Lulu’s Loose Screw

*For Halloween, but mainly for Dan, without whom this story would never exist, because it happened to him (with a few of my artistic embellishments). Like I said, worked real hard on this. Hope I did the vision justice.                 A driver drives southbound-east in a car, shoving crusty chips in the corners of his cheeks. The bag of grease lounges on the passenger’s seat and the driver dips his hand in periodically, licking vinegar crystals off his fingers from the sea-salt snack. His other hand padlocks around the steering wheel, drives onward. His glasses fall to the point of his nose; eyes fixated on the pulsing potato chips and not the road ahead—those circular discs of caloric pleasure. The fatty deposits at his sides expand his smallish figure. The groan in his belly growls deeper. The radio dial flickers neon blue and reverberates off the lens of his frames onto the road before him. He watches as...

Lately, when I walk down the street, listening to my iPod, I pretend I am in a 90s music video and lip-synch the words intensely. Gesturing and gyrating down the block with finger points and head bobs and umbrella baton-twirls, for if I just so happen to be carrying an umbrella with me. My father tells me to sing loudly to keep creepy skeeze away. So I have been spicing up my routine by singing out loud. Envision something like this: Or possibly this: Or even this: So screw that stupid taboo of singing and dancing in the streets!  Especially while listening to your iPod with your favorite walking songs bursting through your ears.  It should be okay to dance at inappropriate times, in inappropriate places, like in the middle of your daily commute to the city, or in the middle of somebody's face. For the record, the only time I have ever gotten away with singing in the streets was at night, actually 7 in the am, or walking with a good friend. (That last...