A Sample of Mayonnaise

[mayonnaise is a serial fiction that I’m posting on my wordpress blog. this is the first chapter.]

I am walking past a McDonald’s when a homeless person, sitting on the ground, says something to me. I don’t hear him properly.

“What?” I ask. I didn’t hear him properly.

“I said, do you have any change.” He says this louder than before. Angrily, maybe. As if I should have been expecting him to say it.

“Well?”

I realise that I have stopped and am now standing over him. His face is dirty. He is not one of those endearing homeless people who look sad and/or have sad-looking dogs. He looks like he could be in middle-management. He would be very good at being a boss that nobody likes because they look mean.

“I’m sorry,” I say. I don’t know why I am apologising. “Here.”

I open my briefcase, and fish for the change that would be gathered up in the corner. I feel something wet. My sandwich has come unwrapped and there is mayonnaise on everything.

The homeless man sees this. “I don’t want wet money,” he says. “Don’t you have a wallet?”

I tell him I don’t have a wallet.

I wipe some mayonnaise off a fifty-cent piece. I drop it into his hat. He grabs it and wipes it on his trousers.

“I already wiped it,” I say.

He doesn’t say anything back. I walk into the McDonalds and lay my case on a table next to a takeaway bag that smells of chips and wet wipes. I pull out my clear-bagged copy of The X-Men #1. It is an original print from 1963 and Mayonnaise has seeped into the bag and onto the cover. In-between the pages. A minute ago it was worth four-thousand dollars. Now it is worth about three-hundred. I use a napkin to smear off the sauce and accidentally tear the soaked cover. Two-hundred dollars.

I leave McDonald’s and head to Classic Comics. I am going to sell the ruined X-Men #1 for a relatively small amount of money and then the employees will frame it and later when people ask about it they will tell the story about the guy who came in and sold his copy of X-Men #1 that he spilled mayonnaise on. I don’t mind. It will be funny.

Classic Comics is a doorway between an electronics store and a travel agent. Very easy to miss. You go in and then you walk down a flight of stairs to the basement level. The first thing you see when you get to the bottom is a big glass case of collectible comics. Many of them are worth over five-hundred dollars. There is a copy of X-Men #2 that does not have mayonnaise damage. The price-tag says “$1,499.99” in squiggly red writing.

All of the new comics are on shelves around the edge of the store. In the middle is a big island with boxes containing back issues. Most back issues go down in price after a while but some don’t because they have become collectibles. These go up in price. You can spot these because there is always cardboard in the bags to keep them flat and in good condition.

There is an attractive girl looking at the “LOCAL COMICS” section at the back of the store. Two dudes flicking through DC back issues. An employee stacking shelves in the “NEW RELEASES” section.

I’m at the counter.

“Hi.”

“Hey man,” says the dude behind the counter. “How you going?”

I say I’m going okay.

“Looking for the new Deadpool?” Every two weeks I come in for the new Deadpool.

I pull out X-Men #1. “I want to sell this.”

“Wow, dude. Wow.”

“I got mayonnaise on it then ripped the cover. I want to sell it for two-hundred dollars,” I say.

“Pauline,” says the dude. A girl walks out from the storeroom. She is short and not as attractive as the attractive girl. The dude points at my comic. “Real?”

“Wow,” says Pauline. “Can I check that out?”

I give her the comic. She takes it out of the bag slowly. She examines the barcode, then the inside front cover, then the inside back cover. Lays it flat, turns the pages with two hands.

“It’s real,” she says to the dude.

“I want to sell it for two-hundred dollars,” I say. “I got mayonnaise on it then ripped the cover.”

She nods. Looks at the dude. He shrugs. “It’s X-Men #1,” he says.

She laughs. “Yeah. We can frame it. Tell people the funny story about how we bought it from a guy for two-hundred dollars because he spilled mayonnaise on it then ripped the cover.”

The dude and I laugh, then the dude types some stuff into his computer. “You sure you want to sell?” he asks. Pauline looks at me.

“Yeah.”

He clicks on something, then the register pops open. He pulls four fifty-dollar notes out, hands them to me. “Try not to get mayo on those.” He laughs. I don’t.

“Thanks,” says Pauline.

I leave.

Halfway up the staircase: laser beam noises and screaming coming from street level.

Top of the staircase: blue aliens murdering people with death rays.

The aliens look like hairless badgers with tentacles instead of forelegs. All of them are snarling and shooting people.

People are exploding everywhere.

An alien looks at me.

I close the front door and lock it.

I run back down the stairs.

“Dude, you can’t close the door,” says the dude at the counter.

“Yeah,” says Pauline. “You can’t close the door. You have to be an employee to close the door.”

“some dude does something somewhere” comments section
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