Read Online Dead Nolte by Borne Wilder - Free Book Online Page B

somewhere in the house and his brain had become coated
with tuna mold. He soon ran out of things to blame it on and reluctantly
allowed himself to admit to what the shadow really was and why it was here.
    The doctors had fucked up. They had screwed up plain and
simple. It didn’t take an educated man to cipher the writing on the shithouse
wall, Nolte could see it plain as day. He wasn’t educated in any academic sense
of the word, but he wasn’t stupid, either. Some things can be deduced with simple
reasoning, and good ol’ fashioned common sense. He knew what the shadow wanted.
It wanted a piece of his ass. Death had come aknockin’.
    "But what you want and what you get are two different
ducks, Motherfucker!" Sometimes Nolte would yell this at his shadow,
sometimes he would say it to himself, but every time, it made him feel a little
better. Defiance had always been a substitute for his lack of constitution. A
temporary salve for the impotence of his soul.
    As far as Nolte was concerned, this thing/shadow/reaper/medical
error, whatever the hell it was, could hang around until monkeys fly out Jesus’
ass on Judgment Day, he wasn’t going to die until he was good and ready to die
and no shit cloud was going to rush him.
    "Wish in one hand and shit in the other, Shitbag."
Sometimes Nolte would say this to avoid sounding repetitious to the shadow, or
to himself.
    When the smells weren’t confusing his nostrils or tying his
mind in an olfactory knot, he would stare at the small dark apparition with
unfiltered contempt. Its small stature alone repulsed him. He was sure he
deserved something better if better could be used in terms concerning or
relating to the Reaper. He had always thought death would have a little more
style when it came to collect his ass, a little more pizazz. This thing had
nothing. No Sickle of Death, no Sword of Damnation, nothing, nothing but little
puffs of stink.
    Have a little fucking respect. Nolte damned sure felt that he’d
earned it. At least put on a better show, something a bit more sinister than a
bitch-assed shadow, slinking around, puffing out queefs of popcorn farts and
spearmint baby shit!
    Enough is enough! “Enough is enough! --- Respect
Motherfucker! R-E-S-P-E-C-T-M-U-T-H-E-R-F-U-C-K-E-R!” Nolte yelled. “Show me
some fucking respect.”
    Long ago Nolte had come to the conclusion, that respect, or
more pointedly, the lack of respect shown to him, had been and still was the
bane of his existence. Lack of it had been at the root of every violent moment
in his past. The lack of it had caused every relationship in his life to fail.
Lack of respect was the common denominator of his miseries. Respect was a
simple courtesy, which he felt he was owed. “You want respect?” He yelled at
the shadow. “Earn it, bitch!”
    Nolte was a firm believer in giving respect where respect
was due, he just felt there weren’t too many idiots out there on God’s Green
Earth, who were due any and just because they didn’t have it coming, didn’t
mean they didn’t owe it to him.
    “Who knows how far I could have gone, with the support, and
respect, I deserved,” Nolte said this often; usually this statement was passed
along to drunken wretches, unlucky enough to find themselves on a barstool in
Nolte’s vicinity, at the end of a successful drinking binge.
    Nolte didn’t feel he needed support, but felt, that it
would’ve been nice to have some, once in a while. What he really felt he
needed, was what he was duly owed and that was respect. In truth, as far as feelings
went, Nolte could feel nothing, drunk or sober; he just thought he felt things.
    Perhaps, it’s that everyone sees themselves in more
flattering light than others might, that fueled Nolte’s delusions. Nolte saw
himself as an untapped resource, an overlooked mentor, a well from which one
could quench their thirst for common sense. Though Nolte had never actually
mentored anyone, he always thought he would have been a good one.