Russian Wizards, Crisis Actors and the Curse of Big Dick Days

It was a partially cloudy day with a late-afternoon chance of Rasputin. 

Or at least that was the forecast according to the Terror Vision morning show, “Bad Omens,” a two-hour block of fear and intimidation broadcast into your AM pick-me-up of choice. 

For most folks it was Cannibal Coffee.

For others Rotten Bastard Tea.

And some, a can of Dead Bull.

But for Buck it was a Blood Moon on the rocks, a blend of red rum, a double-shot of idiot, and pure unadulterated hate.

The day: Christmas.

Again.

In fact, it was the eighth time this week.

And like most Christmases, Buck Sparkman was having a Big Dick Day. 

A day like today used to be special. 

Not anymore.

Back before every Tom, Dick, and Harry Reams had a 10-inch homewrecker, it used to be that when a fellow woke up with what seemed like an extra two in girth and another in length, it was reason to celebrate. 

You felt empowered.

You’d tell the boss to screw off in an epitaph you never sent. 

You’d get a six-inch ham-and-swiss with double meat at Kraken Subs with a side of baked, not fried, chips.

You’d subscribe to another streaming service for free and cancel before the seven-day trial ended.

But not anymore.

Every day was a Big Dick Day.

And even though Buck Sparkman was one of the best gravediggers around, there was nothing he could do to bring an end to this engorged tyranny. 

Sparkman longed for a return to Regular Dick Days. 

His pants fit.

As for that late afternoon chance of Rasputin, it was the latest sign of irreversible climate change.

And if Buck’s suspicions were right, it was unleashed by a Russian lit professor pants-pissing drunk on triple gulag-filtered vodka and passed out on a college-issued Tombstone.

You know the kind of Tombstone I’m talking about.

One that spoke in Betamax and shat in Braille.

The “Bad Omens” report was simple enough: the mad Russian wizard would enter every Grindhouse in Hellsboro at approximately 3:45 pm, order a triple latte with arsenic and Viagra, and then proceed to pay for it all in pennies, buttons, lint, and other foreign currency. 

Twenty-three minutes later, an impatient bolshevik would stab Rasputin with a coffee stirrer and the revolution would begin. 

Spells would be cast.

Monarchs overthrown.

And an entire dissertation on Larry Flynt’s Crime and Punishers would be wedged between a barista’s mochachino-filled butt cheeks.

That copy would remain in circulation for weeks. 

During that time, the protagonist of that celebrated tome, Frank Romanovich Kastlenikov, would avenge the deaths of the thousands of readers who died trying to divine the peculiar idiosyncrasies of Russian nicknames. 

He would also start a fairly lucrative business making Thin Blue Line skull decals for gas-guzzling, exhaust-spewing, four-wheel drive Doge Incel L7 trucks and the He-Man Women Haters Club Alfalfa males who drove them.

Buck could easily put an end to Rasputin’s impending afternoon reign of terror, but he didn’t want to. 

More importantly, no one wanted to pay him to do it. 

At least not yet.

As it stood now, today was looking to be as bad as Christmas Day, three weeks ago.

No, not that one. The other one.

I mean, the other, other one.

That was a bad day. The worst ever.

And not just for Sparkman’s wallet.

Our nation as a whole.

Or at least that’s what the episode of “Bad Omens” in Buck’s Blood Moon said over and over and over again. 

Complete with graphical embellishments of the holy war kind and a rousing rendition of Juan Phillip Souza’s “The Stars and Strippers Forever.”

As for what started the worst day ever, the Rebel Ants blamed the Demon Cats, and the Demon Cats blamed the Rebel Ants. 

But among all the finger pointing, nobody ever really said what had caused everything to go so horribly, horribly wrong.

And yet the skies were filled with fighter jets with switchblades and dancing feet.

Flusterbombs were being dropped on every jump castle birthday party in the tri-state area.

But most of all, Frank Romanovich Kastlenikov had to finally admit that he got cucked by Pissing Calvin.

Again, “Bad Omens” never got into specifics about what led to the sudden ubiquity of Mountain Dew Code Orange warning alarms.

Did Diddly Kong upskirt the Statue of Liberty? 

Did Big Ben give the Sphinx a dirty sanchez and a donkey punch? 

Did somebody find evidence that JFK had in fact created a time machine and killed himself in order to cover up his affair with JFK? 

I know… mind blown.

Furious that he couldn’t get any answers, Buck made a vow to never watch “Bad Omens” again. 

And for a week, he did.

But that was then, and this was now.

Rasputin was coming, and Sparkman didn’t care. His head was pounding from idiot.

He wandered into the kitchen. 

It was the same color it was yesterday morning: Sunrise Aphorism.

This was unusual.

His wife Sasha normally likes to start the day with a new shade. 

Maybe she was in a rush. Buck didn’t notice.

Perhaps he shouldn’t have stayed up so late the night before, tossing back vials of idiot, and hurling hatchets at the nighttime version of “Bad Omens” whenever the pack of rabid pundits said something he disagreed with. 

OK. You caught me. Buck still watched the news.

In fact, he couldn’t get enough of it. Especially when the top headlines were his.

The Statue of Liberty goosed Diddly Kong on the red carpet.

The Sphinx tossed Big Ben aside for a Hitachi Magic Wand.

JFK killed JFK before JFK had a chance to kill JFK..

Sparkman cracked another vial of idiot and kept watching and creating, bringing chaos to the Greater Hellsboro Metropolitan Statistical Area

Somewhere around three in the morning the idiot got the best of him. 

The sound of Sasha picking up the empty vials of idiot woke him the next morning.

He tried to remain lucid, nodding to the gibberish coming out of her mouth.

It was the idiot again.

“The rum tum tumbler is a blithering vat of cautious vaseline. Cone one, cone all, to the celebration falls. One chair, two chair, three chair bonanza.”

He nodded and acted like it meant something.

It did. 

A lot. 

OK. Not that much.

A little.

Enough to be a well-placed jab at a well-placed time during an overdue, but rather inconsequential argument.

Then the Feds arrived.

Or at least, those were the words bouncing around in Buck Sparkman’s head as he stumbled out the door to send his wife Sasha off.

To where, he wasn’t sure. 

As a professional crisis actor, Sasha’s schedule was unpredictable. 

One day she could be in Baton Rouge in the hallway of Britney Spears High, one hand trying to hold her guts in, the other trying to herd the wayward bits back home. 

The next day, she could be laid out on the steps of the amphitheater at Rankin and Bass University, sprawled across a Jackson Pollock painting of blood and bone.

The pay was good.

Although Sasha was tired of getting typecast.

Come to think of it, that might have been what she was talking about, but the idiot got in the way.

Buck followed her out the front door.

Kisses, kisses.

Yes, the blood splatter on your chest looks good. No, you didn’t overdo the wound on your cheek.

Insert inside joke goodbyes. 

He watched her drive off, once again fearful that she may not return.

Crisis actors had a way of disappearing.

He tried to put those worries aside, as he ventured inside to lay down. 

As he fell asleep, the image of Sasha’s bullet-riddled body, swaying as she walked to the car, was still on his mind.

When he awoke, his head was pounding even worse than before.

God he hated Big Dick Days.