Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Presents Flush Fiction Read online

  One Million Years B.F.E.: Diary of an Anthropologist in Exile

  Merrie Haskell

  DAY ONE:

  Have been exiled to the early Pleistocene by Temporal Crimes Tribunal. Vastly displeased, though certainly this hardship will only serve to make me a greater woman. By the end of lonely prehistoric life, will be most knowledgeable authority on lifestyle of early man. Unfortunately, publishing opportunities here are slim.

  Am determined to become strong, lithe, deadly, noble cave-woman type. Will fashion stone tools, hunt and gather food, and live pristine, pure life of Homo erectus–type person. Ah. The air is so fresh.

  DAY TWO:

  Bushmen of the South African desert were—are?—will be able to subsist on a mere twenty-hour work week. Per principle of uniformitarianism, I shall be able to do the same. Fabulous! Life in the Pleistocene will leave plenty of time for deep thoughts and getting over Philmore the Physicist…plenty of time to come to terms with all bad habits of codependency, “women who love too much,” “women who do too much,” “women who mess around with time-stream continuum in order to repair non-reparable relationships,” etc.

  Only problem: Once issues worked through, will not have anyone to share daily triumphs and travails with. Will die alone, eaten by hyenas.

  DAY THREE:

  Tomorrow I run out of matches. Must re-invent fire. Good thing am expert, top-notch anthropologist with over six months of training.

  DAY FOUR:

  No fire yet. Tom Hanks in Cast Away had fire by now.

  DAY FIVE:

  No fire yet. Boys in Lord of the Flies had fire by now.

  DAY SIX:

  No fire yet. Gilligan had fire by now.

  DAY SEVEN:

  I have fire!

  Though I no longer have eyebrows. Or eyelashes. Gilligan had both brows and lashes. Damn you, Gilligan.

  DAY EIGHT:

  Food stores running low, so enacted plan to hunt and gather. Using a digging stick, à la Kalahari bushwomen, uncovered…grubs.

  Could not bring self to consume grubs.

  Digging stick technology not so great, actually.

  DAY NINE:

  No good food source again. Putting in far more than twenty hours this week. Uncertain where time goes. Tomorrow will record time study to see where to pare unnecessary activities from daily schedule.

  DAY TEN:

  Time Study

  Sometime after dawn: Awaken. Day is cloudy, fire is low. Hyenas yipping outside cave. Damn hyenas.

  Sometime after that: Stumble out of bed to privy hole. Search for softest, most absorbent leaves. Bathroom facilities in the Pleistocene displeasing to me.

  Noon: Look for chert, flint, or other stone with excellent cleavage properties appropriate for knapping stone tools. Must make stone-tipped spear and kill large, high-utility meat animal ASAP.

  A bit after noon: No chert, no flint, no obsidian. Why did Tribunal deposit me in stone-tool desert? I will die alone, starving and unloved in churtless wasteland, eaten by hyenas.

  Shortly after that: Oooh, look, chert!

  Shortly before dark: Reprehensible for the Temporal Crimes Tribunal to exile me to the Stone Age without safety goggles! Spent last three hours washing piece of chert from eye. Negligence!

  Dark: Too dark to do anything but sit on the pile of leaves I call my bed and listen to hyenas.

  Small victory: Fashioned crude hand ax out of available chert. Will sleep with splendid weapon under my pillow and dare the hyenas to come near!

  DAY ELEVEN:

  Uniformitarianism is a bust. If San bushmen can spend less than twenty hours a week hunting and gathering to survive, then I’m a cotton-top tamarin. Have slaved from sunup to sundown, knapping stone and hafting tips. Just spent several hours getting tar out of my hair after hafting incident. Clearly, ethnologists studying the bushmen were not very observant. Bushmen must be sneaking extra work in somehow.

  As for Binford and his utility indices, I hate him. Why did he have to be right? Why? The only meat I’ve been able to acquire was a mangled haunch of antelope that I stole from hyenas using torches and yelling. Am not strong hunter-cavewoman. Am shambling scavenger-cavewoman.

  DAY TWELVE:

  Strange hominid is spying on me from opposite ridge. Very dirty and unattractive, though quite tall. Homo erectus or Homo ergaster? Not certain he means me well, but I do have one or two evolutionary advantages over the poor thing, so I should be fine.

  DAY THIRTEEN:

  Ergaster bastard stole my antelope jerky! Will kill proto-man ancestor if he steals again, and damn the time-stream!

  DAY FOURTEEN:

  Fancy this—H. ergaster is nothing of the sort! He is a physicist named Roger, also exiled by the Tribunal! After I tried to break his head with my hand ax, we both started shouting in English and realized that we were from the same time, more or less. Small world!

  DAY FIFTEEN:

  Oops. Told Roger I was surprised that a physicist survived so long on his own in the Pleistocene with no anthropological training. Discovered he made fire on his first attempt. May have liked him better when he was just Homo ergaster. Bastard.

  DAY SIXTEEN:

  Hyenas broke into food stash today. Roger very angry. We hunted them back to their den, planning to enact ritual canicide.

  However, small, fluffy baby hyena survivors too adorable! Am now a hyena foster-mother instead of mass murderer. Am glowing with motherhood and satisfaction. Early domestication of canine species will be boon to human race! My likeness will be etched onto small stones for all to wonder and marvel at on archaeological digs in the distant future.

  Roger not as pleased. There is small potty-training problem with Spot.

  DAY TWENTY:

  Fluffy baby scavengers have caused domestic spat by chewing leather footgear. Roger claims to be unsurprised that someone in a “soft science” would keep hyenas.

  Considering separate caves.

  DAY TWENTY-TWO:

  Am pondering self-destructive behaviors, noting similarities between Philmore and Roger: Both are type-A, domineering physicists with messiah complexes and lack of appreciation for personal hygiene.

  However, Roger is currently only fish in the sea.

  I will not obsess about relationship flaws. I will accept Roger for who and what he is, and not try to “fix” him. Cannot change men. Should not try. That is, after all, how one gets exiled to the Pleistocene.

  Checking Out a Geezer

  Florence Bruce

  At Piggly Wiggly I often study what other shoppers buy. Looking in their grocery carts, I sometimes discover a useful household product or a bargain I’ve overlooked.

  Last week, waiting in line, I noticed that an old geezer in front of me had nine cans of lima beans. Nothing else in his cart. I counted them and checked each label to be sure all nine contained the same product. Yep, all nine cans were Best Choice lima beans. Best Choice with a black-and-red label is the Piggly Wiggly brand.

  I pondered what the old boy might be planning to do with nine cans of lima beans. Maybe he’s going to plant some of them, I thought, and eat the rest. It was around planting time. But even my city-fried brain soon realized that cooked beans probably wouldn’t grow. Maybe it’s what he’s taking to the Men’s Club supper at the local church, I told myself—a big bowl of lima beans. The church kitchen probably sports a microwave. What kitchen doesn’t? Finally, standing in line with nothing better to do, and still undecided on the pressing question, I chose to just up and ask him.

  “Can’t help but wonder, I said, “what you’re going to do with nine cans of lima beans.”

  “Eat ‘em,” he said.

  “Ah!” It had been too simple.

  You can get lima beans cheaper at Wal-Mart,” he said, “but actually these taste better, plus more beans per can.”

  “Really?”

  “Every can is jam-packed!” he said, smiling a satisfied smile.

  “Nice to know,” I said. Mean
while, I was taking him in. I’m always on the lookout, you know, for an old geezer who might own a cabin on the lake. Plumbed, of course. It has to be well plumbed. No bears-in-the-woods routine for me. We’d have to get that straight on the front end since Mother Nature and I don’t commune.

  On the negative side, this old man was one of those gawd-awful cap-wearers who seem to be proliferating nowadays. Where do they get the idea, anyhow, that grown men look so cute in caps? And that it’s okay to wear a hat in the house? My mother made men take their hats off in her house, as did her mother before her. So, the cap bit wasn’t much of a recommendation. Still, I must say my curiosity was piqued.

  On the left hand, he was wearing a ring—not a standard wedding-type ring. It was an onyx, in fact, and very loose-fitting, like it wasn’t really his. He had a worker’s hands, which is all right if they’re clean, and his were. Nails clipped.

  “I love Popeye’s spinach,” I said, feeling I owed him a quid pro quo.

  “Popeye’s?”

  “Yes,” I said. “It’s too expensive, so I don’t buy it often, but, taste-wise, it’s the best canned spinach there is.”

  “Buy two, get one free, this week,” the cashier interjected.

  “Really?” I exclaimed.

  “Sorry, didn’t mean to butt in, but thought you’d want to know,” she added. At that point, she was ringing up the lima beans. I thought she’d take a shortcut and ring up one 89-cent can nine times, but no, she held each separate can over the sensor. I guess grocery cashiers are trained to do it that way, for some reason.

  “Not a problem,” I assured her. “I’m always looking for helpful suggestions. I get so tired of eating the same old thing week after week.”

  “I buy Libby’s,” the cashier said. “They’re seasoned. I like already seasoned.”

  “Ah, seasoned spinach from Libby,” I said.

  Then the cashier tried to ring up my vanilla ice cream and maraschino cherries along with the nine cans of lima beans, but the geezer wasn’t having any of that.

  “Not mine,” he said promptly, as she picked up the jar of cherries.

  “Sorry.”

  “I’m the ice cream and cherries,” I told her. “Just those two items.”

  “Got to watch the salt,” the guy said, back to the matter of seasoning. He was signing his credit card slip. I couldn’t read the name. Hairy arms; no tattoos.

  “Got that right!” I said.

  “I always read the labels,” he threw back, as he started for the door, clutching a sack in each hand.

  “Smart thing to do!” I yelled to his back. I was beginning to wonder what he might be driving. That’s sometimes a pertinent clue as to whether a reasonably attractive gentleman might be the outright owner of a cabin on the lake. Any lake, as long as it’s not too far from the city. I followed him out.

  He walked toward a big shiny truck—black, new-looking. Well! I thought. I might just go tell him what a pretty truck it is. Gotta love those truck drivers! I was advancing in that direction when I saw him walk around the truck to the passenger side. Oh well, I told myself, the wife or girlfriend is driving. If he has a cabin on the lake, I’ll never see it. Then a few steps further on toward my own ten-year-old Corolla, I saw he didn’t belong to the new truck at all. Those old bones were riding a motorcycle. I couldn’t believe it. His two-wheeled machine was almost lost on the far side of that shiny new truck. I watched him tuck the cans into something akin to saddlebags over the back wheels.

  Back in the Pig, I had thought this guy looked to be about seventy, seventy-five. Who would ever guess he rode a motorcycle? I was standing behind the vehicle, getting ready to engage him in conversation about the relative merits of driving a motorcycle versus a good-gas-mileage automobile when that rascal caught my eye in one of his mirrors, did a broad walk, revved the engine, and roared off the lot.

  Well, easy come, easy go, I always say. Motorcycle drivers are probably not the type to enjoy a peaceful cabin on the lake. And that old geezer probably didn’t have a pot to pee in anyhow.

  Prince Charming

  Christina Delia

  When it happened, the headlines were always some variation of this: “CHIMP CHANGE: ORGAN GRINDER SELLS MONKEY TO APE-LOVING ACTRESS.” The story that followed would tell the tale of an organ grinder named Liborio (no last name) who was on set for the new film Passion People 2: More People, More Passion. His purpose was providing old-world charm for the movie’s big Italian love scene.

  When lead actress Spring Star (formerly of the television series Bug Bites) saw the monkey Liborio carried around on his back, she fell in love before the director could yell “Action!” Spring Star begged Liborio to sell his pet to her. At which point the old man’s eyes misted over and he said, “There’s something in my eye.”

  Liborio knew something that the paparazzi did not. The monkey was radioactive.

  Spring Star knew this, too. She was seated in her trailer when Liborio told her. Spring Star did not blink or rip up the check she was writing. Instead, she told Liborio that she felt the radioactivity made her new monkey quite exotic. The monkey was shiny, like her television awards that sat at home in her mansion on hundred-dollar shelves. Liborio just smiled and took the check that Spring Star handed to him. There were glittery dolphins embossed on the check. “I wish that all animals sparkled, don’t you?” Spring Star asked Liborio.

  “The outer sparkle of an animal is merely an indication of a creature’s inner fire,” Liborio said.

  Spring Star stared at the old organ grinder. “You should write fortune cookies,” she told him.

  “Just never force the monkey to do anything he doesn’t want to do. With a pet like this, you are as much owned as you are an owner. Remember that in his own way, every creature is a king.”

  “He’s too little to be a king,” cooed Spring Star. “Maybe he could be a Prince?”

  On the ride home to Beverly Hills, Spring Star named her monkey: Prince Charming.

  “You’re my Prince, yes you are!” she repeated. Prince Charming did not seem to mind this attention.

  In fact, he grew a bit larger. Spring Star took no notice of this. She was too busy giggling while her limo driver eyed the monkey nervously from his rear-view mirror.

  “Look, Rex, now we don’t need a lamp to read scripts” Spring Star sang out when she presented Prince Charming to her live-in boyfriend. Rex Riley was a Method actor, currently preparing for his upcoming role as a germ-phobic Elvis impersonator at a Las Vegas wedding chapel for the romantic comedy Wash Your Hand in Marriage. When Spring Star leaned in to kiss him hello, Rex took two steps back and gagged.

  “Oh, I forgot. You’re in character,” Spring Star said. “I’ll just give your kiss to Prince Charming.” Spring Star puckered up and kissed her Prince with her surgically enhanced lips.

  The impact of her lips on his face seemed to make Prince Charming grow a little bigger. Again, Spring Star seemed oblivious, but Rex screamed.

  “Did you just see that, Spring? That glowing monkey grew!”

  “He’s only getting bigger because I love him so. And there’s nothing wrong with a monkey that glows. I wish I radiated like that first thing in the morning. Even after three hours of makeup—”

  “Spring, really,” Rex whined. “We can’t keep a monkey in the mansion! I don’t even know what to feed it!”

  “He’ll eat what the movie stars eat. Bananas and caviar,” Spring Star smiled. “You have so many bananas around, with this new role of yours.”

  Rex struck a pose in his karate suit. “Hello, I’m a Method actor! Elvis ate fried peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches on a regular basis!”

  “Nothing is too good for my Prince Charming,” Spring Star said, planting another kiss on top of the monkey’s shiny head.

  That night after a veritable peanut-butter-and-banana feast, Spring Star, Prince Charming, and a reluctant Rex retired to Spring’s suite. Rex found it daunting to make love to Spring with her radioactive mo
nkey watching them from the foot of the bed. Rex sighed and rolled off of Spring.

  “Rex, what is it?”

  “Look, Spring, I’ve been involved in a few bizarre Hollywood scenes, but I have to tell you, making love by the light of a monkey really tops them all.”

  “Rex, baby! Soon you’ll grow to love Prince Charming as much as I do—“

  “The only thing that’s growing is that monkey. Do you see this? He’s as tall as me!”

  “Don’t be so dramatic, Rex,” said Spring. “It’s not like you’re very tall.”

  “That monkey is freaking me out and I am putting him outside,” Rex yelled as he grabbed Prince Charming around his waist. Prince Charming wouldn’t budge, so Rex tried pushing him.

  “Rex, no! Liborio said not to force him to do anything he doesn’t want to do—“

  “Who the hell is Liborio?”

  These were the last words that Rex Riley ever spoke. The newspaper obituary featured a photo of him in his Elvis-inspired karate suit. Strangely enough, his live-in girlfriend Spring Star was not present at his paparazzi-plagued funeral.

  After it happened, the headlines were always some variation of this: “SPRING HAS SPRUNG: WHATEVER BECAME OF ACTRESS SPRING STAR?” One of the tabloids ran a story about Spring Star being spotted on an island off the coast of the Pacific. Miss Star insisted on no photographs. The reporter said that she maintained a healthy glow, although perhaps it was coming from the large monkey that she wore, quite literally, on her back.

  Curb Appeal

  Katherine Tomlinson

  The minute Joanna saw Clea Maxwell drive up in her jaunty little Prius she knew she was perfect for the house.

  Clea was in her late forties, compact and nicely dressed. The suit—probably from Ann Taylor—told Joanna that Clea worked somewhere that looking corporate was important.

  Her hair was colored a rich auburn but starting to thin at the temples, a sure sign Clea was in perimenopause. It had happened to Joanna, too. She’d had to wash her hair every day and blow it out for maximum fluffiness.