The Back of a Gillikin Farmer's Truck

I wonder if anyone has ever yawned so big that their head snapped off. Or their jaw broke. Either or. I wonder weird things like that sometimes. They just come into my head somehow and can’t seem to find their way out.

Brendon thinks the things are funny most of the time. He draws me a cartoon on hotel stationary of a boy yawning so big during a science lecture that his jaw breaks off. It goes flying across the room and lands in a fish bowl. Brendon can’t draw very well, but I keep it anyway.

I put it in the back page of journal with the other ones he’s drawn for my other weird thoughts.

Brendon wants to order pizza. We’ve been living off Hot Pockets and Toaster Strudels and apparently he’s sick of it. He sends me off on a quest to get sodas and Twix bars from the vending machine. There isn’t one on our floor so I take the elevator.

I kick on the door when I get back because my hands are full. Brendon opens it with a towel around his waist. He’s out of breath. He kicked me out so he could jerk off. It’s not the first time.

My ears are pink. Maybe my neck, too.

Brendon jerks off to me. He thinks I’m cute. He wants to bend me over a counter. He says my mouth was made to suck dick. He says it all the time. It always makes me blush. I want to kiss him, but I’m not ready to get bent over a counter yet.

He reaches for the Mountain Dew, tugs it out of my hand. The towel falls and he’s standing there naked. He doesn’t pick it back up until he’s taken a drink. Then he just tosses it near the dresser and pulls on a pair of sweats.

I open my mouth to tell him that those are mine, but I end up not saying anything. Not until I’ve eaten half a Twix bar. “When’s the pizza getting here?”

“About four thirty.” Brendon reaches for the remote and turns on the TV, puts it on a rerun of Spongebob. It’s three-forty-five.

“I’m bored.” I tell him.

He wiggles his eyebrows at me. “Well, I know how we could kill half an hour.”

“I’m not having sex with you.” There’s a fly near the window. I wonder if it can hear what we’re saying. I wonder if it’s calling me a prude in fly language, whatever that is. Flyanese, maybe.

“I already came.” Brendon says. My ears are pink again. “I could suck you off or something though.”

I shake my head, try not to squeak, try not to blush. I don’t manage either. I’m pretty sure that fly is laughing at me. Brendon chuckles a little, lowers his hand to squeeze my butt. “Well, if you’re sure.”

I want to go to the bathroom and take an ice bath. Instead, I squeak again and Brendon kisses my neck. I let him. My ears are on fire. I whimper. I can feel his mouth curve into a smile against my neck.

“So, about that blowjob . . .” he mumbles.

That fly hasn’t moved once, but when Brendon slides down between my legs it starts buzzing like crazy. I haven’t done anything like this with a boy since Pete and Patrick a few months ago. Seven months ago.

I wonder, when your brain goes fuzzy what’s actually happening in there. Are synapses firing like crazy? Is there static in there? Does my brain actually grow fur and become fuzzy? Or maybe everything just gets out of focus, like a camera.

Like now.

Brendon’s kneeling low between my legs. His mouth is like a sauna, hot and wet. I can’t see him really though. It’s blurry. I think I’m crying. Or maybe my eyes are watering. It’s hard to tell.

I can hear that fly. It’s buzzing like a cell phone on the glass plate of a coffee table. I can’t believe how fucking loud it is. Brendon’s not saying a word about it. Brendon’s not saying anything.

The corners of the room are going fuzzy. The fly is fuzzy. And buzzing. And I’m trying so hard not to make noise that I sound like an avalanche.

Avalanches are caused by noise. That’s what people say. But if no one is around to see an avalanche, it might not be caused by noise. But how would anyone know if nobody’s there? Maybe they aren’t caused by noise at all.

Brendon digs his fingernails into my hip hard enough to draw blood. I don’t realize I’ve stopped breathing until he does it. And suddenly I’m drawing it in with huge gasping breaths. I can hear my heart pounding in my ears. The fly is gone, I think.

“You okay?”

I nod, weakly. I let Brendon pull my jeans and underwear back up even if it makes me feel like an elementary school kid. I can’t move. My fingers are still gripping the sheets. They’re so tight I feel cramps starting in my wrists. Brendon has to straighten my fingers out.

He lays me down in the bed, pulls the sheet up. He kisses my forehead, tells me to get some sleep.

I’m on the yellow brick road, alone. Something isn’t right about this. I fumble in my pocket for my cell phone, but I can’t find it. I must have left it at my aunt’s. Fuck.

I catch a ride to the Emerald City on the back of a Gillikin farmer’s truck. The Keeper of the Keys at the gate tells me that the Emperor is expecting me. And now I know something is wrong because the wizard is gone.

It’s the fly, the one on my window. Don’t ask me how I know this because I know flies look the same. But it was the fly on my window. Only he’s about seven feet tall and he’s wearing one of those crowns from Burger King on his head. He looks like a cartoon fly, though. Not all of the creepy bug parts.

‘Not such a prude now, eh?’ He has a British accent. Of course.

‘Are you the Emperor of Oz?’ I ask him.

He laughs. ‘No. I found this crown in a dumpster, drank some toxic waste that made me grow. These people were desperate for a leader after that old fuck ran off with that slut from Kansas.’

‘Dorothy isn’t a slut.’

‘I’d leave it to you to know.’

I open my eyes. Brendon’s leaning against the headboard, eating a Pop-tart and staring at the TV. His eyes are wide.

“What time is it?” I ask.

He looks at me, grins, then looks at the clock. “About six. Nice nap?”

“I dreamt about Gillikin farmers and Emperor flies.” I sit up and shake my head, let the fur fly away from my brain. Things come back into focus.

“What’s a Gillikin farmer? Is that, like, South American pot or something?”

I smile and shake my head again. “Any pizza left?” I yawn, but not big enough to fly my jaw into a fish bowl.

“I threw a couple pieces in the fridge for you before Jon and Spencer took the rest of it.” Brendon leans in and kisses my cheek. “You okay?”

I nod and let him kiss my mouth. I get up and put the pizza on a paper plate and put it in the microwave. “Do you think that the refrigerator in the Beast’s castle ever got hungry? Do you think it ate their food when it did? Or did it eat something different?”

Brendon smiles at me and doesn’t say anything.

I go back to the bed and eat my pizza.