Harry Johnson was a happy contented man as he dug through trash at the Sandusky City Dump. He was happy, in part, because nature had compensated for his lowly status in life by giving him low intelligence. Being stupid kept him from realizing that he should be unhappy.
Aptly named, Harry was hairy, appearing to be a throwback to another era, that of cave-dwelling times. The young man stood five-feet tall with arms almost dragging the ground. Whenever, that is, he managed to stand upright from constantly searching through rubbish. Harry possessed a rough face with a nose, broken when he was harassed as a kid, splayed across it.
He made a precarious living scavenging usable and reparable objects from the city dump. The man was so much of a fixture that dozer drivers and workers simply left him alone to his tasks. At first they had tried to keep him out but growing used to and feeling sorry for him, their boss had ordered city workers to ignore him. After all, what kind of a mess could he make in the city dump? Even then, Harry took care not to overly disturb piles of refuse, treating the place with respect.
The man occasionally found valuables, such as watches and wedding rings, but usually only old furniture and appliances that he could clean, polish, or make simple repairs on. He then sold them to a used-goods store for a small profit. It wasn't much, but enough to maintain a rundown family home and feed himself.
Harry was, at twenty-nine, still a virgin. What woman would look twice at him? He dreamed of being handsome and impressing pretty girls, but was barely smart enough to realize they were only dreams.
On the fateful day, Harry happened to be idly picking over a long-abandoned section of the dump. So far that day findings had been sparse. He picked up a dirty bottle and, finding that the cork was still sealed on by a maze of rusty wiring, thought that it might contain something worth keeping.
The flask was heavy, but didn't seem to shake like liquid. It was very old, with an indecipherable label. When Harry held it up to the sunlight, he saw something misty inside. It took five minutes with a penknife to get the crumbling seal loose and dig the cork out.
He stepped back quickly, as a thick mist whistled as it poured out of the open neck of the flask. Harry didn’t worry, since it wasn't unusual to find strange gases and odors around there. He was careful not to breathe it in, though.
Surprisingly, the mist formed into human shape that solidified into the figure of a very pretty redheaded woman. She was dressed like that famous television genie.
"Hey, thanks buddy. I didn't think I'd ever get out of that frickin' thing. I know I've been a bad girl, but that was frickin' ridiculous. Failing that screwed-up class was bad enough, without being locked up for it," the apparition blurted out. "What time is it, anyway? I mean what frickin' year? I really mean how long have I been in that mother-frickin' bottle?"
Although not very intelligent, Harry wasn't stupid. He'd read books and watched television -- just like the smart people.
"Are you a genie?" he asked, looking her over.
"frickin' right I am. I only failed by three points but I still know most of that stuff -- only not very good is all. Now what year is this and where the hell am I? This ain't frickin' Turkey, is it? I hate Turkey."
"First, I need my three wishes."
"Screw your frickin' wishes, Jack," she insisted, shoving a pretty face into his. "Now where and when am I?"
"Its 2020. January 6th or 8th or something. Now what about my wishes? Don't I get any or what?"
"You'll get them. You'll get them. Hold your frickin' horses. Just let me get my head together. I have to remember the spiel first. Something about guarantees, disclaimers and that kind of s**t. I gotta get straight first, though. You haven't got a drop on you, do you? I really, really need a drink’a ouzo?"
She looked around for the first time, seeing only the dump.
"Allah aid me. What the hell happened to this frickin' place? You are one hell of a frickin' housekeeper. Is the whole frickin' world like this?" she finished with, "That frickin' bottle was better than this shithole." She coughed. “Least I had air-conditioning.”
It took her ten minutes of cursing to finally wind down. Harry could only sit on a pile of trash and wait, idly searching around his feet for valuables.
"Find me a clean place to sit, will ya, Jack?"
Harry took out a reasonably clean handkerchief and spread it across a rusty motor block.
Gingerly, the genie sat and looked at the scenery. She moved her butt around a little to get comfortable and looked around some more, shaking her head in wonder.
Finally, she rolled her eyes upward and addressed him.
"Okay. Lets see now. You get three wishes. Despite our reputation, there are no tricks. The customer must be satisfied or they don't count. We don't make any guarantees about whether or not you like them later, but you gotta accept the frickin’ things as valid wishes before they count. You get all the time you want. And, most importantly, I don't and won't get back in that frickin' bottle, whether you wish it or not. Understand all that, Jack?"
"Yeah, guess so. I don't know how you stood it in there. And I’m Harry, not Jack."
"Ha!" she looked around again. "You're one to talk, Ja ... Harry."
Standing again, she asked, "Can't we get out of here? How about someplace where I can get a drink? I won't run away, I promise. By the way, my name's Kybele."
While Harry led the beautiful genie around and between towering trash-heaps, he went over in his mind what he would ask for when the time came. It was hard for the simple-minded dump-diver to decide on only three items. He wanted to be handsome, rich, and attractive to women. He also wanted a nice home and a beautiful wife. Also he would like to have several children who loved him, and many other things he had only seen on a black-and-white television set at home.
On her part, verbose Kybele, not having been able to talk for thousands of years, kept up a running stream of observations, explanations, and invectives.
"I was a hooker in Athens. Wanting to do something better with my life, I applied for an opening in a genie school. It was hard to learn and I was at the bottom of my class. So, I thought sleeping with the instructor would help. But he flunked me anyway, the b*****d.
Then he waited for me to doze off after sex one night and I woke up in that frickin' bottle.
She stopped to spit three times, an ancient Athens custom. “The son-of-a-b***h wanted to get me out of the way. He thought I'd be mad and tell his wife," she intoned in a steady, angry, stream. "Men can be such a******s sometimes. Blah, blah, blah, blah."
Eventually they came to a large vacant lot. By that time, Harry had decided on his first wish.
"Quiet down a minute, Ky -- Kyb -- I'll call you Kay, okay? I decided on my first wish. I want a mansion -- a big expensive one. Right here, on this empty lot."
"Right on. Is it all right if I add a bottle of ouzo to that? I could really use a frickin' drink?"
"All right with me, Kay."
She blinked, and a large Middle Eastern mansion appeared, complete with various onion-shaped towers and gold trimming.
"That don't look like no mansion I ever saw," Harry told her. They walked over to the front door and went inside. After all, it was his. The inside was one huge bare space except for reed mats and a little furniture in one corner. Among the items was a table containing a bottle of ouzo, along with a couch and a chair or two. Kay hurried over and, opening the bottle of Greek booze, gulped down a big swig.
"Oh! My God! How I needed that." She upended the container and drank another long gulp.
"I don't like this place. Where's the title to the land?" Harry looked around for it. "And why didn't you give the place any insides?" The huge edifice was nothing but a shell.
"Hey, buddy, that's the only kinda mansion I know. I just got here. Right? And I never been inside one, anyways. How the hell do you expect me to know what the insides is like? Jeez, but you're stupid," she chided him. "And what do I know about that paperwork stuff? I'm only an ex-hooker. S**t, I never saw no papers like that, and couldn't even read the frickin' things if I did."
She took another drink and glared angrily at him. "Jeez," she repeated.
"Well, I definitely don't like this wish. Take it back," Harry ordered.
"All right, all right. Don't be angry. This one don't count any." She blinked and it was gone. Except for the bottle, of course, which she carried along as they continued walking. Harry was thinking and Kay talking, until they arrived at Harry's house.
He opened the door, then stood aside and followed her inside. Harry was a gentleman. He had decided on another wish.
"Let's try again. I want a million dollars."
"I don't know what a dollar is?"
He showed her one and Kay made him a million of them, filling the room. Unfortunately, they came out looking like a child drew them and on rough parchment -- not paper. Again he had to refuse the wish. She didn't know how to make paper and couldn't draw worth a darn.
"How about a million drachmas?" she suggested shyly, trying to be helpful.
Figuring he could at least sell them, he accepted. By then she was becoming pretty-well plastered. The room was again filled. They did look professional, although he didn't know what a drachma was supposed to look like. At least the coins appeared to be real metal, were shiny and stacked neatly.
Kay finished her bottle and, without permission, conjured up another. Opening it with a deft flick of her wrist, she gulped another drink and smiled.
"I feel like dancing, Honey Harry," she informed him in a somewhat slurred and sexy voice. Kay began a belly dance; one in which she slowly removed her apparel.
Harry was soon excited, very much so. It was a dream coming true. As he watched her slowly and sexily gyrating around his living room filled with stacks of shiny drachmas, he forgot she was a genie.
At some point, Harry couldn't help himself. He reached for the beautiful shimmering genie. Willing, though somewhat unsteadily, she drifted into his arms like a glittering silvery cloud and planted a long kiss on malformed lips. They clutched wildly and dropped onto a couch. Drunk, the former Athens hooker reverted to her tried and true profession.
"It'll cost you fifty drachmas, baby," she demanded groggily.
"Take it all. Take it all. Every drach . . . whatever," Harry held on for dear life, wanting to lose his virginity at last. "Take the wh . . , 'pant,' whole, 'groan,' mil . . . , oh, my God -- million of them."
"That entitles you to twenty thousand lays, Harry honey baby mine." She gave a loud undulating cry. "I don't think you can handle it, kid."
"Yes! Yes! Yes," Harry cried out, head buried in ample cleavage. The pile vanished and he used up his first three installments,
***
The next morning, while the genie slept beside him, Harry spent time thinking. He only had two wishes left. What could he do? He wanted to be more intelligent. He wanted to be handsome. He also wanted to be rich. Not to mention having a nice wife and kids, and a good house. While Kay slept, snoring loudly, he tried to think. The more he tried, the more confused he felt. He was going slowly crazy in trying to decide what to ask for.
Kay stirred just in time to hear him groan out a wish.
"I wish I was smart enough to figure this out," Harry spoke to himself. He hadn't intended to say it out loud.
In an instant, confusion vanished as his mind was hit by a flood of new knowledge pouring into a once-simple brainpan. Poor Harry collapsed to the dirty floor as his head filled with facts and figures. The formerly simple man received, in the space of minutes, the educational equivalent of a PhD. Indeed, many PhDs.
He had also, inadvertently, used up another wish. However, he was glad he had. With new brainpower, Harry easily answered his own question as to how to get those other wishes, all tied-up into one package.
He looked at still sleepy and hungover Kay and let it out. "I wish you would fall in love with me and want to get married and have a family," he ordered her.
Of course she preferred a handsome rich husband, a few kids and a good house, and gave them to him, gratis. As a bonus, he still had almost 20,000 sex acts coming, whenever HE wanted them -- which was more say in that matter than most husbands.
The End.
Oscar Rat
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