The Sugar Frosted Nutsack by Mark Leyner

majoring in Public Safety Administration / Homeland Security who “loves Godiva chocolates and champagne”) visualized herself standing on the planet, disproportionately large, “like The Little Prince .”
    The phrase “sugar frosted nutsack” occurs 3,385 times in The Sugar Frosted Nutsack (including this sentence). Scholars suspect that this number corresponds to Section 3385, Title 8, of the California Code of Regulations: “Appropriate foot protection shall be required for employees who are exposed to foot injuries from electrical hazards, hot, corrosive, poisonous substances, falling objects, crushing or penetrating actions, which may cause injuries, or who are required to work in abnormally wet locations.” It’s thought that this mystical numerological correspondence might derive from the concern that bards have traditionally had about maintaining the health of their feet, since they are peripatetic and spend the preponderance of their lives walking from village to village. (There are many other eerie mystical numerological correspondences. The flight distance between San Diego, California, and Bogotá, Colombia, is 3,385 miles. The date 3/3/85 is the birthday of Lithuanian supermodel Dovile Virsilaite . The sum of the digits—3+3+8+5—equals 19. The smallest number of neutrons for which there is no stable isotope is 19. The composer Béla Bartók finished his Opus 19 in 1919 when he was 38 (twice 19). The product of the digits—3 x 3 x 8 x 5—equals 360. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Petition for Amerasian,Widow(er), or Special Immigrant is I-360. The area code for most of western Washington State, including the city of Bremerton, is 360. Ben Gibbard , the lead singer for Death Cab for Cutie , was born in, believe it or not, Bremerton! There are actually so many mystical numerological correspondences that you’re like, this is so fucking weird.)
    The men who do attend public recitations of The Sugar Frosted Nutsack tend to be academic experts, connoisseurs by avocation, or individuals who aspire to be bards. Audiences, though, are composed predominantly of working-class, middle-aged women with little education, who are seeking to establish romantic relationships with the bards. These women chatter, eat, drink, smoke, spit betel juice and pumpkin seeds on the earthen floor, call raucously across the auditorium to each other, and, in imperious voices, order vendors to bring them fried chicken, beer, tampons, whatever they need at the moment. They frequently demonstrate the warmth of their feelings by giving small gifts to bards during the course of a performance. A “donor” will toss them gifts of cigarettes, candy, cologne, or a small amount of money. A gift is often wrapped in a note, requesting a favor of the bard in return. A bard may be asked, for instance, to perform a private recitation. In some cases, bards receive quite large sums of money or valuable gifts ranging from expensive toilet articles and wristwatches to flat-screen TVs, Mercedes-Benz cars, and luxury apartments—anything to pamper them. Often there is a sexual attachment between the donor and the bard. Liaisons between lusty middle-aged women and handsome young bards are especially common. Some of these women are widows, some are still married. They love to make a show of themselves at the public recitations and squander their husbands’ money on bards with whom they’ve become infatuated.
    Most of the blind bards were, at one time, sighted audience members whose wives left them for the bards they met at public recitations. These distraught men, suddenly bereft of their spouses, then blinded themselves and, in turn, became itinerant bards, traveling from town to town, chanting what they remember hearing or think they heard at recitations, although they, too, mumble in such an incomprehensible manner (the traditional style) that it’s truly remarkable they convey anything at all to their audiences, one member of