The Unrighted Leotard by Hanover

There was this book about cats I wanted to buy, but my Amazon account was locked because I guessed my password wrong one too many times. This would mean I would need to go and speak with an Amazon person I suppose, which I think is up somewhere in Seattle. That is a crazy long drive from Iowa where I live (or maybe it’s Ohio, not real sure), but if I have to go, I have to go. Of course I’m one of limited funds, having spent the better part of my fortune on cat books, cat magazines, cat bookmarks, pretty much anything cat. One day I hope to own a cat, but don’t have the means right now. But now luck would have it that I’ve got a technical problem with my account that I use to buy my cat things, so I need to go see the man about getting it all fixed up.

A drive up to Seattle will no doubt cost a pretty penny, so being the resourceful sort, I think I’ll find me a soul or two to share the ride. Surely there is someone else in Ohio that needs a lift, and maybe some new found buddies and I can pool our resources together and get this thing done. What I’ll do is post a note at the Chipotle near the Coke machine that says: “NEEDED: COSTSPLIT RIDE TO SEATTLE: MEET ME OUT FRONT ON MONDAY MORNING IF INTERESTED.” Most folks where I live get their Coca-Colas at that drink machine, so I should have a pretty good selection of ride mates come Monday.

So after going about my plan, I showed up around noon on Monday and there were eight people waiting to be interviewed for the ride. Most were more interested in getting food, so I thought I’d let them eat before talking to them, but they’d just forget and leave without talking. No judgment. We’re all God’s children and can be forgetful from time to time. Others would eventually show up and get in line, giving me a constant flow of applicants, but they all just kept eating and leaving.

Around 3:00 p.m. I was able to speak with this Russian girl who I couldn’t understand. If I got her name right it was Svetlana Barsikovaklinsinnova. She carried with her the moral ambiguity, loneliness, emotional turmoil but deep spirituality and eventual redemption one would expect from such a name. I could tell. She stood a mere 5 feet tall and wore gymnastic clothing, played the violin, and smoked like a chimney. I could not understand her, nor her me, but she enthusiastically accepted the ridecostsplit. I think she said “ok,” but it could have been “leave me alone.”

Regardless of what she meant, she grabbed hold of the door handle and opened her backdoor up nice and wide and leapt in for a ride, sort of like she was running from something. Her cigarette fell to the floor amidst all the fuss. She righted her shifted leotard and sat up straight, staring into the abyss of nothingness that burdened misplaced Russian characters who found themselves in stories about Iowa. She then played her violin, fiddling her fingers effortlessly, stroking and plucking all about. Once finished, she adjusted her leotard a final time, and closed her backdoor. Tight. As if she didn’t want anyone else to enter.

Well, now here things started to take a bit of a turn. Right before taking off, a grisly man of about 70 came to Svetlana’s backdoor and tried to pry it open. It was closed tight. He tried to pull it open, but no one was getting all up in there. I’m a helpful sort though, so I reached around and opened it. The more the merrier I thought to myself. The old geezer slid right in. She gasped, as if she knew him from before. He had a tattoo that spun around on his neck that said “Svetlana Barsikovaklinsinnova and me forever and ever and ever.” “Hmm” I thunk to myself.

I asked him his name. He spoke in an accent from the deep Nebraska swamplands, steeped in corn ears and steer horns and long lazy days with tall lanky women and long eared hound dogs where the smell of lilac and hibiscus would linger in the air, smelling of your grandmama’s house as she knitted, cup of gin by her side. We all know that accent. It was an angelic sound, but for the menacing way about him. Dude was sketch. He said his name was Precarious Dubiety. I looked at him with uncertainty.

A dog jumped in the car before I could close the door. He wagged his tail and his frothy mouth began chewing on the floorboard. I wasn’t sure if he was snacking on leftovers crusted in the car, he was about to go monkeyshit with rabies, or if he was trying to escape. In any event, I called him Shewy because it sounds like Chewy.

I crunked up the car and it spit and sputtled and lurched forward. We weren’t 15 feet when the whole God damned thing caught on fire. I’m not talking about a smoldering sort of thing, but I’m talking about a full blown engine fire. We ran like shit out of there, coughing and choking, Shewy running in circles, much like you’d expect a dog to do that just about got burned up in a car fire. Well that’s a fine how do you do, wouldn’t you say? (___ Yes, ____ No, please choose an option).

So here we were on the side of the road, watching my 1982 Buick Regal with sweet gold tailpipes billowing smoke into the heavens. Svetlana and her aging seatmate and the maybe rabid dog sitting hopelessly. I would never get my Amazon account cleared up I thought to myself. I would have cried then and there, but I shaked my booty in front of the car and made me a TikTok. Gotz to get those followers up, know wut I mean?

After my dance was no longer on, I called an Uber, and to lift me from my doldrums, I ordered an Uber limo. I also needed a large vehicle to transport my dual monitors, desktop computer, keyboard, mouse, printer, scanner, and backup power source so that Amazon could look at it and see if the problem with my account was on my end with my system or on their end with their system. Last thing I wanted to happen was to get up there and they say they needed to look at my equipment and then I’d have to all the way back home, go back to posting a rideshare at Chipotle’s, finding a new Russian gymnast, and going through this whole darn thing again.

The Uber man came rolling up. He looked like Nietzsche. I thought, Jesus fucking Christ, what kind of dark philosophical bullshit was I going to have listen to between Svetlana and the Uberman. This was going to sound like a 1,200 page novel with a never ending supply of characters with unpronounceable names. Anywho, the whole crew jumped in the car. Svetlana righted her leotard and Precarious flicked his uvula with his pinky finger. Something felt like a gruesome murder might happen, but who I am to judge? All God’s children.

For the first time, I could see spinning down her leg that Svetlana had a tattoo of her own that said “Precarious Dubiety and me not forever and ever and ever.” I could feel the tension between the two, noting their inconsistent visions of the direction they wished their relationship would take as unambiguously documented in their respective spinning tattoos.

I screamed “There must be a better way! There must be a better way!” referencing the way these two communicated. Communication by spinning tattoo just seems so permanent and inefficient. It bothered me. Thus the outcry.

We had been driving what seemed like forever. The Uber driver was slumped over close to the steering wheel, resting his eyebrows on the center of the wheel. He peered through the small breaks in the steering wheel, appearing to drive more by feel than by sight. With every bump, the horn would lightly honk due to his mouth resting on the horn area. I asked him how much longer and he turned suddenly staring at me, his mouth fully agasp, appearing to be in a silent scream. That would have scared the shit out of me, but then we ran right off the road because Nietzchepants was in a catatonic open-face and he couldn’t seem to steer our land yacht down the road.

Now we’re bouncing about in a cornfield, Svetlana’s leotard all askew, constantly having to right and re-right it. Precarious had finally fallen fast asleep, now gagging on his pinky finger. Shewy had gotten halfway through the floorboard, but he was going to be in for a slap in the face when he got through because there was nothing under that floor board other than a 75 mile per hour of off-roading adventure that would file his face off in seconds flat. Something then jarred the driver loose from his neurological freeze and he slung the car back on the road like nothing happened.

I pinched myself to make sure this was real. I then pinched Svetlana to see if she was real. She then pinched Shewy, who in turn pinched Clyde. Shewy’s pinch went right through Clyde because Clyde wasn’t real. The other pinches showed the characters who were real and also showed the characters who weren’t real, like Clyde. He’s not even in this story. Sometimes a reality check is order. That’s why the good Lord gave us pinches.

Within a few moments, the car began to slow. I looked up and we were pulling into the Roadway Grease Spoon Restaurant II. I was hungry as “a pig in a poke of sand without a pot to piss in on a Sunday afternoon in the sunshine,” as my great-grand-step-father on my uncle’s side used to say. I noticed the law was there. An old styled single siren patrol car sat out front. We walked in and Precarious held Svetlana tightly by his side. I walked straight up to Precarious and said “Redrum” and moved my index finger up and down in his face.

The deputy was in the first booth. His torso was large and barreled out in an arc, protruding well above the seat back. He wore a cowboy hat and he had a star badge pinned directly into his right nipple. No shirt. Just a badge stabbing his chest. It was so distracting. I mean, what the fuck? I was just about at the point of asking to go back home to Idaho and maybe I could find another way to get a book about cats, but I’m one to finish what I started. Svetlana righted her leotard.

Before finding my seat, I made my way to the bathroom. I needed a break and we had been traveling for what could have been days, could have been minutes. I found my way to the urinal and the waitress bellied up to the one next to me. She dropped her pants and pushed herself forward the best she could, but piss splashed everywhere due to her poor design for such things. She made small talk with me as we relieved ourselves. She asked me about football, finances, the state of the union. All sorts of thigs. We chatted as we emptied our bladders and she soaked her legs and socks. I enjoyed the conversation honestly, just me and my new friend shooting the breeze. We sloshed out of there, her dark blue uniform showing the markings of her waste as I returned to my seat.

I looked at the menu. The special was described as a watery chicken soup without vegetables. I opted for the meat burger seasoned with generic table sauce. Precarious ordered three burgers, two shakes, a plateful of fries and more Coca-Cola products than one man should ever enjoy. Svetlana ate nothing and said nothing. She just plucked her violin, fiddling away, an unlit cigarette hung from her bluish lips. Shewy remained head first in the garbage can. The Uber driver ate quickly and left. And so here we were without a ride. And when we thought it couldn’t get worse, the deputy came over to our table. Svetlana shifted and righted her leotard.

The deputy looked first a Precarious and said “Don’t I know you?” Precarious didn’t look up but said, “Can’t say that I do.” The Deputy was taken aback. He said, “That’s not responsive to the question. I was asking you if I know you and you talked about whether you knew me.” Silence hung loudly in the room. “What?” said Precarious. You could hear a pen drop. The waitress picked up her pen. She dropped it again. A good 45 minutes of complete pause hit the room. Everyone froze. My eyes darted about for a blanket. It was freezing. Everyone was afraid of what was to come next, even the soaking wet waitress. The feeling of it finna get real bounced about the room like a frog infused rabbit on a pogo stick that just ate a spring sandwich on a rubber ball.

Slowly, like a snail suspended in molasses on the back of a turtle with a dying battery, Precarious’ pinky found its way to his uvula “Oh shit,” I thought. “Oh shit.”

The Deputy pulled out his baton and rapped it on the table.

“Don’t I know you?” he again asked.

Precarious looked at him in the eyes and said, “You need something?”

A trickle of nipple blood danced down the deputy’s chest, past his belly, over his navel and then sprung forth on the table.

You could hear a pencil drop.

“I do know you!” said the deputy.

“We danced in the streets at Mardi Gras together” he said.

Precarious became embarrassed and Svetlana looked at him side-eyed, pushing herself away from him.

Precarious was like, “It’s not like that! I don’t really know him. Not like that! I mean, nothing happened! It was just one dance, Jesus!”

As they sorted out whatever drama they had going, I started to worry about how I’d get all my computer equipment back from our fleeing Uber driver, not to mention how I’d get to Seattle to get my cat paraphernalia figured out. Troubles. Yeah, I had a few, but I was as cool as the Fonz’ cucumber.

I ate my burger, got my receipt, found the pencil on the floor and wrote on it: “NEEDED: COSTSPLIT RIDE TO SEATTLE: MEET ME OUT FRONT ON MONDAY MORNING IF INTERESTED.” I then made my way to the Coca-Cola machine, wondering what would become of me and the wet assed waitress as I would wait for my next ride.