Roomies: A Boone Butters Adventure Page 4
Everywhere I went people seemed either fabulously successful or fabulously attractive (and many times both). I just kept losing weight and becoming more antisocial and timid. More out of desperation than anything else, I forced myself to wangle a few meetings with development execs around town — although agentless, I still maintained some tenuous contacts — hoping that I'd land an assignment and score not only some quick cash but a boost to my devastated ego. Those meetings only worsened my anxiety, and ultimately my misery as well. I'd go in, find out what the project was, go home and agonize over my take on the material, return to pitch it to the exec, then fall into a nervous fit of sweaty torment while I waited to hear whether or not I'd landed the job. Each disappointment sent me tumbling further down Hell's greasy shitter, any status I may have once had as a worthwhile human being (not to mention dateable individual) completely savaged. After one meeting wherein I delivered my stunningly pathetic approach for the American-language script on a Kung Fu movie the company had bought called Fist of the Mystic Schoolboy, I actually stooped so low as to purchase and burn several candles rumored to bring good luck. However, my Spanish not being the best, I didn't realize the instructions on these candles explicitly stated that they were not to be blown out until they had burned down completely, so I subverted the mojo by snuffing them before I went to bed. Needless to say, the assignment went to someone else.
As the plane rocked through a much smaller pocket of turbulence, I checked out my surroundings. I'd never been in an airplane bathroom before. The last time I had flown had been with Alison. We went to Cincinnati to visit her friend Katrina. I couldn't remember much about the trip other than that Katrina was really cool; in fact, outside of Alison, she was the coolest girl I had ever met. Her CD collection was full of 70s power pop and Iggy and the Stooges and all kinds of stuff that sounded like the Velvet Underground. She was also a huge fan of Lucio Fulci's Zombie, one of my favorite movies. The other thing I remembered was that Alison and I were only able to have sex one time during our visit — and that was cut short by the death of Katrina's dog.
We had been in Cincinnati about four days and it was making us nuts not being able to perform the deed. We were sleeping on an old mattress tossed on the living room floor and both felt a little weird about running wild and free in the middle of somebody's living room when that somebody and her boyfriend were up seventy-five times every night to pee, or have a snack, or get a drink so they could pee more later.
Finally, the urge became too much for us to bear. That night, we waited for the bedroom light to go out, then began ripping at each other's clothes like starving wolves turned loose in a pit full of rabbits. We proceeded with somewhat nervous abandon, alert for Katrina's familiar waking-up-to-pee cough or the sound of the bedroom door squeaking open, a sense of terrified urgency gripping both of us — probably very much like that felt by the man in shark-infested waters mere feet from the arms that would pull him to safety, sure that the frightful jaws would clamp down on him at any second. We're going to make it, I allowed myself to think as we pulled into the home stretch, We're gonna pull this off.
Then, from the bedroom, the snorting began.
Wretched, thunderous, as if a pig the size of a buffalo were going into labor. Alison and I both nearly leapt from our skins, untangling like a hose had been turned on us. Sweating and panicky, we cowered in the dark, clutching the blankets to ourselves. At first, I attributed the god-awful racket to Katrina's boyfriend, but as the bedroom light came on and the sound of agitated voices reached us, I realized it was something else.
Wrapping a sheet around ourselves, Alison and I ran to the bedroom, tapping at the door and worriedly asking if everything was all right. Katrina's boyfriend whipped the door open to reveal Pugsley, Katrina's sausage-like pug, thrashing around on its back like John Hurt before the alien burst through his chest. Frantic and tearful, Katrina knelt over the dog, hands clawing at her face in panic. Absurdly, I was reminded of the famous photo from the Kent State shootings.
Pugsley's writhing body violently danced across the floor, a snorting, wheezing little freight train, froth bubbling from his clenched jaws; then, with one final, rattling, slobber-disgorging choke, the hapless pooch shuffled off this mortal coil, spraying a geyser of urine into the air as he did so. We buried the portly corpse in the backyard that very night, Katrina's pitiful weeping providing appropriate atmosphere. The poor girl was inconsolable, only emerging from her dolor the night before Alison and I were to leave. Proving how damn cool she was, Katrina made a rather loud and disgusting joke about Pugsley's bladder-control problem over dinner at a nice Chinese place.
I wondered how Katrina reacted to the news that Alison had sent me on my way.
A strict rap at the bathroom door made me jump, banging my knee. "Excuse me," a bored-but-polite female voice probed. "You'll have to take your seat — we're beginning our descent."
Already well on my way, thanks, I thought, standing and unlocking the door.
A flight attendant with severe eyebrows, shellacked blonde hair and crow's feet hidden under a layer of spackling — a Trog-era Joan Crawford-as-cheerleader — waited outside, stepping back to evade the anticipated wave of stink.
"Please take your seat, sir," she repeated, with an expression that said I know exactly what you've been up to, you loathsome creature.
Slipping past the woman, I returned to my seat, giving Butters a self-conscious grin.
"Everything all right?" he asked, followed by another whistling gasp.
I nodded, that foolish smirk clinging to my face. "Guess that bump shook it loose," I joked. As I buckled my seat belt, I noticed the business card Butters had given me laying on the aisle floor, dropped in my mad dash for the bathroom. I felt a little guilty that I didn't bother to retrieve it.
SQUIRREL EYES is available for Kindle, Nook, iPad and in paperback.
About the Author
In addition to his previous careers (installing gas pumps, bussing tables, painting apartments, cleaning toilets, delivering pizza and running his own video store) Scott S. Phillips has written in almost every capacity imaginable: films, TV, comic books and even dialogue for talking dolls. He's the author of the novels Squirrel Eyes and Friday the 13th: Church of the Divine Psychopath, the short story collection Tales of Misery and Imagination, and his film reviews have been collected in the aptly titled Unsafe On Any Screen. Scott is also the co-editor (with Robert E. Vardeman) of the anthology A Career Guide To Your Job In Hell, and has a story in that collection.
Scott has worked in many capacities in the movie industry, including writing the screenplay for the cult action flick Drive. He also wrote several episodes of the CW Network’s Kamen Rider Dragon Knight. He has worked in sound editing, make-up FX, cheeseburger-fetching and even marched around the New Mexico hills in the classic flick Red Dawn. Perhaps most importantly, he once performed as stand-in for the legendary Lemmy in a Motorhead video.
Scott can be found online at www.cheese-magnet.com, where he writes about movies and monsters and anything else he thinks is cool.
Table of Contents
Title Page
ROOMIES
ROOMIES
SQUIRREL EYES
About the Author
Table of Contents
Title Page
ROOMIES
ROOMIES
SQUIRREL EYES
About the Author