Powder Burn Flash # 269 - Robert Crisman

WHAT A MAN DOES FOR LOVE
by Robert Crisman


Love isn’t just blind; sometimes it’s flat stupid. Take Donny, who dreamed of white picket fences and heaven with Heather, the dopefiend deluxe…

Heather had to get to White Center, Rat City, right now. She called Donny: fuck going out to Seattle’s ass end on the bus. Donny was working. She put it to him: Come get me! He took off early and got her.

Donny: mid-30s. Visualize Sad Sack with thick horn-rimmed glasses and you’ve got him down. Heather: A dancer, 26 years old. Honey-blonde hair and cocksucker lips; hips that’d roll you and legs that went all the way up. Plus, lungs for days…

Dope was sucking her juice out, of course. Still, who do you think wore the dick here?

They pulled up in front of the place. Heather told him she needed money. One hundred bucks. He got up off fifty, every last cent he had in his pocket.

She brought him inside. She didn’t want him parked out in front of a dopehouse. White Center’s busy, a whole lot of cops on patrol, and she’d need a ride back to town.

She sat his ass down on the livingroom couch and hustled downstairs. Candyman Jillie lived in the basement. She stayed there forever.

Donny stayed where she’d put him. He wouldn’t even go piss. Tons of junkies slithering around in this house

Two hours later, Donny’s brain was on freezelock and he had to tie a knot in his dick. Either that, or hose down the couch.

Then, get this: Heather finally got done, and she came up and told him, “I need the van. Gimme your keys.”

He said, “What?” She said, “Did I stutter?” He stuttered, “I—I—I—why?”

She blew him quick smoke. She had visit her mother. Do Jillie’s laundry. Or go on a Kenyan safari. Some fucking thing.

Poor Donny! He begged her! “Aw, Heather, geez,” She told him, “Quit sniveling. I’ll be back quick and then we can boogie.”

He gave up the keys and she split.

Two fucking days later, Donny was still on that couch…

Poor guy, I swear… Rats in the house, they’re telling him, Dude, you got to come up with some rent. Donny’s whole life now, one drawn-out shriek. Heather, she’s gone! Where did she go? To Europe? New Guinea?  The moon?

Finally it hit him: She’s not coming back! Jesus Christ! Shit! He had to get out of this place!  

No phones in the house he could use, big surprise. He had to go down to the drugstore on Roxbury there. He called a cab, the guy came and got him and took him on home. He went into the house, crawled under the bed, and scrunched in the fetal position.

It was Saturday night when Donny got home. Monday came rolling around. He was under the bed and the phone rang. The cops!

You Donny Fletcher?  You own a van, a white one, fucked up, the front bumper’s missing?

He said, Well, uh, yes…

Turned out, they’d found the van parked on a side road up in some dingles on south Beacon Hill. It had been there two days, and they got a call: a guy in the van who looked dead…

They went out, and the guy, turned out he was just cutting z’s. Some rockhead, they knew his ass, right? They rousted him out. They asked him, What’s up? He told them, This broad, she, like, sold him the van for $200. And, now it was his van, you dig?

He also told them he’d pulled off the road and tucked in because he needed sleep—“and now, here you come, and why you always gotta be fuckin’ with me?”

Cop asked, “Where’s the papers?” Dude said, “Where’s yo mama?” Dumb fucking rockhead…

He had no papers, of course. “Broad told me she’d send ‘em, so what?

They bitchslapped him some and took his ass down, then impounded the van, and checked out the plates: Donny Fletcher…

The cop Donny talked to had all kinds of questions. Like, how come a rockhead was driving his van? And who is this broad he said sold the van? Donny just stuttered: well, er, uh, ah, gosh… He didn’t want Heather in trouble, you dig it? She fucked him sideways, with sticks and all that, but Donny the Dummy, he’s Galahad, man.

He had to come up with a story! He wanted to tell them dude stole it. But two days had gone by and, uh, why didn’t he report the van’s theft? Well, er, ah…

He finally blurts out, Well, see, the woman, she…borrowed his van… Yes, borrowed, that’s right! She’s a friend! Her name is, uh—

He couldn’t come up with a phony name, right? The cluck motherfucker. So, well, er, ah, yes, Heather Donnelly, good friend of mine, and… Well, no, he couldn’t imagine what might have happened, she’d always been a responsible girl! Must’ve been bandits who snatched her or something! White slavery, they do that, you know? The cop rolled his eyes…

Donny finally got the van back. It was all torn to shit. A back seat was missing. The rockhead had likely tried selling the fucker…

Donny, meanwhile, was freaked. That silly-ass story he’d laid on the cops. He’d let them know Heather’s name! They’d snatch her and toss her in jail!

Worse than that, man, she was missing in action! Lions and tigers and bears in the jungle and Baby Doll’s out there!

Talk about lions and tigers and bears! Heather ate Donny and spit out his bones! And now, here he was, sweating howitzer shells over Sweetie in danger!

Dumbfucks in love, I swear to God…



Short BIO: Robert Crisman knows a whole lot of Donnys. He also knows there’s no cure.