Eric Dimbleby - White Out

The snow is halfway up the first floor windows now. I kinda feel like I’m gonna get buried alive in this shitty house, with all these ass-grabbin’ angels staring at me while I freeze to death, so that’s why I’m thinking about wandering again. If I wander, then I won’t get stuck nowhere. I need to find another place to keep warm for a spell, to wait this crazy thing out. Need me some place with real food and entertainment so I don’t get bored and thinking about wandering again.

Settle up. Settle in.

That’s what they always told me, but I wasn’t too good at listening. I always blamed it on my ears being so full of wax. I was always picking the wax out and flicking it at kids when I was in elementary school. I think that’s why I wouldn’t never clean it out. My secret weapon, not listenin’ none.

Something happened this morning though. Something special. A sign, maybe.

There I was, you see, taking a shit on the toilet. Those frozen meals smell even worse on the way out the back end, so I flush every couple squirts or so. Case of the wet and sticky chocolate thunder. I hope I’m not offending you, and by that, I means to say suck it up and stop being a whiny bitch.

You want to hear the goddamned story or not?

OK.

I’m on the shitter, doin’ what folks do on the shitter, fiddling around with the toilet paper on the spinner cause there ain’t shit else to do in there. Sometimes I look at pictures in magazines when I’m in the bathroom, but all the magazines that What’s His Nuts kept are all political ones and art magazines. Bullshit.

There I am, in my glory, taking care of business, hollerin’ every time I pushed because of the hot lava that is coming out, and suddenly I hear something tap at the window. A few seconds go by, and there’s another tap. This ain’t no coincidence, but I know that nothing is. Another tap, and then another. Fuckin’ aye, can’t a man take a shit in peace?

I pull back the shade, looking out the icy-ass window, and I see the neighbor leaning out her window, waving her hands at me. I’m not sure what she was throwing at the window. Maybe jelly beans or some shit like that. Pebbles? Icicles? Anyway, she got my attention. If only she knew that sometimes, I’m not the kinda guy that you want to get the attention of.

The window’s a little bit stuck in place, I’m reckonin’ from the weather, but I manage to budge open the window just enough to stick my head and neck out, so I crane my neck and look across the way. The upstairs windows are directly across from each other. It’s hard to tell, but I’m pretty sure she is standing in a bathroom just like me. They probably built all the houses in the neighborhood just the same. How fucking fucked is that shit? That, my friend, is why I wander. In case you needed another reason.

“Howdy!” she calls out. She’s got a lot of energy, just blasting off her like sunshine beams. I hate that. Right off the bat, I’m annoyed. I’ve always kept away from people like this, but I also don’t turn my back on signs when they show themselves to me. I’m not stupid, even if you think maybe I am cause of the way I talk, and cause I ain’t ever been to college. Go fuck yourself if you think it.

“Howdy,” I say back to her, leaving all that sickenin’ pep out of my voice. No time for that. I can’t pretend to be somethin’ I ain’t.

I can see that there’re two cats perched up in the window next to her. They sit on either side of her like prison guards walking a ravin’ lunatic to a padded room. Kitties even look like twins. “Nice to meet you. I’m Marianne! Are you staying with Teddy?”

Ah, yep. That was his name. Forget it for a spell. Teddy. I gotta remember it this time or it might bungle things up. People start to doubt you’re meant to be someplace if you don’t know the names of the people that are actually meant to be there. If that makes any fuckin’ sense at all.

“Yes, ma’am. I’m just staying for a few days, though. Crazy weather we’re having, isn’t it?” I reply. People love to talk about the weather, that’s one of the first things you learn when you go wanderin’. Actually, you can learn that just sittin’ still, too. Just turn on the Weather Channel. Those chumps make a living out of it.

A bitchy gust o’ wind blows past Marianne’s face and she pulls into her house for a few seconds, then pokes her head back out, still smiling. Nothin’ breaks this bitch’s stride. She’s cheery as all get-out. She says to me then, “Storm of the century I’d say. I’ve been cooped up in this house for a week now. I swear to God I’d go crazy if I didn’t have all my cats.” She speaks as though she had hundreds of cats, which I reckon might be the case.

She doesn’t look too bad. Not top notch, but nothing to sneeze at either. A little older than I like, a little scabby looking, but she might do, especially if she has a lot of grub stashed in her house. I’m not so sure about the cats. I hate cats. Like hate as in—I would send all the cats in the world to them ovens they had in that Holocaust if I could. If I settle in and settle up with this broad, we’ll have to do something about them cats. Maybe I’ll just bury them all in this goddamned snow.

Meow, motherfuckers! Meow!

Then Marianne says, “How are you gentlemen for supplies? Food? Heat?”

“We’re okay for the time bein’, ma’am. I reckon we have enough to last a few more days at least. And how are you faring, if you don’t mind my asking? Anything I can assist with?” People like the word “assist” better than the word “help.” If you say, “help”, then people feel like they’re not involved. If you “assist”, then it’s a team effort. They’re a shitload more likely to respond. Tips from the road. Zing, zing, zing.

She doesn’t mind me asking apparently, cause she replies, “I just went food shopping right before the storm got too nasty. Lucky I guess, since they didn’t even predict this thing. I could last a couple more weeks. If you fine fellows get hungry, just come on over, you hear me?”

Yeah, I hear her.

You bet your ass I hear her. I won’t go over there right away, ‘cause that will look a little fishy and sorta desperate. Might get her askin’ questions she best not be askin’. I’ll wait until tomorrow, work up some kind of sob story about What’s His Nuts, and then I’ll move on in, kick my feet back and enjoy the storm from a new perspective. I don’t know how long I’ll keep her heart thumpin’ after I become the king of that place over yonder, but if she’s a nasty kind of lover that lets me do what I want (and when I want; that’s important too), then I’ll keep her as long as she keeps me smirkin’.

“How long have you two been together?” she asks now, getting real fuckin’ nosy if you ask me. I assume she’s talking about the dude that lived in the house, that one that picked me up on the side of the road. Polly Prissy Pants With The Shitty Paintings is what I think his boyfriends called him. Zing.

Nah, it’s Teddy. Like the graham crackers. I knew that. I put that in m’memory bank now. His name was Teddy and he made some killer stew. He’s dead now, and I’m glad for it.

“We just met, not too long ago,” I say, working together a story that I will have to stick to when I eventually go over there and take what’s mine from the crazy cat lady. “He’s a great guy,” I say. Sometimes bein’ so sweet makes my stomach slick with goo, like the time I ate a whole dozen glazed doughnuts on a dare. And for the record, Teddy wasn’t a great guy—in fact, he seemed like a real dickwad if you ask me. Anybody with such shitty paintings on the wall can’t be worth much to the world. I did the planet a favor. “I think I’m in love,” I say now, kind of acting like I’m embarrassed, which I sort of am. Oh man, am I selling the shit out of this one or what?