Headless blue Morris

A short story about my grandfathers last moments

Headless blue morris

7/30/2017       

 

"So I use to have this weird mental crutch. If I we're to ever be beaten by anyone I would go and run my fastest and hardest until I would pull a muscle a week prior."

Morris cracked open a bud and tapped his cigarette on his ash tray with a mexican fat man doing a latina doggie style with 2 big colorful sumbreros. Big teeth with a big smile.

            "When you use to box?" Johnson asked. The best friend, the unpredictable working class now retired man.

There was baloney frying in a pan in the kitchen on a stove that hasen't been worked or cleaned in decades. Butter was frying and bubbling under that slice and this was the s**t dinner he needed to consume so he wouldn't live in the night with another  light head.

            *knock knock*

Johnson took a good swig of the bud he grabbed out of the grocery bag sitting next to him on the couch drizzled with condensation like sweat from the hot house in Indiana. He sort of stumbled over to the front door and looked out the peep hole. All he saw was the house across the street.

            *knock knock knock* it became louder.

            "Morris! Are you drunk cooking again?? Open the door Morris!"

Oh d****t, it's Karma.

            "Come on in!" Morris yelled from his lazy chair with the lever that would make his legs slide up.

Johnson turned the door knob and she walked in. The summer was hotter than hell. Grandpa Morris couldn't afford to pay the light bill& pay the air conditioner. The fan was going back and forth throughout the living room hurting they're pride. Lukewarm air then hot, like a slap in the face to the poor. They both didn’t notice the puddles of sweat after 7 beers each.  She tried looking around but I reckon she couldn't

            "You don't have the t.v. on, you don't have a newspaper out, your third dry cleaning business has failed. Just sitting here and drinking." Karma said. She had a slab of meat under her arm.

            "Grade A bona-fied steak! You knew just what to bring!" Morris yelled.

Johnson offered Karma a beer and she slapped it out of his hand. The beer bounced off the dark wooden floor and the pressure sprayed out of the small hole in the side and sprayed on the wall. The sizzle kept going in the kitchen.

Karma walked almost floated from the front door to the kitchen. Johnson walked back over to the couch and he sat down and stared at the dirty blackened ceiling from the last fire touched. Once when falling asleep with his cigarette in his hand grandpa Morris fell asleep a couple months back and the cig fell into his lap. When his wife, Karma, was aware his lap was on fire and the tips of the flames we're licking and lapping the top of that dusty ceiling like clifford the big red retard.

            "HOOAAEEIIOOOOOHOHH!" Karma ran over and started slapping furiously at his balls.

            "AHHHH! WHAT IN THE F**K! YOU KENTUCKY B***H!"       

Slapping his balls and lap getting the flames out.

Johnson closed his eyes with his lit cig between his fingers.

Karma took the big slab of steak out of the bag and put it next to her on the slicing white block. She took the butchers knife out of the cubbord and cut off the plastic and price tag. 2.00$ for a steak. Morris is still waiting on this weeks social security check with the last one bled out of his wallet from buying 20 6 packs. Put the plastic next to the over filled garbage can and she quietly put the steak with no breathing sounds she was completely focused. Threw the steak ontop of the baloney without any care. She wanted out of the marriage and this was an uncomfortable tension always set in the air like a fly that never dies.

            "I'm so tired of this life. I'm 76." Karma said after she threw the meat on the black greyish pan. She grabbed the keys and stormed into the living room. Morris opened his eyes and wiped the crust off from the previous nap.

            "Where are you going?!" Morris yelled.

            "I NEED TO GET A DAMN BREATH OF THE FRESH AIR! GOOD AIR!"

She ran out and slammed the door behind her. The keys we're jangling as she ran down the couple steps off the stoop. Johnson put both his hands on his head and said to his friend:

            "No more drinking, no more pills, no more no more."

Morris picked up one of his slippers and threw it at the door.

            "No MORE NO MORE! LEAVE THEN B***H!" took a good swig and went through 5 mouth fulls. The beer was drained and they both have seemed to lose count on how many they drunk that afternoon.

            "Come on man PLEASE!" Johnson yelled as he kept his two hands on his head. Morris got up and walked over to the wooden table in the dining room. There was a spilled plastic cup of coffee he spilled a couple hours before. Picked up his pack of cigarettes and pulled out his lighter in his jacket pocket with the indianapolous colts logo on it. Lit the bic and took it burning in half the cig.

            "If I die, then this is the good life." Morris said as he wiped the tip of the cig on his jacket. He knew the black cloud was over him. Grandpa ran 3 businesses in 3 states and all the money was blown and he felt the clutch in his stomach of an ego like shattered glass against the pavement. No ego remains but he held onto it. A good duker in the ring 30 years into the past with a record Johnson like to bring up of 51-3-6. Johnson walked over to the chair Morris was sitting in and plopped down. Some of the beer spilled on the arm rest.

            "You we're the king of the crusierweights and bantamweights. You fought all the bums they could scrounge up and this was back in the 50's back when the bums we're big and strong and fought like jap kamikaze pilots. You had fists like cinder blocks and I KNOW! I felt it, your wife felt them. I mean hell, the only reason you didn't go pro was because of that yankie jerking f**k who wanted you to change your nickname and south paw style."

            "I slapped my trainer across the face and told him to shove it up his a*s. I said I'll make it some other way." Morris stumbled over to the couch and fell into the couch with the 6 pack of beer with 5 left. He laid on top of that beer without pain, without guilt. Johnson pointed to Morris with a cig in between his fingers like the proclamation of a king.

            "White Tyson! They called you the white mike tyson. You are a living legend. Cleaned tens of thousands of suits and shirts, cleaned the clocks of every man those local promotions put in front of you! You’re the man!" Johnson put his hand down with the cigarette fading into the side of his pants still lit and still ready for a hit. The drinks we're hitting him all at once. Sparkles are coming from the kitchen, the over cook of the baloney and steak. A small grease fire is starting again. Morris knew he cleaned all those suits for all walks of life and he was deeply proud of that.

            "60 fights with all comers from off the streets. I've been knocked out 3 times but the 4^th knock out was the marriage and her damn cancer scare." Morris was sitting forward and slumped downwards with his head about to slump into his knees. The alcohol was hitting him too all at once. He pushes himself up on the couch and stretches out with his brown hiking shoes on. Placed his feet on the arm rest with his head on the opposite end with a cig burning in his hand and the pack laying closely on his heart.

A couple sparks fly off the pan onto the wires coming out of the wall. A fire starts in the pan and millions of sparks fly out of the wires on the wall. Johnson both fell asleep one with sitting upwards in the chair and Morris asleep laying on the couch.

Both cigarettes start to burn into their pants.  Morris's cig is burning slowly into the pack of cigarettes. Both of them slowly start to catch fire. Grey smoke begins filling the house and a truck pulls up in the drive way. Karma is back and feeling cooled down. As she turned the key to turn the engine off  she sees smoke coming out of the top of the chimney & the top of the front of the door.

            "OooooooooHHHHHH! FIRE! FIRE!" Karma started screaming. She threw the front door open of the truck and the door hit it's end then flew back and smacked Karma in the side of her head and shoulder. She then got caught on the seat belt and fell down onto the concrete.

            "OOF! GUHGAUGUHGUH!"

A police car was driving into the neighborhood on a normal patrol. Karma sees the 2 officers then gets off the ground and runs over to the patrol car.

            "SIRS! FIRE AT MY HOUSE!"

The 2 police officers looked at her in shock and confusion.

            "What in the holy f**k." One of the cops said. The other cop looked past her shoulders and saw  behind her the smoke.

            "Excuse me! Niner niner this is officer doobey. We need 2 fire trucks in the south side of Evansville niner two four six eight."

            "Mam, is there anyone in this house? Any babies?"

            "Just one big baby and his baby a*s friend!" Karma yelled.

Both of the cops parked the car on the lawn and got out of the car. They ran up to the front door with Karma and pulled out their long flashlights. One cop knocks the door knob off with one swift hit and the other cop hits his flashlight against the door like swinging a baseball bat and the door shooked violently and opened. The 3 of them saw that Morris and Johnson we’re both on fire. Engulfed with a line of fire from the kitchen to the living room. The couch and chair we're both engulfed. Karma ran over to Morris and started slapping at his balls. She was slapping it hard and fast like a kitchen worker working a pizzaria on 10 pounds of dough.

Both cops ran over to Johnson and grabbed then quickly let go being his whole body and clothes we're up in glorious flames. Like the bullet that splattered Hemmingway's brains against the typewriter, glorious like Jesse Bernstein's blood on a comforting bathroom wall.

            "Wake up honey! Your clothes are on fire! Damn you!"

The cops we're able to get Johnson off the chair but as they we're beating him with blankets the fire was going out by yards across his body but he was gone. Char broiled and Morris was almost rolled off the couch with his wife burning her hands. The firemen came in with a big hose and blew rushing water all over Morris and blew Karma. She flew across the living room and got plastered against the wall.

Morris was dead getting pulled into the ambulance when the ambulance got to the location 3 hours late.

The two cops walked over to the squad car and got in then as they we're waiting for the next transmission one of the cops looked at his co-worker and said: "Did you notice that that woman had no head?"

Author's Note

This is not edited. Raw write out.