by: JP Vallières
We couldn’t get the iceberg to melt no matter how hard we tried: blow torch, bonfire, hairdryer, rubbing our butts back and forth to the song, That’s the Way (I Like It). I’m not into melting things usually, but there were some important items encased in that berg: one wooly mammoth, a sabertooth tiger, a mummy, and my girlfriend.
“Come on guys,” I cried. “Let’s melt this sucker. Uh uh, I like it!”
“I’m tired,” said Barb. Barb hated staying up past her bedtime. “We should get under my covers and sleep together and do other things to get warm.”
“It’s not that late, Barb,” I said, “and we don’t sleep together anymore, remember? We’re just friends.”
“Friends with bennies?”
“No, friends without bennies.”
“I’ll sleep with you and do other things too,” said Zach.
“Na,” said Barb. “You’re not cozy.”
“Aww shucks,” said Zach. “That’s what they always say.” Zach had no fat on him. He couldn’t satisfy a grandma in her grave.
“We should move this iceberg out of the forest,” said Barb. “Get it under the sun on Main Street.”
“My granpappy gots a Bobcat,” said Zach. “We could rent her. She could haul this berg no problemo.”
“Why do you talk like that every time you bring up your grandfather?”
“Meth’s as good as cash to granpappy.”
“We’re in luck!” said Barb. “Ma cooks meth every Wednesday night with some of her church friends. We could trade meth for a run in the Bobcat.”
I wanted to kiss Barb, but my girlfriend’s frozen gaze was upon us. Not that she could see us, but who knows how it works. Subconscious eyes? I mean I know frozen things are still alive, but aren’t they also like not alive?
Barb climbed a tree to get a better view of her ma’s place in the trailer park. “Yep, I can see the vaporous cloud puffing out the chimney. Be back in a jiff.”
Barb spring-boarded off a branch, landed on top of the iceberg, jumped on my shoulders, took off my toque (Toque is the French usage [also in Canada {also in the Village of Adams}] for knit cap. Toque is pronounced tuke.), and pulled my hair. Barb always knew how to turn me on.
With the advantage of self-restraint I forced my almost-boner (“chub”) to retreat—by dropping a snowball down the front of my thermal undies—and with a composed and professional manner let Barb down gently, gave her fifteen plutonic pats on the shoulder, which meant please (times fifteen) go and get that effin meth.
#
Zach wore safety glasses and an orange neon vest while maneuvering the Bobcat. “What I need you folks to do is back away and please keep yourselves in safe distance. Me and this ole girl will take her to where she needs to be.”
“How many hers are there?” I said.
After a moments deliberation Zach said, “Six, if you count the mummy. Your girlfriend’s probably a her, and then add Barb, the Bobcat, iceberg, and Sabertooth.”
“Mammoth’s definitely a dude, but cold,” I said and laughed, but no one got the joke.
“I wonder if we should try and milk the sabertooth tiger?” asked Barb.
“I reckon we gots to get her pregnant first.”
“She could couple with Tony.” Tony was the local zoo’s tiger. Tony slept. Tony yawned. Tony had no balls.
Barb and I hopped on a blue-iced boulder and crouched like two cold frogs. Zach dropped the front bucket of the Bobcat, slid it under the iceberg, and then, after a crackle snap crippity-crack, separated it from frozen tundra.
Barb reached out her mitted hand to hold mine. Since my girlfriend was facing the other way I didn’t resist. I was thrilled to share this moment. Soon my girlfriend would be free from her frozen world permitting me to exclaim my love for her: to the people, to the animals, to the snow, to the sky, to the stars, to the moon and sun and even to the mundane objects like couches, carpets, chairs, tables, windows, walls, stairs, bookshelves, hatracks. I would shout it to the televisions and boomboxes and pagers and to Spike Lee and even to the silo that stood tall and rusty out in the frozen cornfield.
#
The following morning, we sat crisscross applesauce in front of the iceberg on Main Street. The sun wasn’t up yet, but we were too excited to sleep. Kept ourselves busy by trading our parents’ pills. In the end, I owned three Percocets, eight Risperidone’s (generic for Risperdal), and four Oxycodone.
We swallowed the pills, scaled the chamber of commerce, sang Mr. Tambourine Man, scaled down the brick and mortar, and then passed out in front of the Dragon Lord Pub.
When we awoke, we were surprised (dismayed) to find ourselves stuck inside the iceberg. Worst of all, my girlfriend was not with us. She was outside riding on the mammoths back, waving a blood red flag.
“Crud!” I cried.
“At least we still got Bobcat,” said Zach.
Sure enough, Zach was sitting in the Bobcat with a frozen grin on his freezing skinny face.
“I love you,” said Barb, she was holding my hand.
“Great, now everyone sees us,” I said. I didn’t want my girlfriend to get the wrong idea about me and Barb. Barb was a friend. No benefits in our friendship, only pats on the back and help with homework.
Adding to the humiliation was the sabertooth tiger licking the ice near my crotch. There was nothing I could do about it, just stand there while the cars swerved around gawking at my wicked hot girlfriend riding the mammoth. She was getting so worked up she took off her mitts and her coat and her toque. She wore a pink tank top. Her hair was down around her shoulders. Jeans with a brown belt with a small silver belt buckle in the shape of a heart.
________
JP Vallières is from the Village of Adams. His work can be found in Santa Monica Review, Juked, Winter Tangerine and a forthcoming issue of The Talking Book. He lives in northern Idaho with Kimmy.
________
Send your weird little stories to flashfictionfridaysubmissions@gmail.com.
This post may contain affiliate links. Further details, including how this supports the bizarro community, may be found on our disclosure page.
