The Bumper Sticker Man
Baldo lifted the satchel and climbed aboard the aged bicycle—broken spokes and no brakes, seat or bell, but it rode well enough and the wide handles held the satchel pages of perforated bumper stickers. He rode through traffic with lips pursed as tight as the crimp of a toothpaste tube searching the city to avenge lucidity.
Baldo rode around with several self-designed bumper stickers, it required patience and fortitude and a degree of risk, but he was dedicated. Baldo was inspired! It started when he saw the sticker: I Belong to the NRA…and I Vote! He confronted the driver, an elderly man with a white beard and two white eyebrows who appeared old enough to have worn a holster in the Wild West. Baldo investigated the cost of making bumper stickers and when he learned it was cheap, created Outlaw Bullets. Now, it covers dozens and dozens of cars around Los Angeles; he searches the city still photo hopeful of spotting the Oldsmobile of ‘ol Wild Bill Hickok.
The cowcatcher of a beard—Baldo used it to scratched itchy lottery tickets— kept people away, probably intimidated; once a driver was actually so frightened he sat as still as stale bread while Baldo affixed Jesus Loved The Lepers over a righteous Are You Saved? sticker on the back of the station wagon without nuns. Next, he made Ignore Politicians. He placed almost a hundred around the city over any political sticker; Baldo was non-partisan and covered the whole political asylum from the most liberal to most conformative.
Baldo made the local newspapers. An article featured interviews with drivers victimized by an unidentified rogue bumper sticker affixer who waged a battle against proselytizing stickers of political viewpoints and religious statements; the article included a statement by the policía that he was guilty of a guilty misdemeanor. Baldo was undeterred, yet irate when he heard a shout out about a lady who made a fortune with the bumper sticker Save the Bumper Stickers!
Today, a Tuesday with a forecast of rain, he rode down Van Nuys Boulevard, peddled with the fury of a turbine greased by extra virgin olive oil, angry The Bumper Sticker Vigilante—the tag recently bestowed by the leading rag L.A. Times—stuck. It got it completely wrong, as if he threatened the bumper sticker when he actually promoted it as an art form.
Baldo slowly became proficient at making the bumper stickers simply by imbibing ink and consuming paper with an adhesive back, it wreaked havoc with digestion—he lost seven eleven pounds sterling, so svelte he included Velveeta cheese as a condiment over cereal and water—but sacrifices had to be made, so say the brochures to achieve Icon. Baldo now signed the self-styled bumper stickers The Bumper Sticker Man, a public relations ploy to rid the city of the word vigilante; a few stickers with The B. S. Man were produced but reswallowed to save the environment. Once, after he ate an apple corp, the printer broke and he had to wait days for the part to be shipped by Federal Esperanto from the Republic of Doucheland …Western Union…Stop. A Bumper Crapful. Sow & Tell. Make Due Not War! Children Are Bored. Virgins Do It with Tofu.
*John S. Fields loves to swim with his wife and their two boys—particularly Walden Pond on a warm spring day when the water is soft and green.
