To Be Green with Stars

"To Be Green with Stars" by Bill Gusky

Issue 3.10 | Fiction

Cover Art: L. Erickson

Standing in line at the Food Dragon with Froot Loops and PBR when my dang phone goes off. It’s Davis, my boss.

“What.”

“Get your ass down to Weenus Chrysler-Chicken-Cadillac, out on the Senator Kence Treasureton Highway 104-D. They got an emergency, smack in the middle of their Double Barbecue-Double Trade-In event. Use configuration Green.”

“Roger wilco,” I tell him. “Which green? I got Dots, Peace Signs, Stars—”

“Nobody cares.”

CLICK.

I dump my groceries and push through the line. “Emergency! Pardon me. Gotta go, sorry, Ma’am. Excuse me. Emergency here!”

Lucky me, I got a green configuration in the trunk. The one with stars. 'Cause Weenus Chrysler-Chicken-Cadillac being way the hell out on that highway and all, going home would take too long for an emergency.

Green with Stars it is.

There’s Danny Weenus out front waiting for me, standing and waving just like in the commercials. Except now his face is the color of a cherry bomb.

I pull up in my beater Toyota, roll down the window, and tell him, “Davis sent me.”

Danny Weenus’s finger hammers his wrist like a woodpecker.

“Thirty-eight minutes!” he yells, spitting cotton. “That’s two hundred eleven potential customers flying right past on the Senator Kence Treasureton Highway 104-D, and nothing out there to wave them in!”

“I came fast as I could,” I say, keeping it light. “Where’s the victim?”

Danny Weenus’s head about goes purple. He bends in half with rage, jabs a thumb over his shoulder, and spits, “Where the hell you think it is, Genius? Out by the Senator Kence Treasureton Highway 104-D!”

I follow his thumb, and there, way far off, I see him through the smoke from barbecue grills covered in chicken parts. Sprawled out on the grassy curb.

Fallen soldier on his last battlefield.

I wipe a tear and tell Danny Weenus, “I got this.”

I squeal out to the furthest end of the lot. Park my beater, walk out to the highway.

He died facing blue sky, giant googly eyes staring blank into the wonder of the next life. I flick the switch on his fan back and forth, but its blades are stilled forever. The extension cord trails off like a sad reveille toward the distant dealership buildings.

I take him up in my arms, hustle him into the shade of the live oaks and palmettos. Lay him to rest there, for the moment anyway, in the care of blackbirds and blue jays.

I head back to my beater. Whip out my configuration, Green with Stars, out of the trunk, along with the makeup palette and a few sponges.

Leaning against the car, I take a breath. The clock’s ticking, but careful preparation is key.

I pop the lid of the makeup palette. Inside it’s got blue, green, yellow, red, and pink. I dip the sponge in the green. Drag it across my face. My war paint. I check myself in the mirror on the palette’s lid, touch up the holes until my face is a solid green oval.

I close the makeup palette, set it on the trunk. The sponge blows away into the sawgrass.

I slip my arms into the tubular bottom of my configuration. Raise it up over my head. When I squeeze my elbows together, the configuration drops, and its long, noodly sleeves slip over my arms. My face pops through the oval hole in front.

The Green with Stars configuration is now in full effect.

Next comes the intense part: getting into character.

With a million suns reflecting off the new car windshields in the parking lot behind me, I say loud and clear: “I am Green with Stars. I am him. I am green. I have stars all over me. I live the life of Green with Stars.”

I close my eyes and picture growing up in Green with Stars’s parents’ house. That’s my parents’ house now. It’s noodly, and also green. And the AC always works. No bugs or mice or nothing.

Mama’s big and green. Daddy’s yellow and covered in stars. I’m a perfect blend of both my parents.

We eat breakfast and supper together, sitting around a table shaped like a star. Our food is wind. It comes in balloons, in all different flavors. My favorite is twirlygoo, which tastes like pineapple soaked in Mrs. Butterworth’s.

Mama and Daddy never holler or break things, and they never smoke inside the house. They like teaching me stuff, like how to let the wind bubble up through my insides until it blows out through my arms, making them wave high up over my head.

Someone out in the dealership announces, “Danny Weenus, call on Line One,” but I’m far away, picturing me and Mama and Daddy going to noodly church. We kneel in long, noodly pews with a hundred other noodly wind-eaters in all the different colors, covered in stars and peace signs and birds and question marks and moons. We all pray to Noodly Jesus. He gave up his fan so we could all have fans that blow the wind up through us forever.

A siren speeds by out on the highway, but my eyes are squeezed shut. I will not be distracted from getting into character.

I’m picturing myself all grown up now, graduated from Noodly High. I got a girlfriend named Blue with Peace Signs, but I call her Doreen for short.

We’re sipping twirlygoo-flavored wind down at the Noodly Diner and planning out our life together. What kind of house we want. How many noodly scamps we want running through it. 

Suddenly a giant fireball streaks across the sky and smacks the ground nearby, KA- BLOOEY! The explosion’s so fierce it blows us clean off the planet. Me and Doreen are sailing through space, tumbling end over end.

“Don’t worry, Doreen!” I yell. “Stay beside me and we’ll be okay!” But she can’t hear because in space, no one can hear you trying to reassure them things will be okay.

A huge space rock heads straight for Doreen. It’s covered in wires and metal boxes, and on the side it says MACE PLINKET ELECTRICIAN.

I scream, “Look out, Doreen!” and I watch, helpless, as it smacks into her and drags her blue body away.

Far off, I hear Danny Weenus yelling, “Ain’t you never gonna get to work?” But I’m still getting into character. Picturing myself spinning alone through outer space. My tears freeze behind me into a big comet’s tail. I tumble-cry for hundreds of thousands of years. My tail of frozen tears grows until it’s a million miles long.

I pass giant alien space probes and battle ships, and planets of all colors with rings and moons and comets and galaxies and shooting stars.

Finally I come crashing down on planet Earth. Right here at Weenus Chrysler-Chicken-Cadillac.

And I’m pissed. This whole dang universe hates me. It robbed me of my family. It robbed me of my one true love. It sent me to a planet where nobody waves their arms around joyously over their heads.

All these arms-down types have enslaved me! Forced me to stand here and wave people into Weenus Chrysler-Chicken-Cadillac.

It’s coming over me now.

I’m no longer Clayton McGurk, Emergency Inflatable Tube Guy. I am Green with Stars. Enraged, enslaved alien with one superpower: sucking customers into Weenus Chrysler-Chicken-Cadillac.

I shuffle out to the curb.

Stand by the highway.

Loosen my neck, my shoulders.

It begins.

I crouch low.

Raise up slow.

Bring my big noodle arms up high.

Hello!

That’s the method they teach at Tallahassee Inflatable Tube Guy Academy. Every movement has its meaning.

Crouch low: Humble intros.

Raise up slow: Handshake at a distance.

Big noodle arms up high: Hello! That means Celebrate! Great times ahead if you stop in!

They teach us to adapt our  movements to whatever character we are at the moment. And right now? I’m Green with Stars. The space alien filled with rage.

When I crouch down low, it means Listen up, dipshits!

I raise up slow, thinking Get your ass into this here dealership!

My big noodle arms wave, way up high, and it means Buy a god damned car!

My noodly rage will not be contained.

Yeah I’m talking to you, pisspot, I’m thinking at them. Drive that nasty oil-burning shit-pile over here and buy a new car, before I tear your door off and beat you with it.

All afternoon I’m crouching low, raising up slow. Bringing my big noodle arms up high. Sending Green with Stars’ fury out across six lanes of traffic.

An hour passes, and then two. The smell of barbecued chicken is getting me hungry. My muscles are wearing down, but I don’t care. I spent thousands of years drifting through space. I can spend one day out here if I have to, waving people into Weenus Chrysler-Chicken-Cadillac.

Too many folks driving by aren’t even looking at me. I can almost hear Doreen calling to me, saying, “If you really, truly love me, you’ll give it your all!”

That’s all I need to hear. Into the traffic I go.

They’re honking, whizzing past me. Giving me the finger.

I zero in on a car a hundred yards down. “Blue Honda!” I yell, pointing a noodly arm. “Get in here and buy a new Chrysler!”

She damned near hits me, flying past. But it doesn’t stop me. I target another one.

“Brown Cherokee, stop right now and buy a car, God damn you!”

Both noodly arms shoot windsars at him—lasers made of wind. He slows and laughs. The passenger shoots video. But I’ve already moved on to the next car.

“I swear to Noodly Jesus, black Ford Taurus, I will crush you with burning rage if you don’t turn into this driveway!”

Blue lights go on. It’s an unmarked police car.

“Sorry, Officer,” I tell him.

For the moment, I’m not Green with Stars. I’m just Clayton in makeup, wearing a big windsock.

“You realize this is the Senator Kence Treasureton Highway 104-D,” Officer Turrell says.

“Absolutely,” I tell him, keeping my noodly arms down.

“You’re a dangerous distraction, standing in traffic like that,” Officer Turrell says.

“I get it, Officer,” I say, “Just got carried away is all.”

“If I find your green ass out on that highway again, I’m putting you under arrest,” Officer Turrell says. “Understand me?”

“Absolutely, Officer,” I tell him.

He’s back in his car. The blue and red lights go off. And in a second, he’s gone, disappeared into traffic.

In a flash, Green with Stars is back.

I crouch low and holler, “Bite me, Deputy Dawg!”

I raise up slow, yelling, “Your breath smells like a trash fire!”

When I bring my big noodle arms up high and wave them around, I yell, “Say Hello to your mom for me! Tell her Green with Stars is coming by again tonight to do that sweet noodly things she loves!”

Something’s tapping my shoulder. When I turn around, it’s Mark, from work, holding a shiny new fan.

“All set, Clay,” he says.

He’s already got it plugged into the extension cord. I salute him and step back from the highway.

Back at my beater’s trunk, I slip out of my configuration, watching Mark fix the dead soldier to the new fan. I’m wiping green off my face when Mark finds the switch, turns the fan on, and the dead soldier comes back to life. By the time I’ve slammed my trunk shut, the newly alive soldier has returned to service, crouching low, raising slow, slinging his noodly arms in the air.

Driving out of the parking lot, I stop at the barbecue grills. Grab an old McDonald’s sack from the backseat, start hot-fingering chicken off the far side of the grill. Ow ow ow ow ow!

“Hey, put that back,” the grill man says.

“Whatcha gonna do about it?” I say. I’m already back in the car. “Whatcha gonna do? Whatcha gonna do? Come at me, Bro!”

He waves me off. I peel out, laughing.

I stop at the drive-in liquor store for a six of PBR.

I drive my old beater out to the beach. It’s just me, because everyone else in the world is driving home from work.

I take my chicken and beer and sit out on the trunk, laying back against the back window. Watching the sun get low out over the water, scattering a million sparkles across the waves. Watching the boats bob around, and the pelicans fight over a dock post. Tossing chicken bones to the seagulls.

Three thighs, two drumsticks, and two beers later, I’m lying on the roof, watching the sky turn deep blue. The stars begin peeking out. They look motionless, like they’re glued to the sky, but that’s just appearances. In real life, they’re tumbling out there in space, millions of miles away. All alone, every last one of them. All alone, forever.

A shooting star sizzles across the sky. It leaves an orange streak so bright it damned near rips the sky right open. The streak just hangs there after the star’s gone. I keep waiting for it to fade away, but it’s taking forever.

Seeing that glittery streak up there, well, somehow, it makes me feel lucky. Maybe a belly full of chicken and beer helps. I begin feeling good again. Like, really good, for probably the first time in months.

I start feeling like maybe, after everything that’s gone wrong, I might just wind up okay after all.

My dang phone goes off again. Wouldn’t you know it.

I drag it real slow out of my pocket, figuring it’s just Davis again. He’s the only one ever calls anymore. I bet he’s calling to hassle me about working in traffic out in front of Weenus Chrysler–Chicken-Cadillac. I bet Danny Weenus called him to complain, and now Davis is calling to chew another hole in my ass.

Because ain’t that just how it works? I start to feel good about life for the first time in forever, and the universe wants to shit all over it.

One look at my phone and all those terrible thoughts drift away. Because I was wrong. That’s not Davis calling me.

It’s Doreen.

—

Bill Gusky weaves his wide-ranging life experiences into vibrant stories that center unforgettable characters struggling against the baffling and bizarre. He was a finalist in the J.F. Powers Prize for Short Fiction, the Barry Hannah Prize in Fiction, and the Launchpad Prose and Stage 32 TV Comedy competitions. His writing has appeared in Dark Matter Magazine, Cutleaf Journal, Feathertale Journal, Bombay Literary Review, and other literary magazines, as well as award-winning educational and entertainment games released under license from Mattel, Warner Bros, and Universal, and in public broadcasting.