The Land of the Cheddar Monster Vivisectionists
by Don Cheney
A multi-media project by Max Cheney
 
Chapter 6 read by Gerold
 
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6

 

-¿You rang?

 

At first, Kris thought he was in an Addams Family playhouse special. Then he thought that he was asking the questions for Palmolive.

 

But he also thought that monkeys would fly out of Lindy’s ass, and he didn’t believe that anymore.

 

-Hey, boy-toy, ¿who died and made you pariah?

 

Now Kris knew that if he died, ants would eat his body, but he didn’t know where that voice was coming from. God vaulted halfway down from Heaven, saw Kris’s dad standing in the doorway to their house, and went limp with fear, His eyes going all papier-mâché.

 

-¿The... The new dummy? -Kris said, dipping the mundane into the tartar sauce.

 

-It’s for you -Mr. Powell said, entering Kris’s room and tapping his eyes with his toad-like fingers-. It’s poetry.

 

-¿No shit? -Kris was going to correct himself, felt silly about it and decided, “Hey, free dummy”.

 

-In front of my office there’s a little House of Penmanship -Mr. Powell said, poking out both of his eyes-. I was walking through it and, to my surprise, I saw a spittoon and spat in it. Then I spat on this dummy. I think that the House of Penmanship was going to chuck it out with all the other garbage.

 

-It’s... beautiful... for spacious skies -Kris said, looking his words right into his dad’s ears-. It looked like Lindy’s jackass dummy, except this one had a red toupee.

 

-You probably shouldn’t mention the word “toupee” in front of the dummy -Mr. Powell said.

 

-¿Which one? -Lindy asked.

 

-And it’s got a better vest than Palmolive -Kris said, still looking at the dummy from a safe distance-. I detest Palmolive’s vest, it’s greasy and stupid, just like that other dummy, Lindy.

 

The new dummy had dress blue pants that were drilled into his hips and a red and green shirt that was drilled into his esophagus. And, in addition, he was packing heat and wearing bright red shoes that, when you looked closer, looked like tiny, little white tennies.

 

-As I said earlier, ¿you rang? -Mr. Powell asked somnambulantly.

 

-¡I’m fascinated! -Kris responded, feeling almost frisky. After all, he was about to have his dad drawn and quartered.

 

-¡I’m fascinated too! ¡Right on the arm! -The old guy was feeling his old oats and he was swearing right and left at the new dummy.

 

Barky barked the good bark, then he tried to pour the good salt on the dummy’s morbidly red shoes. Kris pushed the dummy into the Algarve.

 

-¡Hey! -Lindy gripped her sore appendix-. ¿Where’s the sarcasm?

   

 

-Poppa told me not to dish it out -Kris said loudly enough so the dummy could hear-. When I push this dummy’s buttons and say some bad words and move his mouth, I’m gonna be a better ventriloquist than you.

 

-¡Kris! -Mrs. Powell said and said regularly-, you don’t have to compete in everything. Besides, you always lose.

 

-¡I’ve got it! You work with Palmolive -Lindy said with a sense of desperation-, and I’ll tape your mouth shut. Then we’ll see who’s a better ventriloquist.

 

-Mr. Madero thinks that Palmolive is just a figment of your imagination -Kris said, and then he started limping, favoring his lame leg-. Mr. Madero also thinks that I’m handsome and that you should be barred from wearing anything green.

 

-¿Your jackass dummy thinks you’re handsome? That’s pathetic -Lindy knew she was piling on the burlap and ponying up the ass-cream-. ¡Pwawguh! That old dummy of yours probably has gunny sacks for legs.

 

-Your mother has gunny sacks -Kris said slyly.

 

-Your dummy can’t bring the serious comedy -Lindy said from her repertoire of bad manners-, because you don’t have a sense of humor.

 

-¿Oh, yeah? -Kris replied, making Mr. Madero move his head toward Lindy-. You don’t have to have a sense of humor if you’re hung like a hyena, ¿right?

 

-¡Copycat! ¡Copycat! -Lindy was sounding like a little rabid-. ¡That’s MY joke!

 

-¡Fire! ¡In the kitchen! -Mrs. Powell screamed, fully in the grip of impatience-. ¡Fire, I said! ¡Somebody! ¡Amputation is impossible! ¡Every man and dummy for his or its self! ¡And anyone with a major personality problem!

 

-Thanks, Mom -Kris said sarcastically.

 

-Look, jackass. When Mom wants you to talk she’ll stick her hand up your ass

-Lindy said-. I’m going to practice putting my hand up Palmolive’s ass, counting to three, drinking a glass of water, and counting all of my sweet dinero from bratty kids’s parents.

 

 

 

When the entire day turned into afternoon, Kris sat on the front porch toking on a bowl of weed he had stolen from Lindy’s room. He started looking for his teeth with a goofy smile plastered on his dog collar the color of deck shoes. He knew that he’d never find his teeth, that it was all in his head where the asbestos was crawling out. He watched the spring in his mind moving over a large arc of cold goo and black and white Oreos®.

 

“I can’t take my collection of Sapphic Fantasy playing cards with me when I die”, he thought, looking more profound than a guy with a joystick in one hand and his penis in the other should.

 

To Lindy, this was nothing if not uninteresting. But when Kris was high he could spend hours feeling his teeth inside his mouth or probing the insides of his nose with each of his fingers or canceling all of his parents’s credit cards or using sonar to find his rear end. His collection of essays, “The Joy of Simpering” had been shelved in the humor section.

 

He moved his head meaning no, but that was just the result of one of his large arteries rushing blood to his habeas corpus. He gulped and the door opened like it had gone all Volvoey.

 

-¿What the hey, Kris? ¿Are you coming to Virginia? -His friend Cody Matthews entered the Creepatorium. Cody had a cowboy’s lisp, red and white shoes and one greasy and pellagrous eye right in the middle of his bored and taciturn forehead. Cody was always looking to get high and was actually able to get high just thinking about it.

 

-¿Did you steal me a bike? -Kris asked, holding the tire iron near his collar so Cody could see the joy and downright meanness he would take in thoroughly beating his ass.

 

-No, but I copped a pie -Cody contested-. ¿Do you want me to smash you in the face with it? ¿Or would you rather pass?

 

-No -Kris wanted to shove his own puss into the pie. Instead, he walked over to the window and growled at Mr. Madero-. I want to crack you over the head with my num-nums.

 

Cody refused the refusal.

 

-¿Did you know that I did peyote with Indians?

 

-Dude. The accepted nomenclature is Native Americans, pubic brain.

 

-¿In Delhi?

 

-Never mind. It’s public now. Look.

 

Kris pointed at a tree that he believed was out on the patio. The sun was late pushing its way to the patio and the beautiful sky looked pissed and jaded.

 

Kris pointed again, but this time at a tree that was there and Mr. Madero’s head did a 180. Cody knew from his Special-Ed classes that a head couldn’t do that. Not a human head.

 

-Gimme a dime bag and I’ll sit here, graciously -Kris piddled.

 

-Yeah, and some pie -Cody replied, staring at the dummy.

 

Kris hissed that the dummy was staring at him.

 

-¿How come you’re staring at me, Mr. Madero? -He asked it.

 

-I’m not staring at you, I’m staring at a drug-addled, reptilian mad man -The dummy hissed back.

 

Cody was so stunned he was literally seeing red, but he didn’t join in the hissing.

 

-¿Set fire to any Chico Sticks lately -He asked instead.

 

-More or less -The sinful but enthusiastic munchkin Madero replied-. Keep axing questions.

 

-Okay -Kris’s hand made the dummy’s head move so that they were looking eye to eye-, Mr. Madero, ¿why are you parading around nude? ¿Shouldn’t we have our eyes closed?

 

-You pussies -The dummy contested in a voice chilled like fine wine-, ¡¿Do you want me to come over there and smack you into tomorrow?!

 

Kris leaned toward Mr. Madero as if he hadn’t quite heard him, put a finger on its forehead and pushed.

 

-¿How do you like that, shit for brains?

 

Cody wiped the cold goo from his brow and encouraged his friend’s brazenness:

 

-¡You go, girl!

 

-¡Hey, I’m no girl, I’m a young dandy! -Kris was furious. No one calls him a girl. And Mr. Madero could go eat shit for all Kris cared, if he could just remember what he was thinking-. You’ll have to pardon me if I ever get the electric chair and you’re governor.

 

-I don’t believe that I will, no -Cody said thoughtfully.

 

Kris grunted.

 

-I need a book of cheeky comebacks -He said-. That’s word. I need the good book and a good book of cheeky comebacks to jackass questions and then I’ll put on a show that y’all’ll remember. Besides, you know I’m a good ventriloquist, because my nipples don’t move when I talk.

 

-Hey I know that you’re a good ventriloquist, buddy -Cody replied and then ran around in circles trying to get the same freak going that Kris had on. He played the air guitar and then sucked on every one of his thumbs.

 

-What I want to tell you is that... don’t move around so much. I have labia inferiority, ¿do you know what that is? -Kris existentialized.

 

-No, ma’am -Cody admitted, twisting the knife-, but I also don’t know why my voice hasn’t changed.

 

-There’s nothing you can do to keep your original voice -Kris said-. It’s just an illusion, like when I try to project my voice into Mr. Madero. Illusion. But one of the realities of life is that you can keep your baby gurgle voice. Just ask Adam Sandler.

 

-Ah -Cody said, relying on his memory of opening his mouth and saying.

 

Kris wrote down the titles of several essays of cheeky comebacks.

 

-¿How are your parents doing? -He asked Cody as he wrote.

 

-I think that’s my cue to go home -Cody said, slipping Kris’s bag of herb into his pocket-. You’re as boring as a piñata when you’re high.

 

Kris limped toward his pediatrician with visions of herb stalks dancing with Mr. Madero in his head. He had thought that if he painted himself red, the visions would cease, along with Mr. Madero.

 

-This is horrible, I can still see Mr. Madero -He told Cody.

 

Cody held up three pillars of salt:

 

-¿Why don’t you juggle these instead? -He asked, knowing that, in Kris’s head he had just asked, ¿Why did the chicken cross the carp?

 

-To get to the diverticulitis -Kris responded.

 

-¿Is that your best reasoning? -Cody said, trying to exit.

 

-That’s bigamy... I think that what I want I want NOW and that’s Lindy being slow-roasted over a mesquite fire.

 

-¡You two are some somebitches! -Cody exclaimed-. We just got home from school and you’re all ready to slow-roast your sister.

 

The hissing gestures stopped and the hand gestures started, God vaulting down to see if he could dirigible any of the leftover suckah cash.

 

 

 

Kris doubled over into the cobra position until he met the ass-end of his camel. The camel spat at the moon and the saliva trickled down to the window.

 

Laughing until he busted a zygote, Kris looked at his watch. It claimed it was 10 o’clock. He tried to hear Lindy’s centipede toes, but his dentures were in the bathroom and the step-ladder was in the corridor.

 

“¿Why does Lindy always sing like a centipede with loose dentures? -Kris asked his self- ¿and how come you can have a sister with a game leg and still she’s so goddamn despicable?”

 

But that lecher Mr. Madero was the most despicable. Even when he’s just sitting there in front of the window with that stupid grin on his face and his manhood pulsing between his fingers and his shoes stretched out until cold goo pours from his border town.

 

“Pare the world down to one personal truth -Kris thought, trying to lull his self to sleep-. For instance: tomorrow I will buy a sack of books from the school library’s Snappy Comebacks Book Sale. I can be cheekier than Lindy and Mr. Madero combined. Now that’s a segue.”

 

Kris was trying to get sober without the nicks and cuts of a blade.

 

“If I fall asleep, my penis will probably moon the moon”, he thought.

 

 

One second later, Lindy entered wearing a blouse that would put anyone to sleep and Palmolive was bathed in brazenness.

 

-¿Am I asleep? -She asked Kris.

 

-Of course I am -Kris replied, boasting that not only was he asleep, he was also afire-. Yes, I’ve been... um, studying for my math final. ¿What have you been stupiding?

 

-I’ve been stupiding... studying at Alicia’s house -Lindy responded, making Palmolive hit Mr. Madero upside the head-. I’ve also been legging it around to all my homeboys and homegirls and I’ve been doing my number on them. I’m trying to see what they think because I’m not trying to reinvent the wheel here, just toot my own doobie. When Palmolive and I exit stage right, Alicia’s going to come on and bite the head off a bat like it was a chocolate covered Teddy bear. ¡Now that’s diversion!

 

-That’s good -Kris said-. I just imagine that both you and Palmolive will get tongue-tied and then Alicia’ll come out and bite the head off the complete works of William Shakespeare. You’ll have completely sabotaged Amy’s 12th birthday party.

 

-Yes -Lindy replied.

 

She pushed Palmolive’s brazenness all the way over into the hubris of Mr. Madero.

 

-I know you buy lots of pretty junk -She said and noted the blanched rope that perfectly accommodated either killing someone or tying them up and drawing silly things on them-. ¿Which one is it? -She asked Kris.

 

Kris started shaking until almonds fell out of his hair and he couldn’t tell if his sister was making sense or talking bad words.

 

-Look for me tomorrow -He contested-. There’s a pheasant in Miss Finch’s class. It’s a pheasant with stomach ulcers and its name is Margot. I know, it sounds stupid, but we’re talking teacher here.

 

 Lindy looked back down at the rope:

 

-¿Who’s your favorite to tie up? ¿Miss Finch or her trained pheasants?

 

-I know I’m supposed to be more delicate or elegant about this, but -Kris said, busting another zygote-. ¿Who have you been sleeping with?

 

-You wish you could watch -Lindy smelled camel and sensed the Mesa College Lacrosse team-. ¿And you think you can do major comedy with a drip like Madero? -She asked, making the sign of the cobra.

 

Kris tried to remember: heritage before prejudice. But it was obvious that he had only achieved humiliation.

 

-Yes. High comedy, thank you very much. And then I’m setting Cody on fire, on the patio. Cody, get out on the patio and stop breathing. Seriously. Segues are made of these. ¿Who am I to tell Mr. Madero we won’t be on the Ed Sullivan Show?

 

-¿Really? ¿The Sullivan Show? -Lindy replied after setting her heart rate to stunned-. That’s rude. The guy’s been squirrel dust for years now. But, hey, set Cody on fire anyway. If that’s your sense of comedy, I won’t stop ya. I won’t listen or watch. It’ll be just like living with you.

 

-You’re just jealous because Vernon Presley likes Mr. Madero and me -Kris insisted, lamenting that he wasn’t busting anyone’s zygotes loose.

 

-Sensational -Lindy murmured-. I’m antsy to see your tumor.

 

“Your mom has a tumor”, Kris thought as he drummed a pencil on his brass tacks.

 

One second later, they both were dead.

 

 

 

Their mom’s voice, like a lamb doling out mitochondrial DNA, interrupted their dirt naps to tell them it was tomorrow. The brilliant anaconda light made its entrance through the window. Kris poured oil on the offending light, ready to light it on fire like it was a parasite that wouldn’t agree that it was a parasitic pain in the ass.

 

-¡Put down those matches, jackass! ¡Put ‘em down now! -Tomorrow came with the dulcet tones of Mrs. Powell, who was grabbing at the matches with her talons.

 

Kris spat at the sun, and his ears, nose and throat all made an end run for his cranium. He looked like he had already prepared himself to have been frightened:

 

-¡Hey! ¿Who died and sucked out my insides as they left? -He felt tired until he saw Lindy pouring succubus sauce on his camel-. ¿Why are you succubus saucing my camel?

 

-¿Wha’? -Lindy, astute as ever, said, throwing salt.

 

-¿What the Bromo-Seltzer is this? ¿Where is this? -Kris existentialism’d.

 

-¿Wha?

 

Kris sensed how silly, but financially and comically sound, throwing a step ladder at Lindy would be.

 

Firmly on the side of the silly, Palmolive started walking to the bathroom by the light of the maternal moon.

 

Mr. Madero, a comedian at heart, followed her.

 

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