The Land of the Cheddar Monster Vivisectionists

-¿Who’s on the lamb? -Mr. Powell asked, leaving the spaghetti otter pops in the bucket.

Lindy went back to occupying her mind with the Mesa College lacrosse team.

-It’s Mrs. Marshall, she’s headed to Baja California on a trained seal.

-¿Did she kill her kids? -Mrs. Powell asked, treating a serious subject like it was a cold goo salad. She turned to Kris-. ¿Don’t you want some salad?

With a napkin tucked into his collar, Kris limped toward his Mom at the mere mention of cold goo salad:

-I’m not too late, ¿am I?

-No -Lindy contested-. What you are is planning Amy’s coming-out party with Palmolive.

-You’re always the first to know -Mr. Powell said with the irony of Alanis Morrisette’s gay rooster.

-To Amy and Ben, this Palmolive that everyone insists exists is just another excuse to party -Lindy said-. Mrs. Marshall paid me twenty bucks to keep quiet.

-¡That’s perfect! -Her mom exclaimed. She got on a ladder so she could see the Mesa College lacrosse team tossing salad to each other.

It had been a week since Lindy had resuscitated Palmolive from her enslavement in the land of the braless. And every day after school she’d pass out, high in the Compton Encyclopedic knowledge that once her voice changed she’d be able to move her labia with her mind instead of her fists.

Kris insisted that everything we knew we know is wrong:

-I can’t believe you’re testing me on how many tan Volvos there are in town -He said this to his sister and then rehashed every sentence he’d ever seen floating above people’s heads.

But it was summer, a time when Lindy dragged Palmolive to school and a time when Kris actually changed his clothes on a regular basis. A group of kids was always waiting for them and Lindy was always ready to stomp on their toes and curse their mothers.

Kris watched all of this from a safe corridor, as Lindy told Palmolive not to talk to the kids. “It’s like talking to a quesadilla in a vacuum anyway”, Kris thought.

But to their surprise, the kids applauded and shouted “¡Double the lab rats!” Palmolive felt less paranoid and more diverticulitis’d. The applauding kids included Roberto Martín, a guy who last liked Kris when he was two years old, but who’d always thought that Lindy was sensational.

Not seeing what Roberto saw in these dumb-ass kids, Kris somehow thought: “If I was a ventriloquist I could make them say whatever I want.”

And make money. Lindy was getting twenty bucks for the Marshall kids’s birthday. And when she talks people actually get up and go to other birthday parties in disgust. And they give her more money as they leave.

Tonight, after dinner, after washing the dishes, after going to the bathroom, after saying her prayers, Lindy would ask her parents to go over the numbers she had crunched. Then she’d show them the apparition she called Palmolive.

Mr. and Mrs. Powell were ensconced on the couch, eating salad.

-Who knew that in one of her phases, Lindy would successfully turn an umbrella into a television, leaving Kris parasol-less.

-¿¡Who knew?! -Mr. Powell’s echo even echoed, and he wished that the sofa had a commode instead of a matching love seat. Barky barked and God poured salt on his tail as Mr. and Mrs. Powell frantically lapped-up the dog’s cola.

-You know you’re not allowed on the chesterfield -Mrs. Powell said, consulting her thesaurus. But the dog just hissed at her and then lifted his leg on the love seat.

Kris knew that his dog’s days had just been numbered. If Barky had actually urinated, they would’ve found his scorched carcass crucified in the hills somewhere.

-If you value your Triscuits®, you won’t do it -Daddy commented.

-¿Can I have a ventriloquist dummy, instead of a dog? -Kris blurted as Barky marked the divan. Kris didn’t have to think, he only had to blurt it. The resulting silence was old news.

Lindy moved from the salad bar to the sofa (she wasn’t carrying a thesaurus, but she was) carrying Palmolive, who had been transformed into a ventriloquist dummy:

-¿Like it? -She asked. She was a rat’s ass of silly comedy, hasty sentiment, salad and Vicente Fox.

-It’s lovely, ¿¡Can I?! -Kris repeated, even though he knew how his parents felt about dogs marking territory and repetition.

-¿Do you want a tutu, too? -The sordid and inane Mrs. Powell asked.

-¿He wants what? -Lindy asked, confusing the comedy.

-Kris says he wants a dummy too, like Palmolive there -The information-laden Mrs. Powell said.

-No way, José -Lindy aired it out-. ¿Why are you always such a simpering copycat?

-Perish the thought -Kris replied, stepping on a cockroach-. If you have something, I want something.

And the chill in the air sent out chills.

-You’d copy my ass if you had a chance -Lindy protested like a rabid dog-. ¿Why aren’t you out looking for a toga party? ¿Or writing a collection of essays on the joys of self-stimulation? That’s something you do. What I do is shave my legs and ventriloquism.

-Children -Mr. Powell began, addressing the impending silence-, please, no talk of peeing and no talk of dummies.

-¿Do you really think I’m serious? -Kris said-. I think that Lindy isn’t very ventriloquisty.

-I totally believe that I’m ventriloquisty -Lindy insisty’d as she thumbed through her dictionary.

-That’s not nice, Kris -The long, low snore of Mrs. Powell said.

-Okay, it’s not nice. But if Lindy has one then I think it’s my constitutional right to have one -The leaden and jurisprudent voice of Kris tolled for his parents.

-Copycat -Lindy repeated, not having gotten her parents’s memo on repetition-. Every week someone invites me. And every week - sorry Mom and Dad - and every week - ¡sorry! - I drag Palmolive out from under the kitchen sink. But already I can see that I’m going to have to change to raising parakeets. That way I’ll make my money selling baby budgies to Brits.

-You know, you two disgust me and I don’t get disgusted at anything -Mr. Powell said disgustedly.

-That’s nice, ¿can I have a parakeet? -Kris asked.

-¿How many? -Mr. Powell replied, looking at his wife like he looked at his watch-. A good, co-starring dummy will cost about a hundred bucks and I don’t think that at this moment, with the price of gas and body parts, I can afford that.

-¿Why don’t you just cut Palmolive in half? -Mrs. Powell King Solomon’d.

-¿Huh? -Lindy breathed, but what she wanted to do was throw her self on the floor.

-You two need compartmentalizing -Mrs. Powell continued-. Hey, that’s it, ¿why don’t you compartmentalize Palmolive?

-But, Mom... -Lindy had a gimme in reserve.

-Excellent idea -Mr. Powell interrupted the gimme with a how he can make a man out of Kris-. First, you’ll live in a tent in the backyard. Second, the time I don’t have to devote to you I’m now devoting to ignoring you, and third, I’m going back to second because I like that one. ¿Are you still here?

Kris lowered his head and walked until he was where Lindy wasn’t. He lifted his head and saw the dummy. -Don’t look at me or I’ll compartmentalize your ass

-He said and then looked into his sister’s sad, dark and roped-off eyes-. ¿Can I please hold it for a second?

Lindy was furious until she realized that he meant Palmolive.

The dummy’s head rose up and turned to Kris and, in a voice he’d never heard, said:

-¡Take me apart, Kris! -This voice was so vociferous that it sounded like a psychotic PEZ dispenser-. ¡Go on, reanimate me, you stupid ass!

Before Kris’s hairline could recede even more, his fist punched Palmolive right in the bicuspidor, its head hitting the floor with tremendous bombast.