"Unbelievable!" The Coyote thinks as he gazes through his binoculars at the drunk stumbling home below. The drunk has just thrown a cigarette butt on the ground and there he is lighting up another cigarette! The Coyote sets his binoculars down on the roof of the apartment building he uses to scan the neighborhood for misdeeds and wrongdoings. Usually it takes him too long going down the stairs from the roof to catch any misdeeder or wrongdoer, but tonight will be different. The Coyote makes sure the rope he brought is firmly attached to a nearby pipe and drops the rest of the rope down the side of the building. In the quiet of the night he can hear the end of the rope hit the ground five floors below. The Coyote checks his gloves to make sure they're tight, grabs the rope, and prepares to heave himself over the edge.
"Hmm . . . the rope feels loose," The Coyote thinks, and drops the rope.
He checks the knot on the pipe. It's fine. The Coyote grasps the rope again and prepares to swing into action. He looks down at the ground.
"Hmm . . . that is a long way down," The Coyote thinks.
The Coyote takes the stairs.
After catching his breath at the bottom of the stairs, The Coyote looks around for the drunk, but he is gone. The Coyote heads up to the street's edge and looks up and down it, but no drunks, litterbugs, or smokers are to be found. The Coyote does find the littered butt though and disposes of it in the apartment building dumpster. Francine always complains that society picks on smokers by taxing cigarettes to fund all sorts of unrelated things, and The Coyote always tells her that if smokers didn't do stupid things like throw their butts everywhere treating the rest of the world like their own giant ashtray that people might be more sympathetic to smokers being overly taxed. As it was, smokers didn't seem to care about anyone but themselves (if that, after all they were poisoning themselves essentially), so why would anyone else care about them?
In the midst of his ruminations, two more drunks stumble by on the streets. Two white males wearing Cleaveland Caucasians baseball hats and talking loudly at 2 a.m. on a Monday night, er, 2 a.m. on a Tuesday morning, er, two in the morning. One of them throws a cigarette butt on the ground.
The Coyote charges to the street. The drunks, occupied in their conversation, don't seem to notice and continue down Wouldland Avenue.
"Dude, that one chick was hot," the first drunk says.
"Dude, that was a man," the second drunk says.
"No way, dude. You're just jealous because she liked me more than you."
"Well, don't blame me when you go for a muffdive and end up eating a sausage sandwich."
"Excuse me," The Coyote says standing behind them and holding the cigarette butt in his left hand, "I think you dropped something."
The drunks turn around. "What the fuck?" the first one says, pointing at The Coyote's furry mask, "What's that on your face, dude? Are you the Wolfman? It's early for Halloween."
"I am The Cleaveland Coyote," The Coyote says, "And your friend I am afraid is a litterbug."
"'Litterbug'?" The Litterbug says, "It's just a butt. Who cares?"
"I care," The Coyote says.
"Dude, it's biodegradable," the first drunk says.
"Actually, that is not true. It is plastic and just falls apart about a decade later, and in the meantime the toxic elements in it such as lead and arsenic can sink into the ground and water, harming wildlife and . . ." The Coyote explains before he's cut off just before he was going to comment on the effect of litter on the beautification of urban spaces and the psychological toll it takes on the people living in them leading to higher crime, greater poverty, and other assorted misery in a true tragedy of the commons type situation.
"Fuck you, enough with the lecture," The Litterbug says, "This city's a shithole anyway, so one more piece of trash doesn't matter."
"Well, maybe the reason the city is in the shape it is in is because people like you have made it that way," The Coyote says, holding out the butt, "Now take this remnant of your tobacco pleasure and put it in a trashcan--making sure of course that it cannot ignite a fire--to dispose of it properly."
"'Dispose of it properly'! I'm going to dispose of you properly," The Litterbug, "Come on Bert, there's two of us, let's kick this freak's ass."
"Sorry, dude, this situation, that mask, that cheap suit, that tie with the wolf on it, whatever, it's starting to freak me out. Plus I gotta piss" Bert says, before he runs away.
"No public urination!" The Coyote howls.
"Great!" The Litterbug says, watching Bert disappear down the block, then turning back to The Coyote, he sinks into a boxing stance, "Well, I don't need him to kick your ass. I can do it all by myself. C'mon, Butt Boy, I want to see what you look like under that mask."
After The Coyote beats up The Litterbug, he throws him in the apartment building dumpster along with the cigarette butt. When The Coyote uses The Litterbug's cell phone to call 911 to report The Littering, the operator hangs up on him. Disgusted, The Coyote throws the cell into the dumpster.
It's not easy to be a superhero when the police are uncooperative. "Do not they understand that small crimes lead to big crimes? Put out the little brushfires and you will not have to face a big forest fire," The Coyote thinks.
The Litterbug stands up in the dumpster. He picks up his baseball cap and puts it back on. He pats his shirt and pants. "Dude, all right, don't hit me again. I won't litter in the future," he says, taking out a crumpled pack of cigarettes.
"I need a smoke after that," he says, sticking a cigarette in his mouth and patting his shirt and pants again.
"I can't find my lighter. I must have left it at the bar," The Litterbug says, "Dude, do you have a light?"
The Coyote slams the lid of the dumpster on The Litterbug's head, closing it, and goes to fetch his rope and other things from the roof of the apartment building. This is enough crimefighting for tonight, he decides and wonders if Superman ever feels slightly grubby after gooddoing.
As The Coyote walks away, the lid to the dumpster pops open and The Litterbug yells, "Never mind, I found a pack of matches in here!"
The Litterbug lights his cigarette and says, holding his match up, "Watch, dude, I'm not going to litter."
He drops the match in the dumpster.
Something in the dumpster catches fire. The Litterbug yells "Oh, shit!", jumps out, and runs away.
Underneath his mask, The Coyote starts to cry as the dumpster starts to burn.
Blog Love Omega Glee is a novel by Wred Fright about two bloggers who fall in love while the world falls apart, which is being serialized on his blog. To start reading from the beginning or read another installment, please visit Blog Love Omega Glee Central on WredFright.Com. If you like what you've read, or you've read all of Blog Love Omega Glee and want more Fright, then please read his first novel, which is available in print and as an ebook.
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