AcmeShorts

Scranton. Son of a bitch. I was back in Scranton. The chafed and burnished aperture at the center of Pennsylvania’s mine littered buttock. Lonely. Clenched. Sour. Steaming. What was I doing here? And why was I so hungry? Scranton. Salt of the Earth. Bare hands and grime. Blue eyes and soot.

I surveyed the steaming field. Grey skies. Litter. Sinkholes. Tall grass and washing machines. A stray cat peeking out from inside a gutted old dryer. “Mew?” it asked, while making the cat-shitting face. Vacant. Serious. “Mew?” Feline. It was crapping in there. Crapping.

The pit in my stomach turned, gurgling, wheezing, as I stepped over hubcaps and bottles, weaved among shopping carts and smashed DVD players. The air on my face was damp. Alive. Natal. Had a WalMart exploded in the sky? Littered this field in shattered consumer goods? Whose tan suit was I wearing? And waders? Cabelas? Had I been fly fishing? I was lost! And so hungry. The acids in my belly churned anew.

Inclement weather. Wind buffeting the flaps of my hat. Rain lashing me. Staring down at the ripping puddles here at the door to Ponderosa. Sweet lord alive: Ponderosa. Had I walked all the way here? Was I wearing this hat before when I described my clothing? I pulled my gaze up from the sopping pavement. Water beads on glass. Steam. Neon. Signage. “Open.” “All You Can Eat.”

“Just one today?” Becky.

“I’m alone.”

“Hope yer hungry!” Her nametag said Becky.

“I am. Very.”

“You sure?” Becky?

“I’m famished, Becky. I assure you.”

“Righty roo! You have yerself a seat! You havin’ the BUFFay tonight? It’s all yew kin eat.” The name Becky began to irritate me, becoming less of a name than an arrangement of stupid sounds.

“Definitely. Yes, definitely.” Becky!

“Enjoy!”

Becky placed a styrofoam plate with irregularly shaped compartments before me. And a napkin. And utensils. And then she walked away. I watched her go, a plump little nurse of a girl, and studied her meaty bottom swishing in the white polyester. There was brown there, I coud discern, soaking through the skirt. An anal seepage appeared to be filling her white hose, pouring down into her therapeutic shoes. I rubbed at my eyes to fight off a wave of panic. Then, before she disappeared into the kitchen, I watched Becky pass long lines of blue collar workers, unemployed miners, elderly people, truckers, fat children, hideous teens, stork-looking chain smokers, college kids, hunters, NASCAR fans and cops, even the becankled high school Coal Queen, all of whom arranged their bodies in various contortions, doing an interpretive dance of gastric grotesquerie, the preflatulent foxtrot, clutching their guts, braiding their legs, grimmacing, fidgeting and breathing heavily, bending in half, lying on the floor, sitting indian style, hands up their ass cracks, hands shoved in their pockets, as they waited their turn at the Ponderosa’s one functioning toilet.

POOP PART 2