Chapter 13 read by Morgan

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13

 

The cascade from the pie explosion consisted of arms and legs and salamanders raining down in a desperate critique of technology.

 

They sailed red through the air like the Spanish Armada sailing through the Red Sea.

 

And despite all of this, the wine was flowing.

 

Sir Thomas’s pet crayon even poked its head out of its box.

 

Excuse me, his hand-picked pet crayon.

 

Later, he would crush his crayon and use it as Brasivol™.

 

The Quixotic One and his metallic rooster were quite the pair. Imagine a badly-coiffed cowboy and a tam-wearing aileron and you’ve pretty much got the picture. The only thing better would be if the Contras all suicided.

 

The only thing more horrible than the Contras - and you can quote my crotch on this - would be ambient music.

 

And cowboys who have been converted into molten lava metal.

 

We all know that there’s a spectrum of human flotsam floating around society like so many Frankenstein retrospectives.

 

I tapped my self on the neck, just to make sure that my blood was still circulating. It actually sounded like the levee of my circulatory system had suicided instead of the Contras. Well, at least when I cut my self shaving, air doesn’t sail out instead of blood. All I need is the blood that I breathe and to lounge around like the bosun on the Spanish Armada.

 

It’s a desperate plan, I know. But this time I won’t be shooting off any reconstituted cannons.

 

-No reconstituted cannons. ¡No reconstituted cannons! ¡Way to go, Conway, now you’re talking to your self about not making a cannon from a metallic rooster! -I was getting a tad emotional, and my life was being char-broiled in front of my eyes. My mom had pressed me to go into ballet, as if being a teenager wasn’t pushing enough on the vault of humility-. ¡I’m one authentic maggot!

 

Then I heard another voice. But this one was on land, not in my head.

 

-¡You’re not a maggot, you’re a putz! You can’t make a reconstituted cannon. You’re nothing. Actually, ¿you know that “nothing”? ¡You’re not even that!

 

I was petrified - with a side order of picante sauce. The voice was so sonorous that I thought it came straight from the living jaded. It resonated over everything like it was the permanent-vernacular. The windows were even trembling. ¡I couldn’t believe that vernacular could cause all of this! They were swaying like a banjo-player juggling pies. Everything was fucked-up and that was not only word, that was an extreme and hellacious form of hissing.

 

My insides were quickly divesting they selves of me. And I was looking for Providence to come down and speak in its own altered voice of doom.

 

-¡You fucking, stupid kid! ¿Did you think that sir Thomas was the only magical thing around these parts?

-It was the rude and processed voice of Old Man Spellman.

 

This could only mean one thing: ¡Audit!

 

That fucking tax-accountant had always had it in for the Museum of Misery and Hysteria.

 

I was right and my fingers knew it. They ran their way through my reconstituted hair and herbicidal bald spot.

 

I was so right that my righteousness came with bib overalls and a visitor’s pass. I was so right that garden gnomes and lawn jockeys bowed before me.

 

The voice had teeth and those teeth had been punted downfield and then penalized. The kind of penalty you give a tired rooster for their cock-and-bull stories about getting up at the break of dawn. Or the drake of blawn.

 

So, here am I, in the middle of this page-turner, wondering what the LaDainian Tomlinson is going on. And, I don’t bee-leeve it. It’s my so-called friend.

 

-¿Mr. Spellman?

 

Old Man Spellman grabbed his own hands. And when he did that there was a sinister hiss-s-s-s-s that plopped into my already revised recognition of reality. Instantly, my blood started pumping through my body. Spellman was good for something other than being an annoying, old creep, after all. But as the blood careened through my body, I started evolving into a curly fry.

 

-¡Don’t call me a poor, ridiculous dumb-fuck, boy! -Boy, Old Man Spellman sure was a rude boy-. Call me Mardren, the fifth brother on Bonanza, and Lorne Greene’s favorite. And now, you tiny insect, ¡I’m going to catch a cold!

 

Lately, Old Man Spellman was having trouble even lifting his arm. A cold would wipe his fat ass from this planet. He was even having trouble cutting his own fingernails, which were now shaped like serpents. And the serpents had eyes the color purple, as if Steve Spielberg had painted them orange himself.

 

I was finally asleep amid the nonsense.

 

Then his toenails came to life as cobras. I was rubbing my eyes and yawning. He’d have to do better than that.

 

The serpent toes started swirling and swirling and, well… swirling, until they formed a tornado. This got my attention, and I raised my hand to ask a question. I was going to ask if lunch was served on this flight, or was I going to have to depend on the magic beans in my pocket for sustenance.

 

The serpent head stopped swirling for a second. I knew I was dizzy, then I saw giant mandibles raised over a floppy comb-over and I knew that the curveball this primordial pissant was about to throw would be wicked.

 

I pulled at my crotch, scratched my ass, and waited.

 

Old Man Spellman went back to agitating his snake-hands. The snakes did a little shuffle and then transformed into luminous rays that brought to mind the Yemen Arab Republic in spring. The rays crept up on me and I was already sunburned. I didn’t need a tan, I needed a tannic acid bath.

 

¡Agamemnon be damned! Because I was freaking tired and I was going to get some sleep.

 

 

 

I woke up and I felt like chum soaked in Tabasco sauce. My head felt like it had been crowned. I’d call a cab, but the coronation would be all warm and queasy.

 

¡I don’t bee-leeve it! Old Man Spellman. My buddy. He must’ve gained about ten pounds and three serpents. And I hadn’t gained shit.

 

Unless you count gaining a pain in the neck. I knew there was something creepy about the fucker.

 

First of all, his eyes were a little too bright. And the only red thing about him, besides his cowboy hat, was his bloodshot eyes. And when he’d show up at our door you could count the things he didn’t bring: no wine, no french fries, no geldings, and no churros.

 

I began running through a list of Spellman transgressions in my head, this serpent shit just being the latest-greatest. And, despite the serpents, the lack of churros, and the Amarillo hue of his face, I couldn’t help but hate Old Man Spellman. He was a penny-pinching piece of shit, with a crushing Sacco-Vanzetti complex.

 

Oh well, at least the little eunuch had put on an interesting snake show. Wait a minute - no, he didn’t. ¡He fucking put me to sleep with his large tonsils and prehensile toes!

 

And... ¡He’s crouching in the corner, living large and salivating even larger. And he’s salivating barbed wire like it was rum cakes. Barbed rum cakes, what a revolting conundrum, that’s not for sure. That’s for censure.

 

He lifted his hand for what seemed like days and there eventually appeared a very large plate which he held in his right hand.

 

 

Soon... Okay, eventually, the plate started moving like some kind of spinning-plate carnival trick.

 

¡One! ¡Two! ¡Three plates!

 

Spellman was busy keeping the plates spinning at great speeds. So busy that he completely forgot how bored I could get. I was turning purple with boredom. ¡Fucking purple!

 

I was so bored that I was ready to kill my self. Instead, I put on a large, purple tunic and just danced around like a complete jackass. I was about to put on a purple bowtie and leap into the air when I actually realized what I was doing and knew what I also needed: ¡a big purple sombrero and matching purple pantyhose!

 

This was so symbolic and so brilliant... of what and why, I don’t know. But think about it: me dancing around in purple tights and purple tunic and purple cap, in front of a giant, evil, plate-spinning jackass. It was extra donkey meat for everyone, that’s what it was. No strange forms to fill out or extraterrestrial territories to explore. Just donkey meat. For everyone.

 

And now the spinning plates were making me see big, blue circles. And there were big Lucy’s in the sky, with diamonds insulating their tiaras.

 

-¡My cold goo! -I looked and that fuckstick Spellman was wearing my exact same tunic, with the same cold goo symbol right in the middle. That bastard was in for it now. Nobody fucks with my cold goo.

 

But this cold goo was emitting a sound like royalty planning to behead some poor sod.

 

-Mike, Mike, Mike -Old Man Spellman... I mean, Mardren, seemed to be saying. I had to pinch my self when I thought of that name - Mardren. ¿What kind of evil genius would come up with a sourpuss name like that? Arguably, the worst evil genius name in the history of evility.

 

-You think you’re hot shit, ¿huh, Mike?

 

Mardren actually moved his lips when he talked, which surprised me. I was expecting something like the pterodactyl from “Pee Wee’s Playhouse”.

 

-You really look ridiculous, all gussied-up like a cheap hooker –He continued, despite my objections-. You have no magic powers, no matter how goofy you dress. The magic’s all mine. Your powers are limited to turning lights on and off at the light switch. Whereas, I can destroy metal just by looking at it. I’m barely mortal, whereas you...

 

-Yeah, yeah, I get the picture.

 

Mardren was still spinning his very large plates like they had been sealed in Armor All®. He wanted to punt downfield, but he tripped on his purple bowtie just as God was asking Sir Thomas to go to the Heaven™ Costco® with Him. That’s right, God is male as sure as Sir Thomas’s head is rolling around here somewhere.

 

Mardren offered up his version of the Last Rites™:

 

-Every few hundred years, Sir Thomas and I have to fight to the death -He explained-. It amuses us and keeps the number of creeps in the neighborhood down. Really, ghosts are the biggest drama queens. Taking out your teeth to scare people is so old. You’d think that these jackasses would come up with some new material. If you ask me... -Mardren looked around to see that no one was listening, let alone asking, and, in a rare moment of self-realization, continued-. Well, no one’s asking me, ¿are they? But what I mean is that that chattering teeth thing is hundreds - if not thousands - of years old. It predates the whoopee cushion.

 

I was listening, but I had forgotten to hit the RECORD button. So I didn’t remember a word Marsden Hartley had just philosophized. I think he was wearing a purple hat, though. And he had seen action in ‘Nam, but in the form of a dragon spewing agent orange down on the masses. He had literally set the world on fire.

 

-You’re right, I was a napalm-breathing dragon in ‘Nam -¡That bastard Mardren could read my mind! Not only that, ¡he wouldn’t shut the fuck up!-. Sir Thomas is awash in a sea of equivocation... -Oh, ¡shut the fuck up!- He thought that I had become a goddamn, punk kid. -¡Shut up!- A tiny, little, defenseless kid, like you. -Nooooo!- But, unlike you, I had a plan or two. -¡Aggghhh!- Well, three plans to be exact. ¡Stop it! ¡Shut up!- But functionally, really, four plans. -¡Shut your mouth!- ¿Why do you think that you could possibly diagnose my condition when you could never know what condition my condition is in?

 

This guy may be “magic” but he’s a red door and blue light special right to the vernacular. Push on his door and you don’t get magic. Push on his door and you get a pain in the ass.

 

-With my powers...-. ¡Here we go again!-, I knew that Sir Thomas would leg it here like a tadpole to a flame. I knew this before I e-mailed him, cc’ing his uncle Basil, who lives in a casket in Dreadbury and who sees Aquaman in the tap water. And he hates Sir Thomas as much as I do.

 

The truth was Mardren was ferociously staring at my cold goo. And, if I hadn’t fallen asleep I would’ve been staring at his. But I was snoring. The guy put me right to sleep – and I was standing up.

 

-You’re a pedestal of cold goo and you don’t even know it, impertinent child -I guess he couldn’t hear my snoring-. The day has arrived and I will now use my magics to turn you into a fiery piece of toast. I will baste you and then put you into my mouth. And I’ve made up a nice, cold goo powder to compliment it. And, ¿did I tell you? I couldn’t stop playing the guitar for days. No matter what I was doing, I was also playing the guitar. That was, until Sir Thomas came along in his shiny pants and mandolin. Well, I’ll tell you...

 

¡Jesus Christ! Wake me when the sun super-nova’s into Antarctica. This guy isn’t content to be just a bigot. No, he has to be a boring-ass bigot. I’m sure he’s gonna go on and on for years about Sir Thomas’s trousers. And his beautiful eyes.

 

-Sir Thomas is occupied being dead now, ¿isn’t he? He can’t play tennis, he can’t eat fried clams-. ¡Here we go!-. He can’t shoot pelicans. If I had a nickel for every pelican... -Mardren must’ve been dipping into the hair tonic. The moon and the stars turned to me for an answer-. ¿Are you talking to the stars now, my boy? You’d better stay with fan mail to Roy Rogers. No stars will help you.

 

Mardren sure had a god-complex. They could bottle him and sell him as an aid to sleeping.

 

But then the boring bastard shot a ray of light right at my goyishe punim, and then right at my garlicky penis.

 

The cold goo went through me like Desinex® through teeth, and I responded by calling Mardren every name in the book – well, every name except “Mardren”. I was just so fucking tired of listening to him.

 

-You have quite a bit of impertinence, Little Sheba -¿Who the fuck uses the word “impertinence”? ¿Only evil trolls? When Mardren talks, people bolt for the freaking doors.

 

-And now I am the one with the cold goo -Mardren said-. And even Sir Thomas got his utilities turned on. And, ¿do you know why? Because my magics have augmented my already substantial powers and... well, now he’s dead, so, he wouldn’t be able to even call the utility company to have anything turned on. And that’s one of the things about death... ¡At least you don’t have to worry about gas and electric! ¡Not to mention water! Oh, just a minute, yes you do. But then you have evil creeps like me to handle shit like that…

 

This guy will not shut up. I’m beginning to think that Sir Thomas wasn’t killed, he suicided. And now Mardren’s head was glowing like a Chernobyl peacock.

 

Mardren boomed-out another of his brainless and pen-less missives.

 

-This time I’m not going to be tender with you, I’m going to torture you. I can’t allow you to revel in knowing my goofy secret, ¿mmm-kay? Now… ¿How would you like to die?

 

Now, not only was he boring, he was fucking morbid. No labia-inferiority complex for him, I think. I also think that he wants to kill me.

 

I tried to spit, but my throat was dry. I tried to sell him on just scalding me badly, but he wasn’t budging. He was intent on killing me. I guess. I really wasn’t listening.

 

-¡You weren’t listening! -This mind-reading shit was dope- ¿Do I have to go over this all again?

 

-¡No! -I blurted-. ¡No! ¡No! ¡No! ¡Kill me first!

 

-¡That’s it! ¡That’s exactly it! ¡I’m going to weave you into a rattan chair and then sit on your ass! I’m going to...-. ¡Oh, for God’s sake!- slice you up like a tomato. I’m going to parade your dead carcass around the city. No, I’m going to let the cats have their way with your limp and beaten body.

 

¡Talk about conspiracy theorists! This guy was one pud-pulling man of theory. It’s all theory - he hasn’t done a fucking thing.

 

My trembling was the last thing I wanted him to see. He’d no doubt start rambling on and on about it.

 

¡Bingo! Mardren saw me trembling. Brilliant. Now I’m gonna have to listen to his slow and bulky hissing. I still had a hangover form his last speech.

 

-Now you stay quiet, fastidious child -All right, that’s it. ¿What fucking evil creep uses the word “fastidious”?-. I’m going to recite the magic words three times-. ¡Great! ¡Three times!- When the moon hits the balcony I will convert you into a rattan chair and have you shipped Third Class to Boca Raton. I’ll then have lunch on the balcony, maybe find another kid to turn into furniture...

 

-¡Stop all of this talk of furniture! -Another voice intoned.

 

Mardren suddenly realized that it wasn’t he that was talking (for once).

 

The voice then started listing the names of all the dentists in the area and then it started ladling out the vernacular. It was a profound and autumnal voice that packed the power of several lagers.

 

I was jotting down dentist names when I saw a sad and brazen form appear. It literally “appeared”, like a ghostly appetizer. Like a pissing contest with a donkey. Like a clueless dad.

 

And it was encased... in metal.

 

And it had an anchor for a pet.

 

And, in case there was any free space, it also had a croquet set.

 

The metal cowboy moved like, well, a cowboy encased in metal. It looked at Mardren. Its voice returned.

 

-¿¡What the Hubert Horatio Humphrey is going on!? ¡I’m not voting for any of you bastards!

 

    -- on to chapter 14   or   back to Cab Driving --