The Beufoy Flyer
“You’re that guy, aren’t you?”
I didn’t even turn my head. There was no point.
“Yeah, yeah. The guy. From that show…”
I studied the napkin beside my drink. I hated putting my drink on friggen napkins. It always sticks to the bottom when I lift it. Makes me look like a doofus. Why not just make the top of the bar out of something that can handle a sweating glass? Would that really be so damn hard?
“C’mon. You know you’re him. You did that thing. Remember?”
He wasn’t going to quit but I sure as hell was not going to make it easy for him. I’m done with these fucking retards. Why is it my job to save them from being normal?
“I just can’t…..I mean, it was that one with the dude that fires people. You know, the guy with the hair.”
I roll my eyes. Not naturally though. Forced, for effect. On purpose, like a bad actor. Like Bruce Campbell or maybe some other guy. Stupid Seinfeld. Don’t know why though. The bartender wasn’t even around. No one even saw me do it. It was for me I guess. Again? This sucks.
“Trump! The Trump show. The helper, the assistant, The Apprentice!” You were on Celebrity Apprentice!”
Fine. Idiot figured it out. I turn my head, offer a similarly faked and purposely weak smile and nod. Now comes the fun fucking part. Where does genius take it from here? He doesn’t look original.
“That was pretty tough on you, huh? The way you screwed it all up. And then everyone hated you. Why’d you do that anyway? Any idiot could see you can’t sell hot dogs in New York by doing that, right? What were you thinking? And why couldn’t you fly anymore? That’s the only reason they had you on anyway.”
Every fucking time. Every fucking conversation. Every fucking moment of every fucking time I’m in a public place, someone, somewhere needs to prove they watch TV and have partial recall. I swear to God if I’d known this was what was waiting for me when I agreed to be on that damn show I would have told them to get bent. Six weeks of humiliation that lead to exactly bull squat. “The Beufoy Flyer” can’t fly anymore or sell a fucking hot dog. Taaadahh! “Yeah, well buddy — what’re you gonna do?”
I hate this. I used to like it but now I just hate it. If I was sitting behind a tree in some Brazilian rain forest some idiot would still want to talk about a few stupid weeks in my stupid life from five stupid years ago.
It was an accident when I first realized I could fly. I was reaching for a massive sack of dog food on a high shelf and it suddenly got easier. I looked down and there I was, hovering a good four inches in the air. I didn’t believe it at first. Who would? So I tried to do it on purpose. To “fly.” I used the couch in the living room. Then the back step. I fell a few times but I was doing it. I could fly.
“Is Trump a good guy? Do you ever talk to him?”
When Marjorie got home from the clinic that day I showed her. She was a nurse then and kind of freaked out about it all. She worried more about the feds trying to have me cut up or examined or shipped off to Area 51 or something. I never thought much about that. I just figured maybe there might be some money in it.
Marjorie examined me in a more or less objective manner. I mean she just did what she already knew how to do. A blood test, blood pressure, eye test, heart, lungs what have you. She snuck me into the clinic and got me an x-ray plus a brain scan. Nothing. Nothing showed out of the ordinary at all. I could fly — well, levitate really — for no reason whatsoever.
“Bet he made you fly for him, huh? He usually gets what he wants.”
It happened so fast. Crazy really. Here I was, living in bum-crack Canada and all it took was one shot on the local evening news. Someone put it on YouTube and that was it. The phone calls were instant. Hundreds of them. Talk shows at first. What buzzards. Desperate for content. They wanted proof of course. So they sent their people. I’d fly up and down the back yard a bit and suddenly they’re all making promises and whipping out contracts. The Tyra Banks Show was first though ’cause they paid big time. I guess she really needed attention. Eventually I did them all — Leno, Letterman, Kimmel, Today Show, GMA. They even named me. Some PA tagged me as “The Beufoy Flyer.” I kinda dug the retro sound it had, even though it was just the street I lived on.
“C’mon man. Can’t you just fly off your chair a little?”
I did Oprah — of course — and she hooked me up with a bunch of big shots at NASA who did more tests and bullshit on me. Marjorie worried. She still thought the whole thing would lead to me being abducted or something but it was pretty hard now. I was famous. Everyone knew who I was. They couldn’t just take me away. Anyway, the scientists were very helpful and respectful. They did all sorts of tests on my body composition and blood and genes and whatnot. And things like putting me on a platform and then getting me to fly as high as I could before they slid it away. We did stuff over water, steps, whatever. And it always worked out the same — I could float about two or three feet above whatever the highest ground I stood on was. I could definitely fly, but only just a bit. And they concluded the same thing Marjorie knew. I was normal.
“I never believed what they said you know. I didn’t think you were a fraud. Maybe afraid.”
The fiscal results of being on Oprah were immediate. “The Beufoy Flyer” went global. I had offers and interviews from all over the world. The agents started in then, and managers and promoters all promising the same thing: big money. It was fun, at first.
There was the British game show where I was offered cash to sort of turn letters or something like a male Vanna White. Do people know her anymore? And the offer to play some floating god in Celine Dion’s Vegas show, when she was doing it. It was ridiculous. The cash kept coming though and all I ever had to do was show up, fly in the air a bit, shake hands, sign autographs and leave — money in hand.
Eventually though the novelty sort of wore off. The months had turned into years and the drag of the whole thing was revealed. Marjorie had left by then. I had turned into a real asshole so it sort of figured. The money was sliding away. I spent like crazy even as it was becoming less and less. How many times will someone pay to see me hover for a few minutes, right? Eventually it was no big deal and I was stuck in country fairs and mall openings. I had to do something. I mean, I was famous once. That had to be worth something.
That was when Donald’s Trump’s Celebrity Apprentice show really needed a hit. It had been dying in the ratings and needed a boost. All that pounding on Obama hurt him I guess. I still had some junior agent assigned to me and he scored a coup by getting me an interview for the show. In the end they put me on mainly to keep the heartland folks watching. I was deemed “natural” and “real.” And it all would have been fine. If it hadn’t all gone to hell.
“You can tell me. You didn’t fake it now, did you?”
The show was going fine. It’s never what you see on TV. Way more scripted and arranged. I figured that. But the problem came when I was supposed to “fly” in one of the challenges. I went to do it, and nothing happened. I tried again, nothing. I could not fly. It had stopped as quickly as it had started.
The show made a huge deal about it. This was ratings gold. They had me with doctors, I got to skip the boardroom for two whole weeks. They tried everything — hypnotists, psychiatrist, naturopath — everything. Nothing worked. My stupid human trick just ceased to exist — right on national television.
After that, the offers dried up. As little as I had before it was nothing now. No one is interested when the magic is gone. I had one offer to write a book but the guy wanted me to pay him. Forget it. And now, my reward for all of that is getting recognized by random chowderheads at any moment who want little more than to poke a stick at the freak so they can say they did. I should charge them.
“You could be a little more friendly, you know.”
“Look man, I can’t do it, okay? It just went away. It was what it was.”
“Well, I thought you kind of got a raw deal. I mean, they acted like you did it on purpose or something.”
“Yeah, well. What are you gonna do?”
“I guess. Look, I got to go. Really cool meeting you. “The Boofy Flyer” — never thought I’d meet someone famous. Take care. “
And then he goes. That’s it. Out the door. Got all he needed. Pull some more out of me why don’t you? I go on TV and that means everyone gets a little piece of ownership of me from now on forever. Too bad I get nothing for it now except the same questions over and over mixed with abuse and some pathetic sympathy. How about you relive the worst times of your life over and over for someone else’s fun? How about that huh? Where is that fucking bartender? I want a drink.
The bartender pokes his head up from cleaning a lower shelf.
“Do you want another?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Hey, uh…you’re that guy, aren’t you?”
At least Trump got to be president when he was cancelled.