Clark 22
Paul Dunk
It was 2 a.m. and darkness rushed by outside the Clark 22’s window like black gold, Texas tea, millionaire. Ray sat there in his seat and wondered about the funk he was in and if it’d ever change. He’d been in and out of relationships and was of a mind they just didn’t rate anymore. Like, why fucking bother?
They all wound up the same.
He just wanted to be alone. Forever.
A woman sat scross from him and he tried to imagine what was going on in her mind. Maybe the same shit. She looked lonely. Tired. Part of the bus like a plastic chair that people sat on. Thirty million years old of loneliness, the black behind her racing.
“Addison,” said a voice over the speaker, and again, “Addison.”
Yeah, right. Addison.
They pulled to a stop at the corner and Wrigley Field stood in a shroud of night and winter cold. The Cubs’d be losing there in six months, thought Ray, and you can bet your bottom dollar. He was a Sox fan regardless of how little he even cared for them. The Cubs were cocksuckers, though, every year.
The door opened in front and a body got in. Ray looked over to see what it was.
ShitÉ.
A troll. The guy farted around in the pockets of his pants for change. Layered clothing, shitty stuff. Bum-wear, but he didn’t look like a bum. The bus lurched forward and the cretin almost fell over, finally rescuing himself by grabbing onto the pole. He was a functioning bum, Ray realized, the kind that actually have jobs and pay their rent on time but are really just bums anyway. Sitting around watching wrestling in their garbage-filled studio apartments. Jagging off to Baywatch, because they couldn’t afford cable.
The dude looked about fifty-three or so. He finally got the buck-fifty together and jammed it home in the slot. There was a woman somewhere whom he’d fucked one time or another, and she was even worse.
“Jesus,” sighed Ray at the thought of it.
He reached into his bag and pulled out the new issue of Maxim. He’d subscribed in an effort to situate his finger on the pulse of the modern dating world, but thus far’d only gleaned a general idea about how sickening it was. Just the same, though, he endeavored to get lost in it. Gumby-idiot meanwhile wobbled down the aisle and eventually sat his ass next to the lonely woman across the killing floor.
ShitÉ.
Ray looked up from an article about rubbers and Gumby-idiot was making himself at home. The dude was dressed in eight different shades of gray--janitor clothing, he guessed. Yeah, the putz was probably a janitor. Three points from retardation and homelessness. That’s what they did. Swept floors and took the garbage out.
He wore a white button with black lettering on it that said, “I LIKE PICKLES,” looked like it was homemade, right there on his breast.
What the fuck is that about?
Ray wondered, picturing the man tossing himself in a Dumpster.
“Grace,” said the driver. “Comin’ up: Grace.”
Yeah, grace was on the horizonÉ.
According to Maxim, when a man went rubber-shopping he should pay special attention to getting the right size, and that a good way to measure your Johnson was by putting it inside a spent toilet paper roll. Most normal men should have room to spare when fully erect, and, if your dick didn’t fit, well, you might want to consider a career change.
Become a porn actor, they suggested.
Ray imagined himself fucking the Angel Soft and yawned. It was two-ten in the morning. He was dead tired.
Gumby-idiot starting clipping his fingernails, the tiddley-bits landing dangerous close. Ray squinted his eyes at the audacity of it. What kind of moron clips his goddamn nails in public? Ray wanted to fucking kill him. Right there on the bus.
“Hey, Pickle-boy,” he said, loud so as to get the man’s undivided attention, “If on-a those nails so much as touches the tip-a my fuckin’ boot, I am gonna ram it up your goddamn ass.”
They stared at each other awhile.
Ray went, “Do you understand me?”
The guy nodded, putting the chrome bastard away in his gray pocket.
“Irving Park,” said the driver. “Irving next.”
