Pete Flotz wakes up.
Goddam. Last night was nuts. Earl sure threw us for a loop with all that drinking. I don’t want to get out of my fucking bed.
He rolls over.
Fuck. My head hurts.
Pete sleeps on a futon. He keeps meaning to buy a bed but every time he’s about to make the leap it seems like a lot of money and a futon isn’t too bad after all. His sheets are for a bed though so the loose folds got caught around his body while he slept and now the corners are unhooked. Pete’s legs rest on the rough canvas of the bare futon cushion.
The moment of wakefulness has sent an incontrovertible signal to Pete’s bladder. He must pee.
Barely able to stand straight, head pounding, Pete sits on the cold toilet bowl. As the boiling urine leaves his body a rumble sounds from deep within and he lets out an ominous, long, trumpeting fart. That wakes him up.
Wow. That felt good.
Pete clenches his sphincter in preparation for another emission.
Ptheeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwoooo pthough pth, his butt says.
Outside, a man screams and falls over. The gun he held seconds before clatters on the sidewalk and he clutches his burned face as his would-be victim flees the scene.
Pete glances out the window but cannot see the man writhing below the sill. He lights a match and leaves to dress for work. It’s just another day that starts with a headache.
This was Pete’s first instance of unconscious heroism. How was he to know that the powerful gas of the Golden Burrito would continue to shape the course of his life for many years to come? How was he to know that this special gas had traveled through the crack in his bathroom window? That a criminal outside was at that moment lighting his cigarette in the midst of his crime; that the reaction of methane and fire would temporarily blind this man and cause him pain, allowing the young woman he held at gunpoint to run away? Pete could not and would not know.
So begins the tale of Pete Flotz, wielder of God’s Golden Fart.
Memorandum in Tandem 