The Overwhelming Urge Read online

  When lunch is over, they all go back to shuffling around. I start back to search for the village, but I can’t find it. When I go back to ask the men if they could point me in the right direction, I can’t find them either. I stare at the sun and continue moving west.

  Prince

  Prince sits at the table.

  I’m running on virtually no sleep because he’s kept me up with his incessant keyboarding and screeching. He sits complacently at the table, as though nothing is wrong. He is eating a piece of toast. Small flakes of it are caught in his mustache and, as usual, scattered all over the table in front of him.

  Prince has been living in my apartment for the past three months and I’ve gotten tired of him. He never picks up after himself. He doesn’t help with the rent. I’ve tripped over his high-heeled boots countless times. He throws parties every time I’m away, people of questionable genital health undoubtedly having sex on my bed.

  “You gonna be out tonight?” he asks in a rich baritone, taking a bite of his toast and chewing it slowly.

  “Look, we need to talk,” I say.

  He stops chewing his toast. A look of hurt glazes his eyes.

  “What’s the problem?” he asks.

  “I think you know what the problem is.”

  He flings the uneaten toast onto the plate but it shoots off into the middle of the table where it will remain untouched unless I decide to clean it up.

  He is near tears. He stands up, his buttocks making a kind of squeaking sound as they separate from the seat. I’ve already went through two bottles of disinfectant since he and his buttless pants showed up, turning every chair in the apartment into a toilet seat.

  “If you didn’t want me living here, you could have said something a long time ago.”

  He runs into his room, buttocks jiggling, and flings himself onto his bed, burying his face in the pillow. I didn’t realize he would become so maudlin. I can’t stand to see him like that. I follow him into the room and sit down on the edge of the bed.

  “I’m sorry, man,” I say. “You stay here until you get back on your feet.”

  He grabs my arm. “It won’t be much longer. I know you got a lot on your mind. Just please... don’t take it out on me.”

  I realize I have been ruthlessly manipulated again. Regretful, I go back into the kitchen and begin cleaning.

  Trash Face

  My face melts off so I pick it up and put it back on, runny and twisted as it is. Putting on my shoes, lumpy black things that look more fitting for a janitor, I step outside into the fresh, early morning air.

  A Boy Scout troop is collecting dandelion specimens from my front yard. Their leader is blowing a whistle and shouting at them to collect more, more! Eventually, they all spot me. One of them shouts: “Oh God, look at that guy’s face!”

  The leader blows his whistle furiously and says, “I think it’s best we get outta here.”

  A little kid who has been busy urinating in the corner of the yard runs up to me and shoves a wad of grass down my pants before hurrying to catch up with the other boys.

  “Yeah!” I call after him. “Well you’re fat!” But he isn’t fat at all. But my face is indeed hideous.

  I go back inside, remove my face, and throw it in the trashcan.

  Bully

  I send an inappropriate story to a boxing publication. Instead of a form rejection the editor sends me a lengthy letter that, in so many words, challenges me to a fight. I crumple the letter up and fling it into a neglected corner of the study but the editor shows up anyway, days later. When I first come upon him, he is leaning against my kitchen counter drinking a glass of milk. He is not at all how I pictured him. Small, thin, thick black-framed glasses covering his myopic eyes. Instinctively, I know who he is but wonder if I should introduce myself anyway. Should I even be polite? Maybe I should be confrontational, openly hostile.

  He throws the empty glass onto the floor where it shatters.

  “Pick it up,” I say, pointing to the mess of shards.

  He spreads his arms out to either side and looks as threatening as his near-sighted eyes will allow. “I don’t even know where the broom and dust pan are,” he says.

  “They’re in the closet there.” I point to the closet but he’s already approaching me.

  “That’s woman’s work,” he says, quickly smacking me on the back of the head. “You and I both know why I’m here.”

  “I never accepted your challenge.”

  The man punches me in the stomach. I snatch the glasses from his face. He closes his eyes and blindly grasps for his glasses, hopping up to try and grab them out of my hands. I feel terrible. Like a bully. He collapses to the floor, pounding his hands against the wood.

  “If I give you your glasses back... will you go?”

  “Just don’t break em,” he murmurs.

  “Will you go?”

  “Yes. Anything. Just... please... I can’t see without em.”

  “Okay.”

  I bend down to give him his glasses and he rams his skull into my face. I feel my nose split. Awash with dizziness, I collapse onto the floor. Now he is over top of me, the glasses back on his narrow face, counting to ten. When he reaches ten, he says, “I win.”

  “Win what?” I sputter.

  “I could tell by your signature and address you were going to be easy.”

  “Just get out,” I say, now sitting up and cupping my nose in my hands.

  He pulls himself upright, straightens his collar, and leaves through the front door.

  Void

  I have a bowel movement that lasts for three days. By the time I’m finished—emptied—I’m sweaty, exhausted and famished. No longer myself.

  When I go downstairs I discover someone has played a horrible trick on me. They’ve removed every item from the downstairs and replaced it with a cardboard replica. The couch, the refrigerator, the television—all cardboard. Even the carpet has been removed, crayon stippled onto the cardboard, only a simulation of the real thing. I pick up the cardboard phone, ready to call anyone I can think of—I need answers—but, rather than a dial tone, I am greeted with a voice repeatedly asking what I’m wearing. Struggling somewhat, I rip the phone to pieces and toss it onto the floor.

  What am I wearing?

  I look down at my clothes and see that I, too, am made of cardboard. A terrible shock seizes me. I have to get out of the house. Charging outside, I am horrified to see that it is raining and looks like it has been raining for quite some time. The water sluices its way down the sides of the street, running into the sewer.

  Yes. That’s it. If I can get down into the sewer, I can regain that part of myself I have expelled over an arduous three day period. I can reclaim my waste. I rush out to the street, the rain pounding down onto my cardboard flesh. I absorb it, growing heavy and soggy.

  I manage to reach the sewer. It is cool outside and a thin mist rises from the slit. I think of a halitosis smile, a diseased vagina. Holding my breath, I enter the sewer. My right arm comes off in the process, remaining on the street.

  Plopping down into the sewer, I stumble after the lost part of me, wanting only to be three dimensional and whole once again. Following the tunnel of the sewer, I come to a small door. Hoping it isn’t locked, I pull on the handle. I am greeted by family and friends, everyone I have grown apart from over the past several years, all hunched over in a tiny, brightly lighted room.

  “Surprise!” they shout in unison.

  My dad steps forward, nervous, smoothing his thin hair with his left hand. In his right hand he holds a box. A present.

  “For you,” he says.

  “Thanks,” I say, taking the gaily wrapped pink box.

  “Go on,” he prods, licking his lips. “Open it.”

  Having only one hand, I set the box down on the floor. I try untying the bow but my soggy fingers only bend back. The people in the room chuckle. I hear someone, I’m pretty sure it’s my grandfather, bemusedly say, “He’ll never get t
hat thing open... Not with those fingers.”

  “Let me help you with that,” my dad says, crouching down and farting a little.

  He easily tears the wrapping off the box, wadding it up and sticking it down his pants. Then he opens the box and pulls out a miniature toilet, setting it beside the empty box.

  “Go on,” he says. “Open it.”

  I crouch down and try to flip the lid up but, again, my fingers won’t work.

  “There there,” my father says, demonstrating a patience he never showed in my childhood, this time only bending over to pull back the lid and reveal the contents to me. I can’t identify what lies inside the toilet.

  “Go on,” my father says. “Try some. It’s food.”

  I reach into the bowl and wrap my waterlogged hand around something that looks like a miniature baseball hat. I put it into my mouth and cautiously chew. It’s delicious. I can’t identify a specific element about it but it is, without a doubt, the most delicious food I have ever eaten. My family and friends all stare eagerly as I extract random items, all familiar-looking, all completely foreign tasting, and shove them into my mouth. Gradually, I become full. My other arm is back and the rain water is sweat seeping from my pores and I have visions of myself sitting on the toilet and straining, voiding sweat and waste... But that is in the future. For now, I eat. Becoming full. Letting the people around me chatter and fill my soul to bursting.

  Pimp

  The temp agency wouldn’t find me any work so I decided to become a pimp. Slowly but surely, I built my stable of prostitutes. The money rolled in. It wasn’t long before I started looking like a pimp—wearing a pimp hat, driving a pimp car, even growing a pimp mustache.

  One day, one of my more productive prostitutes, Mitzy, came to me.

  “You mind if I ask you for a favor?” she said around the three or four teeth she had left in her mouth. Her face was as pitted as a honeycomb and her skintight shorts revealed a tremendously large camel toe. She smelled like whiskey, cheap cigarettes, and death.

  “Sure, doll, that’s what this business is all about.” I doffed my fur coat and scratched my balls.

  “I got this friend and she like really needs some money.”

  “You bring her in and let me take a look at her.”

  “She’s waiting out in the car.”

  While waiting, I quickly devoured a beef stick and used the oils to slick my mustache. I like to make a good first impression.

  Mitzy returned with her friend.

  “Mom!?” I shouted.

  “Son!” she returned.

  “What the hell are you doing here? That outfit is entirely too revealing. Here, put this on.” I tossed her my fur coat.

  “Ever since your father walked out, I’ve needed the money. What are you doing here?”

  “The agency wouldn’t find me any work. Shiftless crackers.”

  “Where did you learn to talk like that?”

  “The street, Mom, the street.”

  “So, whaddya say? Are you going to lend a helping hand?”

  “It’s a rough job. Why don’t you go out with Mitzy tonight. Get a feel for it. See if you like... this kind of work. I tell you what, Mom, I’ll let you keep 95 percent of what you make... If you decide to stick with it.”

  A sad wave of relief washed over her face.

  “Thank you, Son. Oh, thank you so much.”

  “Just get out there and work it.”

  Playfully, to show her she’s one of the girls, I gave her a smack on the ass. She blushed and headed for the street with Mitzy.

  Drugs

  My balls are swelled up. I am in the bathroom about ready to puncture my scrotum with a huge needle, figuring the swellage must be something fluid related, when the doorbell rings. It startles me and the needle flies out of my hands and into the bathtub. “Shit,” I think, “this is going to be really embarrassing.” I rush to find the baggiest pair of pants I can and cross the house to answer the door.

  Upon opening the door I am a bit startled to see four men in dour gray suits standing on my porch.

  “Mr. L?” the man in the forefront asks.

  “No, I’m Mr. C.”

  “Is this 2300 Rosewood?”

  “Yes it is.”

  “I think we need to have a look in your basement.”

  “May I ask what for?”

  “Hiding something, Mr. L?”

  “No, no, not at all, it’s just, well...”

  “Drugs, Mr. L. We’ve had complaints of drugs.”

  “I assure you that’s ridiculous. You’re more than welcome to have a look.”

  I walk them over to the door of my basement, my legs slightly bowed on account of my huge scrotum. A casual glance over my shoulder reveals that they are traveling in a single file line. I open the door and click on the light, standing aside to let them enter. They all go down into the basement. After a few moments, I hear one of them call, “You better come down here, Mr. L!”

  I walk down the steps. At first, the basement seems impossibly bright. As soon as I reach the bottom of the steps, I realize why.

  The entire floor is covered in marijuana plants that reach chest-high. The ceiling is lined with sun lamps.

  “Impressive,” I say, and then, “I know absolutely nothing about this.”

  “We’re going to have to confiscate your house, Mr. L.”

  There is no argument. Even though I know nothing about it I am clearly cultivating a drug field in my basement.

  “Yes, of course. Will you be taking everything else in the house, also?”

  “Well, we’ll be taking all of this marijuana.”

  “I see.”

  We all go upstairs. The man in charge makes a few calls with my phone. The others periodically shoot accusing looks at me as I struggle to move the couch out of the house. This task is made all the more difficult because of my swelling. I get the couch out to the curb and sit down on it, homeless, both my back and my balls hurting immeasurably.

  I can’t resist checking on my condition so I stand up and glance down into my pants. Amazingly, my underwear is stuffed with the marijuana leaves. The men are coming out of the house, the man in charge tossing the keys up in the air and catching them. They stand at the curb and make casual chit-chat until a bus comes and they all board.

  They come back later that night with their wives, girlfriends and children. The next day a moving van brings all their stuff over. They leave the house every morning smelling like pot. People of all ages visit the house at all hours.

  Two days later, the garbage man comes and tells me he has to take the couch. “It’s on the curb,” he says. I reach down into my pants and hand him the marijuana, moist from being in my crotch for days.

  “Please, one more week,” I plead.

  How the Man Waits for Death

  “The trouble with life,” he says, “is that the day’s just too long.”

  He does his best to alter this.

  He always sleeps until two or three in the afternoon.

  He wakes up and makes a pot of coffee and drinks cup after cup and sits on his front porch and watches all the neighborhood kids and their goonish parents going off to their ultraimportant jobs. He smokes cigarette after cigarette.

  Then he goes back into his house and drinks a bottle of cheap red wine and watches a movie or reads a book, where days pass very quickly.

  After the sun finally sets, he goes back to bed.

  He hates to dream because it makes the day seem even longer.

  “I want to go to sleep,” he often thinks, “and then I want to wake up.”

  This is how the man waits for death to come in and envelope him in its fat black spiderbelly fold.

  Philosophy

  George walks into the morning kitchen and punches Gladys in the mouth. Her heavily hairsprayed hair goes instantly awry, her false teeth clicking out onto the floor.

  “Do you believe in God?” George asks her.

  “Well, I guess so,” s
he answers.

  George belts her again, this time open-handed and on the cheek, lighting a flush red painting across her deep wrinkles.

  He sits down at the table and takes a sip of coffee. “I guess I just don’t anymore.”

  Gladys begins to cry, absently grabbing her crucifix necklace for comfort.

  Drive

  I go downstairs after knitting a fashionable new scarf. Mother is lying down on the couch, a wet washcloth over her forehead. The living room is in complete and total disarray.

  “For God’s sake, Mom, you look mighty bedraggled!”

  “It’s your father. I don’t see why he has to be such an envelope-pusher.”

  “What now?”

  “He’s taken it upon himself to eat all the raisins in the house.”

  “That doesn’t seem so extreme.”

  “Do you know how many raisins are in this house?”

  “Who made this mess?”

  “Your father. The beast. The wretched whoremonger. Always looking for more raisins.”

  Father comes out of the kitchen, swollen and lumpy.

  “You gonna start in on me now, too?”

  I shake my head. It’s best to leave him alone when he gets like this. Back in my room, I wrap my new scarf around my neck and lie on my bed. Later, I awake to find my father rooting through the mattress. I pretend to remain asleep just so there isn’t any awkward conversation, knowing he will find plenty of raisins.

  A Self-Contained Walk

  It is a grainy black and white day.

  Mr. Gravel’s small house sits back a long driveway. They call it a lane in the country. He steps out of his house and looks at the low hill horizon. He walks down the steps of his front porch. There is a man with sunglasses on doing pushups in the front lawn. Mr. Gravel pays no attention to this as he heads for the lane. He has to get the mail. The box is way down off the road.