"If they are empty, they are just like toys." (4-24-1988)

 

 

A pair of time-space binocular crafted lenses, looking back reflecting a decade or so into the past—for ornithological purposes only, of course.

 

 

Autumn arrives in thick crisp gulps of wind backed by a twenty something negative dip in temperature followed by a thin goatee of frost found on the windshield of the cherry coated Honda and the front yard of Casa McReynolds. Somehow the change in temperature refrains from thwarting the flying Garcia clan from their weekly annual shish-ka-bobing neighborhood barbecue featuring some sort of exotic animal. Patrick wonders if the reason his father insisted that Amy take down that Crocodile Dundee poster was because of what he thought was a lanced rack of good old fashioned marinated veal turned out to be a tribute to some sort of Australian marsupial. With the change in daylight savings Harvey Liddle is sometimes seen firing random shots and letting go of a salute that looks like it is some kind of karate jab from the temple around the time when Mama Mcreynolds taxi cruises through the leaves infested cul-de-sac in the late afternoon, around three-forty five, after picking up both her nearest and dearest down two blocks south of CLS, the area where Coach M has deemed the Loser pick up, drop off zone three whole blocks south of CLS academy on the far end of Logan field, next the to Graffiti cemetery where Meredith Elise and that new girl with the bagel braids on the side of her temples like to hang out and smoke clove cigarettes during recess. Although Coach M readily insists that the demarcated Loser pickup zone is a safe environment for the McReynolds clan Patrick has to wonder about the chalk outlines of bodies that seem to propagate on a weekly basis.  

 

Patrick has gotten into the habit of waking up at around three am, riddled with insomnia, sometimes coated with sweat from a dream in which he is trying to avoid castration by dental floss, the Varsity Elite chasing him through the endless corridors of CLS, a cross shaped building which seems to fractal  out into an infinite number of more mascot guillotine inflicted  hallways and where Patrick is searching for a moment where he can just fire up a Marlboro red and take a deep breath and the moment Patrick finds security in a long eloquent hallway beneath a Persian carpet he hears the familiar snort and wail of Jeremiah Noel and realizes that it is somehow incumbent upon himself as a human being to rescue the poor lad. Patrick then rushes into the nearest Ladies and finds both Coach M and Doctor Kennedy Marshal dressed up as Mario and Luigi respectively, each wearing denim overalls and boots with a feathery moustache and derby cap and each, using Jeremiah’s head as some sort of plunger, wedging him deeper and deeper into the nearest stall until Jeremiahs legs and ankles go limp and Dr. Kennedy Marshal and Coach M begin to high five each other in slow motion as little electronic fireworks expire in the background like tears, indicating that Patrick is too late.

 

 

Patrick has a similar dream of this nature three or four times a week, even on weekends, which pisses him off to no end, and he always seems to wake up completely baptized in his own sweat. After the dream he abandons his mattress in the second floor of casa McReynolds and ,making sure by his intermittent high pitched nasal snoring that his younger sibling Allan is completely out for count so to speak.

 

 

 Down the hall from Patrick's room Amy keeps Pop albums with hairspray and glitter covers saluted in a single file stash, reclining them on top of the stereo speakers connected to a record player which she has somehow managed to fit them all on the top of her dresser, in front of mirror reflecting sock-hop vice-versa photos of her (Sister Amy, second progeny of Warren and Helen McReynolds and Patrick’s older sibling who, for some reason, leaves VonBehren padding his chin for fear of drool every time the two of them tersely talk). In the photos Amy is being groped by senior jock and steady B-friend Tyler Conley. Particles of stripped clothes and panties seemed to have rained all over the off-coloring carpet of her bedroom floor. Her room is part of the unofficial attic that is also part of Patrick’s room where Allan resides as well. A dry-wall door Warren cozened his fellow contemporaries from Shop class to furbish separates the two abode. It’s shared with chipped plastic, cheaply painted, stopwatches or hearts. It is shared with Roll playing boards and dice. Shared with innovation for comic books, ideas for novels; shared with video game cartridges abandoned from their cases, dirt smeared band-aids, balls of socks, water pistols, the as of yet but soon to be famous Super Soaker. Parcels of plastic drip through the room. He-Man’s green slime rolls over across our vision when the lights are flicked out. Von Behren arrives on his first invited visit to Casa McReynolds. Mrs. McReynolds, caroling out a Halo, and asking David if he was sure that he did not topple down from the Top Branch of the Tree last month when he first made the acquaintance of one Patrick A. “I’m better than you fuckwad” McReynolds. Son of a bitch Patrick-who the fuck would have thought-five days later and August is bending towards a heavy September wind and Patrick some reason he has yet to figure out yet, enrolled in the grade school where VonBehren has attended since he was the size of a Goodyear tire.  Both VonBehren’s Aunt’s and Godmother teach at this Institution. The reason VonBehren came into any being whatsoever was because his overtly Lutheran and god fearing mother took an internship at CLS in the late sixties and fell in love with a loveable Lutheran nerd, namely VonB’s father. And having gone through six years at CLS (first grade being repeated) and sitting in Mrs. Reinhardt’s fifth grade classroom and staring at Holly Lyons with Davie Hale on his left hand side asking Dave what he is doing tonight and would he perhaps be interested in going to a movie or something later on—Patrick arriving a full five minutes after the first bell in a clumsy stout cognizance indicative of being the New Kid in a classroom and that all eyes are on him-his hair shaped funny and protruding up like a Yucca bush in back because he fell asleep last night in front of the Holy Tube, somewhere in between Night Court and Next Generation reruns. Almost every other day Patrick’s slacks consist of sandpaper corduroy-his shirt white which Business men considered essential suit and tie undergarment. And Patrick arrives, unaware of VonBehren’s presence at first, plopping down on the right hand side of D. Von and inwardly bitching that the desks (cheaply constructed slabs of wood and steel planks that look like stiff nostrils) do not open from the bottom, but remain open at all time. Patrick has cut out photos of GI Joes and Ninja Turtles chunkily pasted on his school box. His lunchbox is camouflage and tin-Patrick later telling Dave it was what his Dad in Nam used to carry grenades around in. And VonBehren just pauses to notice Patrick sitting there, looking at his desk in the fashion of grown men adjusting their belt buckles before looking underneath the metallic lid of a car. Mrs. Reinhardt is instructing the class in a low key sing-a-long version of God Loves Me Dearly and Patrick, understandably bemused coming form a public institution rather than that of a parochial begins to scribble down thoughts about the people around him until Mrs. Reinhardt snaps at her entire combined fourth and fifth grade classroom as a whole, ushering them to stand and recite the Lord’s Prayer in unison, which Patrick has heard only a few times in passing, and almost always while his parents were channel surfing through some Lifetime funeral drama-and the class all rises and tucks their plastic chairs into the desk with a finger nail screech and the whole class commences with what Patrick hears as being the HOUR FATHER without first consulting the clock. And Patrick’s eye’s have yet to close all the way-the bespectacled lad to his left has his eyes facing down into his track shoes and the larger boy with a grandma affirming haircut seems to be staring into the ceiling lights cautiously and vaguely moving his lips-the teacher, near the front of the classroom has her eyebrows buckled closed so tight she looks like she is moving a Kidney stone or suffering from a severe dysentery related outbreak of constipation. Everyone’s lips trances into a curve and wriggle out blah’s and syllables and Patrick, not knowing anything about the Hour Father, decides to re-enact the one memorization tip he employed when he was in third grade at Whittear and he forgot the words to the school song, Patrick begins to say the word Banana Banana, over and over again. So that when the rest of the classroom has reached the portion of the prayer which sounds to Patrick like trespassing against someone’s hard earned Daily Bread, Patrick just says the word, Banana, slowly, to himself, Banana-his lips are moving. Bespectacled Boy still looks deep past his kneecaps. The larger boy to his right still seems to be scrutinizing the rafted ceiling light fixture for fear of lint and Patrick begins to smile out loud as he notices that three rows up and two across-located between shoulder pads and perm strands like a jumbled treasure in a word search find, is a blonde lass with slight furls to her hair and cotton cheeks that are slightly blushing as Patrick begins to utter out his Banana Purana even loud enough for the Lutheran God to hear-Banana’s, Banana’s, the thick fingernail tough peel of the Banana-the ithyphallic revelations found in each gummy nibbles-the leaving of clothes and the coming out naked, only to be devoured and recklessly chewed by the blonde girl three rows up-who is now so enthralled by Patrick’s propensity for Banana’s that she is placing her forefinger up near her lips and billowing plosive waves of breath across - Oh-Banana’ Hour Father who art in Banana. Hollow Wed Be thee end thine in due time Banana-Oh! Bannan-na-bedroom Banana slit-lickety splits Banana! Banana me-eat-you Banana the kingdom forever come banana. Oh-A Banana men.

 

            The whole classroom is silent with the exception of Patrick whose eyeballs have peeled up inside the lids and into his imaginary contoured skull as he pictures himself spoon feeding the Blonde girl three rows up carefully dished portions of Banana’s from the leisure deck of the Star Ship Enterprise. The blonde girl is biting down dildo hard into the Banana and laughing into Patrick’s smile as she holds up one that has not yet been peeled, asking him if this reminds him of anyone when he wakes up in the morning. Slowly a shadow of what appears to be a Klingon comes into view and Patrick, the Starship commander, does the only logical thing, offering the disgruntled femme a Banana like groan men offer smokes to one another before space shielded silence whorls into hurricane laughter-the Klingon, obviously appalled, addresses the Starship Captain as a young Man and the mechanic lull and intergalactic tranquility of Starships surfing through endless periods of space at mock speed folds into a classroom with hard lights and pictures of one man who is either Jewish or Hippie-like and Patrick being reproached into a scold, the Kilngon is for some reason white and whipping out questions into Patrick’s shoulder blade. Patrick wonders if every new kid at CLS has been interrogated with the deep epistemiclogical query of who he thinks he is in the first fifteen minutes of class. The whole class continues to laugh and Mrs. Reinhardt asks Patrick to please stay after school (on the first day of class) where he will write the proper version of the Lord’s prayer on the board twenty plus times before he then will ask for forgiveness for what she refers to as “Squatting” and defecating on the Lords prayer. She then slices out her arm near the window in the door way, informing Patrick by not saying anything, in Biblical King James Jargon; There is Thy Door, Don’t Let Thine Door Slam Thee On Thy Ass on Thee way out. Patrick then shrugs and alights, toddles out the door only to turn around and introduce himself briefly to Mrs. Reinhardt, apologizing in the first person to her and identifying himself as Patrick, Patrick Aaron McReynolds as far as he knows the first, one and only and he-over the summer, forgot the Lords Prayer since he was busy monopolizing all of his free play time on a hunger strike in Venezuela, supplicating for the poor peasants and oppressed tyranny that is running rampant in that part of the world these days. Mrs. Brackenhardt motions in a Beaver nose snitch and Patrick is once again allowed to take his seat. Aron Bowman singing come to mister tallyman, asking Mr. tallyman to tally him Banana’s and VonB turns to his left and smiles and besmirched grin of recognition asking Patrick if it wasn’t his house on Downs with the Tree house he got bitched at for surmounting. All of this was two weeks ago and now it is the third Wed in September and VonBehren has been cordially welcomed back into the McReynolds playschool den which looks like the inside of Santa’s used toy chest. Von Behren, now, sitting at a plastic table, multi-colored, and legs shaped like a playschools elephants tusked grin.  The Homework table the Television is off except when it wakes up. Allan is reading very slowly, Patrick scratches his head instead of biting his thumbnail, querying over the problem.  Toys lay splattered on the floor. It looks like Geoffrey the Giraffe, the monikering TOYS R Us Moppet, has just been lethally shot, his intestines strewn onto the carpet, consisting of plastic twists, colorful gadgets, Playtex innards. Sarah, Patrick’s little sister is sipping on a Pepsi and innocuously fondling Duke by placing him between her lips like a thermometer, placing his painted blonde crew cut between her lips and then sucking.  The house is a cracked tea-pot of hospitality. The dining room hints of smoke.  Pictures and gift-exchange memorabilia of Cows linger on the walls. Calendars from three years ago, kept because of their Irish Panoramic-idyllic countryside. A wood cut with rollers slides past. Allan monopolizes most of David’s time by showing him harmless tittles. The parents water bed. The jugs underneath caroling of non-mathematical proofs. The cable wires crawling out from under the walls. The basement. A panel of stairs sloping into what looks like a Dungeon.  Cats lurk to the left and right of David’s eyesight, Helen explaining to the Guest that we call her Momma Kitty because she just frisked into the house one day shortly after we moved in.

 

“No. Before we found out she was pregnant she was just Kitty.”

 

Downstairs the carpet was lifted from a Garbage can three streets over. It still looks sort of new with the exception of the inexplicable half-yellow dribble stain soaked smack dab left of center. A dart board with no darts (Patrick along with former Cooper Street neighbor C.J.-which for some reason stands for Christopher Randall- lost them outside in the tall grass-GI Joes were using them as transportive nuclear entourages). A Garbage Pail sticker stuck onto a mirror. Cat shit piled in the corner. Boxes of Transformers outgrown from three Christmases ago. Kids. Tim ignored the pile of cat waste and reached into the sunken helmet of swerving automotive plastic. He fingers each transformer with dexterity. A nerdy, smart kid rigging the rubbix cube. Bowled across the carpet, in the den of preadolescent desideratum, are silver planets. Small. Smaller than the contacts Von Behren speaks he needs to pool in the lids of his eyes. Smaller than the silver clipping ring in Neltner’s nostril. They are pelting metallic air city. Bee bee’s. And they sting. Next to the package of Transformers, L-shaped metallic objects stretch out. The handle produces a c-shaped trigger, pet-scrotum sized which Patrick fondles picks up and points into the direction of Von Behren’s forehead.

 

BLAM-BLAM-BLAM. He sounds. The barrel is empty. VonBehren witnesses his shadow cringing. Patrick pretends to be blowing streams of invisible cobalt over the nozzle.

 

“Patrick, I’ve heard it’s dangerous to play with those things so carelessly like that.”  Von Behren notes, using his in classroom grownups voice without first having to raise his hand. 

 

“No, if they’re empty, they’re just like toys.” Patrick molests the gun, blowing over the nozzle once again. Sticking the lips of the pistol up to his temples, pantomiming paranoia before feigning declaratives.

 

“Dave, Dave help me. I can’t take it any more.”

 

Click. Click. Click.

 

BLAM!

 

Allan falls down in laughter. Sarah lifts up another piece of metal from the box Marked STUFFED PATS. The ‘P’ in Pat swinging its chin defiantly in the opposite direction, as if reflected in a cracked mirror, meekly, the maladroit lone-standing consonant of Toys R Us.

 

BLAM BLAM. Die. BLAM.  Sarah is all of five fingers years old. Von Behren traded his Lady Jay to Patrick for a week’s supply of Marilyn’s Killer Carb bread and butter.  She emulates her brother’s fascination with classified auxiliary.

 

BLAM!

 

Sarah shoots at Patrick. Von Behren feels oddly out of place.

 

“BLAM. BLAM. BLAM.BLAM.” Patrick cross-fires contra style. 

 

“You’re dead, Blam!”

 

The commonly shared mandate was as follows when brandishing post-toddler auxiliary with guns, loaded or unloaded, you had to pretend you were dead  if you were hit, each of the guns containing caps that make Fourth of July POP POP sounds when clicked hard enough.  Tim uses Patrick Transformers, some of which metamorphes into guns, other rifles. Hale’s contribution contains a mock clutch and needs to be pumped with air before fired.

 

“Got YOU.” Patrick rips. “Die.”

 

All die. Falling down, supinely lying as if soapy chalk outlines had been previously configured for the boys to collapse into. Patrick runs. Counts to twenty. Look up. Outside the light if the sun, the vernal taste of grass, the stench of fertilizer mixed with the aroma of clover baptized by a river of late-summer sun. Sun tan lotion. Amy lies out back. Her body in like glazed cereal, revealing, reeking of coconut lotion. She smells brand new. Like she has just come out of the package at Toys R US.

 

Patrick is hiding behind a fence. Pretending that this is for real.

 

“Von Behren, let’s team up. Just you and me against all those other cunt-cakes out there. Whadya’ say?”

 

“Well,” Von Behren takes a big breath. The heavy scent of grilled charcoal looms heavily three fences down. In front of the house big wheel and bicycle horns are head.

 

“Comon’, just you and me.” Patrick implores, “Here, you push hard, try to reach the fortress in front. And don’t worry; my mom’s not home so no one will bug you about falling down or not.”

 

“And you?” Von Behren presses up his suntan colored glasses, trying not to look at Amy to intently.

 

“I’m running inside real quick. I have plans to bring out a few water balloons and hoist them up to you in the tree fortress. Then we’ll be able to bomb everyone from above.”

 

BLAM!!!

 

“Got you.”

 

“You’re dead.”

 

“Na-uh.”

 

“Ya-huh.”

 

“Whoo-whew, we need to run, here comes Tim.”

 

“You didn’t get me; I was in no Man’s land.”

 

“But…”

 

“Amy, did he get me?”

 

“Sure.”

 

“But Amy!”

 

“Allan, take a chill pill dude. Just count to twenty and you’ll be able to come back to life in like no time at all.”

 

“Well, won, too, tharee, for, fa-ive, sex, sevenate, nine, ten, ohleven….”

 

“Now’s our chance-Allan is out for the count, remember, push hard and you’ll have no trouble. We don’t have much time-let’s book.”

 

 The boys quietly trample into the back yard. Allan muttering out the fifteen number with his hand, as is indicative the rules, slapped across his eyes like he is about to be executed. Patrick scurries for Von Behren to run, behind magazine tinted by sunglasses and coconut moist Amy, The boys heave around, Patrick checking his shoulder. The two boys have never done espionage before. As they jet, Allan slowly unveils his eyelids, stands up and fires.

 

Blam!!!! Blam!!!! Blam!!!

 

AMBUSH!!!!!!

 

            Around the side of the garage-it is rumored that Hale is here, brandishing his thirty dollar UFS endorsed super Soaker which is capable of shooting three hundred plus feet. At Patrick’s birthday party last year, Hale choked the Submarine water Pistol full of Yellow Snow from outside, waiting for the snow to melt and then firing the gun downstairs in the basement, known to the boys a Sector Zero.

 

Blam! Blam! Patrick topples down and begins his count. Von Behren jets inside the Garage where, rumor has it, Warren keeps old memorabilia form Nam-Machete’s and grenades and other priceless war tuned ammunition.  As Patrick rises, Von Behren throws a smoke grenade on No Man’s Driveway, allowing McReynold’s ample time to reconnoiter behind the next door neighbor’s fence. Allan struts in next to an aloof Amy to inquire if she has perhaps seen his loving brother. Patrick cross-fires and Allan is, once again, out for the count. Patrick ducks back into the opening in the bushes. Hale is heard bantering with Tim, who has refused to allow any more Marvel-DC Ninja Turtle cross over in his campaign.  Amy still faces up to the sun, offering her naval as a solar sacrifice, hoping her prayers of sustainable summer tan by late September Homecoming will be answered.

 

“Von Behren, here’s the plan-we’ll see how much of a god damn soldier you truly are.”

 

Von Behren complies by saying a yes, Patrick continues.

 

“Here,” Patrick reaches in his side pocket, whipping out what looks like used Trojans.

 

“Take these water balloons. At the count of three kick it as hard as you can and duck inside the side door. Don’t worry. I’ll cover you. Allan is still somewhat out of the count. Rush inside the Kitchen and fill up the water grenades-also-I was saving this for later-I have a few firecrackers in my room, located between my bed mattress (Here Patrick also ushers out a strict caveat not to let VonBehren flip through the folder where his extremely personal adult literature is stowed, away from parental probing). Amy has a lighter upstairs beneath her bed where she keeps an ashtray my parents don’t know about. I’ll counter cross fire and duck beneath the bushes-. If I’ve estimated correctly, which of course when it comes down to juvenile war I’m damn never wrong Tim, Hale and Allan will have, placed a sort of barricade around the house. At my signal slowly open up the window, fire up the black cats and toss them below-don’t worry-they should explode in midair, coercing Tim, Allan and Hale to rush into the back yard, where of course, death at the hands of my friendly nozzle awaits them.”

 

VonBehren adheres to Patrick’s mandates willingly-the lashes on his eyes seldom blinking. Patrick slaps VonBehren hard on the shoulder and points to his lips, signaling tranquility. From not too far a distance Tim is heard chiding David Hale with DC terms-telling him that he moves with all the dexterity of a Nintendo PAUSE button.  That Juggernaut’s agility rivals that of a Zoo elephant slowly releasing his bowels. Patrick places a candy cigarette into the side corner of his lips frisks his pocket before he realizes that the aforementioned lighter is upstairs where he instructed VonBehren it would be.

 

“Once the counter attack transpires I’ll rush ‘em from behind shooting all three at once. As soon as they’re down, plop the water balloons on top of their heads-it’ll be a riot and of course, Patrick-the better-than-you-when-it-comes-to-damn-near-everything-ass-fucker, will Win once again.”  Patrick places his thumb onto the tip of his nose and makes a rhinoceros thorn gesture in the directions of his adversaries.

 

The alleyway and a generous portion of the Drive is titled NO Man’s LAND or SWITZERLAND-meaning that one can get shot at with a fusillade full of BLAMs but, because of the designated neutrality, one will not have to fall down and grope his or her chest and count to twenty out loud, holding up repeated digits with one hand while simultaneously blinding oneself with the other. The object of the game is to have the opposition down at the same time, counting to twenty while at least one of your men still stands. Normally the man still standing is allowed to severely wedgies his moribund opponents before deeming himself Victory of the known universe as is and balling his fists and torso into  a Rocky V. Allan uses two old fashion Sly six-shooters that snap caps for affect-the pistols were Warrens from a heavily Bonanza bathed childhood.  Tim utilizes the SHOCKWAVE Transformer as a rifle and Hale slugs two Cruise ship size SUPER SOAKERS, one of which he (he-he) discreetly urinated in and plans on dousing Tim with while in Switzerland if Tim makes one more ill-time remark about Hale having to move his slow non-Republican party emblem but still elephantine ass. Patrick packs two unloaded BB Guns shaped like Mac tens in each palm with a tenacious grip.  VonBehren uses a plastic water pistol shaped like an alligator. He has a bandana twist-tied around the top of his head. Von Behren also keeps an ersatz rifle choked in the other hand-a rifle he can use as either a clutch or club if the case needs be. Patrick keeps a rubber knife strapped near his shin, under his knee-length stripped athletic socks. He also keeps (just in case) an additional Blank BB gun duck taped underneath his fruit-of-a-looms, in case, while he is down, Tim or Allan or Hale may commandeer his instruments of torture.

 

 Patrick can hear Tim telling Allan a joke with the Punch line alluding to ICKY-WICKY and somebody else’s bent over ass. For being a full fledged right-wing conservative who anticipates the second coming and apocalyptic rapture like late night soft-core cable, Tim dishes out more jokes filled with shit than a Dumped over State Fair port-a-pottie. His laugh being more like a jittering sneeze that gets caught in a whirlwind of hiccups and elbow taps directed near the receiver’s ribcage as he incessantly inquires if the reciprocal earlobes did, in fact, get it.  Tim’s favorite anecdotal comic routine involves a middle-age semi-affluent and slightly balding Business man who is having difficulty getting aroused when he is in front of the opposite sex, namely because of commitment matters which Tim will tell you personally is a whole another can of worms in and of itself (a story which Tim vehemently insists, by the way, is non-autobiographical). The middle-aged slightly balding Business man decides-while aptly on a trip to the Netherlands to enter a Windmill shaped Hash bar and frequent the red light district and release some of  his pent up sexual frustration and hard earned Guilders on a Prostitute or, as he refers to it, as a Mistress in Moaning. Only two problems avail themselves-the first being that the middle-aged slightly balding Business man doesn’t speak a lick of Dutch with the exception of imported Beers (his Fodor’s DOUBLE DUTCH tour book being generously used for hash paper)-the second being that he somehow has to carefully explain to the Dutch Madame (whom, when Tim tells and retells this narrative almost always manages to resemble a mustached Hale in bulk with flimsy lingerie and a Hot pink fez)  that he would like the room to be pitch dark so that he can’t see the girl or even the light on his cigarette afterwards… whatsoever and he can blow his load in the presence of total anonymity-giving himself closure to the deed.

 

            “The Madame is understandably befuddled and linguistically addled and the middle-age slightly balding Business man ends up in the second floor linen closet hardcore fucking what feels like Japanese. The whole Time the Mistress calling out one monotonous and hideous idiom of PUSHYHONDA-which of course the solicitor immediately thinks she is inquiring about what kind of automobile he drives until she hammers out the declaration once again. PUSHYHONDA! PUSHYHONDA! Which is all the oriental prostitute repeats over and over again throughout the discourse of the evening. After about fifteen minutes of the pelting PUSHYHONDA the middle-aged slightly balding businessman naturally intuits that she wants him to push harder so naturally he once again feels self-conscious although he continues to hammer away.

 

“PUSHYHONDA.”

 

“I’m pushin’ lady. I’m pushin’ as hard as I can!”

 

“PUSHYHONDA! PUSHYHONDA!”

 

“I’m Pushin’. I’m pushing as hard as I can!”

 

“Three hours later, still feeling seminally disgruntled the Middle-age business man returns back to his hotel, fires up a doob and crashes, waking up the next day just in time to catch his KLM flight back home to the states.”

 

Tim always pauses in the middle of the joke for affect and then continues on with his nasal snuffed narrative after he looks into the skeptical nonplussed reflection on the receiver’s countenance.

 

About three weeks after that-the middle age-slightly balding businessman finds himself back in the states on a golf outing with his boss who by happenstance is also of Oriental descent. The boss is busy bogeying and paring and using all these golf terminology which the middle-age slightly-balding business man, who personally detests  cooperate golf outings, has no clue what he is saying, responding to his boss with a snide laugh and compliment every time the ball falls into the hole. Finally, near the end of the golf course the boss tee’s off and misfires and the ball forms an upward ellipse and rainbows backwards plummeting into the previous hole from the preceding round and the Boss stares into his client and shouts out a word invectively; PUSHYHONDA.

 

The middle-age slightly balding broker inquires to his boss what the word PUSHYHONDA means, as the boss just turns and spit and nearly chokes on an ice cube from his single Malt as he replies.

 

“Wrong hole.”

 

“Ready?” Patrick looks at VonBehren. Amy smells sun soaked and brand new. Tim’s voice is heard waning, laughing. Allan breaks out in laughter for five minutes before turning into Tim Flanagan’s earlobe and admitting that he doesn’t get it. Hale’s voice is also carried, asking his companions to please, for chrisakes, pipe down people. Patrick rushes near the neighbor’s fence, shouting out accolades and Blams. There is motion. Von Behren hauls ass, past a reticent serious sunglassed and sun worshiping Amy, turning a sharp left, skipping through a generous portion of NO MAN’s land and successfully sleuthing inside the side door. He can hear one of Allan’s caps fire out a snap. Sarah has apparently joined Patrick who is just a little peeved. Tim yells out that somebody was shot and then calls Hale Benedict fucking Arnold. VonBehren has now successfully flown through the kitchen to the bathroom-filling up three water balloons the size of Lillian Wiltz. He hears Hale tell a count to twenty telling Tim that, to the best of his personal erudition, Benedict Arnold was never struck down with a urine pistol. He-he. Von Behren  then hears Tim talk about the second coming before he then shoots up the second floor staircase to and into the Attic, locating the firecrackers and pillaging under Amy’s bed, past  torn condom wrappers and bundles of tampax. Her window is a tad ajar and looks like a chin of someone with uppity British origin. He peeks into the backyard fingering the still unlit firecrackers like a dead bird. Amy has turned and is lying on top of the sun chair with both of her butt cheeks facing Von Behren. Slowly, Von witnesses Amy groan and Buddha ohm as if consuming precious snippets from Fannie May. Amy wiggles her back, the joints of her elbows popping as she unhooks the strap to her top, leaving VonBehren with an aerial optic purview of unbridled flesh. Her back is smooth with a white equator slashed midway between the mounds of her ass and the precipice of her neck. VonBehren can feel an erection beginning to sprout. He also hears Hale’s voice. Hale is obviously on the stage left side of the house, grousing with Tim over what the proper definition of maturity is. For some reason when Tim says the word ‘Mature’ it sounds less like a grown up and more like a farm fertilizer. The lighter leaves a callous on Von Behren’s thumb as he presses down and the wicks alight. With one hand over the lobes of his ear Von Behren tosses the firecrackers out of the window and waits for the pending fracas. He can hear the incendiary shock and shuffle and Tim rushing out first, asking what the fuck that was and then thinking that the second coming of Christ has in fact arrived, immediately genuflecting to his knees and raising his hands up North, praying that the Lord God all mighty, the one who is and still to come, would take him right now form this heathen plateau fraught with sinners and hypocrites. Allan and Hale linger close by and Patrick jumps out seemingly from nowhere-trigger-happy and thirsty for pretend blood. Amy stands up with both palms cupped over her bosom asking the boys what in god’s name is happening. Three pretend shots soar into Tim and Hale-who fake dead. A fidget and whistle is behind Patrick and without looking back Patrick fires at Allan fires from behind and Patrick flies down and begins his countdown to life. Amy hops up and down and when she realizes all the boys have their hands blind folding their vision and holding up numbers-she quickly, unaware that any eyes are on her, removes her palms and fishes around the lawn chair for her bikini top. Von Behren knows that Patrick is counting on him to topple the adversaries with aquatic ammunition. From above Amy is bare and angelic.  Patrick begins counting more and more loudly-covertly signaling to Von Behren. Tim is counting fast going from eleven to seventeen in two seconds. Just as Amy shakes her back and refastens, uttering out how hard it is to be a grown woman in a household of snotty-nosed urchins, Tim Pops up-his nozzle next to Patrick’s temple-a look of retribution sewn on his face.  As Amy grabs her towel Von Behren knows that his moment has in fact arrived. Slowly he hoists the first balloon near his shin and, with a shot putters mental acumen, heaves it below, down on top, hitting the GM first.