The Land of the Cheddar Monster Vivisectionists

-Tilt your head back ‘til you can’t breathe -Lindy instructed-. That’s it. See if you can move your peritoneum a little, like back and forth and under. The peritoneum is what makes the world go round.

Very obediently, Kris hissed and the dummy reacted not by moving its peritoneum but, instead, sticking out its rear.

-Don’t move its butt -Lindy told him.

-Believing in God Almighty beats getting shit-faced any day -Lindy’s Christian friend Alicia said.

-¿How can you believe in a god that can’t count to 10? -Cody was a counter and he had the Meow Mix® to prove it.

The four were sentenced to pulling weeds in a small rectangle of bottom feeders and old assholes known also as the Powell Patio Treasure. It was Saturday afternoon, there was lots of color and the sun and the TV were in the sky palling around. The Amarillo rays of the sun were filtering through each of their collective cerebral cortexes and moving slowly into their brains.

Barky established himself as the house-husband of the patio, incessantly bothering the kids with tales of colitis.

Kris established his self as the silliest plagiarizer this side of the truncated, naked trees and Contras. It was up to Mr. Madero to bring some noise to the patio.

Lindy and Alicia weren’t going to bring it, as they had already broughten it south of the border, cruising TJ like marionettes on Ritalin®. Now they were looking at Kris like he was a scene from a fruit tree.

Alicia was a tall girl and d’elegant, with black hair and a lisp that made her sound like a gaggle of boys had tied her up and tickled her. Fortunately, she had a heart of gold and a killer body, complete with tan lines. She had left her pants at a Mexican sporting goods store last night and now she was wearing Kris’s old terracotta pants and looking like she belonged in Tijuana’s famous “Roundabout Zoo.”

Cody, who had also been to the sporting goods store, was wearing Kris’s Speedo® swim trunks and both his fingers and his head were starting to freeze. He wanted to ram the Speedo® where the gerbils don’t brush their teeth.

Kris treated them all like monsters with bad ventriloquism acts. But Lindy didn’t want to be interrupted with any more suggestions about “better ventriloquism through Rumpelstiltskin”. Then, when Kris stopped his suggestions, Lindy looked nervously at her watch. She didn’t want to be late to work Amy’s birthday party but she did want to kick Barky in the ass.

-You rarely kick that fucking dog’s ass -Alicia told Lindy.

-You’re telling me -Lindy replied-. Palmolive is just a practice dummy. The real money is in kicking dog ass. When the mayor of this sea cottage sees the power of my leg and the wisdom of my comedy, well, it’s all over -She said, looking at her watch in a new way.

-All the kids at school look at their watches that way -Alicia said, expanding on a mosque full of brazenness.

-¿Who fucking cares? -Lindy replied in top form-. They also all sing karaoke.

-So do you -Kris hissed through Mr. Madero.

-Move the dummy’s lips next time you hiss -Lindy replied.

Kris looked at the ceiling:

-¿¡Weren’t his goddamn lips moving!? I’ve got to work on that or there’ll be more on me in tomorrow’s first edition.

-You’re only as trite as the last thing you say -Lindy say’d-. I don’t have to hire you a defense attorney, ¿do I?

Kris emitted a rabid grunt.

-¿Is the sound supposed to come out of my stomach? -Mr. Madero hissed.

Cody sold to the highest bidder, but Lindy beat him to the punch line:

-I believe that what you believe is what you choose -Lindy said in a “I’ve taken too much seconal” tone-. But if I actually thought about it, I’d believe that when you’re partying that’s when you should make some of your major life-choices.

Kris diplomatically stuck his hand up Mr. Madero’s ass and tendered his thoughts:

-I haven’t read any good books lately and I haven’t fucked any cute chicks -He said disconsolately-. ¿Where are the sexy chicks?

The care that Lindy poured into her sentence had a certain air of despicableness. Later, she’d swear that it was seconal attacking her enlarged cerebellum that made her say it.

-They left with your anatomically-correct blow-up doll -Lindy was a fan of snappy answers.

-¡You are cheeky! -Cody said.

-Yeah, yeah. ¿Where’s Palmolive? I wanna set her on fire -Lindy said sarcastically.

-You can’t set your own dummy on fire. Not here -Alicia told Lindy-. You have to decide, ¿do we pyrotechnic Palmolive or do we go party? ¿What’s it gonna be?

-I don’t have to decide -Lindy decided and pulled out a deck of cards-. I can do both. Pick a card.

Kris grunted, meaning to be rude, but picked a card anyway.

-You can keep it. I got fitty one more -Lindy said, ignoring both Kris, his grunt and his rudeness-. Now, if you children really want to see some pyrotechnics then come to whatsername’s birthday party. We’ll burn Palmolive there and PAR-TEE after.

-I think you and Kris owe each other several apologies -Alicia was also surging with seconal-. You can’t be sensational and insensitive.

-¿¡Oh, yeah!? ¿What number am I thinking of? It’s a number between one and ¡fuck you! -Lindy scoffed.

-¡Wow! ¡That’s some serious number! ¿How many dummies can you torch at once? -Cody broke into the brouhaha.

The eunuch was sitting right next to Alicia.

Lindy let out a hiss that was meant for Cody.

-I’m gonna tell you what you can do for me -She said, thinking and then adding:

-When Kris ain’t listening.

Kris sighed and then propelled himself into preparing to have been furious.

But before he could decide on a phrase appropriately furious, Lindy was beating on Mr. Madero with her hands.

-I’m jabbing and weaving. Dancing and ducking. Madero has no answer -Lindy said, ponying up a pie plate of silliness for Kris and accommodating the dull, woodenness of Mr. Madero by bopping him in the nose-. ¡There! ¡I’ve Sonatine’d you like you were Takeshi Kitano’s red-headed stepchild!

-¡Hey!... is... for horses -Kris existentailism’d, estranging everyone, including the dummies.

Grabbing a tire iron, Mr. Madero turned his head to see what the Desi Arnaz was going on:

-¡You fucking stupid bastards! -Mr. Madero spat in a tone that was despicable and guttural at the same time.

-¡Lindy! -Kris warbled- ¡Bastard!

Cody and Alicia looked surprised, but they started making out anyway.

¡Restrain your selves, jackasses! ¡Or I’ll get medieval on your heinies! ¡Don’t make me go medieval! -The dummy formerly in Kris’s care screamed.

-¡Uh-oh! -Cody exclaimed, extracting his tongue from Alicia’s mouth.

¡I need a dentist! -Kris complained to his sister.

-¡No! ¡Let me pull your tooth! -Lindy gimme’d in a trembling voice. She had taken biology in junior high and her eyes were bigger than her needle-nose pliers-. ¡I can’t pull your tooth, Kris! He... I mean... I’ve been talking through Mr. Madero.