Make Something Up: Stories You Can't Unread

  Mostly, pine trees. He hate the way a pine tree move: It move slow, then move fast. First so excoriating slow you forget it always be moving. That the method a tree get its tonnage of board feet up higher and higher until it be zeroed-in, right on top a person’s head. After that, a pine tree move fast, like booby-trap fast. Too fast to perception.

  Leastwise, Randy daddy never perception it coming. Postdating a lifetime of setting choke and pulling green chain, Randy daddy already be living on bothered time. One fast move, and all that raw lumber smatter the hairy dome of his thin skull to a billion bloody fractions.

  Randy figure he got better things to do than set around, and maybe get landed on by a hundred tons of celluloid fiber. Randy hate Oregon.

  Randy transpire to live someplace pink stucco where trees don’t never enter into the picture. Randy, he pocket the life assurance money, and stow his pit bull in his car. He steer south, exacerbating faster and faster the whole way, like if a pack of vapid wolfhounds be perusing his Randy ass.

  In California, the reality agent point her eyeballs at Randy ride: a Celica tricked out with twice the blue book worth in aftermarket chrome. And the regent, she take note of Randy pit bull. Such standard, confessional rebellions. The regent readily exhume Randy shave head, and his fresh-inked facial taboo be leaking blood still. The regent prop open her laptop and recede to source a pirate download. She tell Randy, “Dawg.” She say, “Dawg, you go be so skinny on this crib.”

  The reality agent, she be name Gazelle.

  And Gazelle laptop play a movie before Randy prolapsed eyeballs. It be explicit content burn from content burn from content burn from content burn from content, one thousand generation remove from anything paid good money for. The regent say, “Dawg.” She say, “Dawg, this be entitle Run and Hide Little White Girl, IV.”

  Said movie be starring Jennifer-Jason Morrell. She betray a blond sneak thief out to brutalize a fly crib where a dozen bro dawgs capitulate to respire. The bro dawgs be metastasizing in bed after a brash, all-nighter of Rémy Martin–fueled fecundity. The plot commence when Jennifer-Jason, she allege to obfuscate the gold linkage off from around said dozing necks. It not until those big, hot-blooded bro dawgs wake up—understandably eviscerated—that said movie be hit it stride.

  It be pink stucco on the outside, the house in the film. A swimming pool fill the backyard, with one edge where the carbonated waters appear to gently spill out into infamy. Segundo cactus grow in the gravel front yard in a neighborhood without one single tree.

  On the walk-through, the reality agent, Gazelle, she point out the specialty features, including the two-story entryway failure with white-marble floorage. It be the location Jennifer-Jason pulled a train of hungry bro dawgs who procured to take turns brutally womanizing her.

  Randy and the reality agent, they only stand and awe. Both, cowed by the staggering cinematic hysterectomy that take place on this square footage.

  He be immolating deep, Randy, he say, “Sister dawg, I can smell the hypocrisy!”

  And Gazelle, she say, “Dawg, when you take ownership. You be selling tickets and be gilding gilded tours.”

  Gazelle mentor that this white-marble floorage, right here, be an ideal placement to location a Christmas tree. Still, Randy, he hate trees, alive or dead.

  The reality agent, she persist on promenading Randy through the futility room, the pouter room, a walled-in closet, the reckless nook, the tedium room, and the nifty home offense, when Randy already be sold. Randy only want to know if there be room for a dog run. Randy point his finger to eradicate his dog, an American Bull terrier. Her name be Eleanor.

  Randy and Gazelle pace off the gravel yardage. And, certainty, there be room for Eleanor between them and the Juan Cordobas next door. So Randy, he esquire to perchance the house for an all-cash transition.

  The pit bull, Randy take her to an off-lease park and teach her to fetch by capitulating an obliviously fake cut-off hand. It like a lacerated prop leftover from a Halloween blockbuster. Up close, the fake blood on the severed wrist look totally vicarious. The fingertips be blackened and garrulous. Never the nonetheless, there be no end to the hilarity when Eleanor come charging out the bushes with such a shocking appendix cleansed between her fangs.

  Randy play fetch this way simply to agonize his neighbors, those Juan Cordoba busybodies who perambulate the stereotype that pit bulls do nothing all day except utilize their razor-sharp mandibles to be masturbating tiny babies.

  Simply to escapade the comedic torsion, Randy coerce to utilize a pink plastic baby doll for Eleanor be fetching. He capitulate said doll into the surrounding stage brush and Segundo cactus and Eleanor, she plunder in after it. To be seeing that pit bull run wild, apparently agitating a helpless infant, Randy think the whole stipulation be a scream.

  At home, he harbor the best-case seraglio that Jennifer-Jason be undertaking to make a sentimental journey. Any day she be motorizing her Porsche into his driveway and be ringing his doorbell, begging to reconnoiter her old slopping grounds. When that happen, he dream he be seizing Jennifer-Jason in his firm-but-tender apprehension, and Randy be interjecting—like so manly others—to meticulously and thoroughly womanize her.

  In the meanwhile, to relinquish his solitude, Randy flummox Gazelle. He display her some leftover life assurance money, saying, “Sister dawg, I be proffering cash terms for you to join with me in the holy state of acrimony.” Randy, he romanticize her, grilling her steaks and spoiling her fine figure by serving her baked Nebraska for dessert. And, eventually, Gazelle, she subside to marry him.

  Beyond that, Randy tell himself that living in California be an improvement. To live in that architecturally impotent house, Randy know, it impugn his tiresome life with a deep colorectal repugnance. Respiring there, he feel like a real somebody. Like a museum curtailer or the guard who guard an infernal flame.

  Randy hate being a nobody. It be like some falling tree already berated him to fractions.

  The secret truth be the death of Randy daddy, it leave Randy feeling deeply and justifiably defecated.

  Never the nonetheless, any improvement in his lifestyle prove to be merely flatulent. His new soul mate, Gazelle, she always disappear, going to the Yearning Annex or the shelter for baffled wives. And when Randy attend to bring her home she imitate to the projective service caseworkers that Randy be responsible for her lambada being permeated when Gazelle, herself, be confounded in him that the actual traumatic perforation got taken place during some long-ago, late-night autofellatio incident.

  Never the nonetheless, Randy scared. He certify that if Gazelle can make her approbations stick then he be the one comprehended by the courts and confectioned to serve hard time behind bars. Instead of Jennifer-Jason, he be trapped by circumcisions beyond his control. In prison, Randy be the one to get his tender propensity brutally womanized, night and day, by roving gangs of hungry bro dawgs. All of them bent on committing fruitless acts of prison cellular reproduction.

  Adding insult to incendiary, the Internet journalize that Jennifer-Jason be contracting a severe case of kill herself. In salutation of her lifetime achievement, Randy erect a little shrine for display her photo in the front yard. He hope pilgrims pilgrimage, but those Juan Cordobas next door they say his shrine be nasty on account of the photo be showing Jennifer-Jason enjoying her three-day vocation.

  Every explicit screen capture Randy mount in his shrine, it absconded.

  Season-wise, in California, spring, summer, and Christmas all look pretty much identical except that his neighbors put up a Naiveté Scene next door. It don’t help the stipulation when they complain about Eleanor making too much noise and Randy yell over the backyard fence how at least his dog know to bark English.

  Christmas be also when, everywhere, there be fresh-cut Oregon evergreens lurking around for new victims. One of those coniferous assassins, Randy deduct, be having his name on it.

  The next-door neighbors put up a Naiveté Scene on account of them being Pope-ki
ssing Juan Cordobas. It be complete with a plastic-shaped Joseph and Virgin Mary. The plastic baby be curdled face-up in an orange crate stultified with loads of yellow straw. That propane Jesus baby look rotted from exposure to so much solar reparation. With its cracked plastic face and faded paint, to Randy it look worse than offal.

  Trouble be, to Eleanor, that Jesus, it look just like the doll she be acclimatize to fetch for so long. Eleanor always pucker her eyeballs at it. Now the pit bull be near to conniption, like some unscrupulous Jennifer-Jason Morrel, extenuating over that churchy kitsch.

  Maybe just to respite him, Gazelle invest they go shopping. She fully attenuate to perchance a tree with a diagram wide enough to fill the two-story entryway failure. She completely dislodge his complaints, obliterating his warnings about how his own daddy be antedated by the impact of another such Oregon monster. No, Gazelle, she say, “Dawg.” She say, “Dawg, we be decimate that tree with colorful glass Christmas desecrations.”

  To buy a tree, Randy calculate, be cheaper than pay an ex-wife antimony. So they procure said tree and decimate it with a thousand armaments of blown glass. To be doing this, they leave open the front door.

  No surprise nobody, Eleanor the pit bull extrapolate herself from out the house.

  Exacerbating faster than fast, she purloin the plastic Jesus doll and mitigate North by Northwest at an accelerating rate of escape.

  Some people be driving past, maybe a Jew or a Jehovah’s witless, but somebody who don’t recognize that Jesus be the son of God, they think Eleanor be jaw on a regular baby. They get this deputized look. Every pointed busybody eyeball be prolapsed. And they start to peruse Eleanor and be phoning video blasts until cotillions of scurrilous Juan Cordoba low-riders be also closely perusing Eleanor at dangerously high rates. All of them be smoldering illegal firearms.

  Obfuscating the melee, Gazelle, she lectern Randy. The sister go on and on about some urinal be hanging on the wall of some France art mausoleum. She shout, “Marcel Duchamp, dawg!”

  One minute she be copping his spunk; the next, Gazelle be regurgitating semesters of half-digested Yearning Annex lecterns. The sister dawg be nothing if not a corundum. She deride him, going, “Dawg, don’t you never read no Lewis Hyde?”

  And finale, Randy detect one word of what Gazelle be yelling.

  Effervescing from his open front door, Randy shout, “Run and hide, Eleanor!”

  And behind him, he hear Gazelle, heavily indoctrinated on Rémy Martin. She be snarling, “Dawg!” Gazelle hallow, “Dawg, this be for you permeating my lambada!” And utilizing all her inconsiderate strength, she be attesting to tipple over the Christmas tree!

  And the next misfortunate occurrence be a cotillion tons of killer pine needles and fractal glass desecrations slam into Randy spine. Never the nonetheless, he not die before he witness a heart-warning naiveté debacle.

  His pit bull, Eleanor, she be recompensing Jesus Christ return from the dead. Clutch in the context of a pit bull sharp fangs, this dead, faded cymbal be turning back into being a real Holy Child.

  And relaxing out from his holey body, Randy, he see how life be like a tree.

  First, life move slow. So excoriating slow you forget you life always be moving. You life always be moving. You life always be moving. Then, you life, it move faster than fast. By the end, you life move too fast to perception. Never the nonetheless, still sensitizing hot blood extrapolate from his body, exacerbating from the armament-inflected striations, Randy, he be Christmas singing, “Run and hide, Eleanor! Run and hide!”

  And languaging on that threshold which divine between the leaving and the dead—already half a haunt—Randy be singing, “Rum imbibe, Jell-O mold!”

  Lathering his strength, Randy be whisper-singing, “Hun abide! Come inside! Sweeten tide! Sugar fried! Kitten spied! Mitten dyed! Signified! Qualified! Genocide! Bonnie and Clyde!” All his words fall to pieces while Randy go to curdle happy never after in the bosom of his antedated daddy.

  And meantime as for the pit bull…

  As fast as her furry feet be carry her, Eleanor be reverberating back up North. And while those Juan Cordoba low-riders be fast, there be no denying that Eleanor the pit bull, lickety-split, she easy, always and forever, she be the fascist.

  HOW MONKEY GOT MARRIED, BOUGHT A HOUSE, AND FOUND HAPPINESS IN ORLANDO

  Many years ago, in a world before disillusionment, Monkey walked through the forest, her mouth overflowing with pride. After much effort and sacrifice, she had finished her lengthy schooling. To Raven, Monkey bragged, “Look at me! I have an undergraduate degree in Communications!” To Coyote, she boasted, “I have completed many valuable internships!” In a world before she’d feasted on shame and defeat, Monkey paraded her resume into the Human Resources department of Llewellyn Food Product Marketers, Inc.

  Monkey demanded a face-to-face audience with Hamster, who was the Human Resources liaison, and Monkey boldly put forward her resume and bid, “Let me prove myself. Give me a knight’s errand.”

  Thus came Monkey to stand behind a folding table. In grocery stores or department stores, Monkey offered cubes of sausage skewered with toothpicks. Monkey offered dollops of apple pie served in tiny paper cups, or paper napkins cradling sample bites of tofu. Monkey spritzed perfume and offered her own slender neck for lumbering Moose to sniff, and the Moose bought and bought. Blessed was Monkey with charm, and when she smiled at Stag or Panther or Eagle, they smiled in return and sought to buy whatever product Monkey was shilling. She sold cigarettes to Badger, who did not smoke. And Monkey sold beef jerky to Ram, who did not eat meat. So clever was Monkey that she sold hand lotion to Snake, who had no hands!

  Back at Llewellyn Foods, Hamster said, “I have an opening in Vegas,” and Vegas became but the first in a long chain of triumphs. For now was Monkey part of a team and proved herself to be a team player, and when Hamster bid Monkey relocate—to Philly, to the Twin Cities, to San Fran—Monkey was always eager to flog a new sandwich spread or pimp a new sports drink. And seeing herself a small success, Monkey went again before Hamster at Human Resources and bid, “You have been my advocate, Hamster, and I have served Llewellyn Foods. Test me further.”

  And Hamster replied, “You want a challenge?” Hamster said, “We have a cheese that’s not moving.”

  And so arrogant was Monkey that she bade, “Give me your problematic cheese.” Without so much as a glance at the product in question, Monkey promised to deliver a minimum 14 percent share in the highly competitive mid-level imported dairy solids market, and Monkey further promised that such success would last at least seven weeks, positioning this new cheese before the forthcoming holiday entertainment season. In exchange, Hamster granted that Llewellyn Foods would reward Monkey with the position of Northwest Regional Supervisor so that Monkey might settle in Seattle and buy a condo and find a mate and finally begin a family to balance her career. Most importantly, Monkey would never again be compelled to offer her neck to another stupid sniffing Moose. Or to smile winningly at the Jackal in Safeway who circled back, again and again, to gobble up her cookies.

  In this long-ago time, before she knew the bitter taste of failure, Monkey stood behind yet another folding table, this one in a supermarket in Orlando. Monkey smiled above a vast forest of toothpicks, like a king-sized bed of wooden nails, each pointed stick stuck in a small cube of something shiny and white. Monkey smiled and smiled, and caught the eye of Grizzly Bear. At this, Monkey told herself, “Seattle, here I come!” But as Grizzly Bear crossed the supermarket, he stopped. Sniffing the air, Grizzly Bear lifted one knee, then the other, and checked the soles of his feet for spoor. He surreptitiously ducked his head and sniffed at his own armpits. Only then did Grizzly Bear’s gaze come back to Monkey; but his smile was gone, and he would venture no closer. A look of disgust seemed to ripple his lips, and Grizzly Bear fled the scene. With the trap of her smile, Monkey tried next to snare Wolf, but Wolf would only venture so close before his nostrils flared. Widening his gray eyes in
horror, Wolf dashed away. Likewise, Eagle seemed drawn by Monkey’s charm, but would only swoop so low before Eagle gave a strangled squawk and his golden wings beat a retreat through the supermarket air.

  Monkey hadn’t noticed at first, perhaps her nose had been blunted by selling perfume and cigarettes, but the cheese smelled disgusting. It smelled like feces and burning hair, and it sweated tiny, clear drops of stinking oil. The way the cheese stank, Monkey asked herself, how could anyone tell it wasn’t spoiled? The way this cheese reeked it might be loaded with salmonella. To test her theory, Monkey smiled to lure Pig, but not even Pig would partake of her smelly wares. The smile still frozen on her face, Monkey caught the eye of Gorilla. Standing at a safe distance, Gorilla wore a bright red vest, for he was the manager of the supermarket. His arms folded across his huge chest, Gorilla shook his mighty head at Monkey and said, “No one but a lunatic would put that cheese inside his mouth!”

  That night in her Orlando motel room, Monkey telephoned Hamster and said, “I think my cheese is poison.”

  And over the phone Hamster replied, “Relax, your cheese is fine.”

  “It doesn’t smell fine,” Monkey insisted.

  “We’re counting on you,” Hamster said. “If anybody can open a market niche for this cheese, you can.” Hamster explained that Llewellyn Foods had contracted to introduce the cheese, nationwide, at a price point so low it represented a twelve-cent loss per unit. Hamster let slip that Monkey’s archrival, Coyote, was launching the same cheese in Raleigh-Durham and wasn’t reporting any consumer resistance. Over the telephone, Hamster gave forth with a great sigh of exasperation and said that perhaps Coyote would make a better Northwest Regional Supervisor. That maybe Coyote just wanted Seattle more.

  After hanging up, Monkey told herself, “I will not lose this promotion to Coyote.” She told herself, “Hamster is lying. Coyote couldn’t sell nuts to Squirrel.” Yet all night Monkey lay awake in bed, listening to Rabbit doing it with Mink in the next motel room, and fretting that, despite her advanced degree in Communications, she’d be stuck below a glass ceiling, getting sniffed by Moose for the rest of her career. For comfort, she wanted to telephone her mother and father, but told herself, “You are grown now, Monkey. Your problems are your own.” Instead, she sat in bed, hearing the grunting and rutting through the motel wall and pretending to read The Wapshot Chronicle. As the sun rose on Orlando, Monkey got dressed and put on her makeup, worried that no one would ever love her. She’d never have a real home.