Thrift Store Frankenstein

[jack_babalon]

The slash of morning has come up cold on the dirty buses rumbling by. Frost settles over the soot and glistens in the first days light, the sun dull as the coins counted in the palm of a fingerless glove. A tall mound of bundled rags steps on the bus and hunches over the coin box by the driver; a golem built out of Salvation Army hand me downs trying to bargain for a ride with an unbluffable driver. Blank stare, monotone answer: "If you don't have the fare you'll have to get off sir..."
Thrift Store Frankenstein ain't having none of that. Thrift Store Frankenstein is gonna take his case to the people.
"My Friends" his voice booms from the depths of a fur lined hood "53 cents is all it'll take for me to get home, get warm and the good lord Jesus willing get drunk!" He takes tiny little steps as if his ankles were chained by some unseen burden, he cracks his lips open and shows us a smile made of broken pebbles "... that's all i'm asking for now, a little humanity. 53 cents..." Not a one of us betrays the slightest recognition. Thrift Store Frankenstein gives the aisle one last look, his eyes desperate with hope. Shuffle of newspapers turning, muffled soul coming off headphones, the two TVs mounted on the bus show a spanish commercial for cellphone service, an awkward cough. "Sir" The driver announces over the buses intercom: "I'm going to have to ask you to stop harassing the paying customers and get off at the next stop please." Thrift Store Frankenstein's face shifts to neutral. He nods to himself and sinks his fists deep into his pocket. "Oh-Wait-I-Got-Something-Right-Here". He turns his back on us and makes his way back to the driver, suddenly I can hear something just over the traffic outside a kind of static buzzing, I look up at the TV mounted two seats down and watch the image flicker and wave. There's a smell somewhere between peaches and burning tires suddenly.
"Yeah-I-Got-Something-I-Got-Something-Right-Here-For-All-Your-Asses!!!" Thrift Store Frankenstein says pulling his hands out of his pockets, clutching squirming cockroaches that twist and drop from between the squeeze of his fingers. Now these aren't the kind of cockroaches you see creep out of your sink drain or scurry behind the garbage, no these fuckers are some mutant strain of the Blaberus Giganteus, the giant cockroach. Three inches long and half an inch in width and that's when I notice they're actually cascading from all his pockets, and flowing from underneath his pant legs and he looks dead at me, and widens his mouth until I can hear a series of pops over the sound of screaming passengers, as his lower jaw drops down to his chest and a swarm of the Giant Roaches begin flying out from the tunnel of his throat. Thrift Store Frankenstein raises his finger towards me and points. It all happens at once, the driver now almost cocooned in a layer of the roaches slams into first a street sign, knocking aside a firehydrant and plowing dead on into a SUV. We all go flying, the roaches are swarming over the passengers some of whom are trying to force the rear door open. An old lady in the seat in front of me turns around and with a mask of the roaches burrowing into her eyes begins screaming at me. I leap out of my seat and yank the suit behind me out of his... I have one chance... just maybe... but something hits us from behind and we all go tumbling back down, the roaches are crawling all over me now, looking for someplace warm to hide their eggs, I swat a few of the fuckers off my face and pull myself back up. The suit in front of me is rolling around and plucking at the ones trying dig their way in through his eyes. Black smoke is starting to fill the bus now, I find the latch to the emergency exit on the window and yank it free. The handle breaks off in my hand, the window remains fixed. I'm trapped. I can feel these things trying to make their way up my boots. I pull myself up by the grip bar that runs parallel to the aisle, and start kicking at the window.. one kick... nothing.. I can hear them hissing all over me...and somethings starting to spark by the rear of the bus.. second kick... the window forms a crack... the roaches are crawling down the grip bar for me... eyes stinging from the smoke... third kick... the crack forms a crystal web... the flying ones are all over me... biting... there are flames coming through the rear venting system... c'mon man... c'mon... I give it one more kick and the window drops out to the street outside. I let go of the grip bar just as the swarm makes it over my fingers. Swatting madly at my attackers I jump out of the bus blindly, land the wrong way on my ankle and hit the ground with a yell. A yellowcab just misses me and I can see the flames coming from under the hood of a pale blue toyota crushed flat against the rear of the bus. The last of the bugs fly off me and I can see one of the passengers get half way out the window when he stops frozen in the empty frame of the exit and begins twitching, the roaches pouring out of his muted scream as he falls backwards into the bus. Everyone around me starts panicng now, trying to get back in their cars and drive away. Cars rear end into each other, horns flaring and everybodys yelling but me? I'm going through my pockets, I find a quarter, a dime. I grab a fleeing pedestrain
"I need 18 cents or we're all dead!"
"Wha.."
"18 cents mother fucker!"
He pushes me off him and sprints down the road. Now I can hear the swarm grow louder, a series of hisses and clicks that drown out the traffic panic. The flames climb across the roof of the bus and the Toyota. I look around desperate. I see that the Yellowcab that just missed me has been abandoned, the driver has joined the stampede of people running over the hoods of their cars for safety. I open the door and now I can hear Thrift Store Frankenstein laughing, not outside, but in my skull directly.
"Keep laughing mother fucker..." I think as I pop open the cabs ashtray and pluck out a dime, two nickels and three pennys. Added with the change in my hand I run up to the open window, through a cloud of flying Giant Cockroaches each one settling on me, forming a second skin thats crawling, I make it to the rim of the emergency window opening and
yell out
"Hold on I got it! Fifty three cents. Exact change!" I say and throw the change through the window. Everything goes black around me I can feel the bugs trying to burrow their way through my flesh I crumple down under the weight of the swarm. "Please God don't let me die like this.." are my last words before I go under.
I open my eyes. Thrift Store Frankenstein is looking right at me with pale blue eyes and that's when I can place the smell of peaches and burnt tires. He nods a thank you taking the change out of my hand. Counting it out and with the enthausism of a little boy on Christmas morning.
"Why thank you young man, thank you kindly... saved me a lot of trouble.. ". I look around. The bus is drifting down the road, the passengers are reading the paper or watching the TV up on the monitor. The suit behind me is still listening to his headphones and the old woman in front of me stares straight ahead. Thrift Store Frankenstein makes his way back to the driver and slowly drops the coins in the box one at a time.
"Right here, my good man, right here.... saved me a lot of trouble..." then he turns to me and gives me that fucked up stalicite smile "... saved us all a lot of trouble isn't that right?"
I nod and ring the bell for the next stop, three or four miles short of my original destination. Fuck this i'll walk to work.

Comments

[catwalk.livejournal.com]

holy cats!

glad i've got my own car to drive to work!