This started as a piece about a panhandling alien and his carnivorous pet. Then it got strange.
It should be noted, that there on the corner, with the sign and the bell and the large, pungeant creature (probably a dog) when he refers to the "motherfuckers" he's using figurative language and the application thereof is fluid and open to interpretation (like entertainment expenses on a five star business trip, like kink-levels in mid-20s, like one's "contribution" to community living)
but that does not mean, when he stomps and rings and shouts impolite things, that he is insincere. Make no mistake, he did not blaze down from whatever broken-off asteroid-- he has corrected passerbys that there's no such thing as "planets" where he comes from-- that he did not blaze from space with any intentions of a soft-sell.
There are things-- ring ring-- that the motherfuckers don't want you to know! Don't want you to do! Where I come from you don't just walk by someone with outstretched tenacles and his giant shag beast! Motherfuckers! Because on the hurtling space rock I escaped with my life, that is rude!
He was not formally trained in the ways of sales, despite his choice of colognes.
It's been debated by those he'd have choice names for what to do. He demands nothing but attention, still, his creature (affectionately referred to by out of town soccer teams as "jimmy") eats smaller pets. That's the danger of our all-pets no-babies zoning ordinance. The city council watches secret footage of him, with the sign and the bell and the proclamations and collectively scratch their chins. Oh, for want of a beard. He's been good for tourism.
I've been thinking of getting an eighth cat.
Do you suppose actual motherfuckers are getting offended? He's awfully vague.
In the cold dark of the 15 month rainy season, make no mistake. Jimmy is hungry. Passersby often confuse pet and master, as disembodied legs and asses walk cats around the block and shoulderblades biceps ride their great danes into battle. All are terrified of Jimmy, but mating rituals forbid such admittances.
The Duck no longer passes that corner.
Sometimes, the city council stares wistfully out the window and thinks of simpler times, sitting on fire escapes, torturing last gasps out of innocent vegetation, practicing chest bumps, drinking simpler times. The city council then sighs and goes to put on a nostalgic ballad, which is where it falls apart; they can never agree on the song.
Ultimately, it becomes a problem of zoning. Make no mistakes; the motherfuckers know the difference between being called upon, invoked and called out and they will abide no such disrespect. They've dealt with this sort of thing before, but usually in forests or mountaintops or cornfields or the set of Community but rarely on corners beneath malls and huge stacks of hollowed out legos and large pictures of handsome strangers without shirts on-- why are there no shirts on? why?
If they decide on tourism, there will be glass cages and informational kiosks and Societies For the Preservation Of___If they decide on Business, the corner will, though permanently stained, will be the Former Site Of____ and there will be a plaque and maybe a photo opportunity, but by and large, handsome shirtless strangers will rule the day from on high.
If they decide on revenge, they may get more than they bargained for.
In a basement a few degrees north, terrified pet-owners give eachother deep-tissue massages and weep openly about what's happened. They do not have a name-- the group, the pets, the owners-- they merely remember the day they passed the corner and all the-- oh. they don't want to talk about it.
The only thing taken from these meetings, the only recorded piece of advice is a man playing ragtime on a toy piano, but slowed to such a degree that one could shout MOTHERFUCKER! between each note. Which, make no mistake, is how things like this always go.
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