Chapter 1: Bodhisattva Bubble Gum Cards

Margaret P. Bebette's first encounter with Olney Garkle came at the tail end of a ruthless attack of diarrhea.

Her innards had been in a stew all day from the wok festival she'd held the evening before in her small weatherboard house on Pepper Island. Hoping to strengthen her mind with the food of the sages, she had prepared a cutting-board's worth of tough roots and tubers and wizened leafy greens.

Margaret P. hated recipes. She could hardly bring herself to more than a split-second glanceover; all those arcane instructions led to confusion in the end. It was enough to note the ingredients and wing it from there. Her results were often spectacular. Just as often, the plate before her summoned a ghostly pantheon of cordon-bleu chefs--now howling demons inhabiting an unbaked afterworld--to writhe in wringing handlessness while she munched on.

Thus it came to pass that on this evening did she pervert the Wacky Wokker's guidelines with too much oil, ginger and, especially, tapioca starch. A drenching of soy sauce came to the rescue, enabling her to finish the slick, gelatinous meal with a flourish of wincing chopsticks. Her stomach rumbled as she washed the dishes, but no matter and never you mind. She was getting off the island tomorrow and out of her rut. Enough tea sipping with mum and her boring old cronies, and enough time-killing with laconic bachelors who dropped around to tipple tots of cheap brandy and stare into space. She could stare into space all by herself, thank you and goodbye. Her mind--a gossamer catchall for right brain odds and ends--was in danger of disappearing. She needed a few days visit with her old friend, Belle Nipponovich. And Crusty Mantlecore would be there too. They would drink good booze and smoke high-powered dope and talk all night. Margaret P. would feel alive again. Maybe it was time to get off Pepper Island for good. Maybe it was even time to get out of the country.

Bright and early next morning her bowels revolted. Accustomed to dainty quiches and soft cuddly vegetables like spinach and living lettuce, they arose from their bed in her belly to explode with outrage in the toilet.

Her day was looking no better when the second explosion struck an hour later, just as she was starting the car. Returning to the bathroom on the run, her swinging handbag encountered a shelf of precious knickknacks bequeathed only a week ago by mum. With the compassion of cowhide, it knocked to the floor three of mum's old favorites: a crystal dancing pony, a porcelain miniature cat and a sombrero-shaped ashtray, smashing the lot to smithereens.

Her day was still looking doubtful on the ferry to the lower mainland, but prudent Meg spent the two hours it took to cross the Georgia Strait within a grand jeté of the ladies room. As she mopped her brow while clutching her stomach, she couldn't know then that diarrhea or dysentery or even a good old dose of cholera would be a lark compared to the relay race to nowhere she was about to begin. For Olney Garkle would be taking the baton from her bowels later that afternoon.

As karma would have it, Olney had arrived unannounced the day before--up from the States after years overseas--to drink and pound the table with his old friend, Crusty Mantlecore.

§§§

Both men were out when Meg arrived. Her dilapidated '55 Chevy skidded to a halt in the driveway as she flung open the door and ran for the house. "Hi, Belle, I'm here." she called.

"Hey, you made it," Belle said to Meg's back as it sped for the good woman's honorable loo. Belle was sitting at the kitchen table, dreamily looking through the American Ephemeris for the 20th Century.

At length the visitor emerged from her ordeal. "Whew. This has been going on all day, sorry." Carefully, Meg took a seat at the table.

"Don't worry about it," replied the unflappable Belle.

"I'm worrying," Meg groaned. "So, where's Crusty?"

"Where else but the Plundervale flea market," Belle replied, pouring two cups of steaming coffee. "Dickering over vintage sewing machines, most likely. Check out the garage when you get a chance. We're loaded."

"Last year it was bathtubs and C melody saxophones."

"Please, don't remind me. He's still got a tub full. Usually sells everything at the Thursday night auction--at a loss, I should add--but the market for oddball saxophones dried up." She lit a cigarette, offering one to Meg. Margaret P. never seemed to have her own cigarettes, so naturally she accepted. "He's itchy," Belle continued. "Crusty would love to be at play in the fields of ganja back there in dear old Hindustan. The old substance abuser misses rubbing the hash off the leaves on his way to this tea house or that."

"I'll bet. Well, India is about as off limits as they come these days. In the meantime, is he keeping out of trouble?"

"Barely."

"Oh, no." said Meg inappropriately. She was away in a flash.

"Say," Belle called out, "did you ever meet Olney Garkle?"

"No, who's that?"

"You'll see."

After a few minutes of household silence, the toilet flushed. Meg hobbled back to the table.

"Oh, yeah?" she said, belatedly picking up where Belle had left off.

"Yeah." Belle's Japo-Croatian smile lit her rosy face. "From California 'it' came, last night. Be staying for awhile, I suppose, though he's down at the beach now, bored already. Thought you might've heard of him. An old buddy of Crusty's. Used to be a bunch of 'em, troublemakers all." She sighed. "Better watch it, Meg. I think you're his type. He's horny, I can tell, but finicky too. Has peculiar ideas about women. That, in part, is what makes him a crazy man."

"Huh," said Meg noncommittally. Her mouth puckered to hide a grin as she looked away airily. "So tell me, what've you been up to lately?"

They spent the afternoon catching up on old news, blissfully uninterrupted by the male brashness and braggadocio for which Olney and Crusty as a team were known. Belle got out their horoscopes and together they examined the configurations that gave them hope and drove them crazy.

§§§

Olney had been walking up and down the railroad tracks that wound along the coastline near the house. And yes, he was bored already, and very horny. British Columbia calmed his nerves, he'd say that much for it. And it gave him a new perspective on things. But hell, so did any country he hadn't been to for awhile. It also made him sexually hyper. Something about the unformed innocence of B.C. girls and their sun-deprived milky white skin.

Earlier, he'd tried browning his gaunt body at the beach. These were the last days of the year's few months of warmth and the beach had been deserted, except for a hippie mother and her over-amped children. Olney moved far away from them, to a solitary deadhead, and sat down. He was so horny he'd even looked at the gray-skinned woman twice. In a funk, he picked up a silver sliver of distinguished driftwood and began drawing plans in the sand. If things didn't change soon, he was going to find some bushes along solitary girl trails--just there, he scratched--and wait for sundown, or a little after, when the world's most luscious secretary would be walking home, tired and inattentive, and then....

Or even better (why not really embrace evil), some naughty schoolgirl coming home late from necking with her boyfriend--she would already be excited, and then....

Olney Garkle, the Outspringer, leaping upon unexplored femininity, warm and pheromonal from a long day of secreting fragrant sweat beads all over its glorious body, plundered now by the panting sex objectivist, ready at last to throw his miserable karma on the mercy of an eventual court. Hell, maybe he'd even get away with it. He got up, shaking his head, and rearranged the hardon in his cutoffs to a more comfortable position. He walked back to the path that led to Crusty and Belle's.

Meg, flushing the toilet yet again, returned to the kitchen just as Olney shuffled in the back door.

"Hi Olio, meet Meg," Belle called mischievously.

Oh? Oh?

Why, how d'ye do. cried his cock, humming like the snout of a truffle-pig on the first morning of a bumper crop year. Get a load of her, it tried to whisper in his ear, for stretching that far suddenly seemed possible. Shut up, he commanded, but it whimpered and tugged and drooled so much he was forced to sit down, fast.

As they talked, Meg could tell by the sound of his voice and the way he looked at her throat and pert little titties and then in her eyes that--oh, dear. Worse, she could tell by the rapid-fire pinging between her legs that--oh, no. A little voice spoke inside her well-formed, nun's-envy skull. It told her that here was trouble and it had better be over by next year when Saturn moseyed on back to beckon and reckon. Belle had been explaining that Saturn returned every twenty-nine or so years to the same position it occupied at a person's time of birth. The rendezvous, she said, had Samarran implications for those avoiding the good advice of Socrates. Meg could have done without this news. She had never been much good at assessing herself in relation to who she was or, for that matter, to whom anyone else was. She also knew, by looking at Olney Garkle, that he was the kind who would try to make these assessments for her. Oh, if it were only a couple of days later, with her going and him just arriving. Starting up the Chev--dear old Geronimo--still free, glad to've metcha, best of luck, enjoy your stay, etc. Who needs these complications? But the one thing Meg did know about herself was that when the creamworks started she was helpless. Wet already. And they were both going to sleep under the same roof tonight. Yikes, she thought, and squeezed her thighs.

Belle was kind enough to pour Olney a cup of coffee from the eternal pot on the stove. She thought he must still be tired from the trip, poor thing. Normally he was so energetic, like a fart in a bottle.

But Olney would be sitting there awhile, mostly speechless. He rolled a couple of cigarettes and chain-smoked them.

Take that, big fella, he sneered at his cock. It clutched its throat from the nicotine-induced reduction of blood and shrank to its usual adolescent size.

Olney caught himself staring at Meg. It made her squirm and he loved it. She was so small and slim. He could just see her young girl's body rotating on his--oops. He puffed furiously at the Black Cat roll-yr-own. Yes, and there was a look about her that said, "I can be made to do anything you want me to." His imagination drifted insidiously, fragments of sexual utopia eliminating his suddenly dumb countenance from the conversation for minutes on end. (He would later find this interpretation to be ruefully inaccurate, but as they chatted he felt relieved and confident that tonight his would be a bed soft and squishy with consent, and not made of the prickles and needles of annoying shrubs in an irreversible moment of lunging deviation.)

Crusty arrived with a trunkload of Singers and Pfaffs and an armload of Gilbey's and Schweppes. Meg punched his solid-steel belly with her small fist, "My favorite Sumo." Crusty growled and swept her, squealing, into his Bluto-like arms. "Don't bruise the merchandise," she begged, never sure how far he would go, especially if he'd been drinking. Beer fumes wrinkled her nose as he gave her a warm, father-like hug. Beast dropped Beauty and vented further familial tendencies on Prodigal Son. Olney's turn now to feel like Fay Wray. "Hell, it's a happy family," said Crusty, "at last, our son and daughter have met," he said to Belle, giving her a peck on the cheek. "Well," he then said to the nearest bottle of gin, "what are we waiting for."

Crusty made drinks for everyone. The Schweppes effervesced merrily as swizzle sticks shot the rapids over ice cubes and downright philanthropic gills of the perfumed brain glaze from Jolly Old.

"I knew it was gonna be a party," Crusty said, "should have bought more. Liquor store was out of 40 pounders, the dumb fucks." His massive, solid bulk trembled with joy as he drained another glass. His tongue slipped efficiently to his moustache to slurp up a spare dram.

"For God's sake," said Belle, "that's disgusting."

"Best part of the drink. You're just jealous 'cause your moustache isn't long enough."

"Cut it out about my moustache."

To Olney, Belle's "moustache" was a nearly transparent layer of tantalizing blonde fuzz. He differed with Crusty on feminine esthetics and tried to change the subject: "Say, Crunch," he said, using the name he'd given already-nicknamed Crusty long ago, from the ogre's habit of passing out on couches and breaking them, "what're you gonna do with all those sewing machines?"

"Well," said Crusty, with a leer, "if Miss Belle over here would ever get off her regal behind and start up a sewing business, hire a few Philippina girls, heh-heh--"

"Who do you think I am, anyway," Belle cut in again, playing the miffed Mrs. "Get someone else for your goofy enterprises."

"By the way," Meg asked, "what did you have in mind when you bought all those saxophones and bathtubs last year?"

"Oh, I dunno, coulda charged the boys money to watch Belle playing patootle sticks in the bath, haw, haw, haw."

"Funny, you're not." Belle got up to stir the spaghetti sauce.

"Should've charged the boys to watch you take a bath," said Meg, coming to Belle's aid. "Some fag's love fat guys." Crusty roared and lurched at her menacingly. She jumped behind Olney and stuck out her tongue: "Y'don't scare me, Conan the Creampuff." She blurted at him for good measure.

"You better watch it, Little Lulu."

The name caught Olney's attention. Hmmm, Crunch is right, he thought, there's something Little Lulu about her. No, wait, it's her lips ... she's got Little Lulu lips. And say, am I gonna put my Tubby 'twixt 'em tonight.

The booze and banter went on through dinner, with Olney and Meg's mutual horniness dominating the rare silences, rising in each one to roar unheard in every available pocket of space. When the meal was finished, nine o'clock had rolled around and Crusty was drunk. No one was sober, but he'd been drinking fast.

A beer drinker by trade, Crusty became calmly sinister with the hard stuff. He spoke now with a soft, measured snarl about someone who had crossed him once and how this sucker would meet his end if Crusty ever met up with him again. Crusty's lead-filled muscles seemed to expand and contract with each word. His unseen lips curled and twisted, hiking his moustache to one side of his quivering nostrils in a consummate sneer. All the evening's foolish joy and optimism was sucked into the deadly stillness created by his tale of revenge. A weird, surreal desert took precedence now, in which he and his victim were engaged in slow-motion combat, a battle whose outcome was predestined.

"First, I'll force the fucker to his knees just by lookin' at him. 'Course my boot in his balls will've helped. After that I'll put my other boot right down on his throat--"

"Yeah, yeah," said Olney, egging him on. Olney had his own fantasies of revenge upon an interfering world. Hardly a day went by in which some poor stupe wasn't inadvertently retarding his forward motion. Especially little old ladies who couldn't manage to walk a straight line on the sidewalk. Among the worst offenders, they caused speeding pedestrian Garkle to weave back and forth behind them, cutting off his opening at the last instant by suddenly veering off in that direction. They had eyes in the back of their heads, the mean old things. Even more infuriating were those times when he stepped off the curb to cross a deserted intersection. It was downright diabolical the way one of the only five cars to use the street in an entire year would then come speeding out of nowhere and force him to run for his life. Then there were the infernal supermarket "express" lines that always seemed to attract a horde of gluttonous shoppers the minute he was ready to queue up. It was bad enough to wait in a queue already long, but when there wasn't any queue, when only a few strides separated him from a waiting checkout girl and freedom itself, what should inevitably happen? Came half the dodder fodder in the universe, whipping in from the ten directions on snippety feet to purse their lips at an Olney nearly out of sight by now, at the end of the line. Well, didn't he just wish he had a shiny, fully loaded Uzi then. As he danced furiously in the rear, he would note that each transgressor's little basket was crammed with the kind of crap that should have made him or her--usually it--unfit to get out of bed. And they were always one or two items over the limit. Infernal was indeed the only word for it.

When, on miraculous occasion, Olney managed to slip in right behind the person being checked out, he couldn't believe his luck. And rightly so, because the receipt tape would then run out and have to be changed while he stood there losing his mind. Or-- infernally diabolical were the only words for it-- the checkout girl, having just finished with the customer in front of him, would be reaching for Olney's first item when her relief suddenly appeared from nowhere--"No, Arlene, now don't you work another second, I'll take over"--and the changing of cash trays and chitchat would go on and on and on. He knew his attitude was less than mature, but with a metabolism in constant percolation, how could he relax long enough to grow up? A hopeless situation. Olney wished evolution would simply rid the planet of these random fools. He listened to Crusty's efforts to do the same, prompting the good drunk when his attention wavered.

"--and then I'll take and grab that fucker by the neck--"

"Crusty, shut up." Belle always spoiled his retributive adventures with her boundless compassion. "No one is out to get you. Stop being paranoid."

"--and squeeze it little by little, until the life in his vermin eyes begins to dim, and then what I'll do is I'll release the pressure little by little so the life starts to come back, and then I'll start squeezing again--"

At this point even Olney blanched. He just wanted the "fuckers" erased. Painlessly. Just get 'em off the planet. Belle made another pot of coffee, hoping to get Crusty to sober up, but he kept on mumbling, out of it by now.

"Say, uh, Meg," Olney said, at the behest of his suddenly impatient cock, "would you like to see my collection of Bodhisattva bubble gum cards?"

"Oh, yeah? How complete is it?"

"Very."

"Where?"

"Upstairs, in my room. But it's hidden. You'll have to fish for it."

She tried to suppress a giggle. Her eyes looked nonchalantly around the kitchen. She'd had enough of Crusty. "Ok," flashing a breathless smile at Olney, both hands banging the table, "let's go," and she was off like a shot.

"Hey, wait for me," cried Olney Garkle, grabbing his tobacco and a couple of glasses for the cognac he had stashed under the bed.

"See you tomorrow," chuckled Belle.

"--an' then I'm gonna crush that fucker's bones and use 'em for chalk to write a big 'Fuck You' on his tombstone. Then I'll put him in a sack and bury it ten feet deep, an' then...."

§§§

It was late the following afternoon when Olney and Meg came downstairs, famished. They ate like the wretched of earth at Belshazzar's Feast. Crusty and Belle were out, so they fried the big man's dinner steak, as well. Meg was going back to the island early to pack her things and return the next day. They weren't exactly in love yet, but their bodies were. Meg had lost count of her orgasms and Olney blew six wads, a record for him. It was enough to make him give up the idea of returning to California. They had decided to live together. Crusty and Belle would understand, and if they didn't, well, too bad because the heat was stronger than all four of them.

After she left, Olney turned on every light in the house. His energy was so depleted an empty house full of sundown might have sent him over the edge. He left a note for his friends, telling them the "good news." Adding a P.S., he apologized for eating the steak. Then he went to his sex-ridden bed and slept half the clock around. He awoke next morning with a hardon made of steel. Unable to wait for his Canadian girl with the teenage body to return, he masturbated to the tune of his most depraved fantasies, nearly getting it in the face as the all too tumultuous trajectory shot right up to his thudding chest.

§§§

Chapter 2: Kilroy was Here

Top