The Ohio Grass Monster

"I ain’t gonna let you butt fuck me," Karen said.

"You would if you loved me," Todd said.

He sat on his couch, shirtless, wearing tight cut-off blue jeans, the portable phone pressed to his ear.

"’Sides, I thought only fags did it that way."

In the background, he heard someone laughing.

Todd shouted into the phone, "I just wanted to do it that way so I didn’t have to look at your FACE!" Then he clicked the off button and tossed the phone onto the floor. He unbuttoned his jeans and slid his hand into the moist warmth of his crotch. His cell phone rang and he picked it up. It was Matt. Todd flipped the phone open and said, "You comin’ over?"

"Yeah."

He flipped the phone shut and lodged it into the couch cushions. He grabbed the remote control and unmuted the television. It was that show where the guy goes out and survives in the wilderness. Todd wished he was that guy. He sat and waited for Matt. Todd was only fifteen but the determined expression on his face made him look thirty-five.

A half hour later he met Matt at the door. Matt was a little overweight and breathed heavily. He wore a black sweat suit.

"You ride your bike over?"

"Yeah."

"Let’s go out back."

Todd shut the door behind him and walked around the house, Matt breathing behind him. The air was cool and the sky was gray. The trees were still bare. Cars whispered by on the interstate but it wasn’t visible from back here. No other houses were visible either. The smell from a distant trash fire hung in the air, burning plastic and maybe some rubber.

They walked out to a makeshift wrestling ring, an old king-sized mattress with canvas over it. Metal fence posts stood at the corners with three strands of clothesline wrapped around them. An old couch, its stuffing and springs popping out, sat to the side.

"I figure this summer," Todd said, "we can get some more couches out here and start chargin’ admission. You know Darren? From Fink’s? He wants in on it too. We had a match a couple days ago. He’s pretty tough. I won though."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Okay, you get in there first."

Matt stepped into the ring. Todd announced him with his special voice. Then he announced himself as the reigning champion. Todd stepped into the ring and made a sound like a bell. He said he would buy one as soon as he found the right kind.

Matt wandered out into the middle of the ring, his arms to his side. It was hard to walk on the mattress. Todd approached him, flipping his hair back off his shoulders. Matt stuck out his hand and pushed him in the chest. When he brought his hand away there was a red mark on Todd’s pale skin.

Todd moved in again, real quick, and got Matt in a headlock. He took him down to the canvas. Matt outweighed Todd by at least fifty pounds. He put his hands in the sweaty backs of Todd’s knees, lifting him up and flipping him over. The headlock broke. Matt threw himself onto Todd, pinning him down.

"One!" Matt said. "Two! Ow, fuck!"

He leaped off Todd and stood up.

"You can’t do that." Matt’s eyes teared up.

"Do what?" Todd rose to his feet and approached Matt. Matt held out one hand to stave him off and rubbed his neck with the other.

"You bit me on the neck."

"I did not."

"I can feel the teeth marks, Todd."

"The match still has to go on."

"No it doesn’t. I quit."

"Then I win."

"You’d be disqualified."

Matt left the ring.

"Disqualified?"

"For biting me on the neck." Matt sat down on the sprung couch. Todd left the ring and sat down next to him. Matt rubbed his neck, suppressing sobs. Todd pulled a notebook out from between the couch cushions.

"I been doin’ some drawings."

"Drawings?"

"Yeah. Of our costumes and shit. We can’t just be us."

Todd flipped through the pages. Matt caught a glimpse of the design for Todd’s costume. He had a long robe and fabulously styled hair. He stopped when he came to Matt’s.

"I think this’ll be pretty cool," Todd said.

"What is it?"

"You’ll be called the Ohio Grass Monster."

Matt looked at the drawing. It was done from several different angles. The figure in the drawing had on a skintight black suit and something like a gorilla mask.

"See? It’ll be just like your sweat suits only tighter and thinner so you don’t sweat so much."

"What’s that on the back?"

"That’s just some grass or hay or somethin’. You won’t wrestle in it. You’ll take it off before you start. Like a cape or robe or somethin’."

"Oh."

"Now we need to work on your finishing move and then I thought we could go in and get started on the costumes. Maybe we can get into the state fair next year."

Matt stood up. He pulled up the waistband of his sweatpants. "I gotta get home."

"You just got here."

"I know. I forgot somethin’."

"You comin’ back?"

"I don’t know, Todd."

Matt was already walking away. Todd closed the notebook and headed back inside. The television was still on. He continued to watch the show about the survival man and wanted him to get eaten by something. Anything. It didn’t matter as long as there was blood.

Andersen Prunty