The Gubber Men1
Johnny put on his special Spider Man ring and picked up his favourite Barbie doll in his left hand. In his right he held his GENUINE KLINGON BATTLE SWORD. It hadn't been sharp enough when he got it, but the scissor guy had put an edge on it. It had taken him months to do the job because Klingon steel is so hard, and every day that he worked on it Johnny had to do that mouth thing for him that the priest taught him because he didn't have any money, and like the sign says, "Cash, Grass, or Ass. Nobody Rides For Free." Johnny had put his enema bag and a bunch of cans of beans in his back pack. He was ready to rumble.2
Johnny was going to kill The Gubber Men. All his life, as long as he could remember, The Gubber Men had been doing things to hurt him and his beloved Mama. They had even taken him away from her once and he got so mad that he had pushed the bread knife into the stupid lady where they made him live. She had kept refusing to give him his nightly enema. Everybody knew if you didn't get your enema every night you would die if you were sick like Johnny. After a long time of frantic shouting and being driven here and there by mean policemen and blank faced Gubber Men he had finally been taken home to Mama. He hadn't slept in three days, fearing to never wake up for going to sleep without it. It was from that episode that he had learned how good it felt to push a knife into someone alive. He had also learned not to let anybody see you do it, and later he found that it caused less commotion when you did it to cats and dogs, and much more when you did it to little girls. That too was when he became interested in collecting knives. He made it clear to Uncle Topper that there would be no more bum thing if he wasn't given knives. Johnny was so smart. He learned a lot.3
So, Johnny went out to kill The Gubber Men. He knew The Gubber Men were all in town and that instead of living in houses like ordinary people they lived in big strange buildings that were like mazes inside, called offices. Johnny had been in quite a few of these office places, especially the day after he pushed the knife into Mrs. Zwuckermann. Other times Mama had had to take him when she went for money and stuff, everything was controlled by The Gubber Men. The worst one was the one with the nasty drills and other painful things he put in Johnny's mouth. Johnny even knew his name. The Gubber Man Dennis.4
It took Johnny three days to get to town. He had a lot of fun pushing his GENUINE KLINGON BATTLE SWORD into people and even a few other things, including a cow, but that slowed him down a lot. There was a lot of satisfaction to it though too, especially because one of the women he pushed his GENUINE KLINGON BATTLE SWORD into came in one of those cars with the funny sign on the side that meant she was from The Gubber Men. Even Mama said that The Gubber Men deserved to die because they were such wicked devils.5
Johnny finally made it to town last night, but all the offices he could find were empty of Gubber Men. He's out there somewhere, searching for offices that are occupied at night and pushing the knife in whenever he feels the need.6
Who wants to work late tonight?7
What did you think? Please comment!
Comments
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Unfortunately, the town I grew up in is filled with models for this character. I, being the one who was so different, suffered.
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great
It is very difficult to capture the dialect the tone and the style of the alien. I was impressed at the beginning how child like the cadence of speech the choice of words the pronounciation, the everything about the little boy. I didn't know if he was chronological young or just emotionally young, but I could tell he was developmentally slow. I hate reading stories where the author either does no homework into the characters or who doesn't have enough experience with his characters to adequatley portray them. I can't tell you how many mental pscyh wards i have been commited but I have never heard one person sound like billy bob in sling blade. I realize many people loved the show but I thought it didn't match the speech patterns of any mentally ill person or retarded person I had ever met or studied about. However, what's eating Gilberts grape I thought was an excellent portrayal of retardation. I even hate dicaprio so it isn't that I am personally biased. Anyway back to your story. I thought you captured Johnny very well. The poem lacked some of the raw horrow that it might have had because I actually sympathyized with him to some extent. by the end i realized he was not really young but slow and you wrote him so well that I came to feel for his pathetic life. So the story became more real life sad horror than cut em up chop up horror. It is depressing to me that so few people look at your work. I joked around on previous comment about attracting attention, but that only works if people click on your work. I wonder how many great writers exist on this site who are never noticed. Please continue writing anyway. -
I was wondering if anyone read the stories at all. The story was written to be the opposite of Stephen King's Dolann's Cadillac. The Protagonist is retarded and twisted instead of a calculating school teacher. The villain is obscure, etc.
It is rather funny, but part of it, the title part, is taken from my childhood. I didn't call the government The Gubber Men though, I called them The Dove Man. Go figure. Yes, I was seriously twisted and still am. I also thought the greatest thing in the world was playing with one of those spring door stop things and my favourite word was pding, like the sound of a gas station air pump. -
Woah ... seriously, seriously twisted. Kinda weird and gross with the stuff about the priests and his uncle and the enema bags and stuff, but ... a great write. Sublimely weird and twisted. I finally read it right and (I think) reliazed what the "Gubber Men" are ... hehehe ... awesome how you put the readers in the mind of this insane/retarded/traumatized little psycho person, in this mentality. Part of me definatly wants to follow him on this little journey to kill the "Gubber Men" ... but part of me doesn't. So, in other words ... MORE! Awesome stuff here.
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