Failure As a Way of Life Read online

  FAILURE AS A WAY OF LIFE

  Andersen Prunty

  Atlatl Press

  POB 293161

  Dayton, Ohio 45429

  atlatlpress.com

  Failure As a Way of Life

  Copyright © 2018 by Andersen Prunty

  Cover image copyright © 2018 by nuvolanevicata/Shutterstock

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, business organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author’s use of names of actual persons (living or dead), places, and characters is incidental to the purposes of the plot, and is not intended to change the entirely fictional character of the work.

  No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author or publisher.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Also by Andersen Prunty

  1 | A Failure’s Failure

  2 | Disaster Magic

  3 | Viva Misanthropy

  4 | Dr. Jolly

  5 | Charle

  6 | Easy J’s Travel Plaza

  7 | Infiltration Take Two

  8 | An Anxious Weekend

  9 | Gus 2.0

  10 | Fucking Republicans

  11 | No Returns

  12 | Cost of Living

  13 | The Heist

  14 | Bring On The Metamorphosis!

  15 | Dark Fate

  16 | Thinking of the Future

  17 | Dad

  18 | It’s Not You, It’s Me

  19 | The Monarch’s Kingdom

  20 | Calls From the Past

  21 | Diane Marbles

  22 | The Boarder

  23 | Condemned

  24 | Not A Party Person

  25 | A Brief Vacation

  26 | A Failure’s Baptism

  27 | Coyote

  28 | The Poet

  29 | This Installment Plan Isn’t Working

  30 | Spent

  31 | On The Road With Team Klaus

  32 | Noman’s Land

  33 | All Truth Is Painful

  34 | Later

  Also by Andersen Prunty

  This Town Needs a Monster

  Squirm With Me

  Creep House: Horror Stories

  Sociopaths In Love

  The Warm Glow of Happy Homes

  Bury the Children in the Yard: Horror Stories

  Satanic Summer

  Fill the Grand Canyon and Live Forever

  Pray You Die Alone: Horror Stories

  Sunruined: Horror Stories

  The Driver’s Guide to Hitting Pedestrians

  Hi I’m a Social Disease: Horror Stories

  Fuckness

  The Sorrow King

  Slag Attack

  My Fake War

  Morning is Dead

  The Beard

  Zerostrata

  Jack and Mr. Grin

  The Overwhelming Urge

  To Failure!

  Why not?

  1

  A Failure’s Failure

  Gus’s pants are down around his ankles, his large pale buttocks hovering over the open well. Using his phone, I take a photo of him, sure to get the sign in frame.

  The sign reads:

  “NO FOREIGN OBJECTS ARE TO BE ADMITTED INTO THE WELL OF PURITY”

  It’s dark outside and the sign is hard to read and Gus is hard to see and this was probably a terrible idea to begin with. I’m just glad the phone is in my face, putting at least a layer of glass and circuitry and metal in between my eyes and the chubby middle-aged man squatting over the well. Watching other guys shit isn’t normally my thing. I usually even turn my head when animals do it. Maybe I’m scat averse.

  Gus and I both work for a company called Dr. Jolly’s Godwater and have for the past decade or so. It’s in a small hippie college town a few miles north of Dayton called Twin Springs. Neither one of us has gotten a raise the entire time we’ve been there but the job is beyond easy and there is a sliver of health benefits I need for my kid. I don’t really need them for myself since I never go to the doctor. Even though I probably should. Especially with this rash.

  Anyway, this lack of a raise is the reason for Gus’s current compromised position. It’s also the reason neither one of us has shaved or cut his hair in a really long time. It’s why we both wear the same clothes to work every day. It’s probably why we both smell really bad.

  “I can’t do it,” he grunts. I’m not sure why he grunts. It’s like he’s trying to convince me.

  “What do you mean you can’t do it?” I lower his phone and focus on the sign so I don’t have to look at him.

  “I must be constipated or something.”

  “It’s because you eat too much fucking meat. I thought you said you went at this time every day. Like clockwork, you said.”

  “Well, I can’t. I’m not going to force myself. That’s harmful. Plus my legs are getting tired.”

  “Come on then. We can try again some other time. Maybe bring an enema.”

  “Fuck that.” He stands and pulls up his pants. “You could do it.”

  “No fucking way. I’m not shitting in front of you.”

  “I don’t have to take a picture. I don’t even have to be around.”

  “I went earlier. I don’t have to. I guess you could just piss into it.”

  “Yeah.” Gus looks really excited. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

  He stands in position, tugging his penis out of his underwear and aiming for the well.

  I hold the phone back up to my face and think, not for the first time, that we’re probably too old to be doing this.

  He starts pissing and a sudden breeze sweeps through, throwing Gus’s urine back onto him. He quickly spins around while I quickly back far away from him and he continues pissing in the opposite direction, toward me.

  “Maybe it just wasn’t meant to be.” I grab a handful of grass from around the well and chuck it toward the opening, missing.

  Gus shakes himself off and zips up. “Maybe it’s protected or something.”

  I’m not religious or even very superstitious so I just say, “It’s just fucking dirt water for rich people.”

  “You wanna go get some dinner?”

  “Nah. I’m broke until we get paid again. Besides, Alice’s probably wondering where I am.” That probably isn’t true at all, but just saying it makes me feel like she cares. “I think she’s making Hamburger Helper.” This probably is true and makes me sad.

  Gus usually clams up at the mention of Alice. He’s met her before and probably finds her attractive, as most guys seem to. I know I’m way out of my league and this doesn’t help my anxiety surrounding the relationship. We met at the job. She only lasted about a week. She moved in with me after a month, I’m assuming because she hated her parents and I took her abuse. Also she probably has really low self-esteem. I wonder if Gus has ever jerked off to Alice online. He knows what she does. I wonder if he’s ever sought her out. What does it matter? Why should Gus be different than any of the other countless guys Alice has and continues to ‘entertain’? I’m sure he’s at least used her as mental porn. Somehow this seems more flattering and less like my good friend and girlfriend are fucking (albeit in a virtual, non-physical way) behind my back and laughing about me the entire time.

  We walk through a dewy, moonlit field to our cars, parked on a backcountry road.

  “All right then. See you Monday,” Gus says.

  “See ya.”

  We both get into our cheap cars and start them up. Gus’s is actually a small pick-up truck covered in dents and v
arious shades of paint. His truck makes a low rumble and a burst of black smoke explodes from the tailpipe. The rear window is plastic. Mine is a small, cheap American car and when I start it, it makes a whiney noise like something is about to fly off and go into orbit. We’ll both be pretty lucky to make it home.

  2

  Disaster Magic

  It feels like the world is winding down. I recently turned forty. I’ve failed as a husband, failed as a father, failed as a child, failed as a writer, and am in the process of failing as a boyfriend. I’ve pretty much failed at being a human. There are a million ways to fail. I seem committed to exploring them all.

  Over the winter I rented a house in Dayton with my girlfriend, Alice. It’s the last house on a dead end street of a dying neighborhood in a dying city. I have five dead novels and over a hundred dead stories sitting in a Rubbermaid container in the attic. The plan is to drag them outside and burn them soon but I’ll probably be too lazy to do that.

  We’ve been here for a few months. It’s a struggle to pay the monthly bills and I’m dreading the prospect of moving in with my dad. At least we have that option. Still, I feel tired and dry and know I should hope for something to give, some floodgate to open, but know no positive result could possibly come from that.

  I sit in a chair in the living room drinking a beer I probably can’t afford and staring at my bank account online, wondering how I’m going to come up with the car payment this month. Alice is in the bedroom working so I have to keep earbuds in to shut her out. I’m not a jealous guy or anything. It isn’t even what she says to the ‘client.’ It’s all online so it seems kind of imaginary. It’s the fact that she says the same things to me during our rapidly decreasing sexual encounters. To the point I’ve had to ask her to please not say anything.

  I raise my shirtsleeve to scratch an insanity-inducing itch. I notice a bloody patch of skin before digging in. I’ve had this rash for the past couple of weeks. When lying in bed at night, it feels like bugs are burrowing into my skin. The rash is definitely getting worse. Great, I think, now my body’s failing.

  My phone vibrates in my pocket and the usual burst of anxiety explodes in my chest and rockets to all of my nerve endings.

  Nerves, I tell myself. That’s what’s causing the rash. I have to self-diagnose because I can’t afford to go to a doctor, despite the insurance. Can’t afford the copay. Probably wouldn’t go anyway. My general rule is that I only go to the doctor if I black out, go blind, shit or piss blood, or have a pain in the same area for over a month. Like, a constant pain. Not one that comes and goes. I consider myself fortunate none of these things have happened yet.

  I pull my phone from my pocket and look at the screen.

  UNKNOWN NUMBER

  I accept the call, knowing as I bring it to my ear it will either be a wrong number or something terrible has happened to a family member. I close my eyes and hope what comes out of the phone isn’t something that will detonate my world.

  “Hello?” I hope the panic doesn’t make my voice quaver.

  Nothing comes out of the phone.

  Or, at least, no words come out of the phone.

  I imagine the place on the other side of the phone call.

  There’s an ocean view. Somewhere on the West Coast where it might still be daylight. The soft hiss of a gentle rain. A person—possibly female—holding the phone to soft lips. I have trouble envisioning anything other than the lips and chin, maybe a small hand gently gripping the phone. I won’t let myself see anything more than this. She breathes softly, almost inaudibly. And in the distance, the rain sinking into the ocean.

  I don’t know how long I sit there, taking in this vision, suppressing the caller’s face, suppressing her name.

  I open my eyes and bring the phone away from my head and look at the screen and notice there is no one on the other line. I check the call log. There’s no record of an unknown number. It’s entirely possible my brain is failing as well. I think about looking online to see if brain tumors can cause a rash.

  From the bedroom, I hear Alice say, “You want me to get down on my knees and milk that thing, baby?”

  I close my eyes and lean back in my chair and take a deep breath.

  If she ever calls me baby, we’ll have to break up. That’s all there is to it.

  I think about what I’m going to do. It’s pretty much how I’ve spent my alone time the last fifteen years or so. Maybe longer. Like some light bulb is going to go off and I’m going to have an a-ha moment.

  It doesn’t seem like I have a lot of options left. Rather than getting old or sad or bitter or angry I need to accept that the rest of my life is going to be a disaster and manage to find the magic in that.

  After all, how egotistical is it to think I deserve a good life? And besides, isn’t that all subjective anyway? Who’s to say I don’t have a good life?

  I have a house (for now).

  I have a lovely girlfriend (for now).

  My son is in good health.

  Gus and I have been best friends since we were twelve, so I can’t really imagine him going anywhere.

  Dad’s still alive.

  Shouldn’t I have gratitude for all this?

  Is that what people mean when they use the term mindfulness? Being mindful about what we’re doing and what we have?

  So what if I don’t get what I want?

  Does anyone?

  Do I even know what I want anymore?

  If I had what I wanted, wouldn’t I just want more?

  My mind drifts back to the caller and the faraway place.

  Sometimes I think I want to be anywhere but where I am now.

  But I’ve probably always thought that, no matter where I was. It’s lunacy to think that will change.

  I plow the back of my hand with fingernails that really need trimming.

  Failing continuously allows me to avoid stagnation. This rash is something new and different, potentially awful. But maybe not. It’ll probably clear up on its own. Or maybe I’ll have to go to the doctor and he’ll look at it and find some other potentially life threatening but easily curable condition and he’ll say, “It’s a good thing you had that rash or we wouldn’t have found out about your terrible life threatening condition. Now we can get it nipped in the bud.” And maybe my recovery will be miraculous and the years of fog that have wrapped my brain will suddenly lift and I’ll see everything clearly and appreciate everything more and realize my life has only been so difficult because I didn’t know who I truly was and now, having that knowledge, the rest of my life will be a propulsive, forever forward flowing path filled with passion and conviction and satisfaction.

  This is the beauty of disaster magic.

  3

  Viva Misanthropy

  I pull up to the curb in front of our house and get out of my car. I never bother locking it anymore, even though our neighborhood isn’t that great. If I lock it, it just means they’ll break out the windows to get whatever it is they could possibly want from the inside. I can live without the stereo or the loose change in the console. I don’t really want to deal with a broken window. Maybe it’s a pride thing.

  I smell something burning and think maybe one of our neighbors is having a trash fire. I unlock the front door and step into the small house. The bedroom door is ajar. I listen for Alice to see if she’s working.

  I don’t hear her.

  I open the bedroom door and peek in.

  The bed is messy but Alice isn’t in it.

  She has to be here somewhere. She hardly ever leaves.

  I cover the rest of the house in a few seconds and still don’t turn up any sign of her. I go into the kitchen and glance out the window into the backyard.

  There she is.

  Standing in front of the tiny charcoal grill, wearing a black bra, tiny athletic shorts, and combat boots. A sizeable flame lashes out from the grill.

  Even though I find her increasingly difficult to be around, I still like looking at Alice,
even though I have a sneaking suspicion she’s a stand-in for someone else. She’s a few inches shorter than me, slender, her short hair died black and sticking up wildly around her head. Not to mention that she’s about fifteen years younger than me. Christ, what was I thinking? I should have known she would be too much to handle the first time I saw her. More importantly, what mental defect does she have that made her want to move in with me?

  Since she seems preoccupied, I think about masturbating to her from the window. It’s been at least a week since we’ve had sex. Her job understandably lowers her sex drive (at least with an actual physical partner, i.e. me) and I’m mostly depressed out of my skull nearly all the time. At least, that’s the excuse I give myself.

  My masturbatory thoughts melt away when I notice the Rubbermaid tote on the grass beside her feet.

  I really hope she isn’t burning what I think she’s burning.

  I go out the back door and notice the neighbor guy on his back porch, leering at Alice. He’s conveniently outside on every rare occasion Alice is. I wonder if he thinks his creeping isn’t obvious. Maybe it’s not even creeping. Maybe it’s just the hillbilly stare I’ve encountered in every redneck southwestern Ohio neighborhood I’ve lived in. Although, the way Alice is dressed today could probably provide him with enough mental porn for a week or more.

  I quickly stride up to Alice.

  She glances distractedly at me.

  “What are you doing?” I ask.

  “Burning this shit.” She puffs on her cigarette and squints at the grill as she pushes the contents around with a stick.

  “That’s all my writing stuff! It’s nearly twenty years’ worth.”

  She shrugs. “You said you were going to burn it anyway.”

  “I was going to burn it. Me. It was going to be symbolic.”

  “Whatever. I needed the tote.”

  “What for?”

  “Stuff.”

  “What stuff?”

  “My stuff. Maybe if someone had rented a bigger house, space wouldn’t be at such a premium.”

  I look down at the tote. It’s completely empty. I hate the word ‘tote’.