Eric Dimbleby - White Out

The camera kept flashing. It wasn’t too wise, in case you’re wondering why I’m such a fuckin’ idiot in this story. People start taking pics of you, and then the police know who to look at after they find this fuckhead’s body on the curb, right next to his hot dog cart with my fingerprints all over it, all over him . That’s all some bad news for a wanderin’ man, but I wanted to give this guy the funniest picture he ever did see. The world is cured by laughter. I believe that. So true.

I set my mind back on my unofficial world record. It was tough, but I got one more hot dog past his teeth, probably because he had one slidin’ all the way down his throat, makin’ some extra room now. He slumped down by my feet, grasping at his neck. He let go of me completely, staring at the ground. His fingers twitched. Somebody help him , a lady with a pig-face and three chins cried out.

Another asked, Anybody know the Hym-lick? Whatever the fuck that is.

Kyle fell on the ground, six or seven hot dogs peeking out of his mouth from all the way down that motherfucker’s gullet. I gave him a good kick in the ribs, and then I loaded up my gunny pack with all the fixings and dogs from his cart. I took to leavin’ but on the way by, I smiled for the camera again. Them people were terrified of me, but I still posed for them proper. I would have signed my autograph if somebody asked me.

Hell, I was bound to be famous. Back then, I was. Not so much today.

So here I am, eating fake-ass hot dogs with Marianne.

What a road I done travelled. I can’t help calculatin’, I can get eight or nine of these rotten baby fingers in her mouth before she croaks. They’re smaller than regular hot dogs, so maybe I can even get ten of them in. If there’s a will, then there’s a way, ya’ hear?

“Hey, Marianne?” I ask.

She looks at me, licking away barbecue sauce from her finger while one of her cats licks the thumb on her opposite hand. She’s really gross with them there cats, like I told ya’. “Yes, dear?” she asks. I ain’t known her long, but I already hate it when she calls me stuff like that. Jesus Christ, spare me from this woman. Can you hear me Jesus? I swear I’ll kill her if you don’t change up her ways real soon.

“How many hot dogs you reckon you can fit in your mouth?”

She laughs at the question, thinkin’ me kinda silly. I don’t laugh. I like to laugh, for sure, but it don’t come easy. “You’re such a card,” she says to me.

Her house smells awful. I’ve made a big honker of a mistake coming here.

There’s cats everywhere, pissing on every bit of the rug, climbing on all the cabinets and furniture, making the whole joint smell like a litter box that ain’t been cleaned in three years. I don’t even think these mangy little shits even have litter boxes. I think they just piss in Marianne’s bathtub. Or maybe they just piss in her mouth. She’s nasty like that.

When I first saw Marianne in that window, I thought I might be obliged to give her the old in-and-out like I’m known to do, and I thought I might even get some kicks out of it. But I gotta say: the smell of this shithole makes my soldier go all soft. I couldn’t get hard in here if I had ten porno tapes blasting at the same time and I was being rubbed down by big-boobied Swedish girls with wet mouths and no Daddy-issues. It’s hard to deliver the goods when the smell of piss is so strong.

All kinds of smell, and they’re not all from cat piss. She keeps making me these pukish green shakes that smell like the devil’s dick, sayin’ it’s some kind of special grass. Marianne says it will cleanse me and make my spirit sing. Can you believe that shit? My spirit sings plenty, thank ya’ much Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, no thanks to you Marianne, of the Jingle Bell Sweater Tribe. This bozo thinks that there’s some sort of power in being kind to people. She said that shit—not in those words but that was what she meant.

“I don’t follow traditional religions. My God is the propagation of absolute, unflinching kindness, and loving one’s neighbor as one hopes to be loved themselves,” she said to me yesterday. I was trying to eat some sweet potato crackers but having a hard time with it, what with them being hard as rocks.

“Yeah. Me too, I reckon.”

And Marianne keeps asking about What’s His Name. Every time she starts running her mouth about it, I tell her that he’s out tryin’ to get help for us. I explain that he said he’ll be back in a few days with fresh supplies. When I say that, she makes this scrunched up fucking face that makes it look like she’s sucking on a lemon, kinda lookin’ like she don’t believe me. This cat-hoarding ninny won’t take me at my word and that sort of hurts me in a way that stings like a summummabitch .

I don’t let people hurt me for long. I get to hurtin’ em back.

I woke up this morning and I said to myself, “ Self, you’ve gotta just tell her what happened. Tell her that you cut her neighbor real deep and he bled out all over the place. Tell her that you’ll do the same to her if she doesn’t get rid of the cats and clean herself real proper-like. Tell her that you’ll do the same to her if she doesn’t scrub all the cat piss out of this house, cause I’ll be damned if I’m going to stay in a place that won’t let me get a proper, manly stiffy-in-a-jiffy in m’pants .”

The worst thing of all about her: she keeps cuddling up next to me when I take naps.

I push her away, because every inch of her smells like cat piss. I’m pretty sure they piss all over her when she’s sleeping. Or maybe she just lets them piss on her all through the day, no matter what’s going on. Maybe she just plops her sweater-wearin’ ass down on the carpet and calls them over to gang-piss on her. Anyway, she wants my Roman warrior pretty bad, but that ain’t happening. I’m saving myself for somebody who doesn’t smell like Nermal’s cunt, thank ya very much. Zing.

I sleep in her guest room, which has all these Polaroid pictures of her cats on the walls, licking themselves, strutting around with their backs arched up, eating cat food, or just cuddling up close to her face. How the broad doesn’t sneeze twenty-four hours a day, I’ll never know.

Me, I’m allergic.

I ain’t stopped sneezing since I came into this shithole.

This afternoon, I let three of the cats out the window, since I can’t get the front door open. She didn’t see me do it. They kept trying to crawl back in, while I hunted through the mess of Marianne’s hovel, looking for another meowin’ bastard to rid the house of. I kept pushing them out again, and then one of the brats scratched me real nasty-like. Fuck that noise , I said. So I grabbed it by the scruff on its neck and I buried its face in the snow. It fought for a few, but I think it sent a pretty nice message to the other kitties, cause they all went a’scamperin’ in every direction. They had no interest in coming back to Marianne’s piss-bucket-house after that… or should I start calling it my house? Bet your ass, partner, it’s my house now, and it’s time to clean all this shit up.

I’d guess she’s got about twenty cats. They all look the same. Not just that they’re cats, but that they all have the same color, that bein’ jet-black. She must have some kind of weird tick that makes her only buy black cats. Or maybe she don’t even buy them. Maybe they just come to her because they follow the piss smell from miles and miles away.

Just a little while ago, she gets all worked up about somethin’: “Have you seen Cherry Pie?” she asks me.

“Who’s Cherry Pie?”

“He’s my chummy little foo-foo with the black face and the long whiskers.” Yeah, that’s what they all look like. And them shits ain’t chummy. “He looks like Clark Gable,” she adds, but that don’t help me much. Never heard that name before.