Just a Couple of Days (3 page)

“It's true,” Brother Zebediah admitted. “I lost half my brain to LSD in the sinful sixties. But that just makes things fair, children, otherwise I'd be so far above you kids that we couldn't communicate! So listen carefully and
be not deceived
!” Brother Zebediah picked up a bright orange laminated poster board and began to recite what was on it. “Masturbators, Feminists, Adulterers, Whores, Homosexuals, Lesbians, Hippies, Buddha-heads, Evolutionists, Blasphemers, Drunkards, Pro-choicers, Pagans, Potheads, Mormons,
Jews
, Muslims, Hare Krishnas, and especially
Fornicators
are going to
hell
!”
²
He hurled the poster of the damned aside and roared in self-congratulatory fury, “Jeyzus is coming! Jeyzus is
coming
!”

“Jesus is coming?” Heckler retorted. “Is that some kind of dirty joke?”

“Let's take a little survey.” Brother Zebediah ignored the laughter and began anew. “How many
masturbators
do we have here?”

Heckler raised his hand, followed by others. “Wait, does it count if I masturbate by myself?”

“Masturbators! Be not deceived! You're going straight to
hell
!”

“Do you masturbate?” Heckler called back.

“No, I do not masturbate, you pervert!” Brother Zebediah pointed at him, flinging righteous lightning from his fingertip. “You sinner! You covet my godliness! You're jealous 'cause you're running around jackin' off! You could lay one of these cheap campus whores every night and still go home and smack your monkey!” Uproarious laughter prevented Heckler from responding immediately, and Brother Zebediah quickly continued. “And how many
pot
smokers do we have here?”

Heckler and his buddies cheered enthusiastically.

“Well I got bad news, children. You fail. Go directly to hell! Do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars. Smoke that pot, you're gonna rot! Drink that booze, you're gonna lose!
Fornicate
, and you're not gonna see that pearly gate!”

“But God made marijuana!” one of Heckler's comrades yelled.

“God made poison ivy, too, that doesn't mean you should roll around in it!”

“Well, what if you eat it?”

Brother Zebediah furrowed his brow a moment,
considering the question, then replied, quite seriously, “Well, you're still ingesting it, so yes, you qualify for hell.”

Heckler's comrade, not terribly swift, crossed his arms and shook his head, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot. Brother Zebediah took advantage of his upper hand and immediately resumed his evangelical survey.

“And how many
feminazis
do we have here?”

“What if I like women to dress up like Hitler and crap on me?” Heckler came back strong, and I laughed out loud with everyone else. I glanced at Blip, perhaps to share a smile, but he seemed oblivious of everything but a cup of tea resting near Brother Zebediah's feet.

Before the laughter dissipated, a female student, wearing combat boots, lots of leather, and a buzz cut, pushed out from the crowd and sauntered into the middle of the circle. “You think you're some prophet and we're the jeering heathens, don't you? But you're not; you're just the village idiot, do you understand that? You don't know anything about spirituality, brother. You're not preaching love. What you're preaching is
hate
.”

“‘Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness!'”
³
Brother Zebediah quoted his Bible to the woman and the crowd. “Love is the fulfillment of the
laws
! See what sin, what feminism, will do to you girls?” He pointed at the woman. “It'll turn you into a whorish butch bull dyke feminazi witch! God'll pick her up and skip er across the lake of fire like a flat smooth stone!”

The woman paused a moment, then, to everyone's astonishment, slugged Brother Zebediah square in the jaw, knocking him flat. Scarcely had the collective “Ooooooooo . . .” escaped
the lips of everyone when three large men, apparently plainclothes security guards, tackled the woman. Instantaneously, three of her similarly clad friends jumped into the struggle. The crowd, including Blip and myself, stood dumbfounded. A fourth security guard entered the clearing, eyed the coed wrestling brawl (which was still anybody's match), and yelled into his radio, “We need backup on the Green!” Then he grabbed ahold of Brother Zebediah, who was dazed and getting up slowly from the ground. “Are you okay, sir?”

Brother Zebediah nodded, looking slightly stunned, and reached for his cup of tea on the ground.

“Come with me then,” the guard said. “I'm afraid I'm going to have to place you under arrest.”

Brother Zebediah nodded, wiped his brow, and took a sip of tea. It was at that moment that Blip cracked, as suddenly and dramatically as an ice cube fracturing in a hot beverage.

“No!” he screamed, racing toward Brother Zebediah. “It's poisoned!” He slapped the cup out of the preacher's hand and into the face of the security guard, who then grabbed Blip seconds before the crowd rushed inward like a collapsing star, and pandemonium was born.

I was jostled backward, and eventually stumbled out of the melee. I ran to a bench and stood on it to try and find Blip. I needn't have bothered. A great wind suddenly descended, radiating everyone's hair out from the center and startling the throngs back into individuality. A stealth helicopter, an inexplicable presence, hovered directly overhead.

“DISPERSE IMMEDIATELY,” came a disembodied, steely command from the bullhorns mounted underneath. “DISPERSE IMMEDIATELY OR YOU WILL BE GASSED.”

Everyone more or less dispersed, as much as was possible under the circumstances, and pandemonium became panic. I located Blip, still in the center, struggling against the wind and the grip of a security guard who had him in a bear hug. Shortly thereafter, the helicopter began moving in larger circles around the area, and the wind died down. The other security guards had lost the women they were originally combating, and instead arrested Brother Zebediah and Blip with a vengeance. Blip spotted me and hollered, “Flake! Call my wife!” just before being dragged off with the preacher to a nearby patrol van.

Brother Zebediah, also struggling against the guards, screamed rabidly at the fleeing students. “I am your spiritual alarm clock! Don't hit that snooze button! I'm your wake-up call! I hope you all run home and are tortured by nightmares of
hell
!”

 

4
The average ocular distance, that is, the space between a set of human eyes, pupil to pupil, is 6.5 centimeters. Tibor Tynee, the president and CEO of Tynee University (so renamed at his financial insistence), has an ocular distance no greater than 4 centimeters. A lifetime of narrowing his eyes and tightening his lips has left his face decidedly pinched. The expansive facial features of Blip's wife, Dr. Sophia Carthorse, are precisely the opposite. This was apparent even over the telephone as I called her and relayed the news about Blip. She did not seem surprised, and asked only that I meet her at the police station in an hour. I agreed, allowing that I'd be a little late due to a 1:30 meeting that had been scheduled for me with President Tynee.

Tibor Tynee is a short man. He has short hair, a short body, and a short temper. Small but powerful, he is a dinky Lilliputian
who nevertheless manages to manipulate everyone around him into following his orders. Disrespected by all who are yet humble in his presence (Tiny Tynee, the students, and sometimes the faculty, call him), he is nonetheless comfortable wielding his power. He enforces his will on others and enjoys doing so, rattling sabers like a teenage boy jingling his car keys for all to hear. New rumors emerge and circulate monthly concerning every aspect of his character, from doubtful assertions that he wears a hairpiece to plausible claims that his carnal habits tend toward masochism. In particular, it has been alleged that he has a self-flagellation fetish, and is known to slap himself during intercourse.

At the risk of further coloring your assessment of him, Tynee is just thrilled with who he thinks he is. What he does not realize, however, is that he is actually a whoopee-cushion windbag, and that everything he says sounds like so much blustering flatulence. Possessed by a gluttonous pride, the voracious cravings of his ego demand the admiration of others for their vile nourishment. Approval is not nearly enough. He has to convince others that he is special, unique, and, most of all, superior. His breathless gasconades not only have to be accepted, but applauded. With such a covetous appetite, it was inevitable that he would become rather fatheaded, and he is, yet his hunger has never slowed. It is as if he nurses a tapeworm at the core of his soul that leaves him in perpetual need of more attention. It is a conceit borne of a Brobdingnagian insecurity, constantly seeping through the ersatz netting of his vanity and launching horrific hernias of introspection that threaten to burst the entire supercilious membrane sustaining his delusional self-concept. He dares not let this happen, for the decrepit web of his narcissism
holds back nothing but a depraved and vainglorious mass of wormrot.

The effort required to expel such a soul-sucking leech is less than the effort required to maintain its decaying rind. However, this necessitates facing the nauseating prospect of pulling the parasite out of his own being and thus witnessing what truly motivates him. And Tynee's motivation is disgusting, make no mistake. I do not like him, that should be clear enough, but it is difficult for me to believe that anyone would care for the company of such a gusty, muckety-muck schmuck. There is nothing appealing or attractive about compulsive public masturbation, jerking off in a haughty display of self-gratification. I once made the mistake of paying him an admittedly obsequious compliment and was utterly disgusted when I saw that my congratulation had been perverted into so many sickening strokes of his already engorged ego. His cocksure arrogance increased a degree, bathing his consciousness with self-lust and pushing him one step closer to a climax where all memory of kindness and consideration will vanish, ultimately collapsing him into a solipsistic orgasm of megalomania.

 

5
Tibor Tynee moves very fast, a high metabolism fueling his slight frame. He wastes no time whatsoever. In fact, he steals time from those around him. He's known for starting his meetings fifteen minutes ahead of time, so that someone arriving five minutes early is actually ten minutes late. Owing to the fracas on the Green, I was twenty minutes late in Tynee time. His secretary was just about to call his 2:00 meeting when I arrived at his office. It was 1:35.

“Flake Fountain!” He announced my presence in his office as if I'd just entered a debutante ball. He stood up in his hot tub, exposing an unwelcome portion of his gaunt and pasty frame to me as he toweled off.

“Sorry . . .” was all I could manage before a bellow ridiculously out of proportion with his flimsy build cut me off.

“Save it!” he roared, stepping out of the tub and disappearing behind a partial wall.

Tynee's office was also an enormous studio apartment. He lived and worked in a single room converted from an entire floor of classrooms. I wandered aimlessly around as he dressed, mildly impressed by the arsenal of military antiquities that decorated two of his walls. They were displayed with an air of imperial majesty, framed by a trellis overgrown with the same wall-crawling ivy that covered the outside of the building. Masses of simple, deep green leaves dangled around and between the various swords, axes, daggers, and maces, perhaps, I thought, intended to emphasize the age of the weapons.

“Better wash your hands.” Tynee spoke from behind me.

“Sorry?”

“Leaves of three, let them be, Doctor. That's poison ivy.” I looked at him incredulously. “Don't worry,” he continued. “If you wash off the oil within an hour you won't have any reaction.”

I did so immediately, even though I couldn't remember whether I had touched any of the leaves. Angrily, I asked him why he had poison ivy growing in his office.

“To keep people from touching the steel.” He spoke as if it were perfectly self-evident. “This,” he carelessly reached past some leaves and picked up a small amber bottle near the base of a crossbow. “This is pure urushiol, the toxin in poison ivy. I had
a severe case of it when I was five, all over my body, in my eyes, ears, nose, mouth, everywhere. It itched like a son of a bitch, for over a month, no matter how much calamine lotion my mother slathered on me. She cut my fingernails short to prevent me from scratching my skin off, and the only way I could get any relief was to smack or scald the skin where it itched. It itched down to my bones and out the other side, completely took over my body.” He stood a little more erect, apparently proud of his ordeal. “But I survived, and I've never had it since.”

“So you grow it all around you?”

He nodded and continued without explanation. “It covers the outside of this building, too. I had it planted when I first accepted this position years back. Had to pay the landscapers time and a half, too. Haven't you seen the signs posted?”

“But why?”

“There was a student demonstration and some monkey hippie climbed up the exterior wall and started pounding on the windows. I had
them
replaced with high-density, doublethick glass.”

“You're not afraid of getting poison ivy again?”

“I'm immune,” he said, plucking a leaf triumphantly. “I have been ever since the first time. No doctor has been able to explain it to me. I don't even react to mosquito bites.” He paused a moment, and chewed the stem of the leaf pensively. “When I was a child, though, and my little sister would get mosquito bites, I used to scratch them when she wasn't thinking about them just to make them itch again.” He tossed the bottle into the air and caught it. “But poison ivy is an entirely different type of itch. Did you know it's one of the most potent toxins on Earth?” He shook the jar ponderously, speculating on his unholy botanical alliance,
and his voice took on a tone resembling that of a necrophiliac singing the praises of rigor mortis. “What's in this bottle, one ounce, is enough to give every human on this planet a rash they'd
never
forget. Can you imagine that?” He chuckled and appeared to be lost in reverie, no doubt carried away by his fantasy of a global orgy of orgasmic itching, and perhaps slapping. After a few moments his faraway grin fell slack, and he abruptly changed his demeanor. “Anyway,” he hissed, “I have an assignment for you.” He led me to the far side of his poison palace in silence, to the Ping-Pong table. He tossed a paddle at me, apparently expecting me to play.