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7/30/2019 Big Bad Asterisk*

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BIG BADASTERISK*

CARLO MATOS

B L A Z E V O X [ B O O K S ]Buffalo, New York


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BIG BAD ASTERISK*by Carlo Matos

Copyright 2013

Published by BlazeVOX [books]

All rights reserved. No part of this book may bereproduced without the publishers written permission,except for brief quotations in reviews.

Printed in the United States of America

Interior design and typesetting by Geoffrey Gatza

First EditionISBN: 978-1-60964-119-1

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012948669

BlazeVOX [books]76 Inwood PlaceBuffalo, NY 14209

[email protected]


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The game was afoot, and he had his walkingshoes, but the amount of meat needed to feed thisbird of prey would surely leave him a bag of bones. . . and that was that.*

*Better that than the flesh of mighty men or the blood ofprinces.


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He knew instinctively that email would be waiting.Email was always so smug with answers. Hehated email. There should be a word for that.And, sure enough, in his inbox, nestled among the

junk, the porno solicitations and penis-increasingtonics and creams was a two-week old message.He didnt recognize the address, and there was notext. It was all subject heading . . . Are youmarried, yet? If not, come find me.*

*or Ill come for you.


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There was a word for it he was sure, but he hadno head for trivia, and the more he tried toremember some small amusing or interestingfactoid, the quicker he forgot it. His roommate,

on the other hand (the largest Korean he had everknown), routinely squashed everyone atJeopardyroutinely. He wouldve been a huge hit at partiessince trivia excellencelike tournament spellingis one of the few intellectual pursuits we allunabashedly aspire to. His roommate couldvemade millions, but why spoil it? And it would bespoiled, he was sure of that. It was a fact. Thatwas that and no bones about it . . . Bones are forgraveyards. Bones are for stock. Bones are forpoison, for junkyard dogs, for tall ships. You

could love bones. But bones were no good forfeeding the grinder. Thats how you cracked teethand choked into your soup.*

*What is aphasia?


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Maybe the mail would cheer him up. Hed alwaysloved getting the mail. But email had ruined itallnothing now in the box but bills and junk, anoccasional pizza menu and pamphlets about

getting into heaven. Email had no meat to it . . . Itdidnt touch anyone. It didnt have a deliverytime. It didnt come from anywhere; it didnt goanywhere.*

*Ill take The Rapture for 100, Alex.


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Something thudded against the front door as ifhed caught someone mid-knock and then scaredthem off. There was a small grocery bag tied tothe doorknob. He was pretty sure he hadnt been

in this apartment long enough to make enemiesor friends for that matter. Maybe it was meant foranother apartment. What was it? A bag of bones?. . . A bag of dog shit? There were lots of peoplewith dogs in the building. It didnt smell like dogshit, at least not from where he was standing.After all, this was no small town; this was a bigcity. People were busy here, had lives, had thingsto do and worry over. Thats why hed movedthere. No small town boredom turned to stoning:the smaller the town, the larger the stones. It was

some kind of inverse proportion thing*

*Ill take Flux Lines for 800, Alex.

**Alex Trebek was the host ofJeopardy, and he came to besynonymous with American intellectualism. Of course, he

was actually Canadian.


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Just a bag of shoes, nice shoes too, designerbrands appropriate for work and play. Theywerent new but obviously not worn either. Nonote. No name. Just a bag of shoes. He wasnt

skilled at deducing things. His roommate couldprobably deduce the hell out it. To him it was justa bag of shoes . . . size nine and a half. This washis size. Somehow he knew this would be thecase. They were all the same foot. There wasnt amatching pair in the whole bagall right feet.The right thing to do was leave the bag where itwas . . . but they were the right shoes. Only thoseclosest to him knew that his right foot was largerthan his left, a lot larger in fact. If somethinghappened, his parents could always identify him

assuming he still had his feet, that is. If this werea zombie movie, he would be the nameless guywho gets killed in the opening sequencea luckyrabbits foot for the important characters to rub indistress. His left foot, on the other hand, wasalways swimming.*

*He wouldnt be nameless. His friends called him O Giz(theChalk) behind his back.


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He couldnt stand not understanding. And it wasabsolutely true that he could understand almostanythingwell, not ideas or concepts or theories.He wasnt some kind of genius, nor did he claim

or pretend that he was. What he understood weredesires. It all made perfect sense to him, andwhen it didnt, he forced it tobut those timeswere rare. Things that others worried over orpretended to worry over bothered him not at all.Goat fucking? Please. Suicide? Cmon. Murder?Just another day at the office. Infidelity? Might aswell get a shave. Goodness? Nothing to it. Evil?. . . There was something about other peoplessurprise he deeply distrusted. There was no suchthing, as far as he was concerned, as the failure of

the imagination. People could tell him anythingand he would understand perfectly. He really didlisten, and people couldnt help but seek himouta ready ear to pull.*

*He was never alone.


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His friends, on the other hand, rather than protecthim seemed to enjoy repeating what others saidabout him. When asked how they responded,they often looked blank or confused as if coming

to his rescue was an absurd notion. He used tothink it was a loyalty thingsome flaw in how hepicked his friends, some defect in his ability togauge others. Of course, since he had no one todiscuss it with, he never realized there was never achance of reciprocation. In fact, it was more thanthat. It was not to be returned. It would have toremain shameful, debased, secret, something . . .What sense would there be, after all, in one goatfucker confessing to another goat fucker theloveliness of his weekend? They needed someone

who punished without judgment, who served themoment, and staked the next round.*

*A recent study concluded that although there has been adrastic increase in references to copulation with farm animalsin popular media, actual incidence of the act has been in steepdecline since the late 1800s.


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For example, everyone around himand thisseemed to have happened only very recently butso slowly as to feel like it had always been therehad developed a pathological need to blow their

noses. He did not witnessinitiallythe actitself; what he found was the evidence, theaftermath. In every bathroom, those little plasticcanisters that passed for trashcans wereoverflowing with used Kleenex. It was not hispractice to use other peoples bathrooms or publicrestrooms. It wasnt the national-brandhypochondria either; he didnt care about germs.It was a leftover from a childhood of visitingpeople who lived in small apartments, whosebathrooms were always perilously close to the

parlor where the entertaining was happening.There was simply no way to go about onesbusiness without everyone being audience to it.But he didnt want to pass up the opportunity . . .It was important not to exaggerate, not to make aclaim based on too small a sample. The world did

not need another metaphor. What was neededhere was cold observation if such a thing was still


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possible: the facts and then some viable

conclusions if they could be drawn.*

*Discoveries were made, then later lost, forgotten. Somethings came to light, while others disappeared, certain beliefsbecoming accepted as fact, some as legend. Darrell Kastin,The Undiscovered Island.

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