Dan, ‘The Man’, Can - Volume 18: Tool Time

1

 Dan sat shotgun in Ryan’s wide truck. They turned away from the hospital parking lot and chugged to speed onto the freeway. Inside the cab was the peculiar odor of decrepit motor oil and burnt plastic, and the men were comfortably silent with tired classic rock playing on the radio. Ryan, hunched cartoonishly over the wheel, kept a primal display of disgust upon his disheveled face as he squinted through cheap sunglasses. He forcibly rubbed his face with blackened, grimy mitts. Dan watched trees and power lines hurtle along behind the tall brick wall which bordered the highway. He opened Ryan’s glove compartment and took a cigarette out from the pack waiting therein. 

 “I could use one too, Dan,” Ryan said.

 “No,” Dan grunted while lighting up. “Doctor said I can’t be ‘round secondhand smoke.”

 Ryan sighed sharply and wiped his face again, inadvertently jerking the wheel with the return of his hands. Dan took a drag and softly coughed twice.

 “Uh-oh,” Dan said. “That ain’t no good.”

 “What?” Ryan asked. Dan gently coughed again.

 “Mrm,” Dan grumbled. “Better turn ‘round. Cough’s back.”

 “Dan we just left!” Ryan hissed bitterly.

 “Must’ve got me with that Chinese kung-flu bullshit. Drivin’ up the numbers.”

 “U-ugh,” Ryan moaned as he swerved into the exit lane.

 “Probably got you too, Ryan,” Dan said. “Sorry. Hoax.”

 “I am overwhelmed with joy,” Ryan muttered.

 Ryan and Dan squandered the remaining six minutes of their return to the hospital bewailing anything and everything about society that was utterly inconsequential, largely imaginary, or simply beyond their control. Dan was promptly given another bed and Ryan returned to his backyard bunker to savor another weekday afternoon of hopeless inebriation. The next morning, Ryan drove to the hospital to give Dan his cellphone. He was shocked at the swift and complete deterioration of Dan’s condition.

2

 Dan looked like a yellowed cadaver propped up on the elevated hospital bed. Machines beeped and hissed and droned all about the room while the television played fuzzy paid-programming commercials on its old, staticky screen. Ryan was briefly mystified by the dual-set of tactical mops being sold for only nineteen-ninenty-five (plus shipping and handling), but then remembered that he had never cleaned. With this distraction exhausted, Ryan callously dropped Dan’s cellphone on a side table and looked over the little room, seeming to search for the door that he’d just come in from. Before an exit could be made, Dan spoke.

 “Barbie,” Dan said, his eyes barely cracking open.

 “It’s Ryan,” Ryan replied bluntly.

 “Barbie.”

 “Ryan, Dan.”

 “You there?” Dan asked, practically blind without his eyeglasses. 

 “Yeah.”

 “Take my tool, Barbie,” Dan said.

 “What?”

 “Take my tool,” Dan rasped. “I want you to have my tool.”

 “I can have your tools?”

 “Yes. Come here,” Dan said, as though he were about to reveal something secret.

 “I can have your tools?” Ryan asked again as he drew closer.

 “Barbie,” Dan said. “Tool’s waiting for you.” 

 “They are?” Ryan asked. 

 Dan held out his hand, and, not knowing what else to do, Ryan meekly offered Dan his own. Dan deftly guided Ryan’s hand under the blanket and hospital gown, where Ryan’s fingers met with the godawful warmth which was Dan’s manhood. Ryan yanked his hand free and angrily wiped his face before realizing his mistake. 

 “Ah jeez, Dan!” Ryan wailed.

 “It’s tool time, Barbie,” Dan said dreamily. “Y’go gay on me or somethin’?”

 Ryan bolted out of the room, repeatedly rubbing his face and groaning in disgust. Despite their soiling, Ryan still refused to wash his hands, so that when he returned home and ate a hamburger for lunch, he unwittingly ate flakes of geriatric genital skin, which adorned the hamburger bun like so many sesame seeds. 

3

 Late that afternoon the Johnsons left their home to eat dinner at a new restaurant that Gerald had read about in the paper. An audiobook boomed through the speakers until Gerald turned the stereo off entirely. 

 “Heard Dan was in the hospital, Ryan,” Gerald Johnson said cautiously.

 “Yeah, he’s there alright,” Ryan sighed uninterestedly from the backseat. 

 “That’s no good,” Gerald said, eyeing Ryan in the rearview mirror. "He's a good guy, Dan."

 “Yeah I dunno,” Ryan said abruptly.

 The rest of the drive was relatively silent. Gerald’s silver sedan pulled into a barren parking lot and the Johnsons piled out. They were in a spacious lot of what appeared to be tall, beige warehouses. 

 “I don’t think this is it, Gerald,” Momma Jeannie said.

 “You think I’m senile?” Gerald piped. “Yer mom think’s I’m senile, Ryan.”

 “You’re getting there, pops,” Ryan stated hardheartedly. 

 “Hm!” Gerald huffed. 

 They followed Gerald to a small, dark door on the side of one of the old warehouses. He held the door open for his wife and son before following them inside. They were now in a busy hallway where people with headsets and clipboards were shuffling to and fro in backstage frenzy. A woman sporting her hair in a tight bun took Gerald by the wrist.

 “Newt! Newt Gingrich, oh thank God! You’re on in twenty seconds! Come on! Hurry, hurry!” She huffed.

 The woman pulled Gerald away from the other Johnsons, who were both too confused and timid to do or say anything in protest. Jeannie looked at Ryan and raised her brows in surprise. Ryan shrugged. 

 “Okay for him!” Jeannie said.

 “I hate weird restaurants like this,” Ryan said. “I just wanna sit and eat.” 

 He rubbed more of Dan’s manhood into his stubbly cheeks. 

4

 “Ladies and gentlemen,” the talkshow host began. “Please give a warm welcome to my next guest - former U.S. Representative for Georgia's 6th congressional district and contender for Republican nomination in the 2012 presidential election - Newt Gingrich!”

 A lukewarm round of applause sounded off as Gerald was pushed onstage by the strange woman that had taken him away from his hungry family. He paused and looked around at the audience and blinding lights in complete befuddlement as the house band banged out a blaring fanfare for his entrance. The clean-cut host rose from his desk to meet the political imposter, guiding Gerald into a plump seat near the host’s large desk. Gerald was frozen in horror.

 “What’re ya - who - what kinda place is doin’ this,” he babbled, his head rolling in confusion.

 “Newt! So glad to have you back!” The host said.

 Gerald grumbled but couldn’t produce words.

 “How have you been since we’ve last had you on?”

 “I, uh-h,” Gerald rumbled. “You tell me! Yer soundin’ like a, ah-h, mmm."

 “I understand you have a new book coming out!” The host said while propping up a hardcover copy of the book on his desk.

 “Two ice teas and a cola please and, er, well, what’re ya, who d’ya, ah-h,” Gerald stumbled. “Five, six, seven, eight?” 

A weak spattering of laughter came from the audience.

 “That’s excellent, Newt,” the host said through a pained smile before setting the book back down. “So I heard you have a deep interest in animals. Is that true?”

 “No,” Gerald said after an awkward pause. 

 A troupe of animal handlers entered from the far side of the stage, each holding a colorful salamander. They encircled Gerald’s chair from behind, holding the newts up close to his head. Gerald glanced back and forth at the slimy creatures held near to his ears and became extraordinarily angry.

 “Now c’mon, guy, what’re you doin’? Actin’ silly?” Gerald griped. "No tip!"

 “Newts for Newt!” The host hollered. “And that’s our show for tonight! Be sure to tune in tomorrow when I will finally ask Rick Santorum, ‘How did you escape from the Keebler elf tree,’ and, ‘What really goes into Magic Middles, and can I have it to eat?’ Goodnight!”

 The audience broke into uproarious applause as the band struck up a lively tune beneath energetic flashing lights. The host jogged out to center stage and started dancing campily under a red-white-and-blue shower of confetti, and another troupe of people dressed in newt costumes materialized onstage to join him. Gerald was whisked offstage by another stagehand and thrown back into the hectic hallway, where he was thusly guided out of the little side door by security. The Johnsons were waiting out there for him.

 “Hm!” Jeannie huffed. “Guess he was just too important to eat with us, Ryan!”

5

 Dan opened his eyes and squinted weakly at the little television screen bolted onto the wall in his stagnant hospital room. His girlfriend, Barbie, was sitting beside him on a hard plastic chair. She called his name softly a few times and ran her fingers through Dan’s hair before he grabbed her wrist and pulled her hand down under his gown. He looked back at the television and nearly jolted off from the bed in amazement. 

 “Gerald!” Dan called hoarsely. “Gerald’s on TV!”

 “That’s Newt Gingrich, dear,” Barbie said carefully, believing that Dan was delirious from his morphine drip.

 “Gerald!” Dan coughed. “You rascal! You maverick scalawag of a fat-man!”

 “That’s Newt Gingrich, dear,” Barbie repeated. “He’s not looking too good, either.”

 “Two ice teas and a cola please and, er, well, what’re ya, who d’ya, ah-h,” Gerald said from the television. “Five, six, seven, eight?”

 “Sounds like he’s gone senile, too,” Barbie added. 

 “Incredible!” Dan said. “Gerald’s finally hit the big-time!”

 “Yes, dear,” Barbie said, still dutifully tooling his member. “Why don’t you try and get some rest?”

 “Gerald! Gerald!” Dan hollered weakly as he ejaculated. 

 “Bleh,” Barbie winced to herself as she retrieved her hand.

 “Good God! Look out, Gerald!” Dan croaked as Gerald became surrounded by people in large newt costumes. “Monsters’ gonna get him! Oh, God! Gerald!” Dan wailed. 

 Barbie watched the newts dance and changed the channel once the credits began rolling. Dan was still calling out for Gerald when his cellphone vibrated, still out of Dan’s reach on the side table where Ryan had left it. Barbie took the phone and placed it on the dinner table which straddled Dan’s chest. Dan seemed none the wiser.

 “You have a text, Dan,” Barbie said.

 “Gerald?” Dan asked the television.

 Barbie left with mild frustration and fatigue. Dan continued to watch the television closely, hoping to see Gerald appear onscreen again. He also hoped that Gerald had managed to escape from the gang of large newts that had ostensibly overpowered and annihilated him. The nurses that attended to Dan that night were pleased with the lapse of profanity and churlish insults they’d come to expect from him, but he was too distracted by his television journey to notice them. The cellphone buzzed again after a few more hazy hours. Dan finally checked it once the blinking blue light in the corner of his eye began to annoy him. There were two texts from Ryan.

 - Can.I.RE.A.lly. have.you.r.tools.Dan>?

 - HE.l.lO?.?