"Man, I'm just worried about you, all right? Don't get all hysterical over it, okay?" Hysterical? Hysterical? Ain't that rich, man? That's just fuckin' Howard Hughes rich, okay? With the damn little punk just- just patronizing me. That's right. Word-builder; every day. He's patronizing. With his hands up in some don't-shoot akimbo, and there's that stupid face like a brain-damaged chinchilla, and he just doesn't get it. Don't get hysterical?
"Don't get hysterical, Sammy?! Don't get hysterical? You think this is hysterical?!" Okay, okay, maybe there is a little hysteria. But it ain't every day that you've popped the fifth pair of jeans that month.
A new record.
The fifth. No sense; no sense at all, man. Ankles groaning and tortured and bloated like a fucking pregnant cow, and you can just stare down at your huge damn belly and roar at the fates, Why-hy-hy-hy? Put some Creedence on the stereo, and it makes no difference at all. 'cause you can't stand up and dance.
Hell, you can't even dance, man. I can't even dance. These hips. These hips. There aren't any. And what the hell's with this... Y'know what? I could see the beer gut. Time, shitty diet, okay, okay, maybe there should've been a little more surrender to Sammy's prissy micro-green salads and fewer pies and maybe not the liquid, uh, everything that gets slammed down when the universe is melting into a fuckin' nightmare where you expect to hear the roof peeled off and then see that it's not the roof but just the sky and, hell, there's Zeus there with a lightning bolt to administer a nice high-voltage colonoscopy.
Just one of those lifetimes.
But this?
Man, what the fuck is this?
"Ah, okay, okay, man. You're not hysterical. I- I don't even know what you are, dude." And there's not much argument with that. It's just... This. Struggle up; it's a two minute ritual. Palms clamped on the chair's armrests, the seat something that was never exactly a fuckin' straitjacket even a few months ago and I can feel it.
Hell, man, I can hear it. Flesh yielding; a grudging act of surrender when groaning meat's just extruded out like a sausage being made.
Or maybe freshly minted, pinched off, y'know, which is something I haven't been able to do yet, either. Do you hear me, Sammy? You go almost nine months with the known universe's worst constipation and try to tell me not to be hysterical.
It's like that King of The Hill episode. I'm gonna die.
I mean, again.
But it ain't a glorious demise; it ain't a heroic flourish, a blaze-of-glory act of annihilation that'll have my name written in the stars. If there's a constellation, it's gonna look like a construction site outhouse.
Dean, The Porta John. Just follow the North Star, and you'll see it, kids.
The one that looks like a guy with his brains blasting out of his ears while he strokes out from the strain of pushing out what's gotta be a boulder now. Will celestial powers intervene for someone who kicks it shitting out his own brains?
Don't think so.
I'm pretty sure. Elvis, man. Elvis. If god, God, gawd, whatever, won't get off his throne for the King on his, it's a pretty sound bet that he ain't gonna for yours truly. I think. Would rather not test it; definitely would rather not taste it.
A groan.
"Oh, Sammy, man, this's bad. I- I got this weird feeling." Palm on a gut that should be in the Smithsonian. This ain't an ordinary beer gut; it's not even an extraordinary beer gut. It's a legendary thing. "Right here, man. Like that cheese steak that wouldn't pass right for three weeks. Remember that, man-"
"I remember when it came out, Dean. That's for damn sure. I'd never seen a shitty roadside motel try to kick out anybody for wrecking the toilets before that. The plunger couldn't push it down." Sammy's just gawping at me now, the little bastard. "Man, are- are you about to blow? You've got that look on your face.
"Don't make me smell it-"
"Sammy! Y-y'gotta help me, man! I can barely move! It hurts like hell." And Sammy's giving me a look like a fucking bunny when it finally has the epiphany the bristling soft needles batting at its face are a wolf's lashes. "C'mon, man! Sammy! Sammy, it hurts, dammit!"
"D-Dean, I mean, y'know, I'm your brother. We- we've literally been through hell together, man-"
"Not at the same time, Sammy."
"Exactly. So, uh, you know, maybe I could sit this one out-"
"Sammy, you're gonna be manning the mop if you don't help me to the bathroom." It's coming.
's the only word.
Holy shit, whatever it is, it's comin'. And fast. Supersonic. It's gonna break the sound barrier out of my damn colon. It's coming. It's coming. It's coming.
"Sammy, help me to the toilet, man, or this room's gonna be the new commode!" Oh, yeah. It'll at least be very prettified with some new décor. 'til the walls simply crunch under its bulk, yield like The Shining with something worse than blood rushing out of the elevator.
Wait for the ding.
Or somethin' worse.
The walls are a whirl; the universe is a wheeling confusion in heavy stately hardwood, and, damn, it's the weirdest thing. The- the hugeness there is giving me hardwood. Seriously, you can't even believe the pressure, the displacement. Like you're about to start passing a Sherman tank; and there's a tension in the pants that's about to split the jeans through the fly and not just the waistband.
"Sammy, gimme a hand!"
"I am, Dean. You're just- dammit, you're getting heavy. How- how much weight've you gained?" It's mortifying. It's humiliating. All this- this weepy psychosis, man. It's about like being on the rag, right? I retract it all.
Every comment; every muttered little missive when a chick has melted down into screaming psychosis over the tiniest most trivial little bullshit comment. I take it back. Emotions are less that and more a brain-damaged chipmunk with a chemistry set. They're just popping off with a brutal rattling cadence; fling a sack of popcorn in the microwave and nuke it with enough venom to reenact Hiroshima in your kitchen, and you might feel something like that; set it between your ears, an' then you'll get it.
Insane.
Jubilant.
Yes!
I can trim a nail without bleeding out into the sink.
Despairing!
Fuck. I'm a pig.
Dammit, man, lookit me. No, no, man, a fucking pig would tell me to cut some calories and try Adkins. It isn't fair; isn't fair.
Enraged.
Well, it's not like you need Schwarzenneger's physique to hammer off enough lead in the shooting range to open your own damn mine.
Despairing again. Too fucking fat to bend down and pluck a lost mag off the floor.
Joyous.
Hey, I can actually shoot a face into the ten ring at thirty yards.
Despairing again.
Fucking Sammy can, too, even if it's with his damn sissy nine.
And now, now? It's just agony; a pain that's like learning those repressed memories about a babysitter and a bit of doctor were an Elizabeth Dole wet dream. It's a nightmare; it's a horror. Clutching my belly, and even massaging it with razors couldn't relieve this.
"Ah, shit, it's coming!" The scream from my lips is rocketing up like a Polaris missile. There's...
Heat.
Fuck, it ain't heat. It's toppling back in a sauna.
One suggestion. Do not stalk a rusalka in a Detroit banya. Damn. Who knew they could be dudes, too?
Very awkward.
Wading through a schvitz with a fucking gold-headed harpoon, weighed down with about seventy pounds of waterlogged denim and leather and webbing? That's what heroic tales are made of, man; sea stories. This? This is not a sea story. But the heat still is. Pouring.
Spurting.
Sluicing.
Word-builder, man. Use it. Everyone...
"Yargh! Sammy, dammit!" It's a squeal. Yup. A certifiable squeal; throat's already raw with it like deep-throating a black bear.
Totally figurative.
Not like that's from experience or anything.
"Sammy, it..." I mean, the whole fucking bear. "It hurts, man! It hurts real bad. I'm dying, Sammy. I'm dying. I- I'm bleeding; I'm gonna bleed out from my asshole-"
"Damn, Dean, don't be such a drama-queen." Clutching at his stupid flannel shirt. My flannel is not stupid. His? It's designer. It's a faggy lumberjack's wardrobe. But it is comfortable on the fingers. I should ask.
I am not a faggy lumberjack. Don't even say that, man.
It's just...
"I can't even stand!" Strength flees like scrabbling out of some chick's house with your clothes thrown over your shoulder and her dad's shotgun speaking very unkind words about your fitness for his daughter. It's ignominious.
Word-a-day calendar; right next to the little beagle puppy's snout. I love that one.
Legs tremble; it's shooting down even into my toes, man.
"Sammy, I'm gonna bleed out through my butt. Don't let me go like this, Sammy; don't let me die from an asshole wound. It's not fair. It isn't fair-"
"You can't die from an asshole wound, Dean. Don't be such a baby. You've just- yeah, it's weird, but maybe it's some kind of spell a witch cast on you. Nine months of constipation or something. Hey, did you screw around on a sorceress or something?" Anyone should be scandalized.
Right?
Shit.
It does merit a little soul-searching.
Heart-plumbing.
Uh...
"Did-did I? Man, I can't even remember. Y'know, y'hit a hundred, and it's all a blur after that. Don't worry, Sammy; you won't ever need to worry-"
"Remind me to drop your fat ass the next time I don't need to worry about you getting shit on the floor. Damn. What's that- that weird smell?" Yeah.
It's there.
A shoulder ground against one of the bunker-chic walls; cold concrete that's just so damn cool against my forehead, slopping with sweat, fat pearls rattling at the floor, blackening it beside my boots. Shit.
"What is that smell, Sammy? Your kiddie cologne-"
"Man, you are seriously pushing it. What's with you?"
"Just- just keepin' my edge."
"You don't have an edge anymore. You're a blimp, dude; blimps don't have sharp edges-"
"Oh, shut up. It's- it smells kinda sweet, doesn't it, man?" It's caressing the nostrils. Yeah. Freshly-mown grass.
I mean, freshly-mown grass churned with dog shit.
But there's enough chlorophyll in the coprolite not to just assault you like a linebacker on PCP.
"Damn, you're right. It is kinda sweet, huh? Let's get your sweet ass to the bathroom."
"Sammy, I didn't know ya cared, man." The stupid jibes and jabs. Yeah. 's still my brother, dumb 'chilla or not. Crash through the door and there's never been more joy to see the can. It's just a little unfair, you know?
Cleaned it yesterday.
Obsessive domestic crap.
Can't sit still.
But can't stand standing, either.
Slump down on it and there's just... The weirdest shit; not literally, of course. Just the weirdest damn shit staining my pants. And whatever you can call underwear when even the most charitable soul'd mistake it for a circus tent.
"Dude, I'm a blimp. I- I can't even see my cock-"
"Dean, I don't want to see it. Can you reach the toilet paper? I'd rather just get out-"
"Don't leave me, man! Don't leave me! If- if I die on the crapper, I want you to be there." It's something.
I guess it's fraternal passion.
Or maybe it's just the ricocheting pinball emotions or gas.
Oh, why can't it just be gas?
Clutching at his stupid faggy lumberjack shirt's tails.
"Sammy, please-"
"All right. But I'm not gonna watch." Turning pointedly. And who can care? Man, at this point, who can care?
"I'm gonna turn on the fan, too. Hope I don't hear it-"
"Oh, man, they're gonna hear it in Tulsa." And it's my prayer that it'll be so fucking huge it'll be less a clinker and more a gong; more the bells of Notre Dame. And it's just... What is that weird juice smeared over my legs, shimmering on my underwear?
The walls dark heavy hardwood; a sharp needling smell of disinfectant.
Bleach.
Knees tremble.
"Oh, dammit, Sammy!" Every word galls the throat. "It's gonna be a big one. I mean, y'know, nine-months big-"
"I get it, Dean. Just- just push it out and maybe we can try to forget this whole day happened."
"I've got wood, Sammy. Is that normal?"
"I don't even want to think abou-"
"Waaaaargh!" You know those Japanese cartoons with the bleached-blond super-warriors from outer space?
Yeah.
It's one of those moments. Incredible my hair ain't levitating and Pam Anderson blond with the scream that's exploding up from my throat.
Distending my neck.
"Sammy, it's fuckin' huge, man! It's gonna split me in half-"
"I don't want the minutes, Dean. Just- just push it out-"
"I don't know if I can, man! I need help-"
"Dude, Dean, this is kinda something you need to do on your own. I am not getting the cow gloves and giving you two full hands-"
"Don't even talk like that. I mean, dude, hold my hand!" Whimpering now; everything like strength has just melted. It's bleeding away. Where? Where?
Dude, does it even fucking matter?
It's anguish; it's insanity.
It's just- it's a turd the size of that asteroid that lets you pump liquid T-rex into your Hummer.
"Fine." He's so damn huffy, grudging. His hand's still clapped on mine. "There. Happy, Dean?"
"Dude, like I can't believe. This's worse than watching Bambi for the first time." Wincing; straining; knees trembling. A quake becomes a full-body dry heave the second there's...
Movement.
Some twisted weird insidious species of movement.
"W-whoa, dude, dude, it's like a knockin' engine. There's- there's some kinda weird kicking in my gut, dude." Trembling pattering pricks like staring into the sun through a threadbare curtain.
Whoa.
That was totally poetic.
"I- I dunno what it is!" Ants; 'roided-up ants. They're kicking, pounding, pumping. Down, down, down. "Sammy, it's..."
"Ah... I- I mean, y'know, just- just, uh, like, bear down and... Push?" He's a moron; a fucking moron. Push? This ain't an episode of Doctor Sexy.
"I'm not pushin' out a fuckin' kid, Sammy! What's with you?! Don't- yeah. G-good advice, I guess. P-push! Pushing. Pushing."
"Dean, you are never telling anybody about this. I'm serious. If you do, that's it. I've stood by you through- through hell and high water and I mean all of that totally literally. But if you tell anybody I stood in the bathroom, holding your hand, helping you through history's biggest dump-"
"Believe me, man. I- I'd rather tell people about that dream I had with Charro and Michael Jackson, Samm-hiiii!" Wow, quite the range. Who knew you could dig a falsetto out of my voice? "Oh, man, it's coming.
"It's coming." And, ah, it's...
Don't repeat this.
To anyone.
But it's coming, too, y'know? Get it? 'cause it's just something humongous grinding and grating at that electrifying bit of meat tucked deep, and there's more than a little sentimentality, more than a little familiarity.
"H-ho, fuck, it's- something huge, Sammy. Sammy, man, I'm gonna die here-"
"You're not gonna die, Dean-"
"Get me some booze."
"I am not getting you booze so you can just shit more comfortably on the toilet. I think this's a learning experience." Prissy little prick.
That's why there's a crunch. And his face warps in a pathetic cringe. There. Happy, Sammy?
"Hah! That's a learning experience, Sammy!" Fingers crushing around his. "Hah. Y'like that? Get me some fucking booze; or an epidural-"
"Dude, you do nngn..." A wince twists itself into a damn whimper. "Do not need a fuckin' epidural to take the world's biggest shit." A hiss now. "This's because you have such a crappy diet. And you didn't do anything I told you to do the last eight months, man.
"I told you to improve your diet; you just ate the weirdest crap-"
"W-well it's not like I know why I wanted to have sriracha jelly doughnuts and banana sorbet, man. 's just how my body works. Wah..." It's...
Coming.
More and more and more.
A crash; but it's not the main attraction. Just a huge wet spatter into the toilet like Niagara Falls and now it's a briny jumble of cum's creamy bleach stink and something weird and hot and biologic and it's just humongous.
's a damn presence.
It's more and more and more and more and, hell, it's not just that I'd kill for a night and a morning and a very long shower with a 'sixties Sophia Loren but I'd toss a hand grenade into a kindergarten classroom just to be the hell away from this.
Anywhere and anyone else.
"Man, it's- it's big. It's so damn big. I can't take it anymore. Put me down, Sammy. It's- it's gonna rip me apart, anyway. It'll be the end; a total blowout. Just put a bullet in my brain-"
"Don't be a drama-queen, man. You're just finally pushing out, uh... You know what? I don't think I ever read about anybody being constipated for more than eight months. I should've looked in the lore-"
"You mean, you didn't? Sammy, you Ivy League submoron-"
"Sorry, sorry!" The quirking little smile ain't too contrite; that's why I'm wringing a real apology from the little chimp with a twist and a jerk and that'd be his arm almost coming out of its socket with a gratifying pull and a pop. "I mean-"
"What? Did- did you come from George Bush prep or something, man-"
"It didn't occccccur to me." A mewl.
Hah.
Take that.
And now it's that.
It's here.
"O-oh, oh, oh, fuck, Sammy! Somethin' big's comin'! It's the big one! If- if I buy it like this, remember, okay, man? I- I didn't go out like Fat Elvis. I- I shot myself; a werewolf ate my heart with a side of gherkins; an ex-girlfriend gutted me when she caught me with her super-hot mom and three identical twin sisters!
"Anything but this!"
"I promise, man. I promise-"
"G-good. Good. Oh, oh, fuck." Can you sob through a protracted prostate orgasm? 'cause this's what's being explored now.
A great vast survey of the insane fuckin' juxtapositions, word-a-day, live it, love it, that the body can hold in its meat an' muscle an' fat an' skin an' everything else at once.
Roiling roaring popping off between my ears and behind my eyes and it's lightning sizzling and coruscating up and down every nerve twanging at 'em with rusty bladed gloves and it's fucking demented and absolutely impossible and it's here.
It's here.
Oh, hell, this isn't like pushing in anything.
It's knowing the inside wickedly introduced to the outside; it's a mischievous diabolic bodily whim, and suddenly, suddenly, breaking, breaking, snapped open, an eggshell being cracked and not under a boot and not against a glass or a dish but with its own simple gravity, twisting and wheeling and at once, at once, it's to know some breed of impossible epiphany.
I know the universe.
The Big Bang.
'cause time and space are being warped on their axis and the Beginning wasn't billions of years ago at all Creation's center.
Wasn't with a Let There Be Light.
It's set to sleazy strip club music's accompaniment, 'cause that's the sonata that's pealing up with lurruping heavy bass like the planet's second hugest fart into my mind.
Oh, damn.
Damn.
Damn.
And everything condenses.
Life and light. The universe. It's there. It's madness; pure supersaturated madness. It's a fuckin' acid-trip psychosis, and everything groans and ripples like grass frozen in an ice-laced hurricane and just snapped, suddenly and irresistibly.
Everything breaks.
And everything brakes, also.
Time?
Ended.
It just wasn't.
But there's a shock. A spurt and a spray and there's another merciless orgasm crushing itself out of the flesh like a thunderbolt from the firmament and it's...
"O-oh, oh, fuck! Sammmmmmyyyyyy!" Enough consonants and vowels? Close e-fucking-nuff. It's just- it's murder. I'm dying.
I'm dying.
Thrashing; heaving; if only anyone coulda been this enthusiastic at the fuckin' AC/DC concert, man. It's a mosh of one on the toilet, raging and convulsing and just gnashing, yammering with a speaking-in-tongues hysteria and something, something, something is coming!
"D-dude, what's wrong-"
"It hurts, man! It hurts! S-so fuckin' much!" Roaring at him; both hands now on his shirt. Plaintive.
Man, that is the word.
Pleading.
Begging.
"O-oh, oh, oh, fuck, Sammy, it's so big!" Do not say, That's what she said.
Lowing like a tortured calf.
"Aaaah!" And another huge hot heaving shriek.
"Dude, stop screaming-"
"I am not screaming!" While little Sammy's wincing, that stupid rat-chinchilla face just twisting now with the sound's hugeness. "You ain't heard screamin' yet, Sammy-"
"Fine, Dean. Fine. It's- what was that?"
Yeah.
That's the question.
Fuck you, Hamlet. The real question is not To be, or not to be? It's What the fuck was that splash?
That plop.
It's just...
So fuckin' anticlimactic.
More than that.
And now, now, there's the total annual volume of the Congo River just pouring out of me. Rearing, bubbling up, and there's... There's a brush like the planet's tiniest finger on my left cheek.
"Oh, dude, that's- oh, fuckin' nasty. How small is this toilet-"
"Uh, 's a toilet, Dean? Wow, you look totally wasted-"
"I wanna be wasted. Get me a drink, man." But there's just... The fuck is all this excess meat? Wilting, sagging down now over my knees. "Holy shit, I deflated or somethin'."
A gurgle.
A cough.
Blink once.
And twice.
Glance up at Sammy; and he's glancing down at me.
You can feel the blink like tape peeled off sandpaper.
"The hell was that, Dean? Was that your gut?"
"Dude, I dunno, but... Somethin' just kinda... Brushed me." Standing.
Well, jerk upright.
Approximately fifty pounds lighter.
At least.
"Dude, I'm-"
"Holy crap, Dean." That'd be the word. Every possible connotation.
That puppy calendar.
Amazing.
It's just... 's incredible to have that as some kinda purchase on reality, 'cause, hell, everything else is just gone. Whoa. Broken; twisted apart like a Kansas trailer court in an atomic tornado. Amazing film; late-night perfection. But it's here. Starin' up at me, cradled, shit, swaddled in an iridescent bassinet in weird and... Damn, let's just be honest.
It's eldritch stuff. It should be wriggling with rainbow tentacles and farting dread elder gods and whatever the hell else you can wring out of unpronounceable horrors from dark and terrible parallel dimensions. But the thing ain't.
Exactly.
Cooing.
Giggling.
Arms craned up; fat shapeless little fingers clutch at nothing.
"What the hell is that, Dean?" Ain't that the millennium's question?
"Ah... That looks like..."
"It doesn't look like the world's biggest dump, Dean. I mean..." Twisting down; the thing's just lying there, bobbing a bit with some strange little current stirring the weird opalescent juices thickened like Electric Kool-Aid brand pudding.
"Ah, Sammy, is that-"
"Is that a baby?" Let's see. Two hands; two arms; two feet; two legs. A head. And... Yeah, that's not an umbilical cord. Baby takes after his dad, at least. Wait. What? "Dean, does that baby have stubble?" A glance at me; a glance down at the... Well, damn, ya got me, Sam. It's a baby. "Dean?" Askance.
Yup.
That's askance; head twisting like a rusting tank turret to fix me with those glazed chinchilla eyes.
"Dean, what the hell, man? Doesn't he kinda look, y'know, like?..."
"Dude, it's... It's not what it looks like. I mean, you know, it really kinda is, but-"
"Dean, what the hell, man? I mean, um, how the hell? It's not, um, I mean... It doesn't work that way, right?" Staring down at the little morsel of unreality. "That only happens in that crappy fanfiction they wrote about us, right?
"Right? The ones-"
"I know which ones you're talkin' about, all right, Sammy?" Bark, cough, thrash my hands like a demented conductor. "Y'made me read enough of 'em." So did Cas. Which is...
"So, uh, can you get child support out of an angel, Dean?" I guess you gotta commend the guy for holding back the doubled-over wheezing laughter for this long.
"I hate you, Sammy."