The Complex was originally called “Relax Inn,” but after writing the actually story, the title no longer worked. (It would be saved for another story, however.) I don’t know what all to say about the story as it materialized — not entirely sure where it came from, other than to say it probably stems from my fascination with how we humans constantly work against our best interests, perhaps most notably in small, everyday ways. Oh, and also, that I’ve always wanted to name a character Sandy Loam, and I guessed this was the place to do it.
Many thanks to the wonderful people at Crack the Spine Literary Magazine, who published this story in their online Issue #241, August, 2018.
The Complex can be read below or by going to the publication issue HERE.
The Complex
by
J. Edward Kruft
Sandy Loam sat naked in the communal hot tub. His nakedness was intended so others wouldn’t bother him, and mostly, it worked. The lone exception was Mr. Peterman in 2F, whose own nakedness offended Sandy, both for Peterman’s tangly back hair and for his enormous uncircumcised cock, which reminded Sandy of a mole, an animal his childhood dachshund would dig up and deliver dead to the back door, terrifying Sandy.
As Peterman climbed into the churning waters, he gave Sandy the requisite nod. Sandy made no acknowledgment. Peterman spread his flabby arms across the back of the tub.
“They been hunting again up the road a piece,” he said. “Heard the gunfire early this morning. You hear it?” Sandy ignored him. “They got signs posted every-goddamn-two-feet: ‘Private Property: No Hunting,’ but them sonsabitches don’t care. Well, we’ll see how much they care when a sheriff’s deputy hauls their sorry asses off to jail. Sonsabitches.” Sandy turned his head sharply, so that Peterman’s repugnant image became peripheral.
“Heard the damndest thing today,” Peterman continued. “Seems they passed a law in Kansas that cops can’t have sex with people they pullover. Can you believe it? Can you believe that that wasn’t a law already? Well, it wasn’t.” Peterman scratched his nipple; Sandy could just see it from the corner of his eye, and it made him want to puke. In fact, Sandy thought, it would serve Peterman right if he did puke, right into the hot tub. Sandy, he’d jump right on out. But Peterman – Peterman – he was such a creep that he’d probably just go right on soaking in it, the fat fuck. But the more Sandy thought about how it would serve Peterman right, the more the physical urge to puke dissipated.
Peterman went silent, and that made it worse for Sandy. At least when he was yammering on and on, Sandy had a target for his hatred, every word spewing from Peterman’s mouth like a nail driven into Sandy’s temple. Peterman’s silence made his hatred amorphous and abstract, which were never things Sandy learned to sit with.
He wished he had a gun. He would shoot Peterman in the head and laugh as he watched Peterman’s body slowly slide down into the tub, until his hideous head fully submerged and a beautiful burst of red swirled through the water. Better yet, let one of Peterman’s abhorred hunters scope Peterman’s head from behind a duck blind. Bang! One clean shot, and no witnesses. Wham, bam, thank you ma’am! No sense anyone going to prison over a tub of bilge-water like Peterman. No sir.
Peterman cleared his throat, and Sandy imagined the particularly viscous phlegm that undoubtedly resided around Peterman’s uvula, and the urge to puke overcame him again. “I don’t suppose you happened over to the farmer’s market in Callicoon today, did ya’? The reason I’m asking is I wonder if they still got any ramps. It’s a little late in the season, so prolly not.” The possibility suddenly struck Sandy that at that very moment, Peterman was sitting before him with a great big hardon, bobbing and weaving not 24 inches below the water’s surface. Disgusting! “Then again, it was a late spring this year, so who knows?” Peterman continued. “Maybe they got ramps still, and maybe they don’t. I don’t suppose it would kill me to take a ride over and take a look for myself. Course, I prolly shoulda done that first thing in the morning. If there was any ramps, you better believe they’d be all sold out by this time of day. You know how people around here love them some ramps. Yep, if I’d been smart, I’da gone right over after I heard all that gunfire this morning. Sonsabitches.”
A worried Sandy wondered: what if Peterman were capable of a frictionless orgasm? It seemed to him it would be completely in keeping with this twisted and cruel world to waste such a talent on a non-person such as Peterman. And on the off chance that he was a hands-free-ejaculator, then maybe he’d already spread his revolting seed into the tub and therefore, he, Sandy, was now stewing – maybe – in millions upon millions of Peterman’s imbecilic and very-likely-toxic spermatozoa.
Puke came to the back of Sandy’s throat, but reflexively, and disappointingly, he swallowed it.
“Well,” said Peterman, rising from the water, “good talking to you. I’ve had my fill of this heat. Take care now.” Sandy took a quick glance at Peterman’s junk. It was not erect, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t been. Sandy had noted very recently how quickly his own erections disappeared after a toss. Further, Peterman’s sudden departure all but confirmed in Sandy’s mind that he had, indeed, come.
Sandy couldn’t help but notice that the water’s heat had rendered Peterman’s scrotum the spitting image of a burlap sack coveting two avocados. Standing on the deck, his hands on his hips, Peterman stared at Sandy just long enough to make Sandy look at him square-on for the first time. “You know,” said Peterman, “you’re the only person in this whole goddamn complex who I like. The rest of ‘em, they’re a bunch of sonsabitches. But you, yeah. I like you,” he smiled, and then turned and waddled off toward the building, baring his butt to Sandy like Ganymede, the giant moon of Jupiter. “I’m in 2F. Come by some time. We’ll play two-handed pinochle,” he called over his shoulder. And with that, Peterman, that slack-jawed moron with the IQ of, probably, 20, and who smelled like cheap bourbon mixed with shit, and whose mother probably didn’t even like him, was gone.
Sandy sighed a long sigh at the luck. And after all the air had left his body, it became very quiet and still and Sandy Loam realized how so very biting and profound was his loneliness.
BIO (as it appeared in the original publication)
J. Edward Kruft received his MFA in fiction writing from Brooklyn College. His stories have appeared or are forthcoming in several online and print journals, including Crack the Spine, Flash Fiction Magazine, and MoonPark Review. His hates the word “slacks” as a synonym for pants and viscerally cringes whenever he hears it. He also hates when people pronounce “probably” as “prolly.” He lives in Astoria, NY and Livingston Manor, NY with his husband, Mike, and their adopted Siberian Husky, Sasha. His recent fiction can be found on his Web site: www.jedwardkruft.com.