LOVE, crumbsroom

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Posted by Jinnistan
9/06/2022 9:43 pm
#81

Interesting tidbit from a recent Jennifer Lawrence interview:

She and husband Cooke Maroney welcomed a boy, Cy — whom she revealed is named after Cy Twombly — in February.


 
Posted by crumbsroom
9/07/2022 4:49 pm
#82

Jinnistan wrote:

Interesting tidbit from a recent Jennifer Lawrence interview:

She and husband Cooke Maroney welcomed a boy, Cy — whom she revealed is named after Cy Twombly — in February.

Maybe she's reading this thread!

Come on Jennifer, chime in and let us know what you think of that cuntpile over at movieforums!

 
Posted by Jinnistan
9/07/2022 10:26 pm
#83

crumbsroom wrote:

Maybe she's reading this thread!

Come on Jennifer, chime in and let us know what you think of that cuntpile over at movieforums!

The kid was born in February.  How do we know you weren't thinking of Twombly after reading her etsy blog?


 
Posted by crumbsroom
9/07/2022 10:28 pm
#84

5: No Friend Resurrection 

I don’t know how long I had been dead but eventually got up to find where everyone else had gone. The basement. All of them on a couch smoking cigarettes and looking at me like they’d never seen me before. As I came down the stairs.  Smoke coming out of their noses.

I didn't stay long.  Walked back up those stairs and they were already talking about something else before I got to the top. Saying words I couldn't hear. I remember the sound of that couch.

I knew they wouldn’t have me back. I turned down Garrett's street. Walked down it thinking about even Little Mikey with a cigarette in his mouth. It didn’t seem right. Just kept walking. Started laughing when I saw how nice his father’s lawn was starting to look again.. 

 
Posted by crumbsroom
9/08/2022 2:54 pm
#85

HARDLY MEAN

Part 1: An Unsatisfactory Introduction to Bullying 


There were three Meanies. One more than me and Garrett. Made sure to outnumber us. Wouldn’t have even seen them otherwise. Weren’t nearly mean enough for bullies. Their cheeks pink from the cold. Just as miserable as we were in our snow wet sneakers. Could feel them shivering as they held us down in the frozen tundra of our schoolyard. Already bored and just waiting until they let us up. 

Andre Canoe would have been better. He had the name and the face to be a great one. But he never once hit me and threw me into the grass. Only sometimes stuck his face real close to mine and smiled long enough for me to count his freckles. Or that one time just before he moved away. Chasing me from school when he saw my pants were filled with piss. Running from him so slowly in my heavy jeans. Not nearly as fast as he deserved. 

Sometimes the Meanies would catch Garrett when I wasn’t around, and they’d be holding his arms and swinging him around. But never kicking him, as I would have if I was a bully. An absolute waste. Nothing to be scared of. Even I could put a stop to it. Stand up to them. I’d been hit by worse and hung off balconies and liked when things fell on my head and blood ran into my eyes. What did I care? It was almost funny as I took Garrett's place being dangled. Watched as he ran away from me. Screaming. As if anything had happened to me or him at all.  

 
Posted by crumbsroom
9/09/2022 12:11 pm
#86

HARDLY MEAN

Part 2: A Shallow Heart Cannot Be Safe, Nor Twirled and Eaten Like a Cob of Corn
 

Garrett’s cousin was a millionaire. He pointed him out to me at recess. He’d pointed at his house before too. Roman columns out front. When we played with him one time, he came out to meet us on the sidewalk. Didn’t come out for very long. Had a suitcase full of toy cars and could pack it up quick and walk away before Garrett could change his mind that we were actually a lot of fun. That we knew how to play cars properly. That I knew there were rules and I wasn’t an animal who wanted to see how far I could throw them. Or put them out in the street and watch real cars flatten them into the asphalt. 

His name was Josh. I always knew what he got every Christmas. He only knew that I rode on a bus with my grandmother. We both had bad haircuts but never talked about it. He almost never talked at all. 

He was the first one me and Garrett turned on as we roamed the schoolyard at recess. When the Meanies had better things to do. Something soured between us and him. Convinced a wrong had been done, even though I was unsure what. Somehow snuck a plastic bag full of sharp things to school one day without being seen. Cutting through the bottom as I walked. The edges of meat cleavers and butcher's knives making it hard to carry as the bottom tore out of it.  

Garrett disapproved of his cousin's new friend. Chris P. Couldn’t pronounce his last name. Wore a jacket that was an ugly mustard yellow. Kept calling him poor. It was him I held up against the brick wall of the school after class. Pressing the sharp end of a corn cob holder against his heart. Against his ugly jacket. The rest of my better weapons slung around my wrist, breaking through plastic, about to clatter to the ground. 

“Stick it in him”, Garrett kept urging. “Stick him. Stick him” 

He didn’t plead for his life. Just stared at the sharp thing I was pricking him with. My hand growing greasy on the decorative plastic corncob I clenched inside. Both of us uncertain how dangerous such a thing was. How deep his heart was hidden inside of him. Sometimes both of us seemed about to laugh. But both keeping very still, just in case. He had seen my eyes and knew I hadn’t yet decided what I should do. I didn’t want to be a disappointment. It seemed wrong not to do something. But I was scared of blood. Knew it was sticky. Would have to put my weapon back in my grandmother’s kitchen drawer at the end of the day, and if it could reach his heart, I’d never get it clean. 

Garrett stopped talking and waited to see what I’d do. His millionaire cousin said nothing to help out, even though I’m certain the pockets of his shorts were bulging with cash. Too busy standing there trying to keep the suitcase full of toy cars he carried everywhere from opening and spilling everything at his feet.  

If it hadn't been for the teacher who suddenly appeared from inside, maybe no one would have been rescued. Miss Sparks, tall and friendly, but carrying the bamboo gardening pole I had also brought with me to school today but had forgotten inside. Raising it above her head like she might him me. Cracking it over her knee.

It split and two and we all scattered at the sound. The millionaire and his poor friend off to some high-ceilinged bedroom where they could play cars with a new life. Stopping at imaginary street signs. Parallel parking. Being gentlemen in their tiny Mustangs and Ferrari's, while me and Garrett shuffled down the street not speaking at all. Finding nothing good with what we had to play with. Most of it already having fallen out of the bag as we’d run away. 

 
Posted by crumbsroom
9/13/2022 11:52 am
#87

HARDLY MEAN

3: The Comeuppance of Fart-Face

My father is on the front lawn in boxing gloves. Staggering side to side as the sunlight tries to press him down. Wobbling. Or maybe dancing. Connecting with a stupid face no one likes. A boy down the street who just moved here and thinks I should be friends with him. Knocking his head backwards over and over. A rhythmic thump we all want to dance to as we watch my father burping and smiling and punching. The sun making his shadow long and mean on the grass. The boy nearly about to fall over and my father just hitting faster and harder. 

Blood has rushed up into Derek’s head. Nearly risen into his blonde nearly white hair making it seem pink. Can see the bright scarlet of his scalp shining through it. He’s exhausted. Breathless. His arms slowly being weighed down by the heaviness of the boxing gloves he is wearing. That he borrowed from me. No longer looking so eager to fight my father. No longer calling him a chicken. Looking around to see if his mother is running down the road to rescue him as sweat runs into his eyes. As sweat is punched off his face by my father.  

But no one is coming for him. Not like when I had seen the shape of his mother hurrying towards me as I kicked her son in the stomach on my driveway. And kicked him and kicked him. Catching him and throwing him into the snow after he hit me over the head with a block of ice. Sneaking up on me while my back was turned. His long skinny face and beady eyes now squirming at my feet. Kicking until his mother got her hands on my jacket and started to shake me. Her fingernails in my throat.  Yanking on my ears. Pushing me down into the snow before running away with this awful boy no one likes.  

His father showed up on our porch one summer night. Moths landing on his head. Yelling that I was a bully. That I kicked his son in the balls. That I beat up his daughter too. That I was rotten to the core. And I could only sit there and listen to his lies from the other room. Think of the scrunched up look on Dereks face the day before. After Garrett suddenly drove his knee into his crotch. To stop him from following us. From talking about how we were all so boring and stupid. Cutting him off quick as his face went bright red. And me almost laughing. Almost feeling sorry for him as tears came.  

But I hadn’t done it. It wasn’t me. Even if his father was here on our porch, it was only because no one ever knew where Garrett lived.  I was easier to find. People saw me even when I didn’t want them to. 

And now my father was getting to hit Derek. Over and over. After warning me never to play with him again. Even though I told him I didn't want to anyways. The kid was always just standing near us. Always with that expression on his face.  That we wanted to get away from. Looking in a way that made me suspect he was pushing out a fart. And us always trying to get away from him before the smell of it lowered down the leg of his sweatpants. Escaped into the fresh air we were trying to have a proper childhood in. Ruining everything as he told us the kids in his old neighborhood were so much better. Even when he didn’t smell of farts, he smelled of farts. 

After the fight, we cheered as my father was victorious. As he raised his arms above his head. And Derek screamed for his mother. Or his father. Or anyone who could come and drag him off of our lawn to safety. His scrunched-up face stained with grass and the flakes of red leather from the cracked and decomposing boxing gloves I’d bought only that day.  A glorious twenty five cents at a neighbours garage sale. Just about killed Derek. And we finally all got to laugh and feel good about everything and realize summer was beautiful again. 

4: The Nice Meanie 

The Meanies weren’t always so mean. There was a nice one who hardly talked to them. Who seemed to live near the trees and rocks just off school property. Just standing in a green hooded sweatshirt. Watching them twist us in the snow. Never hit us. Only waited for the beating to be over and then would ask us if we were alright. Tell us he wanted to be a cop when he grew up.  

“I want to be a loaf of bread”, Garrett told him.  

I would stay silent because I didn’t know anything about these things. 

I suspect he was the one who told them to be good to us that day they came while we were tobogganing. He wasn’t there but his influence was felt. They didn’t steal our sleds as we thought they might. Instead, they rode with us. Cleared a path down the hill so we could slide out into the street because they thought it was more fun that way. And it was, especially when car horns blared. Swerved in the slush to miss hitting us. 

One time when the other Meanies weren’t around, the Nice Meanie walked me home from school. We talked and he told me again how he wanted to be a cop. That he wanted to get his ear pierced even though he was a boy. I noticed he had a mean face. Had dark hair that hung into his eyes, unlike the other Meanies who were all blonde with white teeth.  

It was snowing. Or maybe it wasn't. There were no cars on my street. Suddenly saw his teeth were rotten. He nearly killed me in a snowbank. 

I’m sure lunch that day was tomato soup. I would have crumbled crackers into it.  

Last edited by crumbsroom (9/13/2022 12:27 pm)

 
Posted by crumbsroom
9/15/2022 2:40 pm
#88

FUNK AND WAGNALLS 

They would come in all sizes. Some I could scoop out from shallow water with the palm of my hand. Cupped and skimming the surface. Suddenly full of seahorses.  

Others might need piano boxes. Too big for our car and strapped to the roof. My grandfather wanting to know what it was for. And me in the backseat refusing to answer. Excited to get trapping up in cottage country. Didn’t need discouragement.  

I would sneak out into the wilderness when no one was looking. They wouldn’t see me for days. Settling into the brush for many patient nights of waiting. Keeping nails between my teeth so I wouldn’t lose them in my pockets. Prepared at any moment to hammer the enormous wooden box shut. As soon as some growling beast wandered inside. Something for Peter Limbladt to keep up in his house above the stinky cheese store. A mountain lion. He was very clear what he wanted and we didn’t ask his mother for permission.  

I’d been studying my Funk and Wagnall’s. An old set of animal encyclopedia’s next to my bed that I’d lay on the carpet with first thing in the morning and last thing at night. Would need to learn all their names so I’d know what to call out when looking for them. I already had so many to track and capture before I’d even sat down to decide which ones I wanted for myself.As usual I was completely selfless. Made sure I brought my Funk and Wagnalls’ to kids I knew on the street so they could pick first. Told them to point at what they wanted me to bring back for them.  

They pointed at all sorts of things. Asked me if it was too much. Maybe they should just ask for a squirrel or a chipmunk or something easily lured with peanuts. But I promised them anything was possible. I was good with animals. My cats liked me. They could ask for anything. Anything but the Great White on page 36 in volume 12. 

“Even I have limits” 

Of course, I already knew there wouldn’t be room in the car on the way back. This was going to be a successful trip and I wouldn’t let them go once I caught them. Didn’t know what I’d tell my grandparents though. When they saw how good a trapper I had been. Not nearly enough seats in the car. They would complain and it would start an argument. 

I already knew I’d tell my grandmother to get up on the roof. If she had a problem with it, that’s where she could go. We’d strap her down to keep her safe. Grandpa too if he started up.I’d let the penguins drive the car. Piglets working the gas and breaks. A peacock for our hood ornament. And the sound of my grandparents heads above us, bouncing up and down on those winding country roads the whole way home.

 
Posted by crumbsroom
9/17/2022 5:05 pm
#89

KENNETH'S HANDS

Part 1: Interlude Before a Haircut (and hopefully a bath)


Death to haircuts. To soapy baths. To anything that got hands touching this thing I decided did not exist. Any hands. Not even my own fingers so much as brushing against me. To feel me still there when I knew I wasn’t caused nothing but distress. If it wasn’t me, what could I possibly be touching. 

Every night, laying in bed and wondering where my bed could possibly be. Somewhere between the beginning of time, that had no beginning. And its end, which would never ever end. And me somewhere in the middle with covers pulled up to my neck. Feeling the beat of my heart whenever I rolled onto my wrong side mistakenly. A steady thumping coming from the center of this black hole of nothingness I had become. Turning onto my other side before I had time to hear its sound growing fainter and fainter. As I began to see the entire universe expanding in the dark bedroom. Until I vanished completely. Nothing left of me but these thoughts that kept me thinking and awake and aware that I wasn’t thinking anything at all. 

 
Posted by crumbsroom
9/18/2022 12:30 pm
#90

Part 2: Barber Fear

Kenneth’s hands were no different, after all. Pushing my head around. Dunking it in a sink. Cutting off what he shouldn’t.  Spreading my awful hair and looking into my scalp. Making faces over what had grown there. Whatever got itself caught in such an enormous amount of stickiness.  

My hair had grown everywhere. Wouldn’t go to the barbershop anymore. Just stopped walking when I knew that was where we were going. Wouldn’t let Nino or Orlando get their hands on me. No longer would I wait for my turn with all the grandpa’s. Sit there pretending not to see all the nudie magazines stacked next to the chairs we sat in.  Waiting for either Nino or Orlando. Not that it made any difference which one. Both of them with giant hands that looked heavy. Big enough to cover my whole face if they ever chose to. The worst kind for being touched by. And I could only just sit there as their thick fingers got deep into my hair. Trapped beneath this barber’s cape they tightened around my throat. At their mercy. Getting what all the old men asked for no matter what I said. The kind of haircut I could not get rid of. That wouldn’t move even when I got it wet.  

Never again. I'd stop walking there. Couldn't even drag me. I’d grab at trees. And so my hair grew. And grew and grew and grew. And my grandparents noticed every new inch. Seemed to almost hear it growing from the other room. 

It was in desperation my grandmother found Kenneth. Had seen him through a window cutting someone else’s hair. She made sure to call him a hairstylist when telling me about him. As if the word barber might frighten me away. And I might even have been happy when I saw that he was young. That his hands were slender. That they seemed frightened to touch me.  

All of which seemed good. Better than being forever at the mercy of old barber hands. In particular, those meaty ones of Nuno and Orlando. That were fearless and would go everywhere. That couldn’t be escaped from. But I could see it would be different with Kenneth. His hands appeared pensive and light. You could tell at just a glance and this put me at ease. 

Or at least until I saw the look in his eyes. Looking for escape as his fingertips neared me that first time. Could see his reflection in the mirror in front of me, even as he stood behind. Could see how he seemed unable to move. As if he too was trapped beneath this barber’s cape. And as I felt the slow pressure of hands that didn’t want to touch me, slowly slipping into my hair, I realized how every hand was just as awful as the last. Reminding me I was still here. Alive and in the hands of a hairstylist. Who might as well have been a barber. Reminding me my hair was about to be cut. And that they were going to do it all wrong because they wanted me out of their chair as quickly as possible.

Then it would be over and my grandmother would pay and we would leave. And me, still a giant void of nothing, but now with a mullet. And this old woman saying what a nice job he had done, even though I’m sure even she didn’t believe that. The two of us walking home as my hair already slowly began to grow back. My grandmother looking down at me, as if she could almost hear it. And me grabbing it. Hoping to strangle it. Knowing there was no use in running.

 
Posted by crumbsroom
9/18/2022 2:45 pm
#91

Part 3: Mostly Soup 

My grandmother would run my baths. Then drain them after they’d grown cold. Unable to find me and smart enough to know I wasn’t coming out.  

I told myself I couldn’t trust the water. No telling when it might dissolve me. Not liking how it grew muddy when I was sitting in it. Once the dirt was gone, maybe only bones would be left. 

She once was able to trick me into it. Every few days, get me to clean myself. Or at least have soap rubbed on me by someone else. Wincing and pulling away as if the water was made of fire. The soapy lather, gasoline. 

But now I knew I was better off in the closet. Or under the stairs. Or any place where soapy hands wouldn’t try to get a hold of me. Grab my skinny, slippery arms. Pick at my blackened knees. 

A sweet soupy smell began to rise in my sweat. Until I could nearly levitate inside the stink of it. Thick and clinging to my skin. That I would now need a hundred baths to remove. A hundred baths already drained and cold and unmuddied by my presence.  

People kept their distance. Kenneth disappeared. My grandmother kept calling and they wouldn’t tell her where he went.  

My hair grew longer than ever. Glistening like squid ink. Approachable to no one but death itself. 

 
Posted by crumbsroom
9/23/2022 2:25 am
#92




Blurf. Barf.

Last edited by crumbsroom (9/23/2022 2:25 am)

 
Posted by crumbsroom
9/23/2022 3:36 pm
#93

Part 5: Salon Violence 

My grandmother called all around town. With a voice that sounded like it was being surrounded by something dangerous. Hair everywhere, she said. Nearly screaming how it was coming out of her grandson’s head. At a tremendous speed. Fast enough to make one sick. No one to cut it. 

She needed to know where Kenneth was. No one else could help. I kept telling her I wanted it long. To get off the phone. To leave these poor girls alone.  

It took her weeks but she eventually found him. He had snuck out of town. Cowering and wounded at the back of a  woman’s hair salon. A tiny place in a dingy strip mall. Hidden at its shadowy end. His chair the furthest from the door, where they usually served the fat and ugly women. Getting dragged towards him. Probably by my hair. Hair that Kenneth would soon make short on top and long on the bottom. That my grandmother would pretend she was pleased about. That I would cry in the car over. 

Before he even saw us, my grandmother started with the small talk. Jokes about how he was a hard man to find. She laughed and he looked in our direction. I could see he recognized the hair before he even met my eyes. Saw the despair as he reached for his scissors. Pointed them at us as if he was willing to use them.  

They were shining. But they wouldn't be for long.  

 
Posted by crumbsroom
9/27/2022 2:46 pm
#94

EGGROLL LATIN 


It’s hard to trace the genesis of the dialect. When asked, no one from the family seems to know where it came from. Not even those who spoke it fluently. Mixing it in with their English to disorienting effects. Possibly more of a speech impediment than a language. A kind of stutter passed down through generations. 

My father suspects it began in their kitchen. Always remembers them speaking it most of all after ordering Chinese. Food they would always call Cheginky. Which was also what they’d call the man who delivered it to them. Then laugh and giggle and stuff eggrolls in their mouth. Laugh at the way he looked when they didn’t tip him. Try and poke each other in the eye with the chopsticks they never used. Crack their fortune cookies and read them very seriously.  

They called the language Pig Latin even though it wasn’t. My father said he could make out some of the words, but that when they all talked like that at once, it could get weird. Could only nod his head and pretend he wasn’t getting embarrassed at the strange sounds they were making as they ate and talked amongst each other about how they now had no more money and wouldn’t have anything to eat for at least another week. 

“Begack to egeating tegoilet paper”, they would laugh and look sad and eat fried rice with their hands. 

“Feguck”, they’d groan in unison. Eating slower. Hoping they would have some left over for tomorrow but knowing they probably wouldn’t 



I seemed to have been born understanding this dialect. I began noticing them speaking it on buses. Most of the time when brown or black people would sit across from us. My mother and cousins leaning over to whisper to me in their mutant tongue. A kind of hiss I could easily decipher. Knowing exactly what they were saying. That I should never repeat it in English. Noticing we were being watched. That everyone hated us and couldn’t wait until we got off the bus. 

Even after years of being raised by my grandmother, I found I still knew how to speak it. And when visiting my mother, her face would light up whenever I didn’t ask her to translate what she’d just said back into English. That I had heard it well enough the first time. 

“I can’t believe it”, she’d say, clapping her hands.  “You really are one of us. He’s really one of us” 

And all my cousins, Chegeryl and Michegelle and Tregoy and Tegammy, would slowly begin to clap along with her.  

 
Posted by crumbsroom
9/30/2022 12:04 pm
#95

TENNIS BALL HEAD 

I told my grandmother they called him Tennis Ball Head. Like the kind a dog might gnaw upon. All the fuzz worn away from chewing. A scar looping across the top of his scabbed skull like the seam on a tennis ball. That seemed to glow with blood whenever he drank his whiskey.  

I think she imagined a soft thing. Something you could squeeze with your fingers and make a dent. Let it go and have it pop back into shape. But when she finally met the father of my mother, she kept her fingers to themselves. No curiosity to find out how soft it really was. Warned away by a scowl which showed his teeth. Like shattered marbles. Discolored and almost translucent if not for the angry nerve endings throbbing inside. His skin a strangled color. Bright red as if an extra signal to keep away.  

She knew he lived out in the woods but was surprised I had been there. At all the things I had seen. The Indian who jumped into the campfire and how my uncle's laughed and spit beer on him to stop him from burning. A man with no hair or eyebrows living in a trailer filled with gravel. The sound of a dogs leg breaking. And a hiding spot up a ladder. In a barn. A place to put me and my cousins when my mother and her sisters left for the night. Where she said he couldn’t find us. Telling us to stay there until she got back. Even if he started calling our names. 

“And then I think it caught on fire”, I told her. Only barely remembering how my mother came rushing home to rescue me in the middle of the night. Crying and telling me she was sorry for leaving me. A great bright light rising from the straw I had been buried in before she lifted me up and ran out into the woods. Unsure where the rest of my cousins had gone to. 

“What do you mean a fire”, my grandmother asked. Softly. Beginning to undress me for bed. And me suddenly not knowing what to do other than to start screaming and screaming until she took her hands off of me. 

 
Posted by crumbsroom
10/01/2022 4:55 pm
#96

DENNY GETS THE HOT HAMBURGER 

Part 1: Floor Politics 


Six brother and six sisters. No one could count so it was sometimes hard to remember who was oldest. It had been Bobby before he ran away. But without a single photograph of him, that hardly mattered anymore. Maybe it was Denny. He would have been the tallest if he hadn’t been squished down to the size he was. Thick and meaty and mean looking but always smiling. And always on the floor in front of the television. Where the eldest was meant to be. 

Denny lived on the carpet. Spread out like a king in his socks. Head resting on his fist and staring at the television. Unbothered by the entire world. Unbothered by the knocking on the door from the people who gave him the television. Telling everyone to say he wasn’t home. Never moving. Never changing the channel. Only luxuriating in the comfort of the floor. 

He would live on the carpet until middle age. And then a little longer still. Until he was fifty. Then sixty. Then seventy when his hobo beard finally came in. Immediately going grey. His eyebrows too. 

There was a time when you’d always have to look for him somewhere down by your feet. Make sure he wasn’t tripped over. First at his mother’s apartment. And when she died, at his own place. Who no one visited anyways.  

But there was never any doubt he was always on the floor. Even when no one was looking. And when no one looked for so long, he couldn’t help but disappear.  

There was no telling how long he had been gone when his brother Gordy finally started to look for him. Taking the bus around town. Looking out the window for a long grey beard in a city of long grey beards. Looking for a floor to look down on. But only seeing streets and grass everywhere. And not a single television for poor Denny to look up at.  

 
Posted by crumbsroom
10/06/2022 6:02 pm
#97

Part 2: Denny The Babysitter  

The carpet. No place for outlaws. Crumbs stuck to elbows. Balling up socks for a pillow. A stain stuck like a shadow growing beneath a body that was comfortable enough.  

No crimes for Denny down there. Content to just be.  Sometimes grabbing legs of those that stepped over him. Maybe howling at the ceiling when they tried to pull away. But always staying well within the law. A simple life. Barely moving.  

It’s possible he once stole a mound of ground beef. Something he took from Tennis Ball Head while his brothers stole a suitcase full of dimes. Stuffed his pockets full of it. Something to eat later that would go with all the beer. That, when he was alone, he’d start to cook in the middle of the night. Very hungry. That he was looking forward to and that he would become terribly sad about when a terrible stink was kicked up in the frying pan.  

Old old meat. Turning grey in yellow grease. Even bugs in the oven dying from the stench. Not even Denny could eat it. He could only return to the carpet with his stomach grumbling. Knocking over a bottle. The stain growing larger. 

He was never going anywhere. Easy enough to find when you needed him. 

 
Posted by crumbsroom
10/10/2022 11:35 pm
#98

Part 3: Class 

Denny had class. Raised a pinky when he drank your beer. Could even count the empty bottles and know when some were missing. When you’d hidden some from him. But he wasn’t going anywhere. Him and his pinky could sit and wait in the kitchen all night.

Not like his brothers with all their ideas. Always going out the door once it got dark. Sometimes coming back in with suitcases filled with dimes. Pants in tatters. Handfuls of losing lottery tickets. Assurances that they would shoot that Indian in the face next time.  

But never any of that hot hamburger Denny craved. So he’d just stay on the carpet and let Terry and Gordy count their change. He was comfortable. And full of farts. And life was good.  

 
Posted by crumbsroom
10/11/2022 1:17 am
#99

Part 4: Denny Nothing

You could do a lot of babysitting from the floor. If you let the kids watch what they wanted to on the television, they didn’t go very far. Joanne would give him a six pack before leaving. Michelle and Troy and sometimes other kids would sit and fidget on the couch while Denny lay there. Always smiling. 

Denny’s youngest brother was Gary and just like the others he had ideas too. But they were the kind that kept him inside. Almost as much as Denny and his no ideas.  

Gary could barely grow a beard. Was tiny. Just fourteen. Would sit on the other side of the house, wondering a long time over how to set the hands of the kid next door on fire. Collecting bits of rope.

Downstairs Denny raised his pinky. Spilt beer on his face. All over the carpet. 

 
Posted by Jinnistan
10/11/2022 7:05 am
#100

Fitting 2000th post ^^^^


 


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