The Apocalypse and Satan's Glory Hole! (1) (7 page)

When thoughts of the map come to mind, he calms down a little.

The cashier rolls her eyes now as she speaks into her fancy cash register phone. She doesn’t even get her fat ass out of the seat; she jus
t sits there and blah blah blah
s about how he needs his newspaper.

She hangs up and smiles a tight little smile.

“They‘re bringing some over right now.” She stabs at the keys with her long nails. “Do you mind if some of the other customers pay while you wait?”

“Yes, I mind! I’ll stand over there like an idiot for five minutes before you remember me.”

The woman sighs, staring at him. He stands resolute. Screw this woman and her oh-so-important job. Probably
has
half a dozen kids at home and all by different men. Probably smokes crack around them. Passes the pipe around. Well he won’t be intimidated by her.

Customers shift, and a couple stomp off with heavy sighs to show their contempt.
Yeah you sigh like I give a shit. Go on. Write about your ass too, see if I don’t.

After what seems like forever, a man finally shows up and hands over the stack of papers. He takes the old one out and sets it aside while Chuzz takes his and hands it to the woman. He smiles at the headline, which assures him the world is coming to an end.

“Will this be all?” The woman rolls her eyes, and Nathan Chuzzle wants to go Phil on her ass! Fucking Phil! He wants to jump up on the little conveyor belt and bash in her head with the cash register. Pick it up and smash her to the ground then jump up and down on her corpse. He wants to revel in her blood and splash it all over the damn place.

“That will be all, thank you very much,” he practically shouts then counts out the four dollars and eighty-two cents. He has two one-dollar bills, but it only takes a few minutes to stack up the nickels, dimes and pennies for the rest.

Goodies packed, he performs a mock bow for the woman and storms off while muttering about the disrespect some people show. The couple that made such a fuss is walking out of the self-pay section with bags in each hand. Chuzz hurries to pass them and then slows his walk when he reaches the door, forcing them to wait on him. The man fumes, but he won’t do anything, because no one messes with the Chuzz. No goddamn one!

Then the earth starts to shake. Chuzz looks around as the ground moves under him and decides that being in his mom’s car is preferable to staying here. The building might collapse and crush him. He breaks into a
run, jumps into the beat-up automobile and screeches out of the parking lot the way he came in, this time taking part of the hedge with him.

The park is quiet. A few leaves fall here and there. Rain is pittering and thinking about doing a proper pattering. There were a few people here when he arrived, but they decided to move on when he sat with the windows rolled down for a good while. He stared at them. Just stared. At them and their grubby little kids. Sure way to clear out the park ladies and gents, make them think there is a crazy man interested in their children.

The river is unusually high, and when summer hits it will be filled with kids on inner tubes. Dogs will run around and shit on everything while their dopy masters follow them with plastic bags. Chuzz feels nothing but contempt for them. Go to a park with all the other dirty dirties. Yuck.

But he has a mission today. He checks his map and then the old wind-up watch on his arm. He checks them again and again, and when it draws close to two in the afternoon he gets out of the car, looks around as if he’s lost someone and then casually strolls to the bathroom.

The place reeks of years of piss and shit. There is an undercurrent of cleaning supplies, but they do little to alleviate the stench. Past the sinks with their grimy push-down hot and cold water dispensers. Past the urinals with their little white hockey pucks that are supposed to cover up the smell and clean the pisser but really just make good targets.

Past the first stall, which is empty. Past the second stall, which is also empty. He takes over the last one, the big sucker with a wheelchair sign on the door. He pulls out half a dozen toilet seat covers and uses them to make a chair. He doesn’t have to take a crap right now. He just has to wait. Oh, he is going to catch one now, oh yes he is!

He looks at the toilet paper dispenser with its myriad numbers and scrawlings. One says, “For a good time call Shantay at
fo
fi fi fo fi na na.”

A few minutes later, footsteps shuffle in.
Chuzz double checks that the lock is secure.
The person who just entered pauses, maybe checking his hair.
Probably not the right guy.
Probably the wrong place.
Sure, the telltale sign is here, but it doesn’t mean anything. Could just be a trick, and he can mark this place off his map.

No! He has to wait it out to be sure.

The feet shuffle again; this time they walk down the aisle and enter the shitter right next to Chuzz. He waits patiently for the person to sit down. He sits, but he doesn’t drop his pants. So this is the right place!

Feet shuffle on the ground back and forth as if he is shifting in his seat. Chuzz can’t wait anymore. He knows he has the right place!

He stands up and unbuttons his pants, which have confined a raging hard-on for the past half hour. He drops them. Puts his hands on the wall and then carefully inserts his member into the hole above the toilet paper.

A sigh from the other side but no words.
Then a touch of rough hands.
Chuzz sighs as well. Yep, this is the place.

The Dirt Road Leading to the Former Site of the Burning Man Festival

General Mac O’Coddle stares out the window of his Hummer, scowling at the expanse of alkali flats surrounding his enormous convoy. He looks to Major Arseblister behind the driver’s wheel, and he smirks at his longtime subordinate. Major Arseblister grins when he sees the general out of the corner of his eye.

“You’re in a great mood today, sir,” Major Arseblister says, taking his eyes off the dusty white road ahead.

General O’Coddle takes a deep breath and puffs his barrel chest. He smiles under his bushy white beard as he tells Major Arseblister, “It’s going to be a good day, Major.”
 

“You enjoy the desert, sir?”
 
Major Arseblister asks, searching for clues to the general’s uncommon decent mood.

“Fuck no,”
 
General O’Coddle says. “But I haven’t massacred hippies since ‘Nam, and if the godforsaken desert is where I gotta go to spill some
 
hippy gore, then grab me a canteen and a
 
camel with no nut sack.”

One small open-top Jeep leads the camouflage Hummer down the long, straight dirt road. Following the general’s Hummer is a long line of heavy armed combat vehicles grinding their way through the Nevada desert. Four dozen tanks of different sizes and speeds rumble alongside six dozen old covered trucks transporting entire platoons of soldiers. Smaller Jeeps with mounted heavy artillery buzz around the slower-moving rigs, their wheels sending up long billowy alkali-white clouds.

“As a statement of fact,”
 
grumbles General O’Coddle, “my trigger finger is gettin’
 
itchy. How far away is the target?”

“Sir,”
 
Major Arseblister smirks, “I was under the impression our objective was simply to deliver the Cease and Desist
 
message to the offending parties.”

“Right,”
 
General O’Coddle chuckles. “The Army brought four dozen tanks to the middle of the motherfucking desert just to ask them very
nicely to please stop mopping the fucking desert floor with their crab-infested genitals. That doesn’t make any fucking sense, Major.”

The general puffs out his chest and straightens the bronze buttons on his dark green uniform, which he wears despite the desert camouflage khaki all the other soldiers have donned. He grunts and shines the obnoxiously large collage of
medals
pinned to his barrel chest with a fist the size of a Christmas ham.

He stares out the windshield in front of him and tells Major Arseblister, “Just answer my motherfucking question and then shut the fuck up.”

The smirk dissolves off of Major Arseblister’s face, and he shrinks slightly from General O’Coddle’s angry timbre. “Sorry, sir, we are within fifteen miles of the target, sir.”
 

“Good,” General O’Coddle barks. “Now get to work on shutting the fuck up, Major.”
 

The two soldiers ride in silence for only a minute before the taillights of the Jeep leading flash bright red in the blandness of the desert as its driver slams on the brakes.

Major Arseblister stands on his brake pedal, and the massive Hummer skids and slides in response, weaving the width of the dirt road. Behind the two officers, the drivers of the entire row of military vehicles hit their brakes, some with more luck than others.

General O’Coddle is flung forward toward the long, flat dashboard. His muscular arms fly up in the air. His forehead creases with anger. His gray mustache shakes with the force of his yelling. “What in the dead and bloated fuck is going on?”
 
 

“I ...
I ... I don’t know … sir …” Major Arseblister replies.

General O’Coddle shakes his head. “Major,
shut the fuck up
. I was yelling at the fuckups in front of us. I say once more,
shut the fuck up
.”

“Mmmm,” Major Arseblister says through sealed lips with an enthusiastic nod.

The general grumbles and opens his door. He rocks forward, farts louder than common artillery fire, and steps from the Hummer. The major opens his mouth to say something, but General O’Coddle raises a finger and tells him, “Now, you may vacate the vehicle but you must
shut the fuck up
. Do you understand, Major?”

Major Arseblister nods and eyes the walrus tusk handles of the custom twin .357 magnums swinging at the general’s side. He even eyes the two bandoliers of reloads crisscross
ing the general’s broad chest.
 
The general notices the major’s glance at his guns and ammo, and he smiles.

General O’Coddle turns from the major, and the smile spreads even wider across his square face.

Up ahead, a miles-wide circle pulses and throbs in stark contrast to
the otherwise barren landscape.
 
Moans and sighs and screams of passion haunt the wide open space.

“Holy lung-punching fuck, this thing is big,” General O’Coddle says, the grin beneath his mustache never diminishing. He turns on his heel and climbs back into his seat in the Hummer. Major Arseblister scampers to climb in and behind the wheel quicker than teenage boys find Internet porn.

“That thing is fucking massive,”
 
General O’Coddle says. Major Arseblister just nods.

The excited general looks to the silent major and says,
“I said that’s a shit ton of
tree-huggin’
 
solar-power-usin’
 
organic-
food-eatin’
 
war-dodgin’
 
tie-dye-wearin’
 
fre
e-love-
motherfuckin’
 
hippies!”