Art student, con-job and sociopath Pat Splatt is proud of his entourage of fake identities, many starting with “Al” for Alias. His pretend friends go online to bother marginalized groups, pretending he is one of them so he can try and make them feel excluded via cultural gatekeeping. Too bad Pat has so much time on his hands.
“He can come and do my laundry, fold it and put it away if he’s that bored!”
“Man, I am bored.” Smokey says aloud as she smokes in bed. Smokey has been an unhappy lot, unemployed from her CRASS debt collecting job. Smokey hears a loud pound on the door. She has been expecting a package, so she answers.
“Kankakee County Sherriff. Is this Mrs. Ashe?”
“Yes. Who dis?”
“I am here to serve you with this eviction notice. I need you to sign—“
“Eviction? Why am I being evicted?”
“Ma’am, I am only here to provide document service. I need you to direct questions to your landlord. Sign here please.”
“I aint signin’ nuttin’!” Smokey screams.”
“Then I will have to report you to the Kankakee County Judge who may issue a bench warrant for your court appearance. Make it easy, sign that you got the papers and we can avoid all that.”
“Fine.” Smokey grabs the papers and scrawls a barely legible signature.
Smokey and the officer part ways.
Smokey is furious and at the same time feeling terrified she will be forever homeless. She has not been able to find a job because nobody wants to hire her.
Smokey calls her landlord and they do not answer. Smokey opens up the packet left for her:
“Your building is being condemned by the Kankakee County Codes Department due to the entire nonsmoking facility having been permanently tainted with cigarette smoke. One resident has been smoking in her unit, despite multiple warnings and it has made several residents severely ill. Please contact Kankakee County Department of Social Services if you need assistance with housing placement.”
“So now I am homeless, just because they decided to close the entire building? Why they do that to me? Them fools, kicking me out. Now I am going to be homeless. They have no sympathy for me at all,” Smokey says to herself.
Smokey puts out her butt and drives down to Wally Mart. It is July 4th and it is one of the few stores open on Independence Day.
“Ma’am, smoking is not allowed in the store.” Smokey gives the clerk a dirty look and walks out, leaving her cart full of merchandise behind for someone else to deal with.
Smokey spies a small structure off in the distance.
“What is this? Smoke Shack? I need to check this out.” Smokey says to herself.
Smokey heads to the white tent, decked out in signs marked “TNT”, “M80s” and “Roman Candles”.
Moments later, all of Kankakee lights up up in colors of red, white and blue. The glow can be seen for miles, making children and kids of heart grin from ear to ear, from the loud pops and sizzles.
Bourbonnais multiplex clerk, neckbeard and communal narcissist, Damien Hurlbutt, has caught word that his estranged former wife Lori is coming into Kankakee County for a doctor’s appointment. He is deathly afraid of running into her because he is scared she might confront him about his history of verbal abuse toward her, tarnishing his squeaky-clean image. He heads over to his brother Robbie’s apartment to ask him and fellow con man Pat Splatt to come up with a sneaky way into avoiding her.
“I’m back!” Damien tells his younger brother and fellow narcissist, Robbie.
“I’m front!” Robbie snickers back.
“I am leaving town for a week or longer. I am telling my boss at the cinema and then hitting the gas. My ex-wife is coming back into town and I am scared.”
“Scared?” Robbie replies in his typical faux-Elvis voice.
“Yeah. Sssh, don’t tell anyone. I really look good online after I smear campaigned her to all my friends, even to that famous couple until they had told me to stop messaging them, sending them presents and mailing them weekly postcards. I had sent them a drawing I made all by myself after our friend passed away since I had talked them into letting me send them art instead. I swear, they are really impressed! Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!” Damien exclaims with glee as he rubs his palms together.
“Just man up and deal with it!” Robbie Hurlbutt tells his older brother Damien.
“Come now. That is not how you talk to a fellow Men’s Rights Activist! You know that!” Damien says on the defense to Robbie.
“I hope you get the time off approved.”
“Okay, okay, okay, okay…” Damien repeats ad nauseum, not knowing his little brother Robbie is already out of earshot.
“Ding-dong.”
“You’re wrong!” Damien snickers beneath his breath to the person at Robbie’s door.
A half-grinning Pat Splatt opens the door and struts inside.
“I popped the question!”
“What question?” Damien asks.
“Heyyyy…where did you meet her?” Robbie replies and looks away.
“Hey Pat, my ex is coming into town and I am feeling lukecold about this. I was wondering if you could help come up with a scheme—“
“Damien, I just got engaged!”
“I know, I know. My ex is due in sometime this week. I would like to gingerly bow out of town but I have to work. What do you suggest I do?”
“Hey, can I sing at your wedding, Pat?” Kankakee’s number one Elvis impersonator, the one and only Robbie Hurlbutt asks.
“Do you know anything besides Elvis?”
“I can sing lots of oldies.” Robbie replies.
“Do you play any metal?”
“No, but you can book me really cheap. I will throw in my groovy dance moves for free.”
“I’ll consider it.” Pat says to Robbie.
“So where did you meet her?” Robbie asks.
“The dating app OKStupid. Hey, I’ll show you guys a picture.” Pat gets out his phone and opens up said dating app.
“Who’s Daniel Sprague?” Damien asks.
“Oh, that’s my profile,” a half-embarrassed Pat replies as his gawky, straggly self shows the Hurlbutt brothers the obviously-stolen photos of the handsome, athletic man in the photos with the gorgeous hair and eyes.
The Hurlbutts smile and ask to see his new girl.
“Her name is Alix. She’s from South Africa.”
“When did you meet her?” Damien asks.
“Oh, a month ago.”
“She came to Kankakee?” Robbie asks?
“No.”
“Hey Damien, let’s work on avoiding your ex,” Pat says to change the topic and the three work on scheming.
The next day arrives and so does Damien. Unlike Pat, Damien rings the bell and waits. While he waits, he taps his foot and jiggles the doorknob a dozen times. Make it a baker’s dozen.
“Well doesn’t that put poop in your soup?” Damien asks Robbie.
“Say what?”
“My time off did not get approved. I have to work. That means if my ex-wife comes into town, and visits the theater, she could say something bad about me if I am mean to her! What do I do?”
“Weren’t you saying you had heel spurs, just like the former president?”
“You know, the Moon landing may not be real but durn it, my bone spurs are!” Damien sternly replies.
“You deserve a long, hard week off.”
“You know, that’s right. I’ll just call in.”
“What do you do at that theater anyway?”
“Oh, make copies of tickets and give them away. And make color copies of things I print out…all on the company’s dime. Why not? They’re paying for it.”
The brothers share a giggle and Damien drives home to his neckbeard nest to sleep on the floor.
Damien dials his supervisor, Cinema-13 owner Konrad Teirant, on his ten year old flip phone to call in “sick.”
“You will need to be examined by a doctor and have a written excuse for each day you are out. Company policy.” Konrad says to Damien.
Upset and surprised by this rule, Damien makes an appointment to be seen. The office cannot tells him he cannot in until next week.
“Phew!” Damien says aloud after he hangs up his ancient flip phone and writes down his doctor appointment.
Damien drives over to Robbie’s apartment, where Robbie, his roommate Andy Skandees and Pat Splatt are all dancing and watching children’s entertainment.
A bulbous Damien sits down on the basket chair and nearly falls out, while Pat stares angrily at his phone on the couch next to Andy, who is relaxing in his white tank top and cargo pants.
“She says she wants to come meet me. In person. I keep telling her I am busy. She says she is on her way to Kankakee in a week-and-a-half for a business meeting via way of Chicago!” an unhappy Pat exclaims.
“Why don’t you want to meet your girl? Andy asks.
“Reasons,” Pat replies.
“Did I tell you my story about the poop elves?” Damien asks with a large grin on his face.
“Way too many times…” the rest of the room answers in unison.
“Oh, I forgot.” Damien lies.
The Kankakee storm rages on, and then changes to sun five minutes later.
Damien spends the next week off work, feeling glad he does not run into his former wife out and about, especially at work. It is review week coming up and he is deathly afraid of this time of year, as he is every year. Damien lives to impress, and will not even let his peers throw him a birthday party because he is not the one doing the impressing. If anyone would care enough to surprise him —not that they would — he would take over the check, (in a not-so-polite-way) and insist on paying on it himself thinking that would somehow impress them.Damien only does this for image, as he only cares about himself. He just wants to look good to cover up his lack of empathy.
Damien goes to the doctor’s office the following Monday before returning to work at the movie theater that night. After all, he had just spent a week off for his heel spurs!
While waiting for about an hour for his fifteen minute exam, in walks a familiar-looking woman, along with a much older lady. Damien looks up.
“Oh gawd.” Lori says to her friend after briefly looking over at Damien and then back at her friend.
Damien is now shaking with fear. He immediately dials up Robbie. It goes straight to voicemail. He calls Andy. Same thing. He calls Pat.
“Hey, man. It’s an emergency.”
“Be right over. I am charging you double-time.”
“Fine.”
Damien flips over his bronze-age phone and waits, tapping his fingers, whistling audibly.
Thirty minutes pass and Damien has not been called back to see the doctor, neither has Lori.
Pat Splatt walks in, cowboy boots a-clomping.
“Hi Damien. What’s going—“
“Look, Pat.”
Damien points across from him, to his former wife and her friend.
“What do you want from me?” Pat asks.
“That’s my ex wife! I thought her appointment was last week! You gave me the info.”
“So what. Things change. It happens.”
“Hey, you sound familiar!” says one of the ladies across from him.
“Hey-hhmm-hhuhhh—hmmm—what?” a melodramatic Damien replies.
“No not you, that guy next to you.” the elderly lady replies in her Cape Town accent, appearing to be about 72.
“You mean Pat?” Damien snarkily replies.
“Pat? I thought your name was Daniel!”
“Alllll-iiiiixxxx?” a stunned Pat Splatt replies.
“Yes, sonny. It’s me. I had told you I was coming into town. But you hadn’t wanted to meet me. I wonder why not? You do not look anything like your picture. The engagement is off.”
“Well neither do you!” Pat exclaims.
“Calm down everyone!” a staff member shouts from behind a window.
The group of people waiting wonder how any of them would get any calmer by a comment like that.
Damien is eventually thrown out of the office and Lori is called in next.
Needless to say, Damien does not pass his yearly review at Teirant Cinema-13. Poor Damien. If only he had just tried to be nice. But then again, he would not be Damien.
Wacky Kankakee inventor and pharmacy chain owner Wally Green is busy hosting his live infomercial advertising his newest invention, the Turd Machine: “Just turn the crank, and shoot the stank! But wait there’s more!”
Ennui struck this fangirl hard. After I had left a comment calling my social media acquaintance “a real ham,” this keyboard cockfighter slid this doozie into my inbox:
I copied-and-pasted the definitions for her (since the so-called journalist and radio announcer was too lazy to do it), but she kept on hunting and pecking anyway:
Is that a threat or a promise?
Instead of heading to bed – mind you it was 3:00 in the morning where she was at – she used my inbox as her toilet once again:
After blocking this bored orc, I reported her to Facebook (good luck) and to her employer. Though she claims to be a radio announcer, I did not see her listed on her alleged employer’s website aside the other presenters. Maybe she just calls them up and stalks them like that one girl who went to my high school.
I also sent copies of her obsessed fan-mail to my mutual acquaintances who work in the entertainment industry (the ones whose photos she tagged) as a heads up. Because, you know, gross.
Bourbonnais cinema clerk, neckbeard and communal narcissist Damien Ulysses Hurlbutt really wants to reconnect with a m’lady he saw in a Kroger grocery store. Do you think she will respond? He fudged his age a bit, typical con job. Maybe she will come into Teirant-13 Cinemas so he can catch a whiff. Maybe.
Bourbonnais narcissist, neckbeard and pool-toy enthusiast Damien Hurlbutt, working the concession stand at Cinema-13, tries to sell a customer some “Non-Parallels”
“Do you mean nonpareils?”
“Oh, these are non-parallels.”
“I will just get some popcorn with butter then.”
In walks a rather foul-smelling couple.
Bernadette Cacca’s Turd-Eating Grin
“Hey, can I speak to the manager?” Manteno communal narcissist, Optimal Club accordion-player and port-o-dump partner Bernadette Moran Cacca asks Damien.
“OK Karen. He’s busy,” Damien says in his usual monotone voice, not even looking at Bern, too concerned with filling popcorn and listening to the copier in the back office create a pile of ticket facsimiles so he can hopefully woo women with them.
“We have a meeting at 2 to discuss advertising our porto potty business with a Mr. Konrad…Teeerant?”
“I know, I know. It’s Teirant. Rhymes with ‘tyrant.’ Walk over to that door and knock.” The bulbous neckbeard Damien Hurlbutt points to the door simply marked “Manager” getting a glimpse of Bernadette Cacca’s behind as she and her husband Peppi make their way toward Konrad’s office. An evil grin fills Damien Hurlbutt’s face, with bedroom eyes to match.
The Caccas submit a proposal to do their business.
After the meeting, Bern, Peppi and Konrad emerge. Bern beelines toward the washroom, pinches a massive loaf, and stares at it in awe. She is so proud of her creation, almost afraid to flush it down. Since she has nowhere to burn it at the multiplex, she reluctantly pushes the handle and washes her hands in the sink. At least she did that. Damien ogles Bern’s round bum as she and her beau Peppi exit the theater.
“Fill up those popcorn bags!” Konrad commands his clerk Damien. “Friday I expect to make big bags at the release of the new rom-com. We partnered with our advertisers to increase the bottom-line. This one’s gonna be a game-changer. Make me a sign.”
“Yep.” Damien heads to the back office to draw and make more color copies of movie tickets on the company’s budget.
While working on the sign, Damien’s brother Robbie calls his flip phone. Thinking it’s one of the many OKStupid ladies he messaged, he answers.
“Hey honey!”
“Damien, it’s Robbie, you dork.”
“Sorry.”
“Can you get me a job at the theater? Wally’s cuttin’ back my hours again.”
“Maybe. Hey, there’s this cute chick coming in Friday for the new premiere.”
“Groovy. Can I meet her?”
Swarthy Elvis impersonator Robbie Hurlbutt
“She’s married. But I have first dibs.”
“Riiiight.”
“Hey, I got a free ticket if you wanna come down.”
“Do you think your boss will let me work with you? If you really love your brother you will ask your manager. It’s really selfish of you not.”
“Come down and see the film. Friday night.”
“Later.” Damien and Robbie disconnect…for now.
Peppi and Bern Cacca are loafing away inside their run-down shack in Manteno.
“These maxi pad commercials always come on when I am watching TV. This is Star Trek. Men watch this show,” Peppi whinges.
“Hey Pep. I got this handy-dandy new laundry basket. Would you like to come with me to the laundromat?”
“Why? Bern, I try to help and you won’t let me.”
“Oh come along for the company. You’re fragile. I can do it all. Maybe you can hold doors for me while I haul all our laundry in.”
“So I can watch? Yeah, no. I am busy.”
Peppi walks into his bedroom to get away from his wife, lights up the skunkiest joint he’s got and guzzles moonshine.
It’s showtime. In walks Bern Cacca wearing her accordion over her Peppi’s Portopotties shirt, bearing the caption “King & Queen of the Throne.”
“Hey, Bern. We have changed our mind about your advertising strategy. We think playing accordion while Peppi raps about portopotties is not a good idea,” Cinema-13 owner Konrad Teirant tells Bernadette Cacca.
“Oh, Peppi stayed home. I wanna belt some crappy show-tunes instead.”
“It does not take a genius to figure out that we both need to make money. Sing at home, preferably with the windows shut. We designed a new ad, and we think you’ll like it. It will play halfway through the movie. A new rom-com premieres tonight, “Steamy Love.” We expect a big bag from a big turnout. Your seat is on me.
“Hey M’lady. Would you like some popcorn?” theater clerk and neckbeard Damien Hurlbutt calls out to Bern Cacca.
“I’m good, thanks. What a lovely theater you have!”
“Aww, shucks. Hey M’lady, Madame. What is this lovely lady doing when the film lets out? I can get you free tickets if you meet me at the Gaslight Bar.”
“I’m busy.”
Bern heads to her seat, excited to see all the theater patrons, and tries to make friends with as many as possible, hugging, shaking hands, and calling them “darling”. Bern thinks she’s everybody’s friend, and reminds the crowd of all the favors she does for charity and her enablers.
The film begins to roll.
At intermission, the new ad for Peppi’s Portopotties plays, interrupting a scene depicting two people kissing, and a prominent plot point. Will the lady choose her secret lover or go back to her husband?
“Let’s all go to the washroom
Let’s all go to the washroom.
Let’s all go to the washroom,
And take ourselves a dump.”
The patrons run to the restrooms, but not to crap or whizz.
They barf up the popcorn, candy and pop, for which they overpaid at the concession stand.
Too nauseous to stay for the ending, the crowd of moviegoers leaves Teirant Cinema-13 in droves.
An angry Bern Cacca leaves the multiplex, worrying about her squeaky-clean image as a singing fool who raises money for the Manteno Optimal Club, and gives rides to friends because she loves to look good.
“Hey honey puddin’ — what are you doing right now?” the bulbous concessions clerk Damien Hurlbutt asks Bern Cacca as she passes the ticket counter.
“I have a date. I’m leaving you guys.”
“With me, my dainty queen?”
“No, you moron.”
“How about me?” pops up Damien’s brother Robbie Hurlbutt, emerging from seemingly nowhere.
“No, with JB, the Turd Burglar.”
Frowns fill the faces of the Hurlbutts, while a devilish grin fills that of Bern Cacca as she embraces the neighborhood Turd Burglar, who has been waiting for her in the parking lot.
Konrad Teirant counts his ticket sales, all smiles because he does not plan to offer refunds. He had made his big bag and takes it home to lie in it, spreading the cash all over his bed, rolling around in it and over it like a dog.
Manteno swamp witch, co-founder of Peppi’s Portapotties and communal narcissist Bernadette “Bern” Cacca, burns poopies in the fireplace after her husband Peppi empties the portable johns.
Bern gets a message from a potential customer who had watched her sing show-tunes and play accordion to raise money for the Manteno Optimal Club. Little does the he — nor the rest of the public — know that Bern only does this to help her look good on the outside. After all, looks are deceiving. She could not care less about the charity nor anyone but herself.
Excited to meet a fan and potential customer, this queen of the porcelain throne shares the link to her port-o-dump commercial where she sings and husband Peppi raps.
Impressed, the fellow presses Bern for more information.
Bernadette delivers..
Bern is busy pooping, lighting her farts to spark flames and burning the turds in the fireplace. She hands the phone to her husband Peppi – who hopes to score a side-piece.
Giddy-Up!
Peppi feels disappointed, rejected by his love-interest who shares his level of imbecilics. He goes out and starts emptying the porta-johns, bringing the solids to Bern and rolling the liquids into his dime-bags. Peppi is excited to roll some extra skunky joints. Ahh, nice and stinky.
Peppi puffs away lying on his bed; not a care in the world, not even to his neighbors Gothic Diana Ross and the Midnight Supremes who cannot stand the smell. Then he drowns himself in moonshine and pukes it all up.
Thankfully Bernadette already had already pooped in the washroom like her idol Kaitlin Bennett.
Kankakee pharmacy clerk, vulnerable narcissist and Elvis impersonator Robert Roy Gary Hurlbutt uses a Waluigi board to summon a single woman while sleeping over at his mother PJ’s house. Minutes later, someone walks in.
“I forgot my phone, don’t know where I would be without it,” says next-door-neighbor JoAnn Kibble, mother of 62-year-old Sybil.
“It’s hotter than a boiled owl!” Bourbonnais cinema clerk, neckbeard and communal narcissist Damien Ulysses Hurlbutt thinks aloud, as he heads down the stairs to get his mail. “Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. I got my postcards off CBay. I bought over 200 from this guy, one at a time. What a great seller! I can’t wait to impress my friends with these! All these favors I do, oh boy, oh boy, they will get a SURPRISE!”
A lady across the way gives Damien the side eye.
Damien logs onto his personal computer, setting atop a wooden folding table. He tries to log onto his alternate Fakebook account, purposely created to stalk his ex-wife Lori and her friends, who divorced him because he abused her.
“Oh man, I cannot get on. What is this about getting reported again for violating the terms of service? I did nothing wrong. I am just a nice guy who has no rights. What about us men?” Damien types into the box in response to Fakebook’s “How did we do?” questionnare.
A few minutes pass. “Ding!”
Damien awakes from a deep sleep, all his loud snoring ceases.
Damien jumps up to log onto his computer.
“Hehhhhhhhh…” Damien sighs.
“We have permanently disabled this account due to multiple third-party complaints. Do not attempt to log in again.
— The Fakebook Team.”
“Now this account is crumped. I know! I will just make a new one! That will show them. Hmpf.”
Damien clears his browser’s history, cookies, cache and then reboots his machine. He reloads Fakebook and tries to create a new account under a diffent name so he can continue to harass his ex-wife, because he clearly has nothing better to do with his time.
“We are sorry, Damien. Maybe you should go out sometime and get a life. Do something productive. Get off the internet. We are closing both your accounts due to impersonation.
— The Fakebook Team”
“Those damnedable Fakebook people! They really put poop in my soup! Both my accounts are clunked over! I wish I could zogg over there and give that clump of people a piece of my mind!”
Damien goes into the bathroom, takes a huge crap, does not wipe and heads straight for the shower. He does not believe in wiping. After he gets out, he runs out the bathroom door, leaving a lake of water on the floor in his wake to get a towel.
As Damien dries himself, he shakes off like a dog, getting water all over the living room carpet. He gets an idea.
Damien dries his hair and then his manhood with the blowdryer.
Damien gets out his box of 200 postcards and sits down, looking a lot like Homer Simpson in his tighty-whities. He scrawls away into the night.
Weeks go by and Damien wonders why he has not heard back. Damien turns on the television, as he has not been able to log onto Fakebook:
“Breaking news: Alabama lawmakers stalked by a mysterious Bourbonnais man. Over 200 postcards containing crude drawings were sent to Alabama politicians opposed to women’s reproductive rights. According to reports, some of the content contained references to so-called ‘MRAs’ or ‘Men’s Rights Activists’, a reactionary group known for their anti-feminist views. Some of the content could not be shown on TV. We will print his address for our viewers’ protection. Back to you.”
Damien gasps, gulping down six antacids to purposely constipate himself because he does not like pooping around people. He craps his pants anyway.
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