you’re the stink on my cake
Marjorie kept saying that I should come up, that I could move in with her
and her husband and her two boys and be the family manservant. “You
wouldn’t have to actually do very much other than crack wise and buy
groceries, and that’s about all you do in Iowa, other than sulk,” she
said, which was true in a technical sense, but that didn’t mean I was
about to be some fucking manservant. First, I did not like her children,
and sure we all know that I don’t like children, but I particularly don’t
like her children, because they’re so much like her husband, and probably
the less I say about that the better. How can I work on my diabolical
experiments with little people running around sticking their fingers in
sockets and screaming about whatever stupid crap televison children are
into this season? I’m the dark prince of American fiction! I can’t move to
the suburbs!
We thus decided (well, I decided and she got used to it) that I would stay
right where I am, but I would build a ROBOTIC MANSERVANT in my own
likeness. This required a bit more introspection than I am normally
comfortable with (which is none), so that I sent the ROBOTIC MANSERVANT to
work one day to see if it would fool my boss. I haven’t said more than
“hey” to my boss in a month, so it wasn’t much of a test, but it was a
smashing success nevertheless, at least until some creep who has been
hanging around the graveyard a lot tried to chat up the ROBOTIC MANSERVANT
as to whether or not his wife was actually buried in the plot she had
registered, he seemed to remember it being closer to a tree, it’s been
three months since the funeral and no one will give him a straight answer.
I happen to know for a fact that she’s buried in the right place as I dug
the hole, but as I figured the ROBOTIC MANSERVANT wouldn’t have to get a
job (besides the manservanting) I didn’t bother to include any information
as to my many prior careers, and so the ROBOTIC MANSERVANT chased the
grieving husband down the street, out to that prefab housing clump across
the highway, which probably means I’m gonna get fired. It’s been that
kinda month.
(12:26.05.19.2005) [/scrytch] #