Chapter 7 read by Jennie
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-I was trapped.
I could hear my own voice echoing my narrative, and it made me really feel rodent-like.
IÕm trapped like a rat in the MENÕs room, itÕs fucking freezing and my dayÕs just started. I was even getting tired of breathing. One more time from the bridge, my friends.
I didnÕt even know what I was drooling. I sat and gulped my Sangria in silence.
That was, until...
Jaded, I started gulping the space between my toes.
Nothing.
I ranted and I laid down and the bathroom doors still acted like I had patted them on the ball sack. They threw pies at me using a contraption of their own making. And just when there seemed to be space at the end of my toenail...
I was trapped.
This time I could hear my own narrative as it ricocheted off my teeth and into my brain.
I had ranted until I could no longer see clearly. I had gone to every museum in my mind. IÕd even been to my momÕs house. And to a toadÕs house. And IÕd even spilled Pepsi Lightª all over the kitchen. Nothing worked.
I had what the rest of the world termed Òthe vernacularÓ. I had what amounted to two bathroom doors trashing my entire aqua pura world and if that wasnÕt... I interrupted my self for this news bulletin: DonÕt let your imagination make you start acting like Rocky Colavito. Not now.
-I canÕt believe IÕm trapped. I canÕt believe IÕm trapped. I canÕt believe IÕm trapped.
I was trapped all right. And my words were the only way I could understand that. My words were the only way that I could see I was not wearing a hat.
ÀHow come I donÕt believe IÕm trapped? Carly wouldnÕt fuck around with head games like that. SheÕd get out of here in under a minute. But there was nothing I could see that - when translated - didnÕt come out: ÒYou are trappedÓ. Everything translated clearly into ÒLater, dude. YouÕre trapped like Andres Segovia.Ó
Soon I was talking to my self in my penguin voice. And offering my self some clear, cold goo. I wasnÕt sure what that meant, but I was pretty sure it meant that I was a very brave - and clearly insane - man.
I walked straight up to the doors, armed with my vernacular. I pushed them open slightly and looked outside.
Sir Thomas was there and he was holding his head in his hands.
ÁHis head was no longer TalibanÕd to his shoulders!
I wasnÕt prepared to stay alive. I thought that at this rate I wouldnÕt be breathing long. And if I was breathing, IÕd be pushing up daisies from the ramÕs end of this strange planet. IÕd be breathing, but IÕd also be passing out menus, like a waiter on a hopped-up escalator.
When I passed in front of Sir Thomas, he didnÕt see me. I finally had to kick him in the center of his universe. I told him ÒNo more lying around, you get movingÓ, but if he had heard me he was making me a little nuts because ÁI had told him to MARCH!
Actually, I was still trying to get the doors open. I can be so full of cow dung sometimes, itÕs depressing. And sometimes IÕm nearer to the dung than to the cow.
And sometimes I just have to eat my lunch and hear a strange noise. I think it was some species of churro. The noise, not my lunch. My lunch was some species of sardine.
I was getting the bum rush from everyone. From the churro to the piano. Everyone thought I was lower than a ratÕs ass.
And donÕt tell me that a churro is not some sort of mass hysteria.
But I couldnÕt think about that. I had a toilet to get out of.
I started spinning like lentils in a blender. I looked like I was going to be petrified donkey piss. I looked like I had lost my arm.
And my arm.
ÀDid I just die and come back as my self? Amazing.
ÀHow come I can play the banjo, but I canÕt set up a lawn chair? Amazing.
It was then that I was taken to a pirate hide-out where I tried watching ÒThe Amazing Roto-Tiller Round UpÓ on TV. When my captors changed the channel, I rose up like an intense, tornado-like, but brilliant ambassador to Hamasª, only red.
ThatÕs when the soup really hit the fan.
In the form of Sir Thomas. I was staring at Sir Thomas.
The armor hit me first, and then a churro to the sardine.
I needed a translator, pronto. The house started to gyro-sober the second I started sighing.
-I... I... I... I... -That wasnÕt hard to translate, intended as it seemed to be for the eyes and guitars of a PG-13 audience of seemingly desegregated Han Solo impersonators.
Then, with the sound of metal still echoing in my bones, Sir Thomas leveled me with a quick kick to the manhood. Now I had to rely on my sinuses to tell me which way to go.
First they told me, ÒTart-up, my dearÓ.
And then they told me ÒYouÕd better butch-up, AlbertoÓ.
-ÁYou! -His voice was so salty I thought his armor would rust-. ÁThis time you will not escape! ÁSo get your bad self over here!
