Bob Mud

Bob Mud

Bob Muds life was descending further and further into a sinkhole every day.  He was forty three years of age.  At the end stages of a personal war on male pattern baldness of which had been lost horribly, significantly obese, he often had donut and other food crumbs avalanching down his shirt and tie.  He didn’t really care at all though.  He would almost never talk to the opposite sex.  He was pretty sure they were out to kill him or cause him harm in the least.  But when he did.  After a few paragraphs of speech of god knows what would come out of his mouth.  He would end with the hardest closing line available to himself;

Bob Mud:  “I’m the real deal.  Straight up.”

He had read this piece of advice in a dating book his mother had purchased for him a few years back.  The Art Of Closing The Deal With Women, A Mans Guide to Dating in the 21^st Century.  The author of the book was a man by the name of Chuck Vincett who also had faired horribly with the opposite sex through-out his life and wrote the book on the false premise of all the exciting exploits he had with women of the past, conjured stories in hopes that he may fool and attract one, of which he did.  The book had been one of his Christmas presents from his mother and certainly the best thing that year.  Among the other items were socks, underwear, two ties, shaving and other personal hygiene effects and an assortment of chocolates accompanied with a card.  He went off to his room for two days with said book and chocolates, devouring each and all.  He was inspired by some of the new knowledge he had acquired and even paid for three different dating sights, creating profiles following all suggested advice.  All advice was underlined and any special notations were made as well where relevant and needed.  Now when people go out of their way to convince you of a statement, it almost certainly is not the truth at all.  This is overcompensating for the lie, rookie mistake.  But in Bob’s case, with that saying.  It was very much true in fact.  Bob was, “The real deal.  Straight up.”

He was an accountant at a firm that he had worked at for twenty five years, since his high school graduation.  He worked for a large firm, of which he was one person in a cubicle of many others, much like rats in some type of psychological experiment.  Only nothing was being tested and there was no hypothesis or conclusion.  It just was.  The year was 2017.  Sometimes he would stand up half way out his chair, so that he could have a look around and see if any management was around.  If not, and the feeling really moved him.  He’d open his desk drawer full of office supplies, papers and other things and reach into the back where he stored two fidget spinners.  One was metallic-rainbow like an oil spill and the other glowed in the dark though this never came in use because the T8 and T12 florescent bulbs always rained down with awesome artificial light like some type of corporate god lived above that was always looking down on them.  Usually he would only do one at a time so he could be working a phone or a file and pretending to do some work if someone snuck up quickly and caught him off guard.  He employed the same tactics when masturbating in case his mother ever walked in on him.  She knew to knock first because this had happened in the past already on a few occasions which were unforgivingly embarrassing to Bob.  Not just because he was caught in self pleasure, but also because of the humiliating and weird types of pornography he was attracted to and that being caught in this intimate way brought awareness to the deeper failures of his life and sadness that only his mothers accidental intrusion could really shine a spotlight on.  He would yell, “Get out Mom Gees!”.  Yeah, Geez mom.  But sometimes she forgot to knock and just walked right in still, like when she had laundry in her hand and had dishes to wash right after and was very busy with things before and after.  Sometimes when he was feeling really rebellious, he’d spin both fidget spinners at the same time.  A lot of people wouldn’t think this could be done at all.  But he’d perfected a technique that didn’t require anyone else’s help.  He found that it was hard to find people to help you spin up your fidget spinners because they were most often busy being actually productive.  Also this would perhaps require having a friend, of which he had none.  The first one he would spin using both hands, one holding and the other rocketing one of the three ends into action.  He would spin the second one very hard off of the inner part of his thigh and then bring it up slowly from the vertical to horizontal position, raising them both in the air sort of like a Buddha statue meditating and this was not far off for what state Bob Mud achieved with two fidget spinners rocketing at the same time.  It was awesome and he had found some type of nirvana staring into them as the gravity of them moved in his hand back and forth with slight tilts and created optical illusions between the three holes spinning so quickly so that it looked like only one hole that was sometimes spinning backwards instead of forwards but then would switch to forward again.  As the spinners would slow to their death, as all things must die, he would sometimes catch a reflection of himself in the computer monitor as the screen saver faded to black.  He would for a moment think of his life.  Not like you or I might think about our lives.  He would think for his moment about the life of Bob Mud as only Bob Mud could do.  Which wasn’t very much at all really.  He would practice saying the lines he said to women in that same reflective screen with closer.  He really worked on that closer, “I’m the real deal.  Straight up.”  It wasn’t scary at all to himself but to others it might be a different thing altogether.

When five O’clock came, he finally was relieved from the empty and passionless job of accounting work he had a full day of.  He would shut down his computer, grab his things and coat and proceed to the elevator where he would be next to other tired souls doing much the same as him and crowd into the elevator.  Ding.  Opening up they would walk out past the reception desk and night security guard and each get in their own cars and proceed to drive home.  He would inch his way home through traffic between five to ten miles an hour for a good hour and a half making his way slowly home.  He would get home where dinner would be waiting for him prepared by his mother.  They lived together.  His mother had a name but it is unimportant as it doesn’t come into this story and he called her mother anyways and not her name because if he did that would be probably really weird.  Ok I will tell you her name anyways because I see this is going to bother you not knowing it. Her name.  Linda.  Linda Mud.

She would ask him at the end of every day, how was his day?  It was very interesting to her because she loved her son dearly.  It also didn’t matter if it was just boring stuff because hers was just boring stuff also and they didn’t have reference for how boring they were anyways, for all they knew this was all exciting stuff.  They would go to church service every Sunday which was always exciting and something to be looked forward to.  There may be a new member in the congregation of which Bob always clung on to for hope.  Usually there were new families from time to time and it was a kind and friendly thing to do to make them feel welcomed to have anyone near greet them and say hello and smile and make some small talk.  On occasion some single women did come in over the years and after severe nudging on by his mother he would make his way over and introduce himself and welcome them to the church.  He would use some of the lines he had read in Closing the deal and never miss a beat with his closing line, “I’m the real deal, straight up.”  And he was, the real deal, straight up.  Bob Mud.

Sometimes when the communion plate came around and they ate and drank the body of Christ, which totally isn’t weird and crazy at all by the way, eating your god like a cannibal once a week, he’d take a couple pieces of bread instead of one if he was extra hungry.  Sometimes his mother would take a few extra for him too because she knew he got hungry and the bread was free and they had payed enough in tithes anyways so that they should be able to have as much as they like really anyway.  And she would give him some as the service went on.  Most of the congregation would be starting to fall asleep and some of the people to keep from falling asleep from time to time would throw their arm in the air and say halleluiah to try to wake themselves up.  Some people felt the holy-spirit more than others I guess so they had to hold both hands in the air the whole time.  God damn overachievers I say.  Bob was always pissed off every time they had to sit down and stand up and sit down again because it was a bit like being in the wave at a sports game or something and it was honestly just too much exercise for comfort.  He just wanted to enjoy the comfort of the pews and stay seated and comfortable the whole time.  There everyone was receiving the word of Christ as Bob just kept on eating him, with the crumbs of the body of Christ avalanching down his shirt and tie.  Not caring at all still.

Once a month his mother would get her hair done at the salon with the other ladies.  At dinner this was the most exciting conversation of the month.  Here he would get the juiciest scoop of things happening.  Rose’s tomatoes were doing well.  Joyce had hurt her hip and it might need replacement or surgery.  Leslie’s dog seemed more depressed than usual and it might have been the switch in brands of dog food.  Bob Mud loved hearing the going on’s from the hair salon each month.  He was very jealous that his mother still had hair and he didn’t, even though it was like some type of poodle thing going on, on top of her head.   Arf!   Always the same length and curly and gray.  It was much more going on than he had so it was something to be jealous of.  He would look at his bald head in the mirror once in a while and say the serenity prayer.  He could never accept that though and would often walk away with a disgruntled “God damn it” or something like that under his breath.  He was always saying prayers at his bedside before crawling into bed and often it is was just for better looks and long locks of beautiful hair.  He thought to himself if he had that he’d be beautiful and everything would change.  He was wrong though.  It wouldn’t change one darn thing.  He’d probably just look creepier really.  He was Bob Mud and hair wasn’t going to change much.

Bob would tell the women of his laserdisc collection and they wouldn’t really know what a laserdisc player was most of the time so he’d try to explain that but often just get frustrated with them because they wouldn’t really understand and he was also a horrible explainer.  If anyone ever invites you to come over and see their laser disc collection it’s probable that they going to try to poison, rape and kill you plus some other really weird stuff on top too that only weird people can think up.  I would probably bring a weapon and not drink any of their drinks or eat any of their food.  Not even if their mom brought it in half way because she might be in on it too, you never know with that kind of stuff.  But also it might just be a dude with a really cool laser disc collection and an affinity for movies or films or whatever you want to call them.  The worst thing ever is when someone you thought was lame starts to turn out to be cool because that doesn’t necessarily mean they are cool but maybe your just discovering that your actually more lame than you ever knew.  Which would be a really hard discovery to accept so if they turned out to be really cool and a lot cooler than you were you should probably tell them they are super lame and tell them you got to get out of there because you got more important and cool things to do even though you really don’t.  And then you could go cry for a bit.  And no one would blame you because that’s a hard one.

In church there was this new lady.  She was about twenty years older than bob, which is still fair game.  Batter up, Play ball.  Easier prey is a good thing because this savannah is rough to catch things on when you have no game.  Missing limbs, partial to full blindness, mild retardation situation-dependent, and partial intoxication of controlled substances have always been within the rules of the game and this excited the non-game players in the dugout knowing they may in fact have a real chance finally.  And she was waving at him and he got the best smile he ever had in a long time and smiled back all excitedly.  But then her eyes were kind of weird and he started to look around real quick and there was this handsome guy right behind him a little bit off to the left and she was waving at that guy and not him.  Well he was so embarrassed he just kept waving and started to look at someone else next to her.  She started looking at him weird and he made a head gesture no and then yelled out loud “I’m not waving at you I’m waving to the person next to you.”  Things just totally got weirder because it was Martha who had a hearing aid and the lady tapped Martha on the shoulder to tell her that some gentleman was waving to her and Martha was an elderly widow.  She had lost her husband about twenty years back and was a regular.  And she turned around and noticed Bob waiving vigorously and thought it was kind of weird he was waving, especially during the sermon but didn’t think too much of it and waved back and smiled.  Bob’s desperate smile met her smile and he could finally stop waving and was sweating pretty bad at this point.  Not because of the obesity but just embarrassment.  Maybe a little bit because of the obesity, it’s hard to say with things like that.

Bob could actually dance, he liked rap and was good at that too.  He drove a 84’ Pontiac Fiero and got lots of practice on his rap skills in the daily rush-hour.  Sometimes he’d roll the window down and say ‘let’s break it down.”  Then he’d break it down with some rap he made which was often about Jesus and his lack of hair was in there somewhere usually too.

Then one day, Bob had a dream.  It was a vision that a war was coming and he’d be the one to lead them all into the greatest battle and take down the system of oppression which everyone had come to accept as reality.  It would be replaced with something new, something wholesome and fulfilling to the soul.  Something more human.

The next week at church, when the pastor was giving a sermon.  Bob stood up, and with some authority to his voice spoke loudly, “A war is coming!”  By this time the pastor was getting rather annoyed at Bob’s outburst.  The waving lady looked at him differently now,  not Martha but the other one, it might have been the same look as before.  It’s really hard to know what others are thinking some times.  Impossible really.  Martha waved again and smiled.  She thought Bob might have an interest in her now.  His mother told him to please sit back down and that he was being a disturbance and behaving oddly.

He looked at mother and said, “With all due respect mother, Fuck church.”  He grabbed the few pieces of bread she still had and putting a piece into his mouth stated that the bread was shit too.  “This bread is shit too!”  His mother was just looking at him now not sure what to do or how to handle the situation or what may have caused this disturbing scene to have occurred in the first place.  His mother looked at him stunned, not knowing who this man was before her.  “Why are you eating it then Hun?” she asked about the bread. “Because it’s the only thing there is and I’m hungry.” he said angrily. Putting another piece into his mouth and storming off.  Bob had officially left the congregation that day and left all the bullshit dogma acquired over the decades he’d never believed in either at the door.  Bob was free.

He felt called to create a chain-email that was a call to action statement to his country men and women asking them to march with him on capitol hill if they were dissatisfied with their country.  Like any chain mail it spread.  Twenty years later it would still probably be circling some email boxes.

He asked his countrymen and women to start rioting of which they did and to take what they were emotionally feeling and use that energy to take down all state and federal buildings.  Even some disgruntled military service members got in on the action and started carpet bombing all the national treasures.

Then they started hunting down all the elites who had long ago lost their souls and burning them at the stake.  They rose back up not in an organized way but by having tribes heavily arming themselves for defense against other nations.  What once was America was now called freeland and every person was now truly free for better and worse.  Bob Mud had given his country what they always believed they had had.  But now they really did.  Bob Mud was, the real deal, straight up.