“You think you’re better than me? Huh? Jerk-off, you think you’re better than me?” I snarl menacingly, staring down the bespectacled man in front of me in an attempt to intimidate him. No small feat, considering I’m wearing a giant foam rubber hot dog outfit with oversized red shoes and yellow tights covering my legs-a net effect which doesn’t exactly add up to a threatening spectacle.
“What? No, I just … ” he stutters, stumbling backwards.
“Of course I don’t plump in the microwave, jackass. Just shut up, and eat your sample. And, uh, have a nice day,” I add.
I’m handing out sample hot dogs as part of a citywide promotional blitz for Oscar Meyer, as they roll out their new low-carb line of weiners. I’ve been out here for hours in the hot sun, and my t-shirt is now damp and clingy with sweat. My razor-thin patience is constantly being worn thinner as each passing hour brings more sarcastic teens. I want to quit but feel trapped by circumstances, a need to pay for my rent, tuition and meth. Not only that, but my girlfriend has just informed me that she’s pregnant again-why can’t she just use a condom?-and it would be foolish to leave a steady job with number 11 on the way. As if that wasn’t enough, I have “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” stuck in my head.
I look out across the plaza and see the guy from the Black Angus Beef Company dressed like a hamburger who, like me, is handing out free samples. Unlike me, he’s a douche. He looks over and notices me eyeing him, at which point he flashes me an infuriatingly smug grin and gives me the finger. My eyes narrow in anger, but I look away as Cyndi Lauper shrilly reminds me what girls really want. Half an hour or so later though he’s at it again, doing everything he can to antagonize me.
“Stay on your side Ricky, you know how this works. I don’t bother you, you don’t bother me,” I say.
“Hell no, my manager said to go for the younger demographic, and all the kids are on this side of the plaza.”
“Too bad, Ricky. This is my side.”
“Piss off, I’ll hand-out where I want to,” he snaps before turning his back to me. Incensed from the heat, the crowds, the lack of respect, whiny ‘80’s girl-pop and now this uppity punk getting in my face, I snap.
“I’m all beef, bitch!” I scream, slamming into the back of his hamburger costume, toppling us both in a mound of flailing limbs and brightly-colored foam rubber. (Valium) I’m able to get to my knees faster and begin pummeling the back of his costume, each blow eliciting a spastic jerk from his protruding limbs and a sob from somewhere on the front of his costume.
Nearby the sounds of shouting arouse me from my violent reverie and I look up to see two cops running towards me. With both hands I grab the hamburger by the back of the bun and jerk up before slamming his head into the concrete one last time, and then I start running. As I run, I reach into the bag of sample hot dogs that have been cut into quarters and start throwing them behind me, angling them over the suit as best I can so as to slow my pursuers. I can hear from their curses that a few of my delicious projectiles have hit home.
Sensing the cops gaining on me despite my best efforts, I realize I have no choice but to hide, so I duck into a corner bookstore, wedging my enormous outfit through the door and scurrying down the narrow isles as discreetly as I can. I pick up a magazine from a small wire rack near the counter and pretend to peruse it, controlling my panting through force of sheer willpower.
“He’s not here, let’s go,” says one of the cops. I hear them moving toward the door, and I breathe a sigh of relief knowing that my disguise worked. After waiting several minutes to make sure they aren’t still waiting outside, I leave the bookstore and step back onto the street. Just then a pimped-out convertible screeches to a halt in front of me, and a group of thugs eye me menacingly.
“That ain’t him,” says one of the passengers.
“Yo, I’m tellin’ you it’s the guy,” says the driver. “The guy who shot June Bug be wearin’ a hot dog suit when he did it, just like this bitch.”
“Look man, I’m sorry, but I don’t know what you’re talking about. You got the wrong giant hot dog.” I say, slowly backing away.
“Yo, I say we wax this bitch right now,” says the driver, reaching into the car for what intuition tells me is his gun. I reach both hands up past my head and through the fake stitching where the bun and hot dog meet, grabbing the two .36 revolvers I keep concealed there. I start firing from both guns into the convertible, jolting the car on its suspension with every ear-shattering blast. I’m about to turn and run when I notice the guy in the rear-passenger side of the car open his door and slump against it, using the door frame to steady the shotgun he’s holding. I hear the shotgun roar as a shell slams into me and throws me back several feet. I land on my back, trapped, as I struggle to roll over against the resistance from my unwieldy costume. Another blast goes off, and I immediately see my left leg dissolve at the kneecap in a shower of blood and gristle, the yellow tights doing almost nothing to stop the bullet. I strain my head forward out of the hole in the costume, lean up as much as I can and take aim. We fire simultaneously; my shot catching him in the chest and knocking him back from the door, his shot tearing through my suit and into my side.
I struggle to lift my head and notice a crowd of frightened people congregating around before my head becomes too heavy for me to support and rolls back into its cavity. As if in a daze, I notice one of the samples from my bag on the ground a few inches from my face. I pick it up and dust it off, peeling off a piece of my leg and wiping away the blood before putting it in my mouth. I chew thoughtfully, staring at the hazy sky overhead. My consciousness expands beyond my ability to remain focused, then just as suddenly contracts to a narrow focal point: These hot dogs are too delicious to be half the carbs, I think before I succumb to the enveloping darkness …oohuh girls, they wanna have fu-un …
