{"id":4177,"date":"2013-06-27T13:40:41","date_gmt":"2013-06-27T13:40:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sporkpress.com\/?p=4177"},"modified":"2013-06-27T13:40:41","modified_gmt":"2013-06-27T13:40:41","slug":"im-not-to-the-bottom-of-it-by-jake-skillings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/2013\/06\/27\/im-not-to-the-bottom-of-it-by-jake-skillings\/","title":{"rendered":"I’m Not To The Bottom Of It by Jake Skillings"},"content":{"rendered":"
I will make Gary perform this task for me.<\/div>\n

     \u201cGary,\u201d I say, \u201cget that shovel.\u201d<\/p>\n

     Gary is wearing cherrywood suspenders and a corn yellow shirt. \u201cWhat shovel?\u201d he asks.<\/p>\n

     \u201cThat shovel.\u201d I point to the shovel. It\u2019s a five year shovel, the spade looks like a chipped front tooth. Too many run-ins with bedrock.<\/p>\n

     \u201cDig Gary,\u201d I say (to Gary). He bites the earth with my shovel. The earth is pink. It has the texture of tough noodles. \u201cDig, Gary, dig.\u201d And then piles of rubbery earth pile on piles.<\/p>\n

     \u201cGary, I\u2019ve been having a problem even a pill can\u2019t fix\u2026\u2026\u2026Gary, what happens when I close my eyes?<\/p>\n

     Gary leans on the shovel. \u201cI believe when you close your eyes you turn into a cat, except to everyone else you continue to appear human.\u201d Gary flings earth through the air and it throbs and shimmers in the sunlight before thwacking down into the plop.<\/p>\n

     Gary reaches for a cig. I slap him with ultra violet rays. \u201cPay attention, Gary. You\u2019re not Sammy Davis Jr. You are not the Entertainer. Or Scott Joplin. No Gary, I\u2019m giving you a mustache to twist between your fingers.\u201d Gary needles the mustache with his thumbs. Pointy.<\/p>\n

     \u201cGary, what do you think of turning water into wine?\u201d<\/p>\n

     \u201cI believe magicians have become exponentially underrated compared to their previous merit,\u201d says Gary in a slow sigh, still stroking his mustache.<\/p>\n

     \u201cAll right, all right. Stop twisting those greasy protein strands. Keep digging.\u201d\u00a0 The rolling of Gary\u2019s eyes are uphill marbles.<\/p>\n

     \u201cDig Gary Dig. Time\u2019s running out. Gary: dig.\u201d<\/p>\n

     Gary digs, he digs. Gary does. The earth is a darker shade of pink, now wet. Dense as strawberry fudge. Gary\u2019s lip trembles with sweat from Gary\u2019s sweat glands. Gary\u2019s sweat glands are sweaty. I drop an anvil of redundancy on Gary\u2019s delicate paper head. It crumples. I smooth it out with hard skinned palms.\u00a0 \u201cSpeak when I say now, Gary, but not just then, after this.\u00a0 Gary what happens when your wife gets punctured?\u201d<\/p>\n

     Gary stands there. He stands. He\u2019s standing.<\/p>\n

     \u201cNow Gary, now!\u201d<\/p>\n

     \u201cWell,\u201d Gary Gary’s, \u201cI believe punctured wives are still wives. I believe the hole eventually fills back in a few months, like an ear-lobe after removing an earring. It will repair itself and the wife will be complete again. After some time it will be like the hole was never there.\u201d<\/p>\n

     \u201cOk. But Gary, what if I told you the sun is actually made out of rock candy and the universe is slowly eating it?\u201d<\/p>\n

     The shovel snaps down past the hilt. The now red ground is soggy and abstract. \u201cI would say good for the universe. Its stomach looks empty from where I\u2019m standing.\u201d<\/p>\n

     \u201cGary, keep digging. But I\u2019m not going to mention that you\u2019re digging anymore. I\u2019m looking for something. You\u2019ll know when you find it. I\u2019m 100% sure it\u2019s in a gold box\u2026.or a silver sphere\u2026.or a rusty can\u2026or\u2026or\u2026or, DIG GARY, DIG!\u00a0 DIG\u00a0 GAR\u2014.”<\/p>\n

     Pause.<\/p>\n

     \u201cGary, why do people smoke cigarettes? Gary, why do cigarettes dangle from pink lips like trains over an unfinished bridge?\u201d<\/p>\n

     He spits, Gary does. \u201cWell, I believe smokers smoke because they are thrifty when shopping for danger and mystique. I also believe smokers smoke to get away from the non-smokers once in a while.\u201d<\/p>\n

     \u201cDon\u2019t get proud, Gary. I might not be nearly done with you yet, maybe.\u201d<\/p>\n

     Gary doesn\u2019t get lippy, I don\u2019t allow him to. Another question befalls Gary. \u201cGary, what happens to people in comas?\u201d<\/p>\n

     Gary bursts through a pocket of bubbling batter. It shotguns his face with clotty beads. He wipes his face, smearing it like poorly applied rouge. His shovel, my shovel, looks lost in the glop but isn\u2019t. Gary looks for it anyway, making thick, lazy waves with his foot.\u00a0 \u201cComa, huh? I believe that people in comas travel to a parallel universe where they forever run errands in mid-priced four door sedans covered in sea gull droppings (shit).\u201d<\/p>\n

     I place a red foam clown nose on Gary. It honks like that one bird that honks. A goose? Gary glares.<\/p>\n

     Now: Gary no longer has the clown nose. He finds the shovel handle then pulls it out of the wet pink (already stated) noodle-like earth. Thwuck.<\/p>\n

     \u201cI\u2019m tired of digging, this shovel might snap from the enduring efforts on my endurance,\u201d whines Gary. \u201cMy abundance of fatigue is fatigued.\u201d<\/p>\n

     I drop a giant punctuation mark on his crinkled paper head.<\/p>\n

 
\n                                                                 \"period\"<\/a>
\n <\/p>\n

     Now Gary has yellow stars circling his head. I grab one and pop it in my mouth. Tastes like an Easter Peep. Disgusting.<\/p>\n

     \u201cOk Gary, knock it off and use that backhoe over there. Use this instruction manual.\u201d<\/p>\n

     I hand him the pamphlet, which is in Chinese. Gary climbs up and sits in the tattered cab seat, then looks over the pages.<\/p>\n

     And\u2026<\/p>\n

     Gary pulls on levers, Gary\u2019s biceps flex and burn. The backhoe splooshes into dense, pink folds of earth.<\/p>\n

     Gary knows Chinese. Clever Gary.<\/p>\n

     \u201cGary, maybe one last question, maybe. Gary, why do people tie their shoelaces and put on socks? Why are clothes baskets always full? Is it possible to pick up a bar of soap while blindfolded?\u00a0 Do the frightening cracks of ice on a lake really refreeze and make it stronger as a whole, or is that just feel-good bullshit? Gary, why does Saran Wrap never seem to run out? Why doesn\u2019t a fly see the flyswatter coming when it has, like, 600 eyes? Gary, why is the sky sometimes orange but not always? And why don\u2019t monsters live under children\u2019s beds and instead hide in the alleyways?\u00a0 Why do some lovers pretend they are lovers? What happens to the thoughts I don\u2019t think? What happens to the people I don\u2019t know?\u00a0 Gary\u2014 why did that happen to her, to her<\/i>? She\u2019s just so nice Gary\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

     The backhoe\u2019s metal lurches whilst pistons whimper, the bucket digs in and strains then BLAM. Earth\u2019s red spittle falls upward.
\n     
\n     The machine sinks
\n     
\n                                   sinks
\n     
\n                                             falls.
\n     
\n     Gary rubs his temples counterclockwise: still sitting in the cab: no expression: sucked down with the machine.<\/p>\n

     I stare into the hole. The bottom gave out. No pink noodle earth, no red spittle. Just a clean round hole filled with black air like sleep.<\/p>\n

     Now Gary\u2019s gone, Gary is.<\/p>\n

     And I\u2019m still not to the bottom of it.<\/p>\n

     But I know something is down there, in the void. Just needs a light: maybe a ray of sun and a mirror.<\/p>\n

     I think I\u2019ll make Mary perform this task for me.<\/p>\n

     \u201cMary,\u201d I say. \u201cGrab that mirror.\u201d<\/p>\n

     Mary is wearing a cherrywood skirt with corn yellow socks. \u201cWhat mirror?\u201d she asks.<\/p>\n

     \u201cThat mirror.\u201d I point to the mirror. It\u2019s a ten year mirror. Glass like a rusty lake\u2014too many reflections in the rain.<\/p>\n

     \u201cMary,\u201d I say (to Mary).<\/p>\n

     She looks up at me, cheeks round and glowing.<\/p>\n

     \u201cLight that dark, Mary. Shine, Mary, shine.\u201d
\n     
\n\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013
\nJake Skillings<\/strong> is a 29-year-old male from Minnesota. His work has recently appeared in The Los Angeles Review<\/em>. He also has work published in The Ampersand Review<\/em> under a pseudonym which may be condiment related.
\n     
\n     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I will make Gary perform this task for me.      \u201cGary,\u201d I say, \u201cget that shovel.\u201d      Gary is wearing cherrywood suspenders and a corn yellow shirt. \u201cWhat shovel?\u201d he asks.      \u201cThat shovel.\u201d I point to the shovel. It\u2019s a five year shovel, the spade looks like a chipped front tooth. Too many run-ins with bedrock.      \u201cDig […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,3,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-fiction","category-things"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4177\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}