The Turd: An American Journey, Chptr 15 – Xperience Fiction

The Turd: An American Journey, Chptr 15 – Xperience Fiction – by Liam Sweeny.

They took Route 28 through downtown Sheboygan, Ophelia dipping in and out of side streets to escape the Shite clergy and the police who, by that point, were called about a stolen car. Jasen hacked into the police scanner that wasn’t available to the public, which is to say the channel they used for real talk. To everyone’s surprise, the word on their car theft was no word, as the police were busy dealing with the entire population of Sheboygan sitting down, on curbs, in traffic, which their fecal cuisines, in anticipation of the shut down. Apparently half of Sheboygan PD was AWOL too. The few people not ready to feast on their lower selves were breaking into stores and settling old vendettas.

“We gotta ditch this car,” Ernest said. “Busy or not, they’ll pull us over if they were called.”

“And then what?” Jasen said. “The only store I found that sells those laxatives is five miles from here, and I don’t see any cabs or buses.”

Ophelia snapped her fingers in the air loud enough to quiet everybody. “We’re ditching the car. Tristan and I made a deal with the cabbie. That toilet snake for him going along. He’s going to meet us at a diner just… down… there.”

She pulled into the back lot of a diner that wasn’t open. The cook, if he was the cook, had a plate and was sitting out front, greasy spoon in hand.

“That is fucking eerie, that shit,” Jasen said.

“You bashed the cabbie’s rear bumper,” Lysette said. “You sure he’s going to play ball?”

Ophelia pointed into her rear-view mirror. Lysette looked back to see the cabbie joining them.

“I also promised him a selfie,” Tristan said. “I don’t think he’s a fan, but I rubbed his leg a little, so he might grab some butt or something, I don’t know.”

They got out of the car and stood there as the cab came to a stop. The cabbie got out and walked back to look at his bumper.

“It’s not so bad,” he said. “A little body work.”

“Thanks for coming to rescue us,” Tristan said.

“Yeah,” Ophelia said. “Thanks.”

“I wasn’t actually going to, but I figured getting your insurance info would do better than trying to pay for autobody with a golden toilet thingy. So you can have that back. Also, y’all had stuff in the trunk.”

“Jesus, the Second Go,” Lysette said. “I can’t believe I forgot that.”

“Well, let’s go,” the cabbie said. “The meter’s been running since we got corralled back there. You might just need that gold thing to pay your fare.”

They continued back on 28. They were on their way to Portnoys, a box store ubiquitous in the midwest, where manufacturers who sold shitty products offloaded them to the Portnoys sales floor. It was a dollar store on steroids. If any place was going to sell off-brand, expired laxatives, it was Portnoys.

They explained their situation to the cabbie, who listened intently as they closed the distance between themselves and the store.

“Are y’all crazy? Someone that says they’re the original turd guy sends you a box of laxatives and some plane tickets and you just take off? Any one of you think it was just a trap for those religious assholes to get your poo?”

“We had to take the chance,” Ernest said. “I think it’s a wild goose chase that’s going to end at this store, but if it does, we won’t be in the crosshairs of protesters and spitting distance from a massive corporation out to get us right now.”

“I guess if you have to hide from an apocalypse, no better place than Sheboygan.”

They arrived in the parking lot of Portnoys. None of them had thought about what to do with the Second Go or the briefcase, so they just put them in a shopping cart and hoped that they wouldn’t be accused of stealing them.

Portnoys may very well have carried a Second Go if it were put on the market and failed miserably. Every aisle was piled with gadgets “as seen on TV,” and heard about in funny newspaper clippings on late night television. They had to traverse the entire store to find the health and beauty section, which, judging by the haphazard arrangement of items promised neither health nor beauty. Ernest rifled through the boxes of sinus medication and mineral ice jars and he found the laxatives tucked as far back into the shelf as anything could be, indicating that they were either wildly popular, or intentionally hidden.

Ernest grabbed six boxes. Lysette put two back.

“You’re not going to kill yourself, Ernie,” she said.

“I drank a whole bottle when this started, I think I’m good.”

“Yeah, but if this is the real good stuff, I just don’t want you to get hurt, that’s

all.”

“I’m hurting now,” Ernest said. He showed her his left hand, which was balled in a fist. When he opened it, bloody dig marks dotted his palm.

“Oh my God, Ernie,” Lysette said. “We need to-,”

“Excuse me,” a young guy in a Portnoys frock appeared at the end of the aisle.

“Did someone tell you to buy those?”

“I don’t know,” Ernest said. “Sort of.”

“Are you Ernest?” he said. “Ernest Kreb? The guy who hasn’t shit in an over a month?”

“I am. Please tell me you’re not some kind of fan.”

“I’m not,” he said. “But my father is. I think you know him… sort of. Did you get his gift at the airport?”

“Wait, the toilet snake was a gift?”

“Yes. And so is this.” He reached in his pocket and pulled out a phone, walked over to Ernest and handed it to him. It had a case with an image of a golden toilet on it.

As Ernest grabbed it, it rang.

“Hello, who’s this?”

“There’s time for introductions, but the cops are on your tail. Have Ricky bring you to my alley. We have to talk.”

#

#

Ernest’s stomach was in knots, yet not a home to a single butterfly. He was doing his all not to double over in the back of the van, staring out the two small back windows that afforded the group the only gander of the streetlights of what they hoped was still Sheboygan. The Turder’s son, Pico, named for his tiny stature, drove gently, smoking a blunt, his finger on the volume dial, caressing it until he got the right ambiance and let it be.

“Ernest, are you with me?” the Turder said over the phone.

Ernest grunted. “Yeah, let me put you on speaker.”

“No, dont. Don’t do that. I’ve got nothing to say to them, and everything to say to you.”

Ernest signed. “Fine.” He squeezed Lysette’s hand. “What do you want to talk about?”

“Does that poop machine work? You eat anything through it.”

“It works, and we-, I mean she’s calling it the Second Go.”

“Clever.” The Turder coughed, and Ernest thought he heard a whiny fart followed by a snort. “So how did it taste?”

“I don’t know, nutty? Hint of peaches? What are you looking for?”

“Just wondering what we’re in for when we get yours out.”

“Oh, so you’re another one of these Shite religious nuts. Great.”

The Turder laughed. “Would you believe it if I told you that I started that thing?” “I’d say you started a lot more than that,” Ernest said.

“True.” The Turder said. “But I never suspected those wackos to smear shit on their noses. You see that?”

“Nope.”

“Good on you. Hey, tell my kid to stop at Burpees and get me some ginger ale.

You doing ginger ale?”

“Hate the stuff. Like drinking copper wires.”

“Would’ve helped ya,” the Turder said. “But no matter. Just have him get me some.”

They stopped at Burpees, and Pico filled his arms with two-liter bottles of a Sheboygan local brand, evident because its label was indistinguishable from the thousands of local brand sodas occupying store shelves.

They were back on the road and quiet, fidgeting and each catching peeks out of the back windows, as it was dawning on them all that they were not only car thieves but heretics. Pico pulled off the road and climbed a hill, stopping at the top and letting them out through the back.

They were at a bowling alley, a brick building that looked like it belonged on a 19th century Main Street and not the far edge of a lot that would be weed-strewn when the weather supported it. A bowling pin was affixed above the door with the swirl of red and blue stripes that made the pin look like a barber pole. Pico sparked up the blunt he had ashed when he went into the store. Jasen and Ophelia joined him, and by the cough, it was Ophelia’s first time. Tristan was talking to her followers, giving the whole world a view of where they were. Ernest stood there and realized that some of Tristan’s followers were Shite members, and it wouldn’t be long before they showed up.

“Guys, look,” Pico said. “My dad, he’s brilliant as fuck, but he’s a little gross. I don’t think he’s sick or anything, he just don’t give a fuck.”

“And you get used to the smell,” he added as he opened the front door.

There were people bowling, which was strange in that there were no cars in the

parking lot and last they checked, most Americans were setting to eat a crap dinner. On the screens, where the scores would be, was a video feed, strangely, one of the alley itself. Ernest looked around and saw Tristan filming, which was being picked up on the screens.

“She might want to turn that off,” Pico said. “For now, anyway.”

They slipped past the lanes, twelve, too many to be contained by the building that held them. They passed the kitchen, the counters, the jukebox, the coat rack and two racks for community balls. Pico led them through a hallway and up the stairs to a thick, solid door with a camera nestled in the top corner.

“Welcome home,” Pico said as he opened the door.

The Turder’s living room should’ve been filled with toilets, snakes, poop knives and laxatives, stool softeners, and all manner of bowel regulation. He was, after all, the Turder. But his living room was filled with books, cameras and tripods, video equipment and laptops. And the smell, as Pico portended, was overpowering, not of ill, but of lilacs and jasmine. Pictures lined the wall with a man shaking hands with presidents, sports figures and celebrities. Ernest was intrigued.

Pico set down Lysette’s Second Go, and called out, “Dad, we’re here.” At the point at which it didn’t seem the Turder had heard his son, and nearly prompting that son to double his call, an old man in a chocolate colored bathrobe walked in.

The bathrobe was half open, leaving a scrap of his misshapen body that didn’t have to be imagined. Ernest put his hand over Lysette’s eyes.

“I’m sure she’s seen better,” he said. He held out his hand, revealing even more. “Ernest. Good to meet you.”

Ernest shook his hand, not knowing where it had been. Lysette kept her eyes on

her Second Go. Jasen and Ophelia put their focus on the pictures and Tristan hopped on one foot in anticipation of being able to show her followers where she was.

“Tristan, right?” The Turder said. “Honey, you can go ahead and turn that on. I figure now that you’re all here, it’s a good enough time to get this started.”

“You know, not too clear on what we’re starting here,” Ernest said.

“Ernest, Ernie, if I can, you’re in agony. You can’t keep that in you, so we’re going to get it out.”

“I wouldn’t let those Shite assholes have it, why would I let you?”

The Turder let out a laugh. “They wanted to slit you from your belly, I bet,” he said. “I’m just offering you folks a meal.”

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