I've got a friend named Rhonda, I've known her for years, we grew up together in a small town of relative comfort and security. She was mild-mannered and plain, and maybe even a little phlegmatic if we're being completely honest here. She never said much, because she was usually too busy shrieking at some poor fool or another, over what, I never really knew. There was no telling with Rhonda; see, she had a pretty weird concept of justice, particularly when it came to serving it. She was always shouting that, if it was up to her, the bad guys would pay — for everything. And I guess, somewhere along the line, she decided it WAS up to her. I don't know, maybe she'd seen too many action movies or something. She was gonna punish the guilty so that pure, hardworking women like herself could finally feel safe in this world. Not necessarily BE safe, you understand, but feel safe. For Rhonda, this distinction was unimportant, and she'd probably rip my fingernails off for pointing it out to you.

But anyway, the thing was, we didn't have a whole lot of crime in our little town, and the police made short work of the odd troublemaker or
two you'd see from time to time. So Rhonda vowed to expose the true natures of all those sneaky bastards the cops were too blind to see, the ones no one could see but her. She knew they were out there — lying in wait, plotting to hurt her, steal from her, rob her of her dignity. They didn't think she knew, but she knew. She wasn't fooled for a second. She was going to take them down, for the sake of all that was stuffy dumpy and shrill.

Her method in doing so turned out to be a simple one; in fact, she'd been doing it since she was young — it was her favorite way to pass time. Rhonda liked to deliberately leave her bag in the middle of the park and wait nearby, so as to apprehend purse thieves. She'd hide in the bushes for as long as it took to spring her trap, and then leap out with surprising athletic ability before screeching, "Yo, fuck-face!" or something to that effect, which always struck me as kind of a weird thing to yell. Then she'd run them down and, on the incredibly rare occasions she was able to actually catch anyone, mace them with such persistence and outright brutality that it was frankly appalling. Just awful.

She'd hold the can a centimeter from their face and empty the whole thing into their eyes and mouth. Sometimes she'd pretend to stop so they could have a minute to spew burning, agonizing vomit from the core of their very being, but then she'd jam the nozzle in whatever orifice seemed to be leaking the least mucus, and go wild. I once asked her why, and she explained that she didn't want to exclude any opening by leaving it out. Fair's fair, right?

Well, once the mace ran out and she'd decided the motionless (and now quite unrecognizable) heap in front of her had learned its lesson, Rhonda would give a little nod to herself and head home, where she'd have the kind of sound sleep that we could never have, thanks to a profound sense of accomplishment we could only dream of. You almost had to admire her dedication, even in spite of how sick it was. And who knows, maybe one or two of her victims really were purse snatchers, genuine criminals that she had effectively removed from society. I mean, in all her years of doing this, surely there had to be a couple. I'd like very much to believe that.

But mostly they were just hopelessly unlucky people whose only collective crime was accidentally wandering within a ten-foot radius of a derelict handbag, which they probably didn't even see in the first place. And for that offense they were indiscriminately called fuck-faces and attacked by a pepper-spray wielding maniac, who never gave so much as a passing thought to the likelihood of their innocence. One of these ill-fated individuals was actually the man who would later become Rhonda's husband.

I think his name was Chet, or Chad, or something like that. I don't know. I don't care to know. Because Chester, well, he was just about the skinniest, wimpiest, most fragile little fleck of fecal matter you ever saw in your life. And it wasn't one of those situations where he had a winning personality to make up for it, either — this guy Clyde, he sucked. He sucked bad. He had no skills, no opinions or ideas of his own, nothing redeemable whatsoever. He was useless — I wouldn't trust him to lick the shit off my shoes, which he would. Carl was the type of guy that let women in high heels step on his penis. In fact, he paid them to, along with a whole bunch of other stuff you'd really rather not know about.

To call Cooper a masochist was being generous; he was basically just out of his mind. When he was too broke to get people to stick lit cigarettes in his asshole, he'd have to get creative with his punishment. In a pinch, he was fond of calling the cops on himself using a pay phone, by anonymously tipping them off about a streaker fondling children in the grocery store. Then he'd lather himself in vegetable oil so he'd be harder to grab, and he'd wait, stark naked, for the police to chase him around. It made him feel important. They'd catch him in a matter of minutes, but Clifford was such a pathetic sight that they never had the heart to book him. Apart from which, they figured he'd get off on it anyway. So they'd let him go, after imploring him to seriously consider getting some help. But Conrad would just shake his head, offer a sheepish "thanks", and go on his way. For years he kept this up.

Now, you can imagine that when Clinton heard about Rhonda and her activities in the park, he was beside himself with excitement. Here was a woman who would blast him with pepper spray for seemingly no reason, and without any provocation at all. He had to meet her, and set out at once. When he got there, he only had to linger for a moment before something unprecedented happened. Crispus was standing well away from Rhonda's purse — much too far for even her to conclude he was trying to steal it — but she leapt out at him all the same, and for the first time, it wasn't for her justice. It was because Cassidy was without a doubt the sorriest excuse for a human being she'd ever laid eyes on, and something primal and infectious had taken hold at the very sight of him. She felt obligated, compelled, to snuff out his existence, purely on impulse and at the risk of having to look at him for one second longer.

It only took her three to cross the park to him, and another to take him down and get to work with the mace. But halfway through, she realized he wasn't struggling, and stopped to check if he'd expired. He was so weak-willed that it wouldn't exactly have been surprising, yet it was possible she'd simply proceeded with too much gusto this time. When she leaned in for a proper look, however, she could see his hand twitching slightly, fumbling in the grass for something. For an instant, Rhonda thought it could be a weapon — perhaps some mace of his own — but she was confused to find a plucked, pepper-stained petunia petal, which lay meek and withered in his child-sized palm. Cletus offered it in what he hoped was her general direction, and then, barely audible, two words dribbled out of his stinking, quivering lips: "Marry me."

There was a long silence then, as Rhonda swiveled wildly between vague bemusement and bubbling nausea, consideration and disgust at what was surely the strangest situation she'd ever been in. Her mind was a blur of conflicting thoughts, none of them pleasant. But then, as she stared down at Cornelius's puffy, dripping face, she gradually began to see him for what he really was...a dishrag, a doormat, a cuck. An avenue through which she could vent out her frustrations, someone she could abuse, someone that could take the pain away who would never fight back, never complain, never leave her. And it would all be what Cabaret wanted: paper cuts on his scrotum, constant verbal assault and beratement that trod all over his feelings and sense of self-worth, tore him down from the instant he woke up in the morning to when he finally slithered back into bed at night.

They had waited their entire lives for one another, and it had brought them to that park. Who's to say there was no chance, no possibility at all that one day, at some point in the distant future, maybe they might have even come to love each other? I don't think I have any right to claim otherwise, and I'd wager no one else does, either. Rhonda accepted Chrysanthemum's awkward proposal that day, and from what I hear, they're living together somewhere out in Wisconsin, where they remain a local curiosity. They're happy, but they don't talk a whole lot, mainly because Rhonda glued Colitis' mouth shut ages ago, and he wouldn't want it any other way.