The Dead Pinky THE D E A D P I N KY THE D E A D P I N KY “Life can’t be worse than you make it and it can’t be better than you make it. And if something happens to you, like if you lose a pinky, then you just have to keep on living.” short story by Theo Versten Theo Versten Theo Versten An Ovi Magazine Books Publication 2021 Ovi Project Publication - All material is copyright of the Ovi magazine & the writer C Ovi books are available in Ovi magazine pages and they are for free. If somebody tries to sell you an Ovi book please contact us immediately. For details, contact: submissions@ovimagazine.com No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the writer or the above publisher of this book. The Dead Pinky THE D E A D P I N KY short story by Theo Versten Theo Versten An Ovi Magazine Books Publication 2021 Ovi Project Publication - All material is copyright of the Ovi magazine & the writer C CONTENTS Freshman Year, 2001: Part one 5 Freshman Year, 2001: Part two 8 Freshman Year, 2001: Part three 11 Freshman Year, 2001: Part four 14 Freshman Year, 2001: Part five 17 Freshman Year, 2001: Part six 23 The Dead Pinky Freshman Year, 2001: Part One t he thInG Was that it just freaked me out that she didn’t have a pinky finger on her right hand anymore. I mean, yeah, she was still basically the same person. Same face, and same tits and ass, and same personality, and she still wore a little cross around her neck and was sweet and her blue eyes shined like sex pistols blinking behind thick black mascara eyelashes, but an element of a freak or a disabled person grafted on to her when she lost that pinky finger. It was her right hand. And her right hand was her magic hand. Some girls play the skin flute like it’s salami and they’re trying to take the skin off it or something . Heather played it like an angel though, and the tor- pedoes of my lustiness would spout like a balooga. But her finger was lost to a jelly fish this summer. Hawaii with the parents. Swimming close in by shore, maybe even just wading, her younger brother by her side. The two splashing and laughing, shouting, and all of a sudden Theo Versten she dove into the water, hands clasped together above her head, fingers inter- twined and in the warm watery midst of her reverie a shark bit her hand. She jumped to stand waist deep in the water, screaming “Shark Shark Shark” and looked down in agony to find a little translucent piece of jelly float casually away, treacherous blind tentacles dangling behind. The family rushed her to the hospital as her mother sat in the front pas- senger’s side reciting her favorite bible quotes with a bitter fervor. Her broth- er stared at Heather, in the back seat with wide unbelieving, dumb jock eyes and said, “You’re lucky it wasn’t a shark. It would have eaten your whole hand off.” Tears rolled down her face and she said, “Lucky my ass. You’re lucky it wasn’t your little penis.” “That’s lewd,” her Dad, the hasty chauffer added. She’s still an amazing girl. Only she doesn’t have her pinky. The hospital people treated it as a the typical vacationer jelly fish sting that it was. Sent her home and let her know that she might regain feeling or she might not. Some- how the poor little guy became apparently infected within the next couple days and back to the hospital the family went. The doctor sent the family away with a generally positive outlook on the situation: “Watch it closely. And if it gets worse, which it shouldn’t, but it might, return here immediate- ly.” It got worse somehow. Much worse. Turned swollen and black and blue and was even beginning to burst at the seams, with white frothy pus trickling up. It was like a reverse miracle. The type of thing doctors stand around and scratch their heads over, like monkeys reflecting on mortality. They cut off her pinky in Hawaii. A bloody, dismembering end to the fam- ily vacation in the palm tree paradise. Back in Minnesota she saw a hand spe- cialist. He wasn’t particularly special, though. Then she saw a psychologist, he was a little more helpful. And before college started she was back to her peppy, life-loving self; friends and movies and parties and flirting like a rabid dog with pink bows in her hair. I like the way she flirts. Like a figure skater. We happened to end up going to the same University. And I got the feel- ing when I saw her that she might be looking to grasp my flute once again. The Dead Pinky We randomly ran into each other at a party. An older guy who graduated from our high school had a house and was throwing a pre-semester get really drunk and pass out in the bathroom type of party at his place. I had never been to a party quite like this. Theo Versten Freshman Year, 2001: Part tWO t hIs Was COLLeGe. I had never been much of a drinker. But I found myself with a full cup for the fourth time within an hour and the happy tingles ran through my face and my eyes and into the room and the whole place was hilarious and beautiful. I was tipsy. Not too tipsy, but like I said, I never drank much in high school but I’m a pretty big guy, so it’s going to take more than four drinks to get me stumbling like a drunken sloppy-ass fool. I was talking to a group of girls, three of them, a hot one, an okay one, and one I’d be mean to describe, honestly. Also my friend Brent was with me and he was actually doing most of the talking, which was alright by me since I could feel the hot girl’s blue eyes flash at me every chance she got. Brent’s kind of scrawny but his personality and his long curly black hair supplement his lack of beef. He’s a talker and he’d been drinking and getting blabbery and making most of his eye contact with the mid attractive mem- ber, who had a decent face, but like Brent, lacked in the body region. The Dead Pinky Then Brent starts telling this bongo bongo joke which he told me the first night I met him in the dorms. This joke is sick and I couldn’t believe that he was telling it to a group of girls. I interrupted him in the middle of the joke, right after the second guy (out of three stranded on an island in- habitated by homosexual cannibals), like the first guy, chose ass rape (bon- go bongo) by the big-dicked deserted island chief instead of death. I screamed over the music as my face smiled with beer taste. “Brent, I can’t believe you’re telling this joke!” “It’s a good joke,” he said with his beer greased motor mouth smiling, “you’re going to ruin it if you don’t shut up. So like I was saying, the second guy’s unconscious, lying on the dirt with blood running like a river out his ass crack and it’s the third guy’s turn to choose. And this guy’s not having it. He says...” “I can’t believe you’re telling this joke. This is so sick. You’re so sick,” I yelled over the pulsing music through the dim basement light and the smell of smoke. “I’m not sick, yeah the joke’s sick, but the joke’s good and you’re gonna kill its genius if you don’t shut up,” he said as I stared at him and stuck my fingers in my ears and began singing my high school fight song at the top of my lungs. He continued his story anyway, screaming his loud voice out to the girls as I screamed the fight song, but quickly I quit my protest. “So the third guy’s like ‘Man, Chief Enormous Fat Dick, there’s no way I’m gonna choose Bongo Bongo, that shit is so gay and so nasty and there’s no way you’re gonna pierce through my virgin asshole with that MK-47 of a cock you’ve got. I choose death, motherfucker.’ And then the chief spoke, “DEATH!.......BY BONGO BONGO!!!!!!!!!” The girls didn’t even giggle politely. They just looked disgusted, like my grandma’s old wrinkly face puckering angrily when she talks about the child molesters on the news. Or like that big warty cock had actually been pres- ent and exposed right before them. I was glad the girls were as disgusted as I was. Theo Versten “That’s such a fucked up joke man. It’s not even a joke. It’s just sick. I don’t understand how a man could ever want to stick his dick in another man’s asshole. It’s where pooh comes out of. Would you want to stick your dick up another dude’s pooh hole?” “No, but that doesn’t mean the chief wouldn’t want to,” Brent said. “So what? I’d kick the chief ’s ass. They don’t have weights on deserted islands. They’re probably all starving and too skinny. If a dude ever asked me if I wanted his penis in my asshole I would kick his ass on the spot. No doubt.” The hot blue-eyed girl chimed in, “Yeah. Gayness doesn’t really make sense. I mean, the parts just aren’t made to match up that way. I could al- most understand why a girl would be a lesbian because girls are hot but the whole pooh hole thing is just pretty nasty.” The Dead Pinky Freshman Year, 2001: Part three t hIs GIrL DeePLY intrigued me. And her tight cleavage shined di- rectly at me. Her eye shadow was blue. “I like men though,” she said, and as she said it she hit my left peck with the open palm of her hand. “Ooh,” she said, as she put her hand back on my left peck. “Oh you like my breasts?” I smiled, “I get plastic surgery at the gym every day.” “They’re hard like rocks,” she smiled with her eyes. Then a figure caught the corner of my eye. Hot, tanned legs, stemming from a short tight skirt, lead a burning sexy aura through the dark dingy basement air. It was Heather. Over Jackie’s head I stared at Heather and felt my heart beat like a maniac. I hadn’t seen or talked to her since June, before she had lost her pinky. I wanted to see her but I didn’t want to see her pinky. My beer exuberance funnelled into confusion. Jackie was talking but I Theo Versten wasn’t hearing her. Then Heather looked up at me. Our eyes locked. She smiled a broad smile. I made myself smile. Jacky turned around to see what I was looking at. Then I felt her look at me, but my eyes continued fixated on Heather. Then Brent started blabbering again. I slipped out of the circle and my feet travelled towards Heather. “I can’t believe you’re here,” she said, “I knew you were gonna be here.” And with that she wrapped her arms around my back and squeezed me into her tight, firm breasts pressing through her tight pink shirt, and into my chest. She made a little caress on my lower back which sent shivers rippling up my spine. I looked into her eyes and wanted to dive into them, and also her, but wagging “no” between us was that invisible finger. I still hadn’t had a look but it was disturbing and I wanted to look but felt that I couldn’t. “Look at that guy, you see him? That’s Brent, my friend from the dorm,” I pointed and she gazed through the crowd, and furtively, I looked down at her pinky and it was as I had imagined: a glaring deformity, a maniacally grin- ning oompah loompah. “The cute little guy with the hair?” she asked. “Yup, that’s him,” I was revolted. We talked about nothing for five minutes and then I said that I was tired and I wanted to go home. She made an effort to look pouty and disappointed and seductive but I wasn’t interested. No matter how skilled, any hand that plays my flute will have at the minimum and maximum five fingers. I told Brent I was leaving and he didn’t want to go because the girls were giving him attention so I told him to invite the girls. “Where, to the dorm?” “I don’t care,” I said, “invite ‘em to get pizza and bang all three in the little boys room. I wanna go.” At the pizza place I couldn’t eat. I bought a beautiful slice of cheese, shim- mering with grease, but I only took a bite. “You gonna eat that or use it as toilet paper?” Brent asked. “You can have it,” I said. All the three girls were with us. The best one still gave me the occasional eye but she was getting tired and less interested in my sombre self. Brent and the medium one were still hitting it off, sitting at the table with their knees The Dead Pinky touching, and looking profoundly into one another’s glazed eyes as they mas- ticated and swallowed, masticated and swallowed. The best and the worst walked home together. Medium, named Sarah came to Brent and my dorm and she slipped in bed with him, the top bunk, as his roommate slept like an angel on the bottom. I couldn’t sleep. I was never going to get a hand job like that again. With my roommate on the top bunk, I acted stealthily, auto-launching the torpe- does, and moments after they struck, netted and sticky in a wad of Kleenex, I fell asleep, restlessly, and unconsciously brooding about Heather the beau- tiful, Heather the nine fingered reigning prom Queen of East Onka High School. Theo Versten Freshman Year, 2001: Part FOur C Lasses Were OKaY. Nothing to write home about. They were large. Lots of people in a room listening to a single dude or chick talk a lot. Lots of hot girls, which is nice. Just as many blondes as in Min- nesota. I was worried there would be fewer blondes. But I’ve been pleased. After the first week I was quite in love with college. I would wake up at about 7:30. Take a short run down the lakeshore. Go to the gym and lift. Make it back to the dorm to shower, shave, gel the hair, brush the pearlies, drop a log, button all my shirt buttons, slap on deodorant, spritz a little co- logne, slap on the sunglasses, throw my books in the bag, the bag on my back, and with a half hour before my classes began (not one before 11) I would saunter up the hill and into campus, never breaking a sweat. Girls looked at me and I looked at girls. Unless they weren’t my type, which I suppose is the majority, and in that case I’d just toss them a glance, The Dead Pinky but at least five or six times on the way to class I swear my cock would try to jump out my eyes like a heart-stricken suicidal maniac out a high rise win- dow and into the sunset. Afternoons and evenings were alright. I’d mostly do readings for classes, with an occasional football game, and a habitual dinner at Frank’s Place with the guys from my floor. It was the second Thursday of classes, in the late afternoon/early evening, when I picked up the phone (which was ringing) and found Heather’s voice. She invited me to a party of her friend’s that night. “I don’t know,” I said, “I was planning on doing some reading.” She tried to persuade me. I tried to resist. Her voice is honey, and I am a (large and handsome) fly, so I was per- suaded. Later that night I left for the party, but less like a content house fly, and more like a hungry, neurotic bear, unsure how to approach the slightly demented honeycomb. My buddy Allen accompanied me. It was a small, shabby apartment, dimly lit, ceilings lined with Christmas lights, and the smell of smoke and incense wafted together. People were play- ing beer pong in the kitchen. I didn’t recognize anyone. No one recognized me. But less than five full steps into the place Heather’s voice pierced the loud thump-thump music, “Nate!” She sprang up from a couch that was a host to some tired-looking carcasses. In four big steps she had her arms around me, touching my back and making it tingle. She released the embrace and kept her hands on my big shoulders and her blue eyes twinkled. “Have you been drinking much?” I asked. “That’s a good point,” she said, “you need beer in your hand.” She grabbed my hand (with her fully equipped left hand) and began to pull. “Wait a second. Meet my friend, we’re buddies from the dorm. His name’s Allen, but you can call him Pussy. He responds to either.” Heather laughed hard. Allen took it well. He seemed pleased, watching Heather laugh, her tight cleavage convulsing. “It’s good to meet you Allen.” Theo Versten “How do you know this guy?” Allen asked. “We went to school together since we were little,” Heather said. “We spent a lot of time in the backseat of my mom’s minivan together.” I said. “Shame on you,” Heather said, and she poked me in the chest, and then took both me and Allen’s hands and led us to the kitchen. Allen got the de- formed hand. He seemed unfazed. We each got a forty and sat on a couch which had cigarette burns and sank too deep. This was Heather’s second forty, I gathered. The Dead Pinky Freshman Year, 2001: Part FIve “n ate, hOW Was your summer? I’m sad we didn’t hang out, but there’s always time to make up for that,” she patted my thigh, “What courses are you taking? I’m taking the greatest courses but they’re all so big, I feel so little. But not now, right now I feel big.” I smiled and gestured at her stomach, “You don’t look too big.” “Not like you,” she said as she patted my stomach, “You fatty. Are you still eating raw eggs? Hey, what’s your name again?” She was talking to Allen. “Allen,” he said. “Allen, what are you majoring in? I’m majoring in Spanish but I’m not sure if I’m going to keep it or get a different major or get a different major and keep it. Do you think you might double major? I’m worried that it might just Theo Versten be too much work to...” The conversation went on like this for a while. Heather asked engaging questions and then she’d keep talking, which was fine by me as the malt liq- uor began to maltify my senses. She was wearing a beige tank top and navy blue skirt. Her skin glowed. Her endless talking was melodic. And as I waded through the first forty of my life I began to really appreciate forties. “Forties are fucking awesome.” I declared. “Well, what snapped you out of that coma?” Heather asked. “Forties are just really awesome, have you had a forty before?” “I had one just twenty minutes ago. And now I have one again.” She smiled. “No. I know that, but I mean have you had one before that?” She slowly raised her finger and dabbed my nose with it, her hand linger- ing, and said, “No.” It was her funky hand, I went cross-eyed for a second, she darted her hand away and smiled, “I can’t believe how quickly you’re drink- ing that. You’re almost done and it’s been like only twenty minutes.” “You’re drunk,” I said, “you’ve got no idea what time it is.” “You’re drunk,” she said, “You little lush.” “I’m not a lush. I’m just enjoying the alcohol. Hey, Allen am I a lush or am I just enjoying the alcohol?” He looked at me calmly and said quietly, “You are what you want to be. This is America.” I really liked Allen. The Dead Pinky “Allen,” I said, “I really like you.” I put my arm around his shoulder and jostled him. “And I think you’re okay too,” I said to Heather, “for a girl.” She playful frowned. She sang in a nasal tone, “Anything you can do, I can do beeeetttteeerr.” “That’s not true,” I said. “Name something,” she said. “Hockey.” “Anything that’s not Hockey,” she said. “Okay, lifting weights,” I said. “Anything that’s not Hockey or lifting weights,” she said. “Well, I guess I can think of one thing. But I won’t say it.” “Why won’t you say it?” She smiled. “‘Cause then you’d win the argument.” “You’re such a silly boy,” she said. “I need another forty,” I said. Heather and I got up from the couch and walked to the fridge and picked up another forty for myself and went back to the couch and sat down. Our knees were touching. I smelled something. “Is that pot smoke?” I asked. “No,” she said, “those guys over there smoking pot aren’t really smoking Theo Versten pot.” There was a small pack of ratty looking guys in the corner of the room passing around a glass pipe. They’d hunch over it, light it, suck in as the pot in the middle would burn like embers, and then they’d stop, full of smoke, pass the pipe, and release a slowly rolling sideways smoke stream. “You think they’ll make it through college?” I asked her. “I don’t see why not.” She said. “Because they’re potheads,” I said. “ They burn out any strength to do anything. That’s why their hair’s so long and ratty. They don’t have the power to cut it.” “Nate, don’t be an ass.” “I’m not being an ass. I’m stating the facts. Pot kills motivational cells in your brain.” “You used to say the same thing about beer and now you’re drunk,” she said. “I’m not drunk,” I said, “if I were drunk I wouldn’t just be sitting here talking.” “Well what would you be...” “Plus, I was a junior in high school when I said that about beer...” I said. “Well, now you’re a freshman in college...” “Well, pot’s different than beer. I’m not going to end up with hair down to my ass ‘cause I’m too lazy to cut it,” I said.