Dan, ‘The Man’, Can - Volume 13: Silver & Gold

1

 Kerry Rebar waddled out of a supermarket and winced at the sun while lighting a cigarette. Her daughter Spam tottered along beside her, holding a needlessly condescending visage and a chocolate cake. When they arrived at Kerry’s green sedan, a small manilla envelope was found tucked under the windshield wiper.

 “Oh God,” Kerry groaned, holding a palm to her forehead.

 Spam silently waited for her door to be unlocked.

 “Oh God. Oh God. Oh God,” Kerry chanted, swaying unevenly and shaking her head like a churchgoer receiving the spirit.

 “It’s ok, mom,” Spam said.

 “Oh God. Oh God. Oh my God,” Kerry replied. After a few more dragged out moments, Kerry finally took the envelope and opened it. She squinted at the ticket and took a drag while reading it.

 “Forty-two-fifty!” She squawked. “Forty-two-fifty!”

 Spam stood at the locked passenger door. Though she had been attending a gym on a daily basis for the past five months, holding a cake for nearly three minutes was beginning to take its physical toll. She stared off, sporting her baseline frown.

 “Can you open the car mom,” Spam finally asked with hushed annoyance.

 “Forty-two-fifty! Forty-two-fifty! Oh my God! Forty-two-fifty!” 

 Spam tried the handle and got nothing.

 “Oh God! Oh my God! Forty-two-fifty!”

 Spam gave up the ghost and set the cake down on the red curb which Kerry had parked beside. 

 “Forty-two-fifty! Forty-two-fifty!”

 “Mom.”

 “Those motherfuckers!”

 “Mom.”

 “Oh my God, those motherfuckers!” Kerry seethed. 

 “Mom.”

 Kerry closed her eyes and kept swaying, once again pressing the ticket-and-cigarette-hand to her brow. The late afternoon wind simultaneously heated the cigarette and curved the limp ticket into its ember. The thin paper caught fire and started to burn fast. A blackening ring quickly spread across the slip, its flame almost invisible in the blue air. 

 “Mom,” Spam urged, witnessing what was happening.

 “Oh God. Oh God. Oh my God.”

 “Mom,” Spam insisted.

 “Forty-two-fifty! Oh my God!”

 “Mom!”

 “Forty-two-fifty! Those motherfuckers!”

 “Mom!”

 “Oh my stars! Forty-two-fifty!”

 “Mom!”

 “Da-ah!” Kerry cried when the flame licked her knuckles. She flung the cigarette and burning ticket into the wind and they sailed into the hedges which adorned the shopping center’s parking lot. 

 “Mom!” Spam repeated.

 “Oh fuck!” Kerry yelled, stumbling in place and shaking her hands.

 “Mom!”

 “Oh fuck!”

 Spam glanced down at her cake, which had begun to wilt in the heat. Its message in icing, ‘Tuesday’, was starting to appear slimy. She panicked.

 “Mom would you open the door please,” Spam implored.

 “Oh fuck!” Kerry cried in return, still marching in place and tossing her arms about like some Native shaman before a campfire. The ritual did little to calm her daughter’s anxiety.

 “Mom!”

 “Ah jeez, Spam, could you gimme a second?” Kerry sneered. She dug into the purse that she held in the crook of an arm and pulled out a large bundle of keys, which promptly fell to the blacktop with a deadened chime. Spam nearly jumped at the sound, her eyes darting back to the cake. The plastic dome in which it was enclosed had begun to act as a magnifying glass and concentrate a little circle of sunlight into a solar laser beam. Its target, a piece of icing constituting the letter ‘T’, had started to bubble and melt. Tears of terror and fury welled in Spam’s eyes.

 “Momma open the door please!”

 Kerry bent slowly downward to fetch the keys.

 “Ga-ah!” Kerry yelped. She froze in place.

 “Mom what,” Spam said.

 “Oh fuck! Fuck! My back!” Kerry grunted. “Oh my God!”

 “Mom? Are you ok?”

 “Oh, fuck, Spam! Does it sound like it?” Kerry wheezed. 

 “Do you need anything?”

 With two muffled, crunchy pops, Kerry’s straining knees announced that she was about to meet the ground.

 “Da-ahf!” Kerry screamed as she fell to the hot, black asphalt. Her exposed arm hissed against its roasting surface.

 “Ya-ahgh!”

 “Mom!” Spam said, rushing slowly to her mother’s aid. Scanning the ground for keys, Spam realized her mom had fallen on them.

 “Da-agh! Dah! Da-a-ah!” Kerry screamed to the chassis of her car.

 “Mom!”

 “Ga-agh! The keys! Oo-oo-augh! The keys are in me!” Kerry choked. “Ga-ahk!”

 “Mom!”

 “Da-ahk! Ba-ah-ak! You’re strong, Spam! Lift me!” 

 Kerry held a hand up. Spam pulled it with all her strength. She tried everything in her power not to fart, but it was no use. Gradually, her mother rose and flopped over onto the car’s hood. The keys which stuck in her shirt scratched at the paint.

 “Gah! Oh, fuck!” Kerry panted. “My rib!”

 Spam peeked over the hood for the cake, which was starting to fog up its enclosure.

 “Mom I need the keys.”

 “Jesus, Spam!” Kerry said. “Could ya wait a damn minute?”

 Spam fingered through the keyring until she found the plastic buttons which unlocked the doors and trunk. She clicked them and nothing happened. After pausing a moment, she tried them again to no avail. 

 “Spe-e-am!” Kerry wailed. “Just give me a fuckin’ minute!”

 The buttons still did nothing. The lock pins remained lowered in the doors. A crackling noise was materializing from the nearby hedges, and a thin plume of white smoke ascended from them. The discarded cigarette and ticket had ignited the kindling of dried leaves and fast-food bags stuffed within the bush’s trimmed, green facade. Brisk gusts of wind had begun to thrust through the parking lot and quickly the rounded hedges turned into orange balls of fire.

 “Mom!” Spam fussed, clicking the key buttons still.

 “Ah, fuck, the battery must be dead, Spam!” Kerry moaned. “Oh my God.”

 “Mom!”

 The smoke of the hedges grew into a wall of grey which slanted with gusts of air. Black, curled pieces of burnt refuse rolled from the fire and across the parking lot. Onlookers had started to slide their phones out from their pockets and call the fire department. Spam stole another glance at her moribund chocolate cake before finally yanking the keys out from her mom’s side in an adrenaline-soaked haste.

 “Da-a-augh!” Kerry screamed. “Oh! Fuck!”

 With shaking hands Spam jammed the wrong key into the passenger door and broke it off inside. Spam stared with a bovine blankness at the round nub of broken key.

 “Oh fuck, Spam! That was the garage key!”

 Spam advanced to the rear passenger door and broke off another key inside it.

 “Da-ah! Spe-e-am! That was my house key!”

 Spam rushed around the trunk to the other rear passenger door, where she broke off another key.

 “Spe-eam!” Kerry growled. “That was my storage key!”

 Spam repeated the process with the driver door.

 “Gah! Spam! My frog keychain!”

 Spam stared at the plastic amphibian which she had just bisected. It did not unlock the door.

 “Oh, fuck!” Kerry cried, wincing at the sharp, burning throbs of her key-wounds. Lines of blood had started running down the sparkling green hood of her car.

 “Momma,” Spam whimpered, thinking of her cake. “The car’s locked.”

 “Oh God, Spam! Would you shut the hell up?”

 “Momma.”

 “Just shut up.”

 “Momma.”

 “Just shut up.”

 “Momma?”

 “Just shut up, Spam!”

 “Mom?” 

 “Oh fuck! Oh God! Oh my God! Fuck! Just shut the fuck up, Spam!” Kerry snapped. “Oh my God! Shut the fuck up!”

 Spam’s lips started quivering. 

 “Oh! Gimme a fuckin’ break, Spam,” Kerry snarled with disgust. Spam burst into full sobs.

 Passerby who had initially stopped to watch the blaze had shifted their attention towards the bloodied woman arguing with the weeping woman who held bloody keys. A twofold scene of horror had unfolded before them, and none knew what to do, so, naturally, nobody did a thing. Firetrucks pulled into the lot and hosed the minor inferno down. Distracted by the odd sight transpiring beside the red curb, the firefighters accidentally cracked a few windshields and dented a couple doors with their powerful hose. They scurried off before the car owners returned from shopping.

 “Mom?”

 “Shut up, Spam! I’m calling Quadruple A.”

 Kerry stretched over to grab her phone from the purse, but seized in pain when her flesh wound protested the movement. Once she finished screaming, Kerry ordered Spam to dig the phone out. After finding it, Spam proceeded to drop it flatly on the ground. She slipped on it like a banana peel and crushed her own phone, which she kept in her back pocket. A truck ran over Kerry’s phone for good measure. Spam sat on the baking asphalt and cried like an infant. 

2

 A few hours later, using Spam’s keys, Kerry and Spam fumbled dourly through the front door of their shared apartment. In the living room, their roommates, Miley and Deebee, were watching TV. Their little dog, Griblits, started barking. Kerry scowled as she ceremoniously threw her purse on the kitchen counter. Spam set the damaged cake beside it.

 “Shut up, Griblits,” Kerry said.

 “Well hi, mom!” Miley bubbled facetiously. “You guys sure look fun!”

 “Hi Kerry!” Deebee added, waving mirthfully while chewing his dinner. “Get in a fight with a printer?”

 Kerry and Spam stared at their roommates with an utter lack of bemusement. Deebee cackled villainously.

 “No, Deebee.” Kerry stated monotonously. “No I did not.”

 “Another cake, Spam?” Miley asked. Spam’s head moved slightly to face Miley directly.

 “Yeah,” she said.

 “O-ok!” Miley hesitated. Silence fell.

 “We went to Ralpherson’s today,” Kerry started, “after I picked Spam up from the gym. We came out and I got a fucking parking ticket. Then when I opened it, it caught on - ” Kerry suddenly stopped. “Deebee?”

 Deebee had taken his phone out.

 “Uh. Hel-lo.” Kerry said.

 “Oh, I’m paying attention Kerry!” Deebee announced. “Just thought I’d save the time and open my bank app now! Oh, look, Kerry! You popped right up in my transfers! Isn’t that convenient?” Deebee let the silence hang.

 “Deebee,” Kerry said.

 “How much did your lifetime campaign of negligence cost me today?” Deebee continued. “Seventy? Three-eighty? Thirty-five? Dare I say, eight hundred? Oh, look! One-twenty-five last week! Well that’s funny, Kerry! On paper, we’re supposed to split the rent even!” Deebee cackled again. “Isn’t that funny?”

 “Deebee,” Kerry repeated. Deebeee kept laughing, slapping his phone against a thigh and holding a wrist to his mouth. Spam used this distraction as an opportunity to get herself some cake. When she had cut herself a piece, she put the remaining half in the fridge, uncovered. It smooshed against food which Miley had placed neatly inside, and it covered them with frosting.

 “Spam, be careful putting that cake in there,” Miley nagged righteously, flapping a hand in Spam’s direction. “You covered my breakfast with frosting yesterday. I can’t eat frosting. It’s dairy. It sucks on breakfast anyway.”

 Spam glared at her sister, begrudgingly shifting the cake around while side-eyeing Miley. It was effectively smooshed even more thoroughly into Miley’s food.

 “Thank you Spam,” Miley said. Spam just continued to stare. Kerry went to her room.

3

 An hour later, Spam hesitantly approached the front door and slowly pulled a coat on. She stared at Deebee and Miley.

 “Uh. Hi Spam?” Miley inquired. Spam kept staring, standing perfectly still. “O-ok, then.”

 “Where ya going, Spam?” Deebee asked ironically. Spam stared on.

 “Spam?” Miley said.

 Silence.

 Before long, though it felt like an eternity, a car honked outside and Spam left the apartment before Miley could ask any questions. Miley and Deebee both stared strangely at the closed door. They both wondered if Spam was leaving with the car or not. They looked at each other and shrugged with their eyebrows.

 Spam returned later that night. By that time, the living room was dim and empty. She opened the fridge and finished off her Tuesday cake, leaving the plastic platter on the counter instead of throwing it away. Still wearing the coat, Spam snuck down the hallway and to the bathroom. She flicked on the light and fan and caught herself in the mirror. After a minute of gazing vacantly at her reflection beneath the hypnotizing hum of the fan, she lowered her elastic sweatpants and sat on the toilet. From an inner coat pocket she produced a slim cardboard box. She opened the top flap and slipped its contents into her hand. It was a discount pregnancy test.

 After reading the instructions on the back, Spam looked the plastic oval over and held it beneath her undercarriage. She pushed, but her high-sodium diet had rendered her urine to a near-solid state. It felt like a waxen pencil was waiting in her urethra. Spam pushed harder and harder. She began to perspire, as often was the case regardless. Finally, a leak was sprung. There was one minor issue, though. The leak came from the rear.

 Diarrhea splashed onto the pregnancy test and, in turn, covered her hand in gravy. She gasped and choked on a scream, which caused urine to spurt forth in a short, powerful burst. Spam still held the befouled pregnancy test below as she blasted it, and her wrist, with urine. Both surfaces were cleared of feces, as though her urethra were a vile pressure washer. Surges of piss bellowed on. Deluges of filth erupted from behind. From their rooms, Kerry, Deebee, and Miley heard what sounded like a miniature tropical storm ripping through a canyon. Spam persevered through the onslaught, though, and held the pregnancy test steady. After her macabre outpouring of infernal offerings had ceased, Spam held the pregnancy test’s screen to the light. Somehow, it read, ‘X’. 

4

 The next day, Spam waited at the gym for Kerry to pick her up in the rental car which Deebee had afforded them. Spam stood in the shade offered by the entrance and started to sweat in the still, humid heat of the day. It was the first time she had perspired at the gym, and she didn’t like it at all. She daydreamed about the cakes waiting at Ralpherson’s, and began pondering what she might have written in icing on it. 

 “Wednesday,” Spam thought.

 Spam continued to leer idly at the horizon when she heard the whimpering of a dog nearby. She looked about confusedly until she saw a tattered cardboard box near the dumpster. When she opened it, an emaciated pitbull with bloody lips glared up at her, shaking and growling at her. She tried to pet the dog but it lurched and snapped at her.

 “Aw,” Spam said. “You’re so cute!”

 The dog growled menacingly. It was not scared. Spam reached in again and her hand was bitten. A small chunk was removed from the side of her palm and the wound began to weep with blood.

 “I think I’ll call you, ‘Buh’,” she said.

 Kerry rolled up and found Spam standing with a shaking, bloody pitbull. She locked the door and rolled the window down.

 “Spe-e-am!” Kerry called out. “What the hell is that?”

 “It’s a dog mom,” Spam replied, her gym attire smattered with crimson handprints.

 “What the hell happened to your hand?”

 “I don’t know.”

 Kerry unlocked the doors. 

 “Alright, c’mon,” Kerry said.

 After picking up Spam’s Wednesday cake, they stopped by a pet store to get a collar and leash for their new dog, which had devoured all four headrests in the rental car. The Rebars found this hilarious.

 “Ha-ha-ha,” Kerry guffawed. “Thank God this thing’s on Deebee’s account.”

 “The bitch,” Spam concurred. 

 They waltzed in the front door to find Miley and Deebee seated again on the couch, with Griblits on Miley’s lap. Seeing the bloody monster lunging and yanking against its leash like a caught swordfish, Miley held Griblits tight as he barked and flailed. 

 “What the hell is that?” Miley hollered.

 “Buh,” Spam replied.

 “Buh?”

 “Buh.”

 “Buh?”

 “Buh!”

 “Buh?”

 “Buh!”

 “Buh.”

 “Buh.”

 “Buh?”

 “Yeah, he’s Buh,” Spam reiterated, dragging the snarling demon to her room with her unharmed hand. Kerry put the Wednesday cake in the fridge.

 “Spam found a new friend at the gym today,” Kerry announced.

 Stunned into silence, Miley and Deebee stared with mouths agape.

 “What!” Kerry said incredulously. “You guys have fuckin’ Griblits!”

 “Griblits isn’t a bloody pitbull, mom,” Miley said.

 “He’s not a pitbull. He’s a mix, or something.”

 Deebee’s face sank into his palms.

 “Oh, come on Deebee! Give me a break with that shit!” Kerry cried sardonically.

 “Kerry,” Deebee started.

 “Wha-” Kerry interjected, but stopped once remembering the demolished headrests, which offered her even less leverage in the situation. She started shaking her head. “Da-ah!”

 Miley and Deebee remained silent. Deebee’s head returned to his hands. Kerry huffed to her room. A ruckus sounded from Spam’s room.

 “Buh, Buh, down Buh,” Spam said. The growling and crashing continued.

 “Your mom and sister are fucking idiots,” Deebee groaned.

 “Hey!” Miley said defensively. She halted a moment as it sank in. “I know,” she sighed.

5

 Kerry pulled into her numbered space in her own green car. She had to borrow money from her mother to fix the keyholes and for a new battery. The rental car agency had also permanently banned Deebee.

 “Us agencies talk with each other, too, Mr. Deebee,” the representative on the phone said. “Good luck renting a car ever again!”

 “The ruined headrests were covered, I thought,” Deebee protested.

 “Mr. Deebee,” the representative began. “The emblem was stolen. The catalytic converter was stolen. The airbags were stolen. The entertainment system was totally scrapped. A hole was drilled in the gas tank. Someone left an upturned cake in the trunk. Someone got cheese all over the dash. The car was a total shit-show, Mr. Deebee. You will never do business with us, or any rental agency for that matter, ever again.”

 Once again, Deebee was stunned into silence by a Rebar’s thoughtlessness. 

 “Yeah, that’s what I figured,” the representative said before hanging up.

 Kerry walked in the door. Deebee put his phone on the coffee table and stared at her.

 “What!” Kerry winced.

 “Kerry? What the hell happened with that car?”

 “What car? My car’s back. It’s outside in my spot.”

 “No. The rental car, Kerry,” Deebee demanded.

 “I don’t know what you mean. I returned it yesterday.”

 “What the hell happened to it, Kerry?”

 “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

 Miley came in from the garage with the mail. She handed her mom an envelope.

 “Hi, mom! You got a letter from the city today. Got your car back?” Miley said.

 “Hi sweetie, yeah my car is outside!”

 “Ask her what happened to the rental car, please,” Deebee interjected.

 “What?” Miley asked.

 “The rental car. Ask her what happened to it.”

 “I already told you, Deebee, I had some friends look at it.”

 “What?” Miley and Deebee asked simultaneously.

 Silence.

 “What! I had some friends look at it.” Kerry put on glasses and started opening the letter. “How was work today, Miley?”

 “To look at a rental car, Kerry?” Deebee asked. “You had some ‘friends’ look at a goddamn rental car?”

 “What did you just say?” Kerry gasped.

 “It was a goddamn rental car, goddammit! Why in the goddamn hell would you ever have your goddamn friends look at a goddamn rental car? What goddamn kind of goddamn logic is that? Holy-god-damn, you must be out of your goddamn mind, you goddamn fool! God-dammit!”

 The light momentarily fleeted from Kerry’s eyes.

 “Oh, my God. Oh God. Deebee. Oh my God,” Kerry stammered, leaning into the kitchen counter for support.

 “Goddammit, Kerry! Tell me what goddamn-happened to that goddamned rental car! Your goddamn friends? Goddamn you, Kerry! What goddamn kind of goddamn friends steal goddamn near every goddamn component off a goddamn rental goddamn car from goddamned two-thousand-and-goddamn-two!” Deebee hollered. “Goddammit Kerry!”

 Kerry collapsed into a kitchen chair, fanning herself with the half-opened envelope.

 “Oh Deebee. Oh my God. Oh my stars, Deebee. Oh God.” Kerry said from her wagging head.

 “Goddammit!”

 “Oh my God. Oh my God.”

 A struggle could be heard from Spam’s room, coupled with the muffled sounds of contemporary pop songs.

 “And you let that goddamn dog in our goddamn home which we goddamn pay two-god-damned-thirds of the goddamn-goddamned rent for?” Deebee continued. “God-fuckin’-dammit!”

 “Mom, just open the letter,” Miley finally offered as an out.

 “Oh. Oh! The letter,” Kerry said with sudden lucidity. She adjusted her glasses and finished opening the letter, pulling the folded paper out. Reading it for a few moments, she scoffed incredulously. “Oh! My ass! Yeah! My ass, city of Chino!”

 “What is it, mom!” Miley asked.

 “It’s a fine for fucking arson at the Cornfield Shopping Center,” Kerry droned. “Oh, fuck!”

 “A fine? How much is it?” Miley inquired. Deebee winced, opening his bank app again.

 “I don’t know,” Kerry said, squinting at the paper. “Da-ah!” She finally yelled.

 “What?” Miley urged.

 “Forty-three-fifty!”