Mark Tufo - 'Til Death Do Us Part

“Fuck,” I moaned, there was no good answer unless I just started the car back up and drove off, no harm, no foul. I got out of the car quietly, making sure I pocketed the keys; John driving off without me would not be good. A gust of wind pulled the door from my hand, the door slammed shut. I silently cursed and peeked my head in through the window. John hadn’t stirred, if anything, it looked like he had settled down even more.

“Last chance, Talbot,” I said aloud. Although the moment I pulled over, I had made my mind up. “Why do you do this shit? Who else is gonna? Comforting,” I said, finishing my dialog off.

I walked down the rest of the embankment, then went through a couple of feet of sparse scrub brush and came to a six-foot high wooden fence. “I hate fences.” I said, thinking about the jump down from the top that was going to cause some serious pain in my football, Marine Corps damaged knees. I was pleasantly surprised when I landed on the other side and was not rewarded with the all familiar twinge of cartilage and ligaments past their prime. I attributed it to the lost weight, somehow subconsciously avoiding the fact that I was now enhanced. Not sure how I kept forgetting that, I guess it was a fail-safe system.

I came out behind the service station effectively blocked from all the truckers who were out front. Things sounded normal enough; there was laughter and banter among them, but I still was not feeling secure enough to just stroll on up, especially how I was dressed.

“Shit, I look like a male prostitute,” I said, looking down at my outfit. “Wonderful, a pair of roller skates and I’d be perfect.”

I thought about blending in, but not like this. Then I was dealt a hand that I had to take advantage of.

“I’ll be right back,” one of the men yelled. “I’m gonna take a piss.”

It sounded like he was coming up the far side of the building. I slowly moved along the length of the building to the side I heard the man calling from. I quickly peeked my head around the corner; luckily he had his head down as he was approaching me while diligently working on opening his fly.

“Must really have to go,” I said.

He was approaching a small blue dumpster about midway along the wall. He turned with his back to me so that he could urinate on the trash collector. It was twenty feet from me to him, then what? He hadn’t done anything that necessitated me killing him.

“Act first, think later,” I said as I started running towards him. He either had a sixth sense, or I wasn’t as stealthy as I had hoped. He turned when I was no more than a few feet away, as he turned warm urine traveled up my leg it was almost enough to stop me in my tracks.

“What the fuck, man?” he said, one hand still holding his penis, the other coming up in a defensive gesture.

I caught him with a right cross that I’m fairly certain cracked his jaw. His eyes rolled back into his head and he collapsed. I swear I would have caught him as he was going down, but he was still pissing. Luckily he crumbled more than falling forward or backward so the impact as his head hit the ground wasn’t quite as traumatic. At this point I still felt like shit, the man hadn’t done anything more than need to relieve himself at an inopportune time. Who knew I might have just smacked the shit out of a sainted brain surgeon. Odds were that I hadn’t, but still.

He had one leg bent back behind him, but for the most part he was lying on his back. His penis was still doing what he had been in the act of before I so rudely interrupted. It looked like one of those old bubblers from my youth in school, the ones that were always running before we figured out that wasting a precious commodity like water wasn’t such a good idea. Although, even way back then, before the germ-a-phobia truly set in, I would never have drank anything that rusty looking. I wasn’t thrilled that he was getting all his clothes, which I needed, wet.

“Fuck, dude, when’s the last time you took a pit stop?” I asked him as he just kept going and going. It was looking like he had downed two huge Slurpees and a carafe of coffee. I couldn’t wait any longer or he would completely soak his clothes. I quickly pulled his shirt over his head, undid his boots, and pulled his pants down, thankful that he had already done the majority of the work.

I took a couple of deep breaths as I assessed just how sopped his clothes were. And still he was going, I was wondering if he had somehow sprung a leak. I knew I was stalling, how much of a rush would you be in to put on someone else’s piss soaked clothes? Yeah didn’t think so. I still had to get moving, a dumpster pretty much screamed, PEE HERE, to a man. Soon, someone else would come, and for a second that sounded like a good idea, but this time I would knock his ass out before he started to go.

“Shit,” I mumbled. I could hear voices, I couldn’t tell if they were getting closer but I couldn’t risk it. My snake-draining buddy seemed to finally be closing in on empty. I waited a few seconds more as the normally shaken droplets made their way down his side, then I unceremoniously picked him up under his shoulders and dumped him into the trash. I was happy there were at least a few bags at the bottom; somewhat so he wouldn’t get hurt further, but mostly so his body wouldn’t make a large ‘bonging’ sound as he hit bottom.

The man’s shirt was the traditional gas station attendant blue button down, it even had his name embroidered on it—that was actually not a good thing for me. What were the odds that there were two ‘Horatios’ in this convoy? And I’m sorry, but who the fuck names their kid Horatio? His childhood must have been a blast. I put his shirt on, not buttoning it for exactly three reasons. First, because I hoped that leaving it open would obscure his name; second, because the bottom front of it was soaked and this way I could keep it mostly off myself; and third, but far from least, I was betting that Horatio’s nickname was ‘Stretch.’ I couldn’t have buttoned the thing up if I had wanted to.

There was a good four inches of gap between button hole and button. I looked down at the pants; my guess was they were going to be as equally ill-fitting. It was sort of a blessing, because as long as they stayed unbuttoned it kept the majority of wet material off of me, but what were the fucking odds that I would waylay a six-foot-two man that had the waist and chest of a twelve-year-old girl? I thought about pulling him out of the dumpster so I could smack him one more time. He was actually making me regret giving up my jean shorts. I was as low on body fat as I had ever been in my life, yet this man’s pants still made me feel like I needed to join Jenny Craig. I knew I was in for a world class struggle when I felt them tugging on my calves.

By the time I pulled them up over my ass, I had lost enough circulation in my lower extremities to be of concern. I could only take air in small, measured doses. The zipper moved maybe one or two teeth up and that was it, the gap between the button and button hole for the pants could not be bridged. I had a couple of things going for me, apparently ‘Stretch’ had also been losing weight and these pants were ‘pre’ zombie invasion. He had, at some point, needed to get a belt and luckily it was more my sized as opposed to his. The belt would hide a fair amount of my skin showing, plus, his shirt had that front part that hangs down so you can tuck them in. I have no idea what that’s called but as long as no Marilyn Monroe-type breezes started, I might be alright. Although running was out of the question, I felt like Morticia from the Addams Family.

You want to know what the kicker was? This was how I figured out that God has a sense of humor. The guy had a baseball cap which was great, I didn’t dare take off my Eliza-screening tin foil hat, but I couldn’t imagine walking out in the midst of all those truckers wearing it either. I grabbed the guy’s cap, even more reluctant to put it on than the urine-infused clothes—the familiar, dreaded, loathed, hated ‘NY’ logo of the New York Yankees stared back at me with contempt. This was about the last straw; I almost said ‘fuck it.’ There ain’t nothing worth donning that thing. The only thing that wasn’t small on Stretch was his damn hat, the guy had a head the size of a watermelon, and of course he had a non-adjustable, fitted hat, why wouldn’t he? At least it would safely cover the foil, and the foil would act as a barrier to whatever diseases a Yankee fan was apt to carry.