“It’s not easy being a Wang.”

That’s the first thing Daddy-san said to me as he brought me home from the Aisle of Misfit Boys all those years ago. 

Being the silly eight-year-old that I was, I thought he was making a joke—but the years have proven me wrong about a thing or two. Or three. Or—well, you get the idea. Of course, at that age I was more excited that someone wanted me enough to take home with them as their child, and not as some midsummer sacrifice, or part of one’s four-course dinner (or sometimes both, as in the case of Chucky and Mr. & Mrs. Deetz). 

I was also equally as excited to see that dreary, life-draining orphanage disappear in the rear-view mirror of Daddy-san’s car as he drove me to my new home.

It wasn’t until he was gone that the full weight of those words smacked me like a nun who’d caught me masturbating with her rosary after raiding her porno stash. (No, that wasn’t me. There’s a different reason why I’m no longer allowed into the rectory of St. Jude’s. Or in the church proper. Or in any area fifty feet from the property. But that’s another tale for a smoke-laden night…)

The fading memory of Daddy-san’s words were echoing like a bad dream bouncing around my all-too-sober brain as I cradled my head in my hand, trying—unsuccessfully—to massage the resignation out of my skull. I did my best to block out the droning voice of Mr. Crawley on the other end of the phone as I plucked the half-smoked cigarette off my lip and exhaled, the ghost of Daddy-san tapping me on the back as I ignored the bright red NO SMOKING sign posted behind me. I was a little more nervous about the handwritten “Warning! Beware Spontaneous Combustion” sign posted under it that Daddy-san had added on the advice of the authorities, but thankfully that had only happened once.

(Old Man Turner had come into our store for a resupply of twine and baby oil, his corncob pipe clenched between his teeth as he huffed and puffed a blue cloud around him, reeking of sweet, warmed-over death.  It’s possible the stench came from his boots, but I wasn’t paying much attention at the time. I had other things on the brain as I sat on the counter during that lazy summer afternoon, my ten-year-old brain day-dreaming about the naked centerfold stashed under my mattress while I scanned the air around me for flies, a 10-inch needle grasped in my hand waiting to strike. So it came as a bit of a shock as Mr Turner unexpectedly burst into flames and burned to death in front of the cash register, cursing my father with his dying breath. The authorities ruled the hogger’s death as a ‘methane-induced accident’ but recommended we get a fire extinguisher—and add the warning sign—as they slowly backed out of our hardware store, doing their best to ignore the “Shoplifters Will Be Cursed” notice hanging prominently on the front door. Daddy-san was also well-known around town for being a competent sorcerer. That’s also another tale for another time…)

Mr. Crawley was still droning on about last week’s delivery as I flicked my smoldering cigarette butt towards the small garbage can resting halfway down the narrow aisle behind the checkout counter (also known as the prison where I spend most of my life these days).

The smoking stub tumbled through the air in a graceless manner, bouncing off the metal rim with a thud and a shower of sparks, tumbling over into the depths of the can. I stared, dumbfounded for a bit. I mentally calculated the distance to the can from me as…well, a lot more than I could estimate while not baked. I’ve never made that shot before (it wasn’t for lack of trying, as evidenced by the graveyard of cigarette butts littering the floor - I should really clean one of these days), but, as Daddy-san told me, “trying is like wet toilet paper…” 

No, I don’t know what that means either. I figured it was some ancient Chinese secret or zen riddle that Daddy-san was prone to recite now and then, without any explanation other than a lopsided smirk and a wink.

But it was Halloween, and strange things always happen on Halloween, right?.

My gaze was still locked on the garbage can as the old and graveled voice on the other end of the phone dredged me back to my sober and loathsome reality.

I sighed, and figured I should get this done with sooner than later.

“No, Mr. Crawley,” I replied into the grimy receiver, “we DON’T have any plutonium or used pinball machine parts in stock at this time of year, you know how the holidays are. Do you know how hard it is to find used pinball machine parts? And Max said he delivered your dynamite LAST week, not NEXT week. Next week hasn't even happened yet!”

The emergency joint container tucked in my back pocket was looking better by the minute…

I like to think everyone has those moments: you know, the ones where the remaining days of your life flash before your eyes in a cascade of monotony and futility, a boring, sad motion-picture train wreck of a scene. A life gone nowhere, disappearing into the haze of inevitability and mediocrity. A life bereft of hope or solace.

This was not one of those moments.

This was one of those other moments: the one where you reach under the checkout counter to the left of the register, grabbing the key for the gun case. Calmly taking it down the aisle and unlocking the old iron security grate and sliding it aside. Then grabbing Daddy-san’s trusty, old Army-Issue .45—the one he kept loaded, “Jus’ tin case.” The one he told you to “Nevah, undah any circumcision, tink ‘bout touching!” Then sticking it in your mouth, and—

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“WAAAAAHHHHH!”

Dafuq was that? I pulled the shrieking receiver away from my ear. Did he really just blow an air horn into the phone, or am I having flashbacks of those rabid cockatoos again?

“Sorry Mr. C, no, I’m not deaf,” I said a little too loudly into the receiver. “Well, I probably won’t know for sure until the bleeding stops. Say that again? I didn’t get the last bit.” 

He obliged, adding a few derogatory anachronisms along the way. 

“No, I don’t know when we’ll have more in stock, hopefully in time for Xmas? Try again in a few weeks, we’re having a great Black Friday—sorry, we’re having a Colorless Weekday, Post-Thanksgiving, Before Xmas, Naked Corporate Greed Holiday Sale! K?” 

I looked up at the clock on the wall, signaling less than five minutes to closing time, and quickly added, “Aw-right, thanks for calling Wang’s HardWare and Wontons—sorry, no longer offering wontons—bye!” 

I slammed the receiver down and unplugged the phone. He usually called back right away, claiming it was next week, and I was nowhere near high enough to deal with that at a few minutes to close. I should have just put up with the call, he was one of our few regular customers left. Everyone else goes to the damn Avalon® store now: “Cheaper Prices! Better Locations! More BANG for your BUCK!” Every time I see the face of that Lex Luthor-lookalike Joffrey Bozeros flashing that billion dollar grin as he repeats that mantra during his commercials, I want to burn down every Avalon store he owns.

As for Wang’s HardWare, well, business has seen better days, and was fast on its way to going out of business. And then there’s the issue of the house…

Maybe it was time to face the fact that I’m screwed, and not in the way I’d like to be right now.

Max always says, “when times get tough, bake it ‘till ya make it.” Which was easy for him to say, having a college degree and no job, other than the too-few hours he helps out with the store.

I walked down the narrow aisle behind the counter and stopped at the guns case, gazing at the fingerprints marring the nickel finish of the pair of Colt single-actions hanging on display.

Max again… I don’t know how many times I’d told him not to play with the guns. I should know better by now. Oh well, cleaning them could wait till tomorrow, and I made a mental note to stop giving him the gun case key when he watched the store from now on. It’s not like we sold many guns anyway. 

Come to think of it, I don’t remember if we’ve ever sold any?

I continued down the aisle, my feet crunching on crumpled balls of doodled-on receipt paper, empty packs of cigarettes, and a veritable plethora of half smoked butts. I think that’s the right use of ‘plethora,’ though it’s been awhile since I watched The Demonic Gringos, and my memory is worse when I’m sober. 

I tried to ignore the coat rack as I grabbed my old and battered army surplus jacket, but the absence of Daddy-san’s tan coat and hat hanging there still stung. 

“Wuss,” I said, mimicking the voice of Max I heard in my head. I wiped my eye and slung on my jacket, the keys to the Nova jingling joyously from the pocket.

I glanced up at the hands of the clock hanging above the gun case and smiled. Finally!

“Aw-right, quitting time means ripping time!”

I walked down to the mirror hanging next to the now-defunct wonton-making machine at the end of the aisle. I assumed the joint-slinger position: left arm behind my back, holding my jacket away from the right side of my body, and giving me clear access to my back right pocket, and the emergency joint canister stuffed inside. I reached back and adjusted the container, making sure the cap was pointing down, although if Max was here he would cry ‘illegal!’ 

It was an illegal move, but Max wasn’t here, so I readied my right arm, imitating a gunslinger standing in the center of Main street at high noon.

“Three, two, one—draw!”

My hand shot into the back pocket, grabbing the purple container and freeing it from my faded jeans. I brought the container around in an arc as I thumbed the cap off mid-flight. My left arm, having released the jacket as soon as the container was liberated, swung around and up to chest level where it formed a bar. My right arm collided with it, stopping abruptly and launching the joint from the open container right into my waiting lips.

At least it didn’t land up my nose like it did during the practice run earlier that morning…

It may just have been my Halloween luck, but I was happy with it all the same. Max always beat me, but I might give the gunslinger a run for his money later, if that luck held out.

Well, who was I kidding—all of my luck was of the bad kind. Still, it was Halloween. Stranger things have happened…

My left hand was halfway down my pants pocket in search of my torch when the front door bell dong-dinked, and I froze. 

Damn, I forgot to lock the door.

“Screw me!” inadvertently came out of my mouth, along with my long-earned blunt as it tumbled from my lips, landing somewhere among the various bits of debris and dust bunnies multiplying on the floor. 

I was too far down the length of the sales counter and couldn’t see the front door, but most people lost themselves in the rows for at least three or four minutes, so I probably had a few moments to spare as I scanned the floor, trying to locate my dropped jay.

Before I could identify anything on the floor resembling my joint, my nose twinged with the scent of something burning. 

I turned my head and caught the sight of a mini-campfire crawling up the sides of that small, dented waste bucket that previously swallowed my ciggy. 

Double-damn. 

I looked at the wall behind the cash register for the old fire extinguisher before I remembered it was still in the trunk of the Nova out back. It was buried somewhere under two burlap sacks full of empty liquor bottles, a tire iron and a half-inflated spare, and various pieces of S&M gear (not mine, swear to God!). It’s a long story about a party, a drunk monobrowed midget with D-cups, and forty-two flaming tequila shots. Wait, should I be calling them munchkins, instead? I can never get that one right.

The flames were cresting the rim of the waste bucket. I glanced up at the metal nozzles of the old sprinkler system on the ceiling. I didn’t know if they still worked, but if they went off, Daddy-san would kill me.

Well, more than six months ago, he would have…

There wasn’t enough time to go back to the cramped employees restroom and coax water from that rusty faucet that barely worked, and I couldn’t leave the counter vacant with a customer lurking somewhere in the store.

Double-damn, squared.

I stepped over the can, the flames now dancing six inches over the rim. Being mindful of the smoke and heat caressing my junk, I unzipped my pants.

I sighed, and let out a long, relieving piss into the bucket.

Daddy-san was right. 

It’s not easy being a Wang.