The Custodian
Don’t be a douche—vote no on Prop. 8
By Edwin Decker
It’s a day like any other. The Custodian sweeps the floor of a local high school, watching, listening.
“Help us!” Somebody screams.
The Custodian ducks into a nearby supply closet. He changes into his flying suit and cape and soars to the sky.
The Custodian is a superhero, of course, put on this planet to protect the sanctity of straight marriage, to sweep away any threats to the American family and mop the floor with whoever gets in his way. He is a guardian, a sentinel—a custodian of traditional wedlock.
“Help! Help!” the cries continue.
The Custodian has superhero hearing. He can locate a distressed marriage from the other side of the planet. These particular calls are coming from a married couple living in a Texas trailer park. With a powerful gust of wind, The Custodian lands on their doorstep.
“What seems to be the problem, trailer park couple?” he asks in his deep, confident superhero voice.
“Ever since the gay married couple moved next door, our marriage has been suffering,” laments Nancy, the beleaguered wife. “My husband’s been sleeping around more than ever!”
“And she’s been popping pills and biting her nails,” says Todd, her husband. “Those married gays are messing us up real good!”
The Custodian surveys their homestead. It’s obvious the gay married neighbors have taken a toll: The living room is scattered with knickknacks from Pottery Barn, a Herb Ritts print is hanging on the wall where the head of a bull moose was once mounted and their 7-year-old daughter is sitting in front of the television watching a Melissa Etheridge concert.
“Looks like a job for—The Custodian!” proclaims the superhero as he bounds to the gay married neighbors’ trailer. “Take that, Married Gays.” Bam! Pow! KaBlammo!
“Eek!” shouts one of the Married Gays.
“My word!” shouts the other.
The Married Gays are no match for our hero. He marches them downtown and has their marriage annulled. As the annulment proceedings are concluding, The Custodian hears another distant plea.
“Somebody help, please! A teacher is teaching gay marriage in grade school!”
The Custodian heard about this new trend. It started with a second-grade teacher in Massachusetts who read a fairy-tale book to her students called King and King—about a Prince who marries a Prince.
The knowledge that grade-school teachers are teaching fairy-tale books with a clear and present gayness troubles The Custodian deeply. It’s obvious to him that, in doing so, they are teaching children that it’s preferable to be queer, just as reading to children, say, Little Red Riding Hood, teaches that it’s preferable to eat people’s grandmothers.
“Why doesn’t anyone get that?!” The Custodian asks in disbelief.
The Custodian bum-rushes the classroom. He rips the book out of the teacher’s hands and wags a “shame, shame” finger at her. The force of the “shame, shame” finger knocks the teacher against the wall, and she collapses to the floor, unconscious. “It is safe now, children,” declares The Custodian. “This woman will never be able to teach you that homosexuals are normal and valued citizens of the human race ever again.”
The Custodian has had a busy day. Time for a drink, he thinks, and flies to a discreet gay bar for superheroes. It’s called The Alter Ego. The Custodian is not gay, but if he’s drunk enough and closes his eyes real tight, he can pretend he’s getting a hand job from Tank Girl. He orders a John Collins and sits next to a retired, queer superhero named Ninja Vitus whose special powers—to The Custodian’s dismay—are a combination of martial arts and halitosis. Ninja Vitus has been talking about the old days and breathing noxious vapors on The Custodian for the last half hour when our hero hears a cry for help.
“Help us, Custodian! It’s The Activist Judges!”
A twinge of terror and contempt shoots through The Custodian’s spine. The Activist Judges is his archenemy. It is an enormous nine-headed creature with a Tyrannosaurus-like torso and 24 scaly arms that protrude from a black judicial robe.
“Help! Help!” a crowd screams from outside a San Francisco courthouse. “The Activist Judges has our children!”
Just then, The Activist Judges bursts from the courthouse doors, cackling and clutching a small child in each of its 12 left hands and a copy of Heather Has Two Mommies in each of the right. The Activist Judges hurls a contemptuous sneer at the parents and begins shoving the books into the children’s throats one by one.
“Noooo!” scream the parents.
The Custodian drops from the sky and confronts The Activist Judges. An epic battle begins. Buildings crumble, infernos brighten the night sky and people run for their lives as the titans punch, kick, choke, bite and shout “Your Momma” jokes at each other. On the seventh night, The Custodian strikes a devastating blow. He climbs to the top of a clock tower and shouts, “Your momma wants to overturn Roe v. Wade,” to the startled Activist Judges.
“Et tu momma?” cries The Activist Judges and slumps to the ground in despair. At that, The Custodian tears the pendulum off the tower clock, swings it over his head and dismembers six of The Activist Judges’ arms. The Activist Judges shrieks in pain and flees, disappearing into the night. “I’ll be seeing you again, Custodian!” he cackles from the darkness.
And the moral of the story is, don’t be a douche, vote no on Prop. 8.
Write to ed@sdcitybeat.com. For more, visit www.edwindecker.com. And visit www.edwindecker.com.
Published: 10/28/2008
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