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Funny Stories by Dick Oakes, Jr

May 21, 2015 Leave a comment Go to comments
Dick Oakes, Jr.

Dick Oakes, Jr.

They dropped me off in a dirt lot. There was a phone booth with a big god damn cactus next to it and a faded sign above that said, “DISCOUNT GARAGE” and another that said, “BUS”. There was no garage and no bus had stopped here in an age– there was only a junked car and the remnants of a mean foundation made of unpainted cinder block.

There was a guy on the other side of the road smoking a cigarette. I thought about hitting him up (it had been a few days) but he suddenly dropped his pants and started pissing into a cowboy hat that was on the ground. I didn’t want no part of that.

I started down the road.

I came to a little shit town with a closed bank on one corner and a toy store on the other. Someone had dumped a bunch of gravel in front of the toy store door. There was a sheet hanging from the second floor window that said CLOSED BECAUSE OF THAT GRAVEL THAT YOU SEE THERE. I couldn’t figure on none of it and I kept walking.

Right before the road pebbled out into baked brown hills, there was a stark shitbox of a place that sat off on a lot of tangled brush and choked cacti. There was an old animated sign on wheels that somebody had dragged out that said OPEN. The sun was starting to go down. I walked in.

The shitbox stopped me where I stood. The interior was done up in eastern grain cabinets and fancy tiling– fashionable chairs were all about the room. Nobody was around.

I sat down at a desk for awhile, then opened the top drawer. There were a bunch of business cards in a rubber band. “GARY LIVINGSTON- THE AUXILIARY,” they said with a phone number printed below. I picked up a gold nameplate. “GARY LIVINGSTON- THE AUXILIARY”– the same. I couldn’t figure on any of it but the guy had a bottle in the bottom drawer. I got lit as the last bit of light faded over the mountains.$_57

When I woke up it was morning. There was a secretary with bobbed hair banging it out on a damn typewriter.

“Where’s the Auxiliary?” I asked.

She looked up. “The Auxiliary is very busy today. He’s hanging some wall-size art all day.”

“Yeah? What the hell kind of business is that?”

She seemed confused. “It’s a…craggy shore. Some hanging grapes come complimentary. There’s a big watch too that’s a clock.”

She got up to change the paper. I took a good long look at the tail.

“Why not skip all that, come out and have a hamburger?” I offered. I had just cashed my government relief check– eighteen bucks, I felt flush.

“But…the Auxiliary.”

“Just put a god damn sign up. Nobody gives a damn. Tell me who gives a damn.”

She couldn’t tell me.

We ended up at a counter down the road. Some yahoo with a paper hat was cursing loudly at the grill. Bobbed hair asked me my name and seemed disappointed when I told her.

“Not really a strong name,” she said. “When I hear that name, I think of somebody who spends a lot of time riding buses and sleeping on tables.” It was pretty damn good archery, I had to give it to her.

We ate our lunch in silence. Occasionally, the grillman would start up cursing again. He was pretty vile. Bobbed hair didn’t seem bothered by him though so I let it ride. When I asked for the check, he waved us off. I couldn’t figure on none of it.

We walked back towards the shitbox. There wasn’t nobody around.

“I won’t fuck you,” she said suddenly. A weird breeze started up–it seemed to be coming down from the hills. Brush blew everywhere, all to hell.

“I won’t fuck you,” she said again. “But thank you for the lunch. As great a man as the Auxiliary is, he has never bought me lunch.”

I didn’t know what the hell to say. She disappeared inside.

I didn’t follow her.

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