Extra long thunder cracks and cracks and cracks.

Radio DJ: Wiggle me timbers, that was a long-ass thunder!

I’m keeping that. Let’s roll.

It’s that kind of night here, folks. We’re rolling like thunder. There’s a storm a brewing. I’m not watching what I say. I have merged with the God of Lightning. He’s feeding me lines!

I’m likely to say whatever.

Let’s see. What do we have today? Where’s our story coming from?

Tacoma, Washington. Lots of stories from Tacoma, folks.

Oh, every story? Everybody’s from Tacoma. You should know by now, listener. We’re the Gospel of Tacoma. And I’m the Todd of Tacoma!

Thunder.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with Todd, and the Word was Todd. It was all Todd in the beginning. Then it got out of hand.

Speaking of out of hand.

Paper rustling.

He was known as The Donkey.

This is our story. I have it whipped out.

He was known as The Donkey at first, then Don King, because Don King sounded like Donkey and it was safer for work and for if The Donkey asked what’s up with his nickname.

And eventually he did ask. One day leaving work. Asked a whole group of his coworkers. What’s up with you calling me Don King?

They told him it was random.

So random.

These sons of bitches call me Don Quixote, one said. Pronouncing it Quicks Oaty.

And I’m Donnie Tabasco, another said, thinking of Donnie Brasco.

It’s a Don thing.

It wasn’t a Don thing. They were just quick on their feet. Especially when the workday was through and it was their Friday and they were walking out together for one last smoke.

I haven’t known a lot of Dons, one of the men said. That’s what they were at heart, just good old boys. Not the Southern kind. The warehouse kind. That’s where they were, a warehouse. Well, just outside. Taking one last smoke break.

Dons of the warehouse.

I haven’t known a lot of Dons, the Don repeated. But I did know a Donnie once. He stuck his dick in a cow. A heifer, actually. Young cow. I reckon it was statutory. Wasn’t consensual, regardless.

Did he use protection?

He used a glove.

Latex, vinyl, nitrile? asked Don Julio.

Don Julio was playing fetch with his dog in the gravel parking lot. He kept his dog in the car all day except lunches and nobody begrudged him for it. Plenty of shade back there. He was tossing a ring-shaped frisbee and saying get it go get it.

I hope it was nitrile, a Don said. God knows what a cow has.

Heifer.

God knows what a heifer has.

Did he have a Don King or a fingerling?

Hey, one Don said, sensing someone was going to give up the game. The secret nickname meaning game.

Yeah, how far’d he get his pecker into his protection?

I’m guessing he had a fingerling. Never really saw evidence of otherwise on his jeans.

I would hope he opted for latex or vinyl. For the comfort and sensation.

I don’t know if Donnie was going for comfort.

Don Pedro was picking up some bowling pins he kept behind a rain gutter downspout.

Was the heifer a dare?

I don’t know if she was. One would hope.

Do they make lambskin gloves?

Not the kind of lambskin you’d want to fuck with.

Thick.

Would you finger with them?

Sure, but why on earth would you finger a cow?

To get her going. You need to get her going.

I don’t think that revs a cow’s engine, Don Pedro said. He could talk while juggling bowling pins. He was teaching himself for an audition.

How would you know?

I grew up in the country.

It gets a bull going. It’s how they collect semen. You should know this, country boy. They stick a rod up the bull’s ass and give a little electric shock, just a little, and oooooh, the bull’s filling a big-ass vial.

That’s a lot different than fingering a cow.

A heifer.

Still not consensual. Rodding a bull like that.

That’s why I’m a vegetarian.

You ever heard of gingering a horse?

Not really a ginger guy.

Oh, I am, Donnie Tabasco said. I most certainly am.

He was looking at The Donkey. The Donkey was a ginger.

Old horses don’t show well at auctions, Don Pedro the country boy said. If you want an old horse to look young when you’re trying to sell it you lipstick its asshole with a good and peeled ginger. They’ll buck and trot and kick for you and look just like they got twenty-five good years ahead of them.

See, that’s what a ginger does. Makes you feel young.

I didn’t know a horse could live that long.

Not a racehorse.

What about a donkey?

One of the boys was forgetting himself and who was in their company.

Hey, Don the Draper said.

Hey, what? the boy who was forgetting himself said.

Hey, remember who’s with us.

Remember who came before us, one of them said sort of biblically.

What’s that supposed to mean?

A lot of nonsense is what. Just like what we talk every day.

The biblical one was putting out his cigarette.

Don let one of his bowling pins drop, sensing tension. Sensing someone was about to say Donkey again.

Thunder rolls.

That’s not in the story, folks. That thunder is just long and intense tonight. The lightning isn’t even all that bright. But the thunder! Like it’s pissed off! Something’s angry at me!

Thunder.

Let’s get back to the Dons.

Don Pedro the country boy liked to think about the morning Donnie fucked the cow.

The heifer.

He liked to think there was dew on the grass and the sun was coming up. Dawn’s rosy fingers. That’s what Homer kept calling it in the Iliad and Odyssey. The rosy fingers of dawn. It was a little purple, the phrase. He liked to think of Donnie growing rosy. Blushing over what he was about to do. He wasn’t out there in the morning pinkness because he’d lost a bet or because he wanted to teach himself to fuck. No, he just loved this cow.

Heifer.

Don Pedro liked to think of Donnie herding the heifer into the sorting pen and shooing her into the tunnel and running her down to the chute and as they were coming upon the chute he launched himself over the fence and chipped a splinter off the old wood and nearly rolled his ankle in the dirt as he was racing the girl to the headgate but he beat her there and closed it on her and she pulled and pushed and clanged against the metal gate and couldn’t break free.

The things we do for love.

He liked to think Donnie was panting as he stood there and got himself going in the sunrise and was hurrying with his latex glove thinking someone’s going to drive by on their motorcycle or in their pickup truck soon about to move irrigation pipe. He liked to think the tight latex glove stretched almost to snapping and it cinched off most of the blood to and from his cock but that that was okay because it felt new and good to him to have something strange going on down there and he knew innately he could keep himself sturdy as an oak with everything sealed in there even when the shame of self-reflection washed over him like it was bound to. He liked to think Donnie’s belt buckled knocked against the fence as he climbed it and sat bare-assed on top of it to pull out the splinter in his hand. Just a rock-hard silhouette in the pink expanse of Montana’s Big Sky picking at his hand with a glove on his dick. And then, like a gymnast, he spread his long legs on the tunnel fence and lifted the heifer’s tail.

Thunder.

God, that thunder is crowing! Did you hear that one? Just agony ripping the universe a wide new asshole. It isn’t even raining. Did I mention that?

You get it’s not part of the story, right? It wouldn’t make any sense to have thunder rolling in the pink dawn with hard ol’ Donnie picking his hand. Guess it could be happening at the warehouse. But then you’d have to make one of the Dons afraid of lightning. That’s just how these stories work. You don’t mention something without someone being afraid of it. Art imitates this fearful life.

More thunder.

Holy shit! Another one! Just cracking long and hard.

Wow, she’s still going! Insistent dang old bitch.

I guess today’s story was brought to you by thunder. Thunder. Thunder doesn’t need no lightning to scare the hell out of you.

There was light still at the warehouse but not enough to call it daylight, and not enough darkness to call itself night. Street lamps were crawling all over themselves trying to turn on and stay on and the beeps from inside the warehouse were diminishing.

Thunder.

Growing fainter.

Fewer and farther between.

The workday was done. Why was no one going home?

It was the end of the workweek, that’s why. That time of the week you realize you’re working your life away and don’t have fuck all to do when you get home and the only people you know are right here so you might as well stay thirty extra minutes into the nighttime talking about horses and fucking cows.

Don Pedro the country boy was finished thinking about heifers now and was juggling again. Don Julio was putting his dog in his car and spinning his dog’s frisbee ring on his finger and forearm. The night was slowly but surely telling the street lamps it was okay to finally turn on.

Any plans for the weekend? one of the Dons said.

All the other Dons groaned. No one had plans and everyone knew it.

Now that we’re outside the warehouse, Don Fernando said, I feel like I’ve seen you before. He said this to The Donkey.

I have a birthday to go to, a different Don said, ignoring Don Fernando, who gets ignored sometimes and gets frustrated by it.

Are there still birthdays in this world to go to? Don Cheadle said.

Not everyone’s as cynical about living and celebrating years as you are, Don Cheadle.

I can’t help it. I have eyes and ears that I might hear.

Here we go. The poetess is emerging.

Don Cheadle flipped everyone off, except for The Donkey. He didn’t want to hurt the poor young man’s feelings. He was so new to the warehouse and so timid and frightened. You just wanted to hug him by the waist and tell him everything was going to be all right.

Everyone but Don Fernando, that is. He was staring at The Donkey, trying to place him in his memory.

And he did place him. It dawned on him at the mention of a birthday.

Does anyone want to play a game? he said. A little orientation.

Orientation?

Our dear friend Don King hasn’t yet been orientated.

Do you mean initiated.

I guess I do.

Orientation and initiation are two very different things, Don Fernando.

Are they?

Very different, Don Pedro said. He’d stopped juggling again.

I figured out where I know you from, Don Fernando said.

The Donkey finally opened his mouth to speak.

Nobody knows me, he said.

And yet they should, shouldn’t they? If they have a birthday. I can’t believe I haven’t placed you until just now! I’ve seen you!

A birthday? Don Cheadle said.

A birthday.

It’s right you know your nickname is not Don King. And we have no such Don nicknames here. Your name is The Donkey. Do you know why?

The Donkey shifted his weight from one foot to the other. His dick shifted, too.

I am known as The Donkey because I could use just the palm of a latex glove to safely fuck a cow?

A heifer.

And I could make the heifer feel like there was a gingered horse behind it?

That’s right, my love.

Wow, someone said.

You have something we all wish we could see, Don Fernando said.

You’ve seen it, The Donkey said.

Don’t be shy. You weren’t shy at the birthday. You’re not shy in those jeans.

They all looked at his jeans.

I am shy. Until I have money.

Untuck your shirt. I have five dollars.

He did not move.

Here’s five more. Untuck it. Come on, you’re doing that poor thing an injustice with every layer of clothing.

The shirt came out. It was like a gate was opened and there was suddenly more in his pants than there was before. You could see the lip of his head.

Can you believe he had his shirt tucked in? Locking that thing up?

Take it easy, Don Fernando, one of them said.

Imagine him finishing, Don Fernando continued. Could you fill up all five fingers of a glove?

Stay calm, country boy.

Cowboys got ropes, don’t they?

He’s not a cowboy.

And here’s where thunder could have come in to help our story out. But it wasn’t raining or about to rain, even if it could have been. They were in the Pacific Northwest, for Christ’s sake.

Anyway.

Thunder.

Holy shit!

The night was talking to him like it was talking to the street lamps.

It’s okay, the night said.

I have more money, Don Fernando said.

Keep your money to yourself, Don Cheadle said.

It’s just burning holes in my pocket, all these ones and fives.

Why do you have ones and fives?

It’s our Friday, isn’t it? Don’t you ever go out on a Friday?

I thought nobody had any plans.

I never said I didn’t.

Who’d like to see a stripper?

The Donkey looked pouty, resentful. It was sexy. No two ways about it. All the warehouse men would have agreed unanimously if put to a vote.

Is there someplace hidden? Don Fernando said.

We’re not hiding, Don Cheadle said.

Then we’re just doing this right out here?

We’re not doing anything.

Don Fernando scrutinized the four corners of the parking lot. All of them too dim to undress in.

What are you trying to do? one of the dim Dons said.

He’s trying to have a birthday party right here.

There’s no HR during night shift.

There are cameras.

Then let us be seen, Don Fernando said. You have to have been on camera before, he looked at The Donkey.

Night shift will be here soon, Don Cheadle said.

Night shift has started for our friend. Take off your shirt, Don Fernando said.

He threw more money on the ground. The Donkey took off his shirt. His face still pouty. Abs like river rocks.

Do you want to take your pants off? a Don said.

More money.

Don’t ask me to take my pants off.

Shouldn’t I ask?

Tell me. I can’t do it if you ask.

Then do it.

More money rained at his feet.

Thunder.

He unzipped his pants and dropped them to his knees. With a shy little look on his face, like Betty Boop. Oops, I dropped my clothes and have a dick like a horse. What do I do now? With that shy little face he had all the warehouse Dons, no exception, not even for Don Fernando, in the palm of his hand.

There was not a hair on his body. Don Pedro remembered that if you shaved your pubic hair you could look bigger down there. Was that true? The Donkey didn’t need a cosmetic advantage.

Happy Birthday, Don Cheadle said.

It’s not anyone’s birthday.

I’m giving myself a birthday month this year.

You’re annoying.

Don Fernando grabbed Don Pedro’s three bowling pins and Don Julio’s frisbee.

Lay down.

What are we doing?

You know. I’ve seen you do this.

More money.

More rained down.

But he would not lie down.

Still, Don Fernando set two pins on one side of The Donkey and one pin on the other. I hate that there’s no symmetry, he said. Then he said, who wants to go first?

What are we doing?

Give me your frisbee, Don Fernando said to Don Julio.

Don Julio did.

If you ring a bowling pin you get a nifty pen with the warehouse logo on it.

He pulled three pens from his breast pocket. He was a clerk.

But for the grand prize I’ll bring you a teddy bear on Monday. Who tosses first?

I’m not ready, The Donkey said.

You look ready.

I have to lay down, dummy, he said. He was recognizing, finally, the power he had.

Who wants to go first?

I’m not ready, The Donkey said.

Jesus Don Christ! Can you do your job? Don Fernando said.

I’m just holding it. I don’t want to hold it so much.

Don’t get it so hard it lays flat.

This isn’t my first rodeo, he said.

The country boy blushed at the word rodeo.

Just hold it up.

Give me a second.

He stroked it with his tiny hands and it sought the street light like a magical plant in stop motion. The warehouse Dons stood silent under its spell. Like worshippers about to be wiped away by its mystical shadow, like libation bearers around some eldritch sundial.

Okay, go, The Donkey said, cutting the tension.

And they took turns one by one. Tossing the frisbee at that sundial of a dick. Knocking the bowling pins over. Knocking the dick veins too hard. Hitting The Donkey’s face. Arguing whose toes were over the throw line. For fifteen whole minutes. For some of these warehouse Dons it would be the happiest day of their lives. Imagine what we’re doing out here, they thought. Right out in the middle of the parking lot!

Don Juan went and got The Donkey first try and they all went out to breakfast-for-dinner at the IHOP by the Target with some of the night crew just leaving it for the warehouse then, late for their shift.

The day shift Dons said nothing about their game, of course.

How was the day? one of the night crew asked.

Long one, Don the Draper said. Surprisingly long.

I know what you mean, one of the night crew said.

When the check came for the day crew’s table, Don Juan’s meal was free, Don Cheadle decided, for ringing the The Donkey. No one bought The Donkey’s meal, however, since he had so many of Don Fernando’s fives and ones.

Thank you for the story, Tacoma. Ope, there’s more.

Pages crinkling.

With syrup in his beard Don Pedro thought about Donnie’s heifer. He was still on that. How she must have jumped from the chute into the corral as it opened for her and the sun was lighting up the Gallatin Valley and the little dry boogers on the fur beneath her eyes were glistening.

She was sold a year later for steak and ground beef. She was Angus.

Straight people will fuck anything, Don Pedro thought.

Some men at the table would surely have objected, he presumed, so he kept that thought to himself. He also kept his thoughts on the heifer to himself since something newer and more exciting had come along.

The heifer was a story. The Donkey was an experience.

Mild thunder.

All right, that’s it. Thank you for the story, Tacoma. Keep it weird.

Loud thunder.

Christ! Did you hear that one!