The Efficiency Of Harry Or The Perplexing Incident Involving Denny And The Weird Shit In The Bottle

Ok, now picture a hip, garage-ish soundtrack. Very ‘70’s English. The scene is a still-frame, mid-action of a man hopping a fence. His body, hoisted by one hand into the crunching position, has cleared the top, fairly visible and taking up most of the frame. He’s wearing tattered, red Chuck Taylor’s, jeans that stand the chance of having not been washed in months and a ragged old olive green T-shirt with a pocket over the left breast and yellowed bleach spots across the belly.

That’s me. Actually my name is Richard Wallace Balzac, but everybody calls me Harry. Funny how that came about. It started with friends poking fun at the name. Richard turned to Dick. Balzac to Ballsack which inevitably migrated to Scrotum. Somewhere in there was a combination of Donkey, Penis, Fuzzy and Testicles all of which had culminated into the pseudonym "Harry Ballsack" which stuck like a mustard stain. I couldn't shake it. So now most know me as Harry. I'm cool with that. It could be worse. It could always be worse.

Now I'm guessing you are curious as to why I am presently hurdling that fence in such an action-hero like manner. I'll start at the beginning.

It was 7:15 a.m. on October 31st. A Thursday. Halloween. I had just poured my bowl of Captain Crunch and lit my joint. I had to be on the road by 7:30 to make it to work by 8:00. I usually can eat breakfast, smoke, brush my teeth and fix my hair in fifteen minutes so I was pretty much on time. Then Jerry called. I blame everything that had transpired on my answering this damn call. Everything.

"What do ya want?"

"Eh P.H. You gotta pick me up man. The bug's dead. Won't start."

Jerry calls me P.H. due to a couple reasons: it's short for "Pubic Hair" and said letters can be found rolling around with the word "acid" (a favored hallucinogenic between the two of us) in the realm of science.

"Fuck. Alright. We're gonna be late. You know what that means. You owe me shit-bird. You owe me big."

"I gotcha. You're covered man. I'm rolling it as we speak."

I finished the joint, gulped the cereal and left. My teeth and hair would make it just fine for the day.

My little red Civic ran like a top . . . most of the time. Today she purred. A compilation CD of Yusef Lateef's funkier jams had been residing in the player for several days now. I played it loud as I sped my way to his house. The sky was blue. The crisp autumn air cooled me just so as a light breeze rustled the bright yellow and orange leaves. The day couldn't be better.

Jerry still lived with his mom. Being twenty-eight and an avid drug user can serve as a bit of a speed bump for most choosing to live with their parents in the eve of their twenty's, but not Jerry. He managed the arrangement like a pro. Milked it like a farmer. I pulled up anxious and smacking the horn. We had a twenty minute ride to make in ten minutes. He took five to come out. Even speeding couldn't save us now. C'est la vie.

"Wassup fool."

I just stared at him in reply. He lit the joint and passed it to me with a sheepish grin. He knew I thought he was a dick. He accepted it and moved on to better subjects.

"So Denny's got a run for me. You feel like helping out? Quick cash."

I took a nice long drag and thought about the proposition.

"When, how much and what?"

"Tonight. Not sure . . . and . . . not sure."

"Ok. Why not. You're gonna owe me so big, fuck stick."

"You'll be well taken care of Sally. Well taken care of. Oooooh! Stop here! I need smokes." Jerry spazidly shrieked as he pointed to the gas station coming up on the left.

Needless to say we were both thirty minutes late, stoned and fired.

"Well, what now P.H.?"

"Why don't you call Denny and see if we can get with him early. That'll give us the rest of the night to find something to do. It's Halloween. Shouldn't be too hard."

"A fine idea my good man! A fine idea in deed!" Jerry bellowed as he yanked out his phone and dialed away. He leaned against the passenger door and mumbled a bunch of shit that I couldn't make out. This lasted for a few minutes then he hung up. He took a deep breath and looked at me.

"It's on baby. Oh shit! Hang a right!"

The car didn't seem to like the way I took that right and stalled out on me. The cop hovering two cars behind us didn't like it either.

Jerry looked behind us and squealed softly.

"Help me eat this shit!"

I looked over to see a handful of shrooms, several roaches, some un-preped marijuana and ten hits of acid wrapped in foil.

"Where the hell was that?!" I quietly screamed while checking to see where the cop was at.

"Now! Fuck! Take some of this and swallow it!"

The cop opened his door. I grabbed as much as my fingers could wrap around and shoved the lot in. I then snagged the day old hazelnut coffee calmly residing in my dash's cup holder and washed it all down. The cop tapped on my window as I finished swallowing the conflagration.

"Yes sir?" I threw my best "inquisitive" look at him and rolled down the window.

"You have a tail light out. License and registration please." This guy smelled like a lemming. A real robot he was. Crammed so tight with procedural hoop-dee-doo his sphincter was hemorrhaging. I just knew it. We were screwed.

"Sure." I handed him my stuff as calmly as I could. I swear Jerry shit his pants. The car smelled like a dead turtle.

"Sorry, man." Jerry mumbled as the cop walked away.

"I fart when I'm nervous. Do ya think he noticed?"

"The fart?" I asked, seriously.

"No! The shit. Do you think he noticed the fuckin' drugs!" There was a little bit of bud stuck between his top two front teeth. Dead center.

I wanted laugh but I was too shook up.

The officer returned a few minutes later.

"I'm gonna give you a warning Mr. uuuuhhhh Balls . . . ack. Get that light fixed ASAP."

"Yes sir! Right away sir!" I blurted while being handed back my stuff.

"Drive safely now" The cop said while tapping my roof and walking away.

Jerry just stared at the dash . . . and farted again. I started the car and drove on to Denny's, not really sure what to make of the incident. I must have been wrong about the pig. Well, I knew one thing for sure though; when the goods kicked in we were fucked. We had already started that trip on bad vibes and were barreling into the eye of certain doom. Good times man . . . good times.

Denny worked in a lab. Not sure what it was called. My vision had tunneled forcing signs and buildings to be the least of my worries. The lab was all I knew.

Jerry gave him a call so he could come meet us with a couple of visitor's passes. Denny was the prime example of your newly employed college druggie with a pension for the sciences. The slight belly, shaggy ponytailed hair, swarthy beard and haggard T-shirt found to depict one of a vast array of different hippie-jam-bands from present day and of yore.

"Slap these puppies on and follow me ladies."

I stuck my tit three times before grasping the concept of the "safety-pin" style fastening device. Jerry was obliterated and couldn't figure the damn thing out to save his life. Holding the tag out in front of him with both hands had turned out to be a viable enough solution for him. Focusing heavily on his gait had also led Jerry to walk with a huge, overly cautious stride. I think he was afraid of dropping it. The tag, not the stride. I didn't care to ask; for all I know he was using it as some sort of talisman to ward off giant, writhing tapeworms warning him of the follies of voting democratic. I have to tell you, we definitely looked like idiots. Me with my bloody boob and Jerry with his bizarre goose-like waddle. Which ever way you flipped the card we were totally the perfect poster children for birth control.

Denny didn't seem to mind. Or even notice.

I just realized, while getting into the elevator, that he had been talking this entire time. Possibly giving us some sort of tour.

" . . . the file on the stuff was dustier than a politician's bible. Nazis. Black Magic. Who would have thought that shit was true. The formula was in-canted in a stack of notes and original pages of an old . . . book . . . I guess, called Al-Azif. I sure as hell never . . . "

Denny pushed the button for two floors below ground level.

Burt Bacharach had always found a way of touching my soul . . . and the speakers in elevators. Why is that? I couldn't remember the song's title to save my life but I sure as hell was humming along note for note. It was inherent. Like some primal lament from a life long past; La la lala la la la lala la la la lalala la.

The door opened to a bleak hallway of shiny cinderblock walls. They were painted with a stale yellowish peach tone. The fluorescent lights seemed to move about. Their tales whipping with a hint of rainbow spark. Jerry held his visitor's pass out like a warrior's shield blocking medusa's stare. His eyes were bugged, bloodshot and somewhat jaundiced. I had to hold the wall to stabilize my center of gravity thinking, "Maybe I forgot to pay the bill and it was shut off.", then realizing that we don't pay for gravity. That straightened me up for a moment. Jerry darted forward with the pass over his head, screaming. I hadn't realized that Denny was already at the next door . . . two hundred feet away. Maybe I had passed through a ripple in the space-time continuum. That would explain my momentary lapse in gravity. I ran forward, screaming, too. I couldn't think of anything better to do. I just wasn't sure what a person should do when they had lost their gravity. Do you take on more weight? Some emotional baggage? Not sure.

Denny held the door, patiently, like this was all normal.

" . . . found the stuff in a basement in France. The creeps had a secret lab where . . ." he was still going.

What the hell was he talking about?

Denny hit a big red button with his hand. The door unlocked to reveal a big ass store room. At least that's what I would have called it.

"Guys. This is our big ass storeroom. Eh! Jerry. Put that shit down man. You look like a freak. They watch us down here you know. They got eyes man." Denny said while pointing to his own with his pinky and index fingers, staring menacingly back at us.

"Eh Harry. You need to keep up. A guy can get lost real easy in this place. And keep shit-bird close too."

"Hey Jerry. Come on man. Don't fuck this up."

"Gotcha P.H.. I'm right behind ya. Just havin' a little trouble turning left. I'll be alright man. I'll be alright." Jerry said with the pass in front of him while swaying . . . just a bit. We wandered through the aisles, zigging and zagging in all directions. With every left turn we made Jerry had to spiral a right turn to make the left. It was an odd spectacle to watch. Sometimes I would see him turning over a period of a minute or so. I would see all of him. His entire existence throughout the duration of that turn all at once. Like a giant blurry Jerry-worm spinning right to make a left turn. Then all was normal again. I thought "something's really wrong with me." after the last time I saw Jerry from the 5th dimension and then it hit me. I took a whole mess of drugs just a few hours ago. I'm lucky it hasn't gotten any worse . . . and then I melted. Well, I felt like I was melting. That scared the shit out of me so I ran, like a dog just caught eating tampons out of the trash, until I had caught up with my cohorts. They were ascending a flight of metal stairs that led to an elevated building the size of a single car garage. I darted up the steps behind them and entered as if I were there all along. Jerry turned around with a blank stare. His eyes were glazed. Glazed donuts.

"Hey. You know where we're going?" I asked

"Ya." He said, standing there, staring, blown with the wind.

I walked around him and up to Denny who was rummaging, very intently, through a series of files and cases. Some seemed old. Some looked thoroughly official. Not a good place for a bloke in my condition.

He slapped a case down on a long table that was littered with odd glassware and computer paraphernalia. He opened the tattered metallic case revealing a dozen glass vials.

". . . . is where I've been stashing the mescaline. Looks just like that other stuff. The vials are . . ."

I really don't think he had stopped talking. Oh look. Jerry's talking to someone. I think it's Denny or the spider crawling across the table in front of him.

"No man. You gotta get out of here. Dude. This place is changing you. You used to be taller . . . and more like a . . ."

The spider continued to crawl along. Ignoring him. Then it dissipated and vanished. Jerry was still talking to whatever, or whoever, it was he was talking to. While watching Jerry's face contort and twist Denny approached me with an apprehensive smile.

"You get what I'm saying, right? I mean, it's as plain as the nose on your face."

"Ya . . . ya." I answered, obediently. Confused.

He pushed the case toward me, smiling.

"Don't fuck this up Nutsack."

". . . won't . . . no problem . . . " I mumbled while trying to hide the fact that my face was shrinking. Or my head was swelling.

There were trails of light. Lots of them. My left eye was twitching while the right lost focus. I looked down and grabbed the first metallic case I saw. There was more than one. I'm sure of that. One seemed as good as another at that point.

"This place is closin' in on us, P.H.. We gotta get out of here now man. I can feel my soul shriveling. Like a fucking raisin. Raisins man. I hate raisins. They just ain't right. Not one of 'em!" Then Jerry was out the door.

"Watch him, dude. And don't fuck up." Denny gave me the thumbs up and smiled, again.

"I'm good." And out the door I went.

After wandering for well over an hour we found our way out of the lab. Jerry was crying at this point. Mentioned something about children in sweatshops in Vietnam “ . . . that every box of cereal I buy I’m whacking some poor little vietnamese kid who could have grown up to be a librarian or brick layer or driver for one of those cart-things. What the fuck are they called? You know. With the handles. The dude holds them and runs with you sitting in the cart . . . like a slave. Shit . . .”

“Rickshaw.”

“What?”

“I think they’re called rickshaws.”

“What. Rick wasn’t there. Dude, he’s probably still at work. Why would you even bring him up anyway man. Shit. What does he . . . “

“That’s not what I said! I . . . Fuck it. I wasn’t talking about Rick.”

“Well, why’d you bring up his name then?”

“I . . . “ I stopped talking. It was obvious he had already moved on to another subject by that point. We got in the car and drove off to our next destination.

The party was cool. Cherie was there, twirling to the Dead. That girl walloped my heart a mean one. Long, curly brown hair. Green eyes. Big tits. She might have been smart too . . . or so I’ve been told. I flocked right to her, leaving poor Jerry to his demise. He was lugging around the case looking for Hippo.

Hippo was the guy paying us for the case. He was one of Denny’s regular distributors. A thin, spry fellow with a fu-man-chu type mustache and a loosely curled white-boy’s afro. He always had the best weed. “Straight outta Humbolt” he would say. I had always known he was either too modest or too paranoid to admit he was growing the shit right there in his basement but never felt the need to tell him. Hippo. Never got the name either. Maybe he was a swimmer . . . or loved horses?

He was in the kitchen talking to a couple girls and sipping an anonymous beer from a red plastic cup.

“Eh man. Did Jerry get with you about Denny’s drop?”

“Long since done my friend. He said he wasn’t feeling too hot. Went that way.” and pointed to the back door.

“Thanks” I said as I went through the door. The cold didn’t seem to hold people back. They were outside in full force. Costumed and wasted. I ran into one of my peripheral, and severely annoying, acquaintances, Rob. Rob wanted to be hip but failed to understand the concept. He wanted to be poignant but missed the mark. He always said stupid shit when trying to impress you with his philosophical prowess. He viewed himself a hero. We viewed him a dildo.

“Rob. You see where Jerry went?”

“Sure did man.” he said while trying to mimic the “Morrison” swagger and stare down the length of the arm he was pointing with. He wanted to be Jim. He wrote poetry. It sucked. I followed his point and left the foray through the back gate.

Jerry was there, sitting in the passenger seat of my car, staring heavily at something in his hands. Before I got there he looked up at me, dazed, and smiled.

“Hey man. I kept some of that shit for myself. Check it out.” he said as he held up a plastic coffee lid turned upside down, smiling even more.

“What?”

“Look. In the lid.”

There was a clear, viscous fluid glopped into its recesses. It smelled funny. Kind of burned my eyes. Jerry dipped his pinky and placed it in his mouth.

“Jeeeezuzz!” he stuttered as he made a that-was-fucking-nasty face that leaned me toward waiting to see if the high was worth it before trying it for myself. Just then he lurched backward with his face puffing out and gasping. Like a fish out of water. It creeped the fuck out of me.

“Dude! You all right? How is it?” I asked him as I shook his shoulder.

His pupils filled with a milky substance causing them to turn grey. He was staring at something behind me and shook violently . . . then . . . stopped dead, eyes closed.

“jerry?” I whispered or maybe I mumbled it. It was quiet. I was scared.

Nothing.

Then his face exploded with fear. He looked at me, grimaced and darted from the car screaming and running for the house. By the time I got out of the car he was gone. I ran in looking for him without trying to make a scene.

Did I grab the right case? I don’t remember mescaline doing that to me. Bad hit maybe?

God I hope so. What if it was that weird Nazi shit Denny was hiding the mesc around. That could suck.

I thought about calling him, or telling Hippo then realized that situation could turn bad since Jerry basically stole the shit. Ya, that could turn sour real quick.

I passed Cherie and smiled, had an epiphany and then turned around.

“Hey, you seen Jerry?”

“Sure did. He just ran into the basement.”

“Thanks.” I said to her tits then looked up to find that she caught me and didn’t seem to be bothered by the notion. I smiled again and ran off. God that girl gives me blueballs like no other.

I hit the bottom of the steps and let my eyes adjust to the damp light. There were people everywhere. Milling, talking and cluttering the space. I found him in a corner staring at nothing and sneezing a lot.

“Hey man. You ok?” I asked while tapping him on the shoulder.

“What? Oh, hey man. This shit’s kind of fucked up.” he said drearily while picking at his cheek. There seemed to be a hole there, or maybe it was a bump. He looked over at me with a blood red right eye. The left seemed to be swelling. The eyeball. Not the lid. The eyeball looked like a small balloon expanding under the heat of the sun. He smiled. It was awful. I think he was missing some teeth. No, they were there. They were black but they were there.

“What’s wrong? There something in my teeth?” he asked while picking at them.

“Nah. Man. Uhhhh. No. They’re fine.” was all I could muster while watching his face fall apart like a leper’s.

“Ok. Good. They feel numb. I thought something was wro . . . .”

He stared ardently at something wriggling on the floor.

“Oh shit . . . “ he said as he covered his mouth with the mannerism of someone about to hurl.

“What!? What is it?” I asked as I looked at him and then to the object on the floor.

It was his thumb. His thumb fucking fell off. No blood. Just thumb.

And it was still moving.

He slid back against the wall murmuring “oh shit oh shit oh shit” over and over again. I looked back at him to see his left eye pop like a bubble filled with dust. The contents just eased away like the spores from a dandelion on a light breeze.

“FUCK!” I yelped as I jumped back. A bundle of strange, spaghetti looking appendages were oozing out of the hole in his cheek and feeling their way around his face. When I looked back up they had shot across the way and attached themselves to the wall.

“Har . . . “ was all I had heard. I wish that was the end of it. I wish I hadn’t looked up to see half of his head pulled away by what now looked like a sinewy, pulsing rope-ish thing while the remaining head and upper torso burst into a storm of fleshy shards and powder. His lower torso remained on the ground twitching and spilling on the floor.

What was left of his head and face were still animated and seemed to be calling out for me while clinging to the wall like some obscene version of a spider with far too many limbs. I’m calling them limbs but really they looked more like roots. Roots from a plant except where bark should be there was a slimy skin . . . and they writhed about like worms.

It was freaking horrible.

Not knowing what to do I just bolted out of there.

That didn’t work out so well due to the girl I had run into at the bottom of the stairs. Her eyes were black pits. I’m not saying they had turned black. They just weren’t there. She was shaking horribly and opened her mouth to an impossible diameter. Her tongue lashed about, probing, then burst into what seemed like hundreds of tiny tentacles. They groped about her head and upper torso like birds pecking for food in the dust.

Passing her I tore up the steps and through the kitchen, which was a bloody mess mind you. As I had cleared the living-room to the front door I happened to look up the steps to see someone falling. His body hit the top step and broke into pieces. As these pieces bounced and flopped they stuck to the walls or exploded into a wet dust or sprouted wings and limbs and attempted to flutter away. Some of those parts exploded too.

That was it. I was gone.

And here we are. I’m hurdling this fence and running from what looks like a god-awful fate.

Now here’s my guess on what had transpired at that party. For one, there’s no way everyone there had taken that stuff thinking it was mescaline. It’s not that popular a hallucinogen. So how did it spread? My guess would be through the air. Jerry did sneeze a bunch and then there was the whole “exploding” bit everyone was doing too. All that could easily have sent that shit airborne. Jerry must have triggered the whole mess then it just took off in a chain reaction. If this were the case then people might have gotten out and possibly spread the crap along with them. For all I know humanity could be getting its ass wiped as we speak. And it’s all my fault. I know I said I blame this all on Jerry, but remember, I grabbed the wrong case. I’m the dumb-ass that picked up the wrong fucking shit.

Now there’s an epiphany for ya.

Having this to ponder I figure holding up in an attic or basement somewhere might be a good start when waiting for the end of the world to take place.

I woke up the next morning to Jerry banging on the car door.

“Hey man. Fucking wake up and let me in! It’s cold as shit out here!”

“Uuuhhh . . . “ was the best I had as I searched for my keys.

“What are you doing?”

“Keys . . . where are . . . “

“Dude! Open the goddamn door! Look for your keys later. Let me in!”

So I popped the door with a bit of nausea and grogginess.

“Man, you freaked out last night. It was awesome! Screaming and running out of the house. It was a fucking blast. You gotta let me try what ever it was you took. “

“What are you talking abou . . . HOLYSHIT! Oh fuck. Man, last night was horrible. I thought you took the . . . hey. Wait a minute. I took that shit?”

“What shit?”

And we both looked over to the dash where the coffee lid sat menacingly poignant, waiting for us to touch it.

Let’s just say, I never found the keys and I sure as hell didn’t kill off all of humanity.

END