The Right Write Rite

Vomit

"Happy birthday!"

Pepperoni pizza and chocolate cake.

I shouldn't have drank a second can of Dr. Pepper.

I definitely shouldn't have gone to the K-Mart with my older brother after that kind of a birthday feast.

But I needed Mutagen Man. I wanted Astronaut Raph. I wanted a Bebop to match my Rocksteady. I was sick of my brother's rare edition of Shredder and I wanted an Ace Duck to brag about. I wanted a second storage shell Leo. I wanted those. I needed Mutagen Man.

I also wanted pizza. I also wanted soda. I also wanted cake and I also wanted ice cream. I rarely got the option of having any of those, and when presented with a bounty of taboo foods, the eight-year-old mind immediately smothers its inhibition unit with glucose and dopamine. Those two chemicals raced through my body as my brother drove me to the Henderson County K-Mart. “Pick out any Ninja Turtle figure you want,” he said. It made my already overheated brain run faster. Steam should have shot out of my ears. Something was about to burst.

We walked down the aisle like a prince and his servant. “Perchance I want Private Eye Donatello,” I would say, losing my interest by the time Zac fished five dollars and ninety eight cents out of his junior pro basketball windbreaker. “What would my liege like in his playroom?” Zac asks, pointing to a fine bouquet of villains which included my favorite, Baxter Stockman. Baxter had been duped by the Shredder into attacking the turtles, but there was a mistake; he was turned into a half-human, half-fly monster. I was becoming a monster too. My stomach was making noises I’d never heard before. It was screeching and shouting and writhing in my guts. Something wanted out.

“I don’t feel too good,” the prince told his manthing. “Just choose and we’ll be out of here soon.” Manthing was so wise. He prescribed a 7-Up.

“I don’t think that will work,” protested the prince. The servant hurried him along. “Make a decision. Here’s that Mutagen Man you mentioned.” I decided to inspect the figure. It was hard to find one like this. He was an obscure villain who, by mistake, had his skin made transparent. I saw his insides.

I burst. My guts gave up and reversed. My food pressed eject and deployed its parachute all over the display of obscure villains.

Vomit plunked against thin metal shelves. Cardboard sopped with regurgitate. I heard my brother swear for the first time.

He grabbed me. He covered me in his junior pro basketball windbreaker and pushed me into a restroom. He splashed water on my face and held my face over a toilet. “Chew this,” said my brother. He handed me a 17-stick pack of Extra brand spearmint. He made me chew three pieces.

We started walking out. I wanted my toy, he wanted to avoid punishment. I told him I had decided. He promised we’d come back later.

We lied to Mom. “They didn’t have the one I wanted, we’ll have to go back.”

“Why are you wearing Zac’s jacket?”

She didn’t figure it out. She was suspicious because I my mouth was full of Extra brand spearmint. She was suspicious because I said I didn’t want any pizza, cake, ice cream or Dr. Pepper. She was suspicious because I wasn’t sad about not having a new toy.

That night, I sat on the living room carpet and put together a new Lego pirate ship. Dad watched Nova on PBS while Mom and Grandma reminisced. Grandpa helped Nathan work on his jumpshot in the driveway while Zac practiced guitar in his bedroom.

A few days later Zac took me back to the Henderson County K-Mart. I ate a light lunch and stuffed a plastic grocery bag in my pocket before we left. It took us twenty minutes to get to the store. As we walked down the same aisle we’d scrambled down on my birthday, I thought about Mutagen Man. We had made mistakes and we both had our insides on display in K-Mart. I didn’t get a Mutagen Man figure that day. I got one four months later. It was the prize of my collection until my neighbor filled his hollow insides with grape juice. “It looks like blood,” he said, peering through MM’s clear skin. After that they were both no fun.

I didn’t get a Mutagen Man figure for my birthday, though there were four of them at the store. They were even on sale. I didn’t get a Mutagen Man figure that was on sale. I got a full priced Astronaut Raph figure. I lost him three months later and didn’t find him until we sold our house in 1994. We sold our house to Kevin Montgomery’s parents. Kevin Montgomery told my neighbor to fill Mutagen Man with grape juice. Because of faulty wiring, that house burned down in 1995.

I chose the full priced Astronaut Raph over all the figures that were on sale. All those sale figures were in cart when Zac and I returned to K-Mart. The cart sat at the end of the aisle with a handwritten sign taped to it. “Vomited on, but cleaned. Fifty cents.”