Ignacio Santo kicked his snake-skins up on the desk and tore open
a raucous, juicy, terrible fart. The stray cat he picked up the day before at
the 7-11, whom he named Muhammad Ali, looked at him and hissed. Ignacio's eyes
swam in the back of his head and his brown cheeks inflated as he laughed and
laughed and laughed at his flagellant and Muhammad Ali's hisses. Once his
laughing fit ended, he unscrewed a bottle of Texas hooch and took a sloppy
swig, spilling some on his tie. He normally wore a bolo tie, but not today, his
wife made him wear a regular maroon neck tie she found at the department store
where she was always buying towels and curtains and secular looking crosses to
hang on the wall. She told him bolo ties were for rich white men in Houston
sitting in high-rise offices built on the profits of black gold, not
construction foreman like Ignacio who's office is a trailer that is in a
different place every couple of months. She said his workers probably didn't
respect him when he wore a bolo tie. She said they probably called him a clown.
He didn't think his workers cared what tie he wore considering the majority of
them were felons who would gladly walk around with a syringe tucked behind
their ear like a cigarette if Ignacio tolerated that kind of thing. Oh well, he
thought, let his wife dress him, feed him, and shave his back, just gives him
more time to day dream and ignore responsibilities, he figured.
Tim Flagg
Spaceman of Bohemia
Jaroslav Kalfar