Rollie Bollocks

This is the first installment of FooFoo, which is based on a panhandler I met in my neighborhood while working at a gas station. I collected stories about him from other people, many of which were either patently false or exaggerated. But based on the mythology they generated for why this man had only one leg, no place to live, and was addicted to crack - I created an Urban Legend. Thus FooFoo was born.
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FOOFOO-Installment 1

Rainwater dripped from the gutter in a quickening rhythm. his heart matched the pace. there was an empty bottle of malt liquor between his sweater and the skin of his chest. and where once it was full and felt cold (familiar to the touch), it was now empty and hot, and burned his skin.

half conscious, he fell asleep in his wheelchair, his mind yearning to escape his body. and a limp comfort settled into him. and then the shock of slipping away. he fell asleep in the wet alleyway.

-*-

and awoke.

to a foggy dawn. the steam of his breath dissolved in a cold mist. smoke trickled out of his nose. his hand rested atop the forty beneath his sweater like an unspoken pledge. it took him a few seconds to collect himself. he pushed the dead weight of his broken body up in his wheelchair and pulled the forty bottle out from underneath his sweater. but it stuck to his rubbery skin and slipped out of his hand slapping back to his chest. he eyed the sweat glistening on his palms and wiped his hand on his pants and then spit into the palm of his hand. the yellow phlegm formed a bridge to his lip. he grabbed the bottle by the neck and tried to pry it off of his skin, peeling it from the flesh on his chest. a red stain stuck on the bottle. a half an inch worth of flat Magnum rested inside it. he finished the inch and dropped it on the ground, examining the torn flesh on his chest which scabbed gradually from the perimeter. he rocked in his chair anxiously and moaned from his stomach. bile burnt his throat and dribbled down his chin.

he pushed himself around with his left leg, because the right one was missing. always, he moved backward, away from whatever was before his sight. the daylight emerged from the shrinking shadow of the alleyway and the light hit his face for the first time.

-*-

his eyes squeezed shut then slowly opened.

he kicked his way down the street, the sun beating down on his brow. business persons seemed to scuttle past in the shadows on the other side. the passing cars separated him from their money.

he looked be himself. making out the hazy image of the street corner. where a man stood there still and stared at his watch as the cars sped by. he kicked his way to the corner.
Is it possible to spare some change? he asked.

the man replied, lifting his eyes from the time.

reaching into his back pocket for his wallet.

pulling out a single bill and handing it to the man.

Thank you sir. You have a blessed day. Now. Lord loves you. Thank. you. Now.

-*-

he pushed himself down the street, in a perpetual stop & start, towards a gas station at the corner of a busy intersection. he needn't grovel for money now, though surrounded by people. the man at the corner had given him a 17 unit bill which was more than enough for a magnum. the business persons who passed him just pitied him in disgust and then turned back to their watches buzzing softly to themselves whatever came out of their earphones.

he held the bill in his fist. his arm resting on his itchy wound sweating to his sweater. and he looked behind himself, crossing the street and seeing only the next corner. the exhaust of the cars on either side of him dissolved into the clouds. but he only stared at the corner. and believed that's where he'd be.

he pushed his way up the curb and onto the side walk and across the parking lot where the threat of cars was greater. merely believing the gas station was the next place he'd be. blocking from his ears the honking horns.

-*-

How much for a magnum?
“ghondumz gotta reel big dick. hee hee, “he said, pointing to his penis.
“he wondtza vortee,” the other one said, walking away.
“dzeven units phleace.”

Here, the man in the chair said as he handed the seventeen to the gasclerk behind the counter. the gasclerk inspected it carefully, and brought it closer to his large dark eye. he took a pen from a jar and drew a line on the bill. then he nodded, satisfied, and the register buzzed with the tapping of buttons & chinged open, while the second gasclerk walked toward him with the magnum.

take it.

he said. and he did.

-*-

he slipped the cold whole magnum beneath his sweater, kicked his way out into the
parking lot with the cool breeze caressing the sweat on his face. he closed his eyes for a
moment and relaxed, ignoring the honking horn. he slipped his one arm beneath his
sweater and grasped the magnum. a person in a white car in a gray suit would not relent
on the horn. he was staring at the time. his fist pressed into the steering wheel.
the man in the chair twisted the top off the bottle. his wound had already begun to heal.
the cold flat beer tasted merely like water. and the coolness of the water relaxed him as it
sat in his belly. and the space that it filled oozed out from his center. and the honking
horns could barely matter less. the time would advance with or without anyone noticing.
and so with his magnum in his sweater, and the wound in his chest scabbing toward the
center, he pushed himself backward through the parking lot, across the street, and
toward the corner.

-*-

the sun had been snuffed by the turning earth. the business persons laid asleep in their domiciles.

a gentle wind rustled the tree's leaves. the streets filled with barflies and college kids. thin pink streamers fell from the starry sky and lit up beneath the fluorescent lamplight. the christmas lights blinked in sequence on the evenly spaced trees, which were encased in cement pots to prevent their overgrowth. with the hooting of party favors, the drunks screeched in celebratory glee. the drunks in muscle shirts, with shaved heads, clutching money in their fists. their arms raised in victory. party favors hooting out of every lip. and their faces reddened toward the tip of their pugnacious snouts stuffed full of cigarettes.

May I trouble you for a cigarette, sir?

trouble at all, he replied.

the drunk pulled a cigarette from his nostril and handed it to the man in the chair. white powder dropped out of the hole now unfilled in his nose. the powder dissolved in the soft wind and he inhaled deeply with a rippling snort that sent out a cloud of white powder like a bubble around his head.

coooooolie man. heh heh, said the drunk.

God Bless you sir. Lord loves you. Lord Blesses you.

-*-

he kicked his way back into the alleyway, content for now with all he had. he brought the cigarette to his lips and pulled softly on the gutted filter. the cherry glowed like daylight for a moment. and he noticed a rat chewing on his shoe.

he pulled another drag off his cigarette. and reached behind him, pulling out a slice of bread from the bag attached to the back of his wheelchair. he broke off a small piece and threw it near his shoe. the rat scuttled toward the bread. picking it up with his little arms and chewing at it rapidly. the man in the chair smiled at the little rat which began squealing in glee. the man in the chair began laughing. pulling a drag off of his cigarette, sipping his magnum. the wound on his chest reduced to a red rash. and everywhere was the sensation of a cool warmth, that reminded him of the past. when old Sleek ruled
the streets. and how everyone was always doing him favors. giving him things. and he was always giving back. hooking a guy up with a job and some extra cash.

he sipped his magnum and looked down on the rat. the rat looked up with that gleam of expectant desire, and let out a little squeak, which made the man in the wheelchair smile. he tore off another piece of bread. and bent over, holding the bread out for the rat to take. but the rat squealed and bit into the tips of his index and middle fingers. he grabbed the rat whose teeth were still dug into his own fingers.

he squeezed its body in his hand with all his strength. he forced its innards from its skin, through its mouth. there was no life left in the skin, which he threw aside. but the moist outer lining of the rat's stomach still rippled as if to digest. its lungs inflated with air which came through a tiny larynx.

peristalsis pushed what was left over of the bread through the small intestine and finally out of the large one where the bread he had given him turned into a piece of feces stuck like a bubble to the anus. the sight of that heart beating filled him with panic and rage. he swigged his forty. and with his one good leg, smeared the rats innards across the wet cement.

-*-

THIS IS THE END OF INSTALLMENT ONE. IT IS THE FIRST THREE PAGES OF A 16pg STORY. AS IT SO HAPPENS, THE RAT COMES BACK AND HAUNTS OLD FOOFOO AND HILARITY ENSUES.

rb

butchiesmom

It could be just that I'm sleep deprived, but I found myself drifting away and wanting to just skip to the end to see what happens. I don't think it's the format, though it's different from what I'm accustomed to.

I've been taught to show, not tell, the reader what's going on. You do a lot of telling the reader, me, what's going on and putting in details not needed, such as:

a person in a white car in a gray suit would not relent
on the horn. he was staring at the time. his fist pressed into the steering wheel.

I don't like to rewrite someone's work when critiquing because I don't like it myself, but I thought I'd try it once for this line, so here's my suggestion:
a man in a white car in a would not relent on the horn, his fist pressed into the steering wheel, staring at the time...

I'm also not going to go over spelling, puntuation or grammar, the latter two not my strongest suit anyway, because this reads like a rough draft (which is quite ok, lol) so as such still has a lot of revising yet and because you have a different format for the story and I want to see where you go from here.

I'm looking forward to reading and critiqing part 2.

Also, I moved this to inspiring novelists, even though it's not a book, because of its length. Please post longer pieces of work to here.

hugs,
Gail

Rollie Bollocks

I just checked over the document and there isn't one misspelled word in it! At least not one that wasn't misspelled on purpose. The grammar is a little weird. Its based on breathing stops and rhythm - more like a poem - than the rules of grammar, which are standardly used in fiction.

But thank you for taking the time! Please bear with me; this thing I wrote over the course of a month and it picks up as it moves on. It's very surrealist; thus the seemingly irrelevant details. I'm trying to recreate the dreamlike stupor I imagined this man to experience; the alienation from community and language; his misplaced dreams and ideals; his inability to sever from his past. Anyway, I'll post part two. This was the boring part, setting up the ending.

dave

butchiesmom

lol, i'll wait to see how this turns out, but I think I was mostly reacting to the formatting you used. i'll wait to see how the second one turns out,lol. hugs, gail

JeffMeyer

Rollie:

Interesting. I felt the skewed reality fo the piece, but didn't care for the seventeen-unit onetary value. As opposed to off-kilter reality, that shifted the whole thing over to sci-fi for me, which gave it a different feel, and not what I thought you intended.

I'm interested to see how you continue to explore this pathetic character and his pitiable plight. I'm definitely looking forward to finding out why his chest is opening up and closing from wound to rash in less than 24 hours!

Post more; I'll certainly read along!

--Jeff Meyer

SarahNSH

This story reads to me like with it being written from the homeless man's perspective that he is in this kind of dream-like, drunk induced state where reality is kinda twisted around him. Especially with some of the images with him dealing with the bottle. I took this story on, with your explanations about it and understanding where it is coming from and such with it in that kind of light of being in this kind of crazy state of being awake yet you feel like you are still asleep and can't quite feel things.

Now, I must admit that if I didn't read your short intro to this piece and read it inside of something I wouldn't quite know what to think and would be a little confused as to what is happening and why the images work like they do. This does read more like prose to me or a poem with some of the line breaks and images. Which would be pretty revolutionary to me but I have come across something like this in a literary journal before, I believe. With this same kind of snap shots kind of way of doing things.

I do have to admit that if I didn't know the intro I'd probably go maybe a little sci-fi with this piece. I like this though and it was interesting to read something like this that kind of defies a convential method and is like these snapshots into someone's life. I could feel the kind of drunken tone to it that I've felt when I've come quite close of being drunk of this really altered reality.

What I found so interesting when I'm reading this story is that for a time I went down into the city and came across a lot of homeless people that I got used to seeing and I really began to wonder what their lives were like, what they did, and how they thought. This is what fascinated me about your piece is that you look into this and with knowing at least 3-4 homeless people I always saw I became quite interested in them myself.

Overall, I enjoyed this piece. Sometimes the grammar would sound a little strange with some sentences and this part did confuse me a little.

How much for a magnum?
“ghondumz gotta reel big dick. hee hee, “he said, pointing to his penis.
“he wondtza vortee,” the other one said, walking away.
“dzeven units phleace.”-

I was a little confused who was doing the talking, who was the other people talking, and if he was asking how much for a magnum, if he was there asking for it, ect. What I picture for this was maybe some homeless people standing in front of the entrance and talking to each other. So, this was my idea and thoughts for this part.

Overall, I liked the artistic appeal of this piece and I thought this was definitely very interesting. Anywho, thank you for sharing this and keep on writing! I'd certainly read along too if you decide to post more to it.