A story that I originally wrote as part of a short prompt for my Intro to Fiction course last semester. I tried to tie it all up as part of my final portfolio. Hopefully you'll get some goofs and gaffs out of the piece, and by all means, constructive criticism is appreciated.

Inflatable Tube Men

By Adam Unger

“Mr. Bateman?” Sally-Sue’s mouse of a voice creaked through the air.

“Yes, Sally-Sue?”

“Did the Tinasaurus Rex eat Bate-Man’s children before she stole his car, or after she took his $200,000 condominium?” Christopher Bateman let out a laugh, which slowed to a chuckle, which stopped with a sigh.

“Well, Sally-Sue, the dreaded Tinasaurus Rex is what we called an ex, remember?” Christopher leaned from the height of the center chair, above the circle of 7 year-olds, as if to lower himself in posture and intellect, “and what is it that an exdoes?” A mere second passed from the last word to leave Christopher Bateman’s mouth until the eagerly overweight fist of the resident held-back kid, Conroy Jeems, launched through the air of the second-grade classroom, bringing with it both enthusiasm and most of his barely-fitting Transformers shirt.

“They’m, wells they…they leech off ya!” Conroy’s cheeks puffed until they bore the width and shade of an apple, an occurrence that only took place when the 90 pound 8 year-old felt it unnecessary to breathe, or more often, eat. Christopher beamed.

“Excellent, Conroy!” He reached into his khakis and tossed to Hershey’s bar at Conroy who, despite his hands being cupped and outwardly stretched, caught the candy on the tip of his tongue and proceeded to munch down, wrapper and all.

“Now, if there are no more questions, I think mighty Bate-Man needs to find a way out of the jaws of Tinasaurus Rex, huh?” A chorus of off-synch, yet uniformly gleeful cheers echoed through the classroom, and Christopher sensed Mrs. Miller in room 115 slam her door, followed by the necessary eye-roll, a feat that nobody was around to witness, or much less give praise for.

“So there he was, strong and supple Bate-Man, in the jaws of the Tinasaurus Rex! Despite Bate-Man’s awe-inspiring strength and commendable good-looks, the fangs of the ugly beats cramped down on our hero, matching both in force and despicability her previous claims that the mighty Bate-Man secretly made withdraws from his bank account!”

“Now class”, began Christopher, “we all know that a special somebody does not become a big, ugly ex for no reason, right?” His audience shook their heads, in following his motion.

“So, then, how does a bright, wonderful person become a hideous, wrathful ex?” This time, it was Shawn diMartino, Weston Elementary’s poster child of having divorced parents, who smiled with a missing tooth and pounced up and down, arms flung in the air to mimic the inflatable tube-men he once saw in a car dealership commercial, and would go on to dress up as for that year’s Halloween.

“Easy! Un…un-fair…divorce law!” Not caring for the correct-ness of his answer, Marshawn proceeded to mimic the inflatable car man once again, this time with added “vrooms” for special effect.

“Well done, Shawn!” A pack of Nerds was Shawn’s reward who, preferring instead the role of promoting great deals and excellent service at Warwick Toyota, placed the packet directly on the tongue of Conroy Jeems. So it was every Tuesday at 1:35, after lunch had been finished and the students had brushed their teeth, that Christopher Bateman (“That’s Mr. Bateman, young lady”) would guide these students through an adventure of overcoming obstacles, being tolerant of others, embracing diversity, and regretting not getting a prenup before marrying that fucking parasite Tina in the backyard of Uncle Richard’s beach house. “This is education”, Christopher says every morning in the mirror, “this was what I should have learned in elementary school.” He wasn’t sure when the last time he needed to do long division was, except for these little tots, and as a staunch libertarian the very thought of Common Core was enough to build up a little vomit in his throat. Before he plucked through the pages of his delightfully-written volume of children’s enrichment, Christopher looked to Shawn again. There, through the sounds of a used Toyota and arms that flailed about without reason, was a boy, no, a man ready for what was ahead in life.

What Christopher does not teach, however, is that there are plenty of commercials that children will encounter in their lives. Most of them probably won’t even be for cars, either. A good plenty will be for restaurants, and most of those will be for fast food in particular. Sometimes there will be a perfectly-grilled burger with just the right bit of grease oozing from between two buttery rolls, but on occasion the companies have to show that yes, they do indeed serve salad, with a variety of at least 5 dressings to choose from. Unfortunately, it’s harder to impersonate food, and salads certainly do not ever go vroom.