Stately, Plump Buck Mulligan
Short Story
by Brian N. Pacula
STATELY, plump Buck Mulligan
--Honey?
--Mm, yes?
--You were going to clean the downstairs bathroom today. Remember?
--Oh. Right.
--Is that a problem?
--No, it's just--
--Yes?
--I was going to try and get some reading in.
--What are you reading? Let me see. Oh. Ulysses?
--Yes.
--Why are you reading that?
--Well, you know, it's one of those books you're supposed to read
in college, and I never did, so...
--You can pick it up after you finish the bathroom, right?
--I guess so.
--I need you to get dinner started, too. I've got to take Lindsay to
ballet.
--Right.
--Okay?
--Yes. Okay.
Into the debir of effluvia, Holy of Holies for that which has made
its night journey through the human corpus, does our doughty
husbandman hie forth girt with Comet and rubbergloves. Onward he
dispatches a cohort of scrubbinbubbles to storm the porcelain
citadel Kohler. On bent knee tiles scrubbed. Mildewy mold slaked
off showercurtains. Ring around the. Below: blighted shrubbery of
shed pubics and manpiss cast forth with errant aim.
Gonna see miss Liza
Gonna go to Mississippi
A trickle trickles down vertebral bumps. Sweat it out. Wash hands,
change shirt. A man's work is never done. Now to the unmade dinner.
Hum of preservative chill. Bottles, Tupperware: scent of Mu Shu
pork two days past freshness. Best if used by. Refrigerate after.
Asparagi erect. New York, New York, it's a hell of a steak.
Preheat to. Sizzle of fat. Twenty minutes each side. Nothing left
but to wait!
In his reclining chair he settles.
STATELY, plump Buck
br-ee
br-ee
Telephonic trill. Reach out and be touched.
--Hello? Hm? No, I'm sorry. I don't read the Chronicle. No. Sorry.
Bye.
STATELY, pl
Something burning?
Definite smoke. Better see.
Christ above. Cheese on the elements. Lindsay must have used.
Uncovered macaroni bake splatters? Quesadilla? No. That you fry.
And she always unwashed pan evidence leaves.
EEEEEEEE
EEEEEEEE
Fucking alarm. Can't cook a damn thing without it going.
EEEEEEEE
What the neighbors must think.
EEEEEEEE
Nothing to be done but to waft the smoke away. Loose thy winds,
Aeolus. Silence the warning keening.
EEEEEEEE
EEEEEEEE
Fuck!
* * *
--You cooked a lovely dinner tonight, Brad.
--Thanks. You don't think the steaks were a little overdone?
--Well. Maybe a little. But the asparagus--
--The asparagus came out good.
--The asparagus came out wonderful. Perfectly al dente.
--That's a term for pasta.
--It can mean vegetables too.
--You're right. Goodnight, baby.
--Goodnight, Brad.
STATELY, plump Buck Mulli
--Aren't you going to turn the light out?
--Well, I was going to try and read a bit.
--Oh.
--Is that all right with you?
--It's fine.
STATELY
--It's just that we have to get up early tomorrow to meet the
Goldmans for brunch.
--Ah.
--And we're supposed to drop Lindsay off at Ashleigh's on the way
over, so.
--Right, right.
--We were twenty minutes late last time the Goldmans had us over.
Sheila's too nice to say anything, but...
--Right. The book can wait. Let's get to sleep.
--No, if you really want to, it's fine, I'll--
click
--Ahh. Goodnight, Brad, honey.
--Night.
* * *
STATELY, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a
bowl of lather on which
--Dad?
--Yes, Linds?
--You busy?
--Well...no. How's things? Did you have fun at Ashleigh's?
--I guess. She's kind of -- I don't know. It's like, she's my
friend and all, but sometimes she gets on my nerves. You know?
Anyway, I was wondering if -- are you busy?
--No.
--Can we go to Barnes & Noble?
--Now?
--Yeah. I finished my last Stephen King, so I wanted to get a new
one, and I was looking at the new Vogue at Ashleigh's and there
were some pictures I wanted to clip.
--Is your mother--
--She's busy.
--It's after six. Are they even--
--They're open til seven on Sunday. I called.
--Haven't you bought enough books and magazines already this month?
--C'mon, Dad, it's a
bookstore. Would you rather I was spending
my money on nail polish or Aaron Carter CDs or retarded stuff like
that?
--All right, fine. Let's go.
* * *
Past the threshold of the gates of the ennobled bibliomathic barn
stride Dad and Darling Daughter with sprightly step. Waft of cafe
latte held in slender olivebrown multiculti hand of soulpatched
literatus scents their path through the electronic theft sensors.
What do they to your insides? Rather not know. The all-seeing eye
sees all. X-rays, is how they do it? Electromagnetic pulse? Once
had teeth X-rayed girl forgot to lay the lead apron over. Nagging
fear of sterility since. Never know for sure I suppose. One child
all she wanted. Likely harmless: sun bombards with radiation day in
day out. Cause of mutation. Sol Invictus with his thousand hands
steers the rudder of life. From single cell we get spiders birds
crayfish lemurs hamsters lions octopi wombats. Woman and Man.
Dreadlocked mulatto with welltrimmed liphair sipping latte. The
wonder of it all, baby.
--I'm going to check Horror then I'll meet you at the magazine
rack, Dad.
Off she goes. Ways to amuse here, at least. What if a boy: violent
energy. Not a reader, likely. Video games and contact sports. Or
if not: what if he's? Shouldn't matter. Can't help but wonder.
Daughter absolves of male role model responsibility. It's the
mother sets example. Relief in a way.
Self-Help. Spirituality. Paranormal. Health. History. Literature.
Literature, O, Oates, O'Connor. No. Back. What if for a moment I?
King Stephen knights a hundred books a year. Take her awhile. O, N,
Nabokov, M, Miller, Mailer, L, Leonard, K, Kingsolver, J, Joyce,
Joyce, where's Joyce -- aha. Portrait of the Artist as a. F.'s Wake.
There it is. Same edition.
STATELY, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a
bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A
yellow dressinggown, ungirdled,
--Let's go, Dad.
--You're ready? Already?
--Yeah. Got Salem's Lot. Let's go.
--What about the magazines?
--Jeff Winnick and his brother are there. I don't want them to
see me.
Why doesn't she? Love or fear? If only a minute longer I could.
Unreasonable? Not to her. Best to not inquire deeply. Dramatics of
youth. All once prey to it, suppose.
--Okay. Let me just put this back...
* * *
Driving home the moist drizzle that marked the late morning and
afternoon turned to lusty downpour and then to turbulent storm as
distended cloudbellies slit open by the Dr. Allfather, M.D., in
nomine patris, OB-GYN, delivered by celestial Caesarian great
slippery glops of gestated waterdroplets whipped to frenzy by
gustblowing wind. Once safely home a delectable meal of boiled
noodles in a sauce composed of Roma tomatoes and ground beef was
enjoyed by all in the family and afterward daughter fair retired
to her room to enjoy the fright-filled prose of one Mr. Stephen
King, Esq., while husband and wife watched on the television set
an episodic drama concerning the life and adventures of an
Italian-American gent of criminal fame, he who (as it was recounted
in song) was said to have been born under a bad sign with a blue
moon in his eyes. And a stirring episode it was! Afterward, the
loving marrieds parted company for the nonce, she withdrawing to
the boudoir to wash her face and brush her teeth and rest her
weary head, he remaining downstairs in the comfort of his reclining
La-Z-Boy chair, beneath the friendly glow of the lamp, enjoying the
pleasant sounds of the storm outside, holding in his lap that
volume which he had been attempting to parse of late, a textual
work of considerable thickness and complexity, which having been
the subject of much discussion (and consternation!) among his peers
in the days when he was enrolled in the University of California,
Santa Barbara, established itself as a work that would continue to
haunt him and prick at his memory and bring to mind unfinished
projects, unresolved ambitions, and cautious bluffs of feigned
familiarity until such time as he could manage to read it entire.
This tome he opened, and, turning to the first page of the first
chapter, began to read:
STATELY, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a
bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A
yellow dressinggown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him by
the mild morning air. He held the bowl aloft and
Then suddenly plunged into darkness brought about by a failure of
the local power grid to supply his dwelling with electricity
brought about by water causing a short at a nearby transformer
brought about by an unexpected superfluity of rain cast down from
on high Brad slammed the covers of the book shut and threw back
his head and cried out in the name of everything holy I will by
god finish this godforsaken book yes no matter what it takes I
don't care how many distractions keep me from slogging my way
through eight hundred pages of that gibbering cunt Joyce's
diarrhoetic prose if I have to staple my eyelids open and get a
restraining order against my wife and child by god yes if that's
what it takes I'll do it yes I can do this I read the whole
fucking Bible yes both testaments and the Lord of the Rings
trilogy so why should this be such a goddamn ordeal I will finish
this by god yes I'll read half the whole thing tonight if I have
to set fire to my own hair to find a light to read by and yes I
said yes I will Yes.
§ § §
