And the Butt that Controlled the Weather

Slim Pickens and the Butt that Controlled the Weather

"The evening sky is a sickly lemon-yellow. Stray newspapers and garbage fill the streets like  rabid cats and dogs. Stray cats and dogs run wild like rabid newspapers and garbage. If it weren't for this watermelon Jolly Rancher, there'd be nothing to keep away the taste of sewage and up-chuck."

Slim Pickens is walking the streets in the bad part of town. He looks out over the bay and watches barges haul waste out to the edges of nowhere. He thinks back to grade school, learning about those old maps men made when the world believed in sea-monsters and points of no-return. He almost wishes it were true. He yearns for a place where all this filth can go and never come back. The sea monsters give him the willies though. He's not trying to conquer his fears. He's trying to understand them.

"I'm not sure why I'm here. My mom told me to get a job. I told her, 'I'm not a businessman. Business is a hard word to spell' So is entrepren-- entrapuhnoo- entrepenu--you know what I mean. Spelling issues aside, I'm looking for answers. If movies have taught me anything, that means looking for trouble. The questions I have seem to be pointing towards Danger Street. Why do I see faces scowling at me when I close my eyse? Why does my back hurt real bad in the mornings? Why hasn't the sun come out from behind the clouds this week? This month? Why has a giant concrete butt parked itself on top of the tallest building in the city?"

A half-eaten hotdog presents itself to Slim Pickens but before he can have a little afternoon snack he gets a call on his mobile telephone.

"Hello, this is Slim Pickens on a mobile telephone. Slim Pickens speaking."

"Slim, it's Poodonkis! You need to come down to the roller rink. Something incredible is happening!"

"Incredible, huh? If this doesn't shock me like the fork-in-a-toaster game, you owe me a half-eaten hot dog."

"Whatever. Get down here."

Slim Pickens hangs up the phone and goes back to talking to himself.

"Sometimes I feel like life's just a roll of a die. You roll a five, you find a perfectly good half-a-garbage dog. You roll a six and something amazing happens at the skate rink. Hopefully getting a three involves cybernetic unicorns and big-haired ladies covered in cooking oil somehow."

To be continued...