Lemur
by Tom Bradley
[ fiction - april 08 ]
Obviously holding a pistol at the ready under his vest, Spencer approaches the convenience store. He almost trips over a punk girl squatting among puddles of crankcase grease in an empty parking space out front. When he bumbles into her, she arches her back and hisses like an alley cat.
She's a tattooed teen, short and squat due to childhood malnutrition, with about nine pounds of crumbly metal embedded in her eyebrows, nose, ears, lips, chin, nipples and navel. Under her threadbare Cow and Chicken tee shirt, this punk girl has concealed a pistol, almost as obviously as Spencer's. She's plainly plotting to rob the place, just as soon as the methamphetamine she's gobbling kicks in.
To get inside the convenience store, Spencer has first to negotiate his way through a mob of morbidly obese folks, both sexes, all ages. The place is very popular with their physical type. Just as he manages to squeeze within arm's length of the automatic door, Spencer's feet are whisked off the ground, and he's washed inside on a tidal wave of cellulite. Inside are more morbidly obese folks.
The counter help is a lanky college boy with the pure face of a Buddhist monk. Having the time of his life, he cries out to everybody at once, "Here! Let me help you with that!"
The college boy slides between car-sized love handles to assist in the great feed. He slops chili on three-quarter-pounder pork sandwiches, and ladles sour cream all over bushel-baskets full of nachos.
When the morbidly obese folks ingest what pleases them, they seem to enter a higher realm of being. They look like colossal sphinxes. At these moments, religious bliss fills the college boy's eyes. It's as though he's witnessing the Olympian gods feed on nectar and ambrosia.
Once in a while, thin, or average-build, or even pleasingly plump people manage to fight their way in, and attempt to buy, say, a pack of sugarless chewing gum. The college boy brushes them off like ants at a picnic.
"How 'bout some change, Slick?"
"Whatever," he says, not removing his eyes from a mammoth creature with a foot-long fried chicken burrito. He throws a handful of twenty-dollar bills in the underdeveloped person's direction.
Spencer will not allow himself to be distracted by these strange circumstances. Fingering the trigger of his pistol, he strains to be seen and heard around the moving mountains. He shouts. "Do you want go inside of the back room alongside me?"
Irritated at the interruption, the college boy snaps, "What?"
"Um... can I use the bathroom?"
"You can fire-bomb the bathroom and grind the ashes underfoot, for all I care."
Spencer takes that as permission.
Even though there are industrial-sized containers of the stuff in the back room, Spencer removes a blister-packet of ketchup from his own pocket.
"It's not about stealing," he repeats. "I'm not a stealer."
After carefully laying down his customary tomato slick, Spencer plants his shoes, ever so precisely, in the redness.
Here among the crates of lunchmeat pizzas and microwave-friendly fish burgers, Spencer assumes the clichéd shooter-stance: pistol held solidly in both hands, poised at arm's length.
When, and if, the college boy comes back here, Spencer wants to be ready. So as not to be caught off-guard, he keeps an eye on the security monitor that hangs from the ceiling.
About an hour later, Spencer's waiting yet, body and gun patiently poised.
On the security monitor, the intended victim still slops the gods in blurred black and white. There's no sound, so Spencer quickly disengages one hand from the pistol, just long enough to reach out and open a refrigerator case. Resuming his stance, he eavesdrops between popsicle shelves that open onto the sales area.
The morbidly obese folks are prone to walrus-like flopping violence. The stuff they consume makes them mean. Disputes constantly flare up.
On the monitor, a slight shadow dives between vast gray blobs.
The college boy's in heaven as bellies and breasts squash him flat. He quakes in spiritual ecstasy.
"Believe me. More than any sex activity I could ever imagine, I would love to see you folks fight. But the boss would fire me if I punched out leaving major structural damage to the building. Then I could no longer be priest in this temple which was built and consecrated to serve you!"
Two hours later the gun's getting heavy. Eventually the college boy comes into the back room, and walks his nose right up into the barrel.
"Oh, hi. How was the bathroom? I'm sorry, but I don't have time to fall on my knees and plead for my life just now, because I need to fetch more pabulum for my lovely God-Babies."
Beaming with bone-deep pleasure, he grabs a couple bales of beef-byproduct nuggets and jumbo Bavarian gristle-muffins. The gun still trained on his face, he casts an affable grin at Spencer.
"What you just witnessed was only the afternoon snack rush. Unless you are emotionally strong, I suggest you clear out before..."
The college boy shudders and can't speak for a moment. He drops the bales and peers deep into Spencer's eyes, holding out both hands helplessly. He manages to coax out a hoarse whisper.
"...b-b-before..."
He grabs the tiny orange lapels of Spencer's Lemmy vest and hangs on like a drowning man, barely able to mouth the key word.
"...suppertime."
Beaming, he wipes his eyes, half in embarrassment, half in astonished pride. "I see you like to watch on the small screen. That's wonderful, too. It has its own charm, making the God-Babies seem..."
No more words are possible, as the college boy spasms from his toes to his head. After recovering from that, he pulls up a big cream soda crate, sits, and scoots over to make space for Spencer.
Spencer stares at him for the longest while, immobilized. Someone has just invited him to sit down. This has never happened before.
"You want me on the soda popping box? Right nearby at you?"
"Yes, yes," says the college boy, eyes on the screen. "This is a good place to watch from. Come see."
Spencer hesitates a bit longer, then sits, keeping his pistol embedded in the prey's rib cage.
"I'm sorry your gun doesn't scare me more. It's just that, when you receive a calling to minister to the God-Babies, you gain a realistic perspective on small caliber fire."
He settles in to enjoy the show with Spencer. But soon, strangely, the college boy's sublime joy dissolves into soft sobs and tears.
"What are you being sad for?" asks Spencer.
"I'm sad for my God-Babies. See how they constantly belch, and then wince in agony? That's because the loveliness has blossomed so deep on their waists, it's pushing their tummies inside-out. They're scorching away their throats with their own digestive acids, and guaranteeing themselves terminal cancer in the meantime. And the only way they can make the burning go away, if only for just a short while, is to come to me. I gently soothe it and coat it with more grease, like a sunburn with cocoa butter, or diaper rash with baby oil. It's sad, and beautiful... and an exciting privilege."
Spencer starts checking out the lists of ingredients on the surrounding cartons and packages, moving his lips and knitting his brow, as he always does when confronted with the alphabet.
"M... S... G..."
He sees those three particular letters on absolutely everything. MSG even impregnates the few token pre-fab salads in their styrofoam caskets.
"I keep those around as visual puns," says the college boy.
The punk girl chooses this moment to come in and rob the place - or try to. She is just barely visible on the monitor as a tiny smudge.
"Everybody face down, flat on the floor. Now! What are you waiting for?"
"Ah!" cries the college boy. "Finally! It's about time! Watch this! Homer's clashing rocks! You can only pity the poor stunted creature!"
The morbidly obese folks close in. They're not even slowed down by the single round the punk girl manages to squeeze off before they crush her.
This is Spencer's big chance to see death happening. But his eyes are not on the security monitor. He's looking at the college boy.
"Ah, God!" cries the college boy. "Oh, Baby!"
That clinches it. Spencer is a convert. He hurries out the back door, leaving his firearm spinning feebly in the middle of the floor.
