate completion. I had to enable and not restrict him.

  I offered, "I got lint. Maybe, I could trade lint for quarters. Or maybe, I could use the diploma to get a job that'll pay me in quarters. Those are probably in high demand with overpopulation, and politicians, and whatnot. But I'll make some phone calls."

  "Very time consuming. Let's just go find some." K-Man, the hunter, and I scavenged every possibility not as men, but bloodthirsty animals. The couch cushions, under throw rugs, the pay phone at my corner outside, and the vending machines in my living room were invaded for our ammo, quarters. But our findings were slim.

>   The adrenaline was pumping and my brief stint as an exotic dancer rushed me to another dollar. "Can we use this? It's money, you know."

  "Yeah, dude, you can get some quarters at the change machine. That'll be enough."

  "Change machine? What would they change a dollar into?" I searched for his sanity, but I decided my second-guessing was detrimental and would make me look like a traitor. "Whatever, man. You know the natives."

  "You've never heard of a change machine and you've got vending machines in your living room? They're built into those things."

  Praying he was right and still with us, I checked. He was right. It's funny, the things in an old, familiar habitat that go unnoticed. A person can always discover something new no matter how long they're solitary in a small cell. The human eye cannot focus on atoms. That's the K-Man's gift, fluency in the small things.

  I could have easily gotten change in the safety of my own home, but processed food wasn't the destiny of this greenback. I'd attempt to show the down-and-out natives I used dollars as they did to earn their trust. You know what they say, "When in Greece wear a sheet like a shirt."

  Driving my car under his navigation, slow and steady as usual, this change machine concept had put me in a mental fog that needed clearing, and I had a few ideas of my own. "You know what, man? If this steering wheel were silver and it had a pop-out of a wig-wearing, cherry tree-cutting man on it, it'd be a quarter, though larger. Maybe then, it would be worth more. Much more if they take it to scale. Then we could give this wasp nest a real cleansing."

  The veteran's reaction was dismissive, I worried that he'd think I'm an asshole for saying it. He killed my armchair quarterbacking with real life experience, showing who's boss.

  "Nah, dude, no good to us. The slot would be too small for a quarter that size. There's no way we could use it." He looked me directly in the eyes, "Dude, you think about weird shit too much. You just need to focus."

  He took a shot that put me back in line, and his condescending was correct. I was a persecuted thinker. I had stumbled down a few steps on the K-Man's ladder of respect by my actions. However, to kill anxiety I needed to know things and get headed in the right direction, "Where do you think we'd find one of these places?"

  "There's, like, three on Main Street."

  At first, I was pleased to hear that they were readily available for the people who needed them. Then I was bothered, they were everywhere. The questions, "Does society know? What would they do if they did?" interrupted my thoughts. Just because these car washes were numerous, I wasn't going to underestimate their seriousness. To avoid catastrophe, it was time that the K-Man told me the score.

  "So," I eased into it, to soothe any friction against his fragile composure, "to make sure everything goes smoothly when we get there... What am I to expect? What happens?"

  "Well, first of all we find a place to pull in. There might be a line, but I doubt it. I don't even know why they need three in this town, actually."

  This unwholesome game was obviously child's play to him. He had immersed himself in this world before, possibly as frequently as a dunk-tank rider at a carnival, the low-lifes who take money from a little boy and yell that he 'throws like a girl.'

  I had to keep my guard up to block being sucked in as well. "So, it should be a short wait. I don't want to be caught out in the street in front of one of these places."

  "Yeah, should be. What are you in such a hurry for?"

  I heard his question but I didn't want to risk being called a sissy. "Good, then what?"

  "Then we just wash it with the hose they got. Pre-rinse, soap, rinse, wax if you want. However far our quarters can take us. Then we're done. We just have to dry it. We don't have to clean the inside. It's very luxurious in here."

  "Easy then?"

  He admitted he was in a hurry, too. "We'd already have it done if you'd just drive faster."

  "Hey, just trying to stay alive, man. Besides, this is as fast as it goes."

  "Really. What kind of engine you got in here? A mouse on a wheel?"

  To keep the situation under control, I smiled as he chuckled at his own humorous hostility. I didn't understand why he was questioning me. He was right about one thing, though. We were going slower than any of the cars that honked and zipped by. But we did make it, oh yes.

  I directed my machine to the doorstep of a car wash that the K-Man positively identified.

  "Well, what now?" I asked.

  "Pull in."

  I sensed a joke. "Yeah, I'll just pull in now. I'm just pullin' in. Just drivin' right on in there."

  I laughed. He didn't.

  "Just pull in."

  "I'm not going to do that. Isn't that rude? Where are your manners, you animal?"

  "Dude, just drive in. They want you to. That's the way it works. There's no secret handshake or anything. It's simple."

  I wasn't sure he was telling me the truth, but he had a look in his eye that told me he believed what he said. I followed orders, supposing that's truth enough. Besides, he also recognized how slow the journey was before I did. It's a discovery I had never reached on my own, so I obliged him.

  Then the casual pull-in made sense to me. When you are raised in a barn, as the proprietors of this place may very well have been, the tendency is to leave the door open. It's a way to combat loneliness. We crept in and assumed our positions.

  We didn't know how much time we'd have, so he took charge. "Okay. Go change the dollar, and I'll make sure the windows are rolled up."

  I followed orders as the K-Man made the preparations. My first impression saw the change machine as cold, steel, sterile, and mass-produced corporate. It was a soulless instrument. Then I saw something else.

  It consisted of two sections and a lever. A tray was placed at the bottom to use the power of gravity to give, and two slots allowed it to take only one piece at a time. There were as many as two only for convenience purposes, translation, not as a means of profit. It's design indicated equality in generosity. The take was thin with the give much larger, easily more trunk space than the gimme slots multiplied.

  This machine appeared not to be just a machine, but a way of life. It was the golden rule in action, a brick in the foundations of most religions. It showed how selfish man is as a species. It didn't care what color you were, how much money you made, what you got on your credit report, or the language you spoke. This pulse-less thing had more compassion and fairness in it than any of money men I had dealt with. The idea was that the change machine always paid its dues instantly with no wasted time or hard feelings.

  I was ready to play.

  That's when everything went wrong and the machine's failures exposed themselves. It wouldn't take my dollar on the first try. Later, when things cooled off, I found that that was normal when it comes to these types of transactions. I had to flatten the bill. The lack of flexibility tainted its art a little bit, and the situation put me in an odd mood.

  Not only was I frustrated, but the struggle made me grow sentimentally attached to that dollar. I remembered the night in that primitive island nightclub when I had gotten it. I had simply been the new boy with the braces on his legs, but I was a man after that night. The dollar was a small statement of where I had been. Now, it had even accompanied me to the car wash.

  Just as I decided to stop, the machine took my memory. In return it dropped out four cold quarters, quarters I was unfamiliar with. I was sad to see it go. Melancholy, I returned to the K-Man with a fistful of the lifeblood of this place, but I felt empty, no longer even worth the dollar.

  "The deed is done," I murmured.

  "Okay, good. Let's roll then."

  Like a soldier, I had to battle through my loss. "What now?"

  "See that? Grab that and point it at the car. I'll feed the quarters in."

  I did as he said. The object was a snake attached to the wall with a gun for a head. The K-Man slid the instrument out of its holster and placed it into my sweaty palms. This was a testament
to all that is ugly. Someone hungry for a buck had cruelly de-fanged this innocent monster and attached a plastic head to protect its abusers. I fought back tears at the evidence of the foul things that science had done.

  K-Man got me refocused, "Are you ready?"

  "Of course, I'm not going to let you down now. I have nothing more to lose."

  "Okay then."

  When he finished feeding quarters in, the serpent came to life. It spit with such force that its head flew out of my careful hands, slithering around the wet den in the leftovers of its own fluids, trying desperately to escape.

  K-Man chased it down. "What's wrong with you? You're not normal, dude. Can't you do anything right? You have to hold it."

  Even though the K-Man behaved as a predator, my instinct was to protect him. "Hold it further up on the head, man, just to be safe. That way it can't bite you. You don't want that kind of trouble."

  "Here, I'll show you how it's done."

  K-Man, like a guerrilla with an M-16, attacked the problem, educating me as his instincts took over. "You have to make sure you stand back a little bit or you'll chip the paint."

  His prediction did not fit his theory. A deep chunk fell off the front, unleashing a greed in K-Man. He chipped away at the body, drilling holes with the water blast. I couldn't do anything to stop him, he was loading quarters in himself.

  What was once my car was disappearing. People say life will flash before your eyes when you die, and watching the decline made me remember something.

  I was a boy the day that man went to buy groceries and ended up a political speed bump under the muscle a tank. In his plea for peace, he had his hands full of grocery sacks when he was finally squashed after some poor attempts to avoid him.

  Then the answer sunk and swirled into me like the poisoned mud into the floor drain. I had to interfere.

  "K-Man, stop! You can't continue!" I pushed the weapon down, but it was too late.

  The hard crusty mud broke open from the top like an egg hatching. My skeleton, clad in filthy underwear, was exposed in front of me. He was the reason I could not wash my car.

  Lee Li was a Chinese freedom fighter that I had sneaked out of the red sub-planet to avoid persecution. He wasn't the man that met the tank, but he was a democratic thinker. To pay me back while remaining out of the view of his powerful government and avoid deportation, he was the driver of my rickshaw which was covered by the earth to make a moving disguise. I had gotten the idea of hiding him there after watching an episode of The Flintstones and hearing stories about the colonial Americans building their houses out of mud-bricks.

  It saved a lot of trips to the gas station.

  By force of strategy, I had forgotten all about it so I wouldn't tip-off those who wish to harm us. It was the success of the tough part that ended-up being the link that broke the chain.

  "Who is that?" said a shocked K-Man.

  I lied to throw him off the scent. "A man that pays his dues. Right now he is my driver, because he owes me some money. He's not well-liked, he owes a lot of people money. We have to hide him again. We're out in public, so don't act suspicious. Let's just finish the job, and do it cool. My fault, sorry."

  K-Man finished the job by cleaning the silent Lee Li. Motionless and shocked, Li's expression never changed under the heavy force of the spray. It was a staring contest that Lee used to make me feel uncomfortable. Already with a dance card full of problems, I didn't appreciate it.

  "Home Lee," I said, "and drive safe." I winked to remind him that we couldn't risk a run-in with rollers.

  K-Man was in the passenger seat, I think, with me in the driver's seat. With no wheel you can't really be sure. We were both passengers.

  K-Man didn't say much about me being an anti-Communist coyote, but hinted at concern. "This is no good, dude."

  "Don't worry. They can't prosecute me, I was too young," I bragged, under eighteen at the time of criminal activity.

  "No, I mean you're going to have spots. It's not going to dry right and it'll look bad. We need to go faster to help it dry."

  This was a real concern, a shoddy-job could rise suspicion and put us all in a dangerous position. "Really? If you say so, man. Lee, accelerate! We must dry this thing!"

  Tired but capable, Lee shook his head at me. I couldn't believe it. I protected him and he was giving me trouble. The pressure already had gotten the blood pumping, and Lee was making it tense enough for a testicle to pop. "Lee? This is how you repay me? We must dry!"

  Guilty, Lee considered this and pretended to speed up. Unfortunately, he failed to do what was necessary.

  The K-Man was unsatisfied with the quality of the drying. "Why even clean anything if you're not going to dry it right?"

  Obviously, I was forced to agree with him. The K-Man had stuck by me.

  I was disappointed in Lee. Sadly, Lee didn't respect the idea of a change machine, but he lived like one. Like any greedy individual, he let me down. So I sent him back home with first-class postage, more consideration than he ever gave me.

  After packing Lee Li, K-Man amused himself with sitcoms as I ordered pizza and reviewed. I had a rickshaw, but no engine. It was merely a poor paperweight until I found a driver, and the K-Man already worked in fast food.

  I hid it under one of those blue-tarps bought at department stores, and knew what to do if it gets dirty.

  I was reborn.

  THE FATHER'S DAY TO END ALL FATHER'S DAYS