jamieproctor.ca

He was a hairy-knuckled, hunchbacked fucker, the old primate, the old perv.  Mould grew in between his teeth and his arms were worn and stretched from years of late-night brachiation.  But he nodded his head and let me in and gave me a drink I didn’t trust while we squatted there, talking and rambling and justifying himself six times over before I’d even got comfortable.
“It was just my job, see?” he whined through the gap in his big canines.  “It was only ever my job.  You don’t have to single me out, like, you don’t have to pick on my any.  Anansi, Iktomi, and Yahweh had me dead to rights and my kneecaps ready for an’ intimate talk with a bat, and then I says ‘hey slow down there fellas, there’s gotta be sumthing I can do to help,’ and after they ‘d done laughing and kicking my ribs a bit they said ‘sure, show us what you got.’  And I was in a rush, right, and I was in pain, right, and so’s under the circumstances I can’t hardly be blamed, right, can’t hardly be blamed at all.  You have any idea how hard it is to make a spine sober – which I wasn’t, on account of the pain.  Or how hard it is to rig up an eyeball that’ll stay seeing straight for more’n half your life – which I couldn’t, on account of the rush.  Really, you’re luck to be upright and breathing and making those funny noises you make at all, right?  Outta be thanking me.  Not too bad a job, right, for a pawful of spit, snot, and semen, I mean, HAD to use what I had to hand.  Had to use what I had to hand.”
“Hey, you’re not writing this down, are you?  It’s a nice trick, but it ain’t mine.  Never got the hang of all that kind of stuff, I’m hands-on but always moving, can’t afford to stand still and wait.  This job’s just killing time while I wait for my next big break.  It’s coming, just you wait.  Whine all you want about basic design flaws, but you guys look great on a resume, dead on.  I figure you’ll get me into planets.  Been practicing that – seen that little red one?  That’s mine.  Forgot the magnetosphere – amateur work, won’t make that mistake twice.  But just you wait now, and just you watch.  This’ll be my next big break soon.  Then I can get out of this dump and go big-time.  Cosmoseses, ewwn-eye-verses, maybe a few of those dye-menshun thingies.  I’m on my way, just wait.  And it’s, it’s, it’s all thanks to you, y’knowwhaddImean, all of you.  Y-O.  Y-o.  Y-o-o-o-o—-u.”
And he slumped over, drooling, and I looked at that warm stream of spit that spawned us all and I felt disgust brewing in my brain.  And resentment.  And anger.  All things your parents teach you how to deal with, or not.
And so I did it, smothered him like a baby on his own distended mucus and vomit.  He went out whimpering and I can’t offer a word in my defense that isn’t pride.  I didn’t ask to be as I am.
But I’m sure if you asked the poor bastards yet to be, they would’ve said ‘no thanks.’