mike krumboltz

Bill was on his knees in the master bathroom, pants around his ankles, his semi-erect dick in his right hand. His arm hair was matted down from sleep. The hem of his tan sweater was tucked under his chin, giving him a clear view of his progress as well as an unencumbered area to work his full range of motion.

On the blue tile in front of him was a Money Magazine article on the rising price of college tuition. Bill, 41, focused on the photo of Amanda, a student at the University of Florida.

Poor Amanda was in debt. The look on her face was serious. Vulnerable, perhaps, but unbroken.  A zoology major with a passion for the environment, Amanda wore a tight UF t-shirt and denim shorts. If Bill squinted he thought maybe he could see an outline of a nipple against the cotton.

“How’s it going in there?” It was his wife Nancy, straining to be casual.

“Fine,” Bill said. Just leave, just leave, just leave.

“Because we can’t be late.”

“I know, Jesus,” Bill half-shouted. “Two minutes.”

He heard the footsteps fade and then shifted his attention back to Amanda. He imagined her slowly pulling the shirt over her head inside her dimly lit dorm room. Her roommate was gone for the weekend.  So take your time, Amanda. Her bra? What kind of bra was she wearing? Bill considered this. Maybe something sporty? She was in shape, like the girl who handed out towels at the gym. Bill put her in something tasteful from Gap Body. Black.

Boom, that did it. Bill took it to stage two. Bra-clad Amanda was in her room — which his imagination had draped in red velvet — working on a term paper. She sat at her computer, grew distracted, and began licking her lips. She reached behind her back, undid the bra’s clasp and then did that thing Nancy did where she sort of shrugged her shoulders a bit while the bra eased off her chest. Why was she taking off her bra while working on a term paper? Because Bill needed to ejaculate into a cup, and quickly. He felt his balls constrict. He wheeled around on his knees, found the specimen cup, placed it right at the head of his penis, and out came the prize.

Oh, man. Nancy would be happy. Bill held up the plastic jar and looked at the little markings on the side. He sloshed the contents around. Seven milliliters. A good haul this time.

This was the sixth month. Bill tried not to think about why he was on his knees at eight o’something in the morning on a Tuesday. Because it wasn’t a why. It was a who. And who was Laura, his late daughter.

But, no. Not late. That was how reporters referred to old timers who’d died after a lifetime of something. Laura had had 10 years of stomping on wet worms and taking things apart with a screwdriver. 10 years of being terrible at sports and drawing underwater cities with colored pencils. 10 years was nothing.

Another tap at the door, this one louder, more urgent. “Bill?”

Bill took one last glance at the hopelessly indebted Amanda. “Done. Be there in a minute.”

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Why do we have earwax? Why do dogs love to sniff ass? Why do baseball players spit so much? Why did Lucinda leave me for a 56-year-old magician with albino eyes?

As I sat cross-legged on the floor, those questions poured out of my soggy brain and into the back of my mouth. I decided to give voice to the only question I could hope to answer. I stood up, fell back down, and then crawled to the madam’s office where the phone was.

“Hello,” said Lucinda.

“Why’d you end it, why’d you drop me? What’s the problem?” I yelled into the receiver.

“Who is this?” she said. “Jesus, stop calling me, you turkey.”

“What did I do, huh? What did I do? I did it all, didn’t I? You bet I did. I did it all, but nobody was looking.”

“Are you in jail? Call your lawyer. I don’t have to listen to you anymore, the law made that point clear as day.”

“Where’s Marty? I want to talk to Marty. Put that phony of a fuckslut magic man on the horn.”

“Marty’s sleeping and you’re a dumbbell if you think I’d wake him up to listen to this.”

I took a breath. The room was spinning, and I was sweating. “Remember how we used to talk,” I said. “Remember how we used to ask each other questions, and then we’d try to figure ‘em out. Remember that?”

“Sure, I remember,” she said.

“Right, right. So I got one for you — why do we have earwax?”

Just then, the madam walked in. She was drunk like usual. “Hank,” she said, slurring her words. “Hank the stank!” She laughed.

Lucinda heard her. “Who is that? Are you with another woman?” I told her I had to go.

“What are you doing in my office? That better not have been long distance.” She stretched out the last word interminably.

I told her I was calling my ex-wife. She laughed again and said that sort of thing was common. Men are stupid, she said. They like to confess before they commit the crime.

I told her I wasn’t a criminal, I was just drunk, and I needed another shot of something before I fell down like a huckleberry.

She poured me a glass of something brown with a sliver of ice. I drank it all at once, closed my eyes, opened them again, and looked at her false eyelashes, which appeared to be falling off her face, fluttering toward the ground like black snowflakes. And then I was, too. I dropped face-first onto the velvet love seat where we’d first fucked, seven years ago, a week after I got back from my honeymoon.

It was either Tuesday or Wednesday. The days were running together and I’d lost track. I’d been sleeping heavy but it wasn’t good sleep. I was tired. I felt lousy. I opened an eye and focused on the clock on the wall of my office. The hands weren’t moving.

I stood, felt my chair groan and my head pound, and shuffled over to shake the clock back to life.  It felt light. I turned it around. The battery was gone. I figured my landlady must have taken it. She liked to help herself to things like that on account of my being a month behind. For all I knew, she’d walked in, saw me passed out, took the battery, flipped me the bird, and left. She was that kind of lady.

I told her a week before, I said, “Mrs. Planto. If I had money, you’d get the money. But I don’t have it. I’m down to my last roll of toilet paper, even. I mean it.”  And you don’t know nothing until you’ve had to take a massive crap and been worried about only using a few squares. I don’t want to get all deep and say it changes a man, because it’s just toilet paper, but it does make a man think about what he’s doing wrong. It does make a man think about making some changes.

I opened the curtain. It was dark outside. My two shit-box jalopies sat there, busy not making me money. My neon orange sign shone down from the roof. “Clyde’s Car Rentals/Notary Service,” it flashed to anyone who passed by.  Not mentioned on the sign were several other services I offered, including the tracking of deadbeats and the intimidation of lowlifes.

That was my passion, what I was best at. Following people. Seeing the look on their face when I came out of the shadows. It didn’t matter what they did. They could be stealing shampoo of the maid’s cart. I just loved catching ‘em.  Once upon a time, when I was a hotel dick, I got paid for it.

I was about to lock up and get a two-cent taco when a car pulled up. Its headlights sliced the dark. It looked a little out of control, going too fast. I thought it might plow into my office, which isn’t much of an office, just a rusted Airstream at the end of a parking lot.  The car, a nice, new ‘34 Packard, stopped and slid forwards a few feet on the gravel. Its front wheels grazed the concrete block I used as a barrier.

I thought about saying I was closed, because people that show up at night are usually desperate and light on cash. I had a guy in once. He said he wanted to rent the Studebaker.  So, I said, “OK, big spender, step inside.” He walked in, cool as the Pacific, handed me a piece of paper with a stick figure on it, and said that was his driver’s license. I crumpled it up, threw it in his face, and said, “Beat it, pinhead.” Well, he got angry. And then I got angry and it turned into a real dustup. I knocked out a tooth. Fucker stabbed me in the leg with my own fountain pen. Took the pen, left me with a limp. Still, I wasn’t about to turn away a customer.

Leaning against the doorjamb, I watched and waited for somebody to get out. The lights made it hard to see. “You need a car?” I said, stepping into the night. “I’m just about to close up.”

The engine continued to murmur, but nobody got out. I started to get a bad feeling. I’d been ripped off before. Of course I had no scratch to steal, but this guy didn’t know that. I reached behind me for the door handle. I kept a gun in my top drawer, under a stack of bills I had no intention of paying. I started to ease back inside, when the car’s rear door opened and a woman got out. She almost tripped on the gravel. Her high heels twisted under her.

“Can I help you?” I said. She was tall and wore a yellow dress that matched her hair. Walking toward me in front of the car’s headlights, she looked like a ghoul, a specter. The light went right through her. Not just her dress, but through her body. I could see everything. Her lungs, her heart, her stomach. Everything was empty.

“The notary,” she said, like she was ordering her favorite sandwich, like she already knew me.

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