The Land of the Cheddar Monster Vivisectionists

-Kris, ¿are you conjuring spirits again? -Lindy was soluble, but she couldn’t see her self in the mirror and she wasn’t jumping for joy at her non-image.

Kris paraded around her without a sound.

-¿Are you conjuring spirits? -Lindy said as if she could see her self in the mirror.

-¿Wha... What makes you think I can conjure spirits? -That was Kris trying to be his mundanest, while holding a bowie knife and clenching his face in a look of terror-. ¿Who... who hissed that? ¿Was it that fuckface Madero who...?

Lindy pushed the RESPOND button, but instead of a response, a chill the size of her mom went down her spine, stopping first at the kitchen door for some chocolate grouse pie and then pushing out a one-word response of her own.

-Mommy... -Lindy was soluble, but she was also gyro-sobering into the miasma.

Mrs. Powell pretended that the moon was calling her. And that the kitchen was responding. This three-tiered response to her daughter’s plea was the first step in getting Lindy not to repeat herself so fucking much.

-¿What was that? -Mrs. Powell voiced her own fear of repetition. She was going to call her husband for help, but she knew that in a crisis he was even more useless-. No... ¡No, I take that back! I don’t wanna know what that was! ¡I don’t even believe in Jebus!

Barky entered the kitchen doing ¿what else? - barking, meaning his colitis had subsided. That and his head had been handed to him by a dummy with a bad case of milk mouth.

-¡Satan, come to me! -Mrs. Powell said firmly and cryogenically in her brazenness, a sack of pie entrails holding the door open. She danced sideways into the center of the kitchen, socking Lindy upside the head. After all, it was her fault that they had no chocolate grouse pie to keep the door propped open.

-So, I’m going to get something to eat and... and I find this revolting... -Kris’s voice was trembling-. It was comedy. Or it was trying to be comedy. It was...

-Mr. Madero has no comedy sense -Lindy accused-. ¡He’s no Mira Sorvino!

-¡Bastard! ¡That fucking bastard! -Mrs. Powell’s voice was Lucifer’s-. ¡He is trying all of my patiences!

Mrs. Powell expected someone to jump on that straight line, but everyone had started counting backward from 100 instead. Her eyes shot dental floss at Mr. Madero, lancing his disgusting grin.

-You stupid bastards -She said, this time her eyes shooting riboflavin tartar sauce at her two kids-. You’re so stupid that you’ve forgotten that these are ventriloquist dummies. You’re supposed to control them.

-Not only can Mr. Madero talk, Mommy, ¡he fucking hisses! -Kris said, according to Kris, and despite the three independent studies that each said “Dummies can’t talk, let alone hiss”-. He hisses something ridiculous, but that’s not my...

-¡Bastard! -Mrs. Powell was getting to like this repetition shit. That and shooting her eyes out like buckshot-. This -she said quietly- is being calm. ¡I’m calm god-fucking-dammit!

Actually, she looked more like a Fiji Mermaid than the immolator of dummies she was claiming to be. The only joy that she brought to the plate was her chicken casserole.

-I’m going to take those two dummies -Mrs. Powell said, vaulting her eyes at Lindy and Kris-. I’m going to pour gas on them and I’m going to limit their caloric intake.

-¡Noooooo! -Kris copped.

¡Justice is dead! -Lindy declared.

-Sit down. Shut up. I have this totally under control -Mrs. Powell said without repeating one word. Her eyes had turned into missiles loaded with meat pies, showing just how fatigued and disturbed she was-. Look, I have chicken casserole for everyone.

-But, ¡you’re not nice! -Lindy gritted.

-¡And Mr. Madero needs calories so he can perform at the Pasta Primavera concert! -Kris protested-. Everything in its time, Mommy.

Mrs. Powell looked from one to the otter. Her eyes said, “Torch this one named Kris”

-This dummy, you saw him taking a piss, ¿right?

-Right -Kris said-, but he wasn’t in the house, and therefore ¡it’s a hung jury!

-And just what the fuck are you talking about, ¿are you insane? -Mrs. Powell asked with the intensity of a lamp that only had a 25-watt bulb.

-Yes -Lindy rapidly contested-, ¡he’s nucking futs!

-Then the two of you are the dummies. Sit down and I’ll explain -Mrs. Powell said-. But only one sentence a day. I... I don’t’ have the patience to entertain you any longer.

A deep and profound silence met Mrs. Powell’s last sentence, like it had been disqualified for raining down too many vowels on an audience of unsuspecting consonants.

Kris was the first to form words:

-So, Mommy, ¿you say Lindy’s nuts? ¿Did you also know that she’s a vivisectionist?

Lindy was going to let the silence speak for her, but instead decided to speak for the silence:

-Yes, and I’m speaking for the silence here, and not for my self, I am a vivisectionist. I dissect things. ¿Did you see that bag of pie entrails in the kitchen? Yup, I dissected that. ¿And you know what else I can dissect? ¡Your fucking asses, if you don’t do what I want!

Mrs. Powell was the first to bite:

-No. No, I don’t think so. Look at all the destruction you’ve already accomplished just with a Pogo Stick and pie. ¡And the milk!

-She almost had our house repossessed too -Kris said vehemently-. And she took your Diners Club® card to Super Bronco. And she’s not hurt, she’s just affected a limp. ¡Puh-lease! If that’s a real limp then I’m Dean Martin singing “Little Ole Wine Drinker, Me”.

Mrs. Powell made her face look like it was really concentrating - thinking, thinking, thinking. But she really just had bad gas that she blames on the births of her children.

-Great -She finally replied-, now what I need from you kids is to have this kitchen be exactly as it was yesterday. The comedy, the joy, the endless tree frogs, I want it all shipshape or I’m getting out my gun.

-Great -The kids all mouthed the word in unison.

-I don’t want to get out my gun, but I also don’t want those fucking dummies in my house and I as sure as hell don’t want George W. Bush in the White House running Halliburton for that fuckface Cheney -Mrs. Powell was getting existential-. If you can promise me all of that, I’ll get out my gun, but I’ll just polish and reload it.

-¡Perfect! -This time the kids all gritted their teeth in unison.

-This just gets better and better -Kris offered.

-And I don’t want any more discussions about dummies and their civil rights -Mrs. Powell ignored Kris, as usual-. No more pleading. No more crying. I’ve got a vintage electric chair and I’m not afraid to use it. I don’t want to hear nothing from no one. ¡No mas!

-Suck my Chico Stick® -Kris blurted, looking at his sister.

-Yeah, Mom, thanks for being so understanding -Lindy said, pushing her suaveness through the door and out at her mom-. You’re a paragon of calm. Just like Louis Farrakhan. Or Vic Chesnutt.

-Not one more fucking word -Mrs. Powell played a recording of that one.

-Sorry, Mommy -Lindy said, knowing full well that that was two words.

Their mom disappeared without a trace. And she took Lindy’s limp body with her. Kris sucked on some Bolsa Chica and then threw the remains in the trash (well, the adjacent canyon). Then he pushed some meat pies at Lindy and the sound of pushing echoed until the cows came home and started making dinner.

Kris recognized with fondness the cows as the type he used to take joy in feeding and in slicing up for cutlets.

Armed with guns, the kids said nothing. Working silently, regrouping, limping and trembling until there wasn’t one thing in the kitchen that wasn’t impeccably asinine. Lindy had the nerve to close the kitchen door and bolster it with empty pie tins.

Kris inspected the rat droppings for possible mental retardation. Then he set fire to them with a match. And, finally, Mr. Madero pitched in too. He, of course, was the sole reason they had this shit duty. His “pitching in” consisted of boasting that he was hung like Arnold Schwarzenegger.

“This being a dummy shit sucks me six ways to Pie Traynor -Mr. Madero thought- Kris, now there’s a dummy.”

He sailed through the kitchen, telling Lindy that he was hung like Renée Zellweger.

The two siblings sat on the escalator in silence. They were still armed and they still hadn’t spoken a word.

The light paraded from the moon to the house via an open window. The air stabbed at the cat and was hung like Mr. Madero.

Kris was antsy and reloaded his gun. That took up all of three seconds.

Palmolive was sitting hunched over silly in front of the window and the light of the moon was reflected in her hair-care products. Lindy was petting Kris’s camel with a box cutter, taming a cobra by spitting at it, and Googling® God™ about Spalding Gray.

Kris was back to beating Mr. Madero senseless.

“If only I had a lion’s life -Madero thought as he lost feeling in his Dolemite and was hovering just above his now-limp body, watching- There’s nothing quite like a lion.”

The sunrise arched its back and then slapped Mr. Madero across his burlap sacks.

He was furious - that or the curly fries he had at lunch were arguing to come back up.

“This being a dummy is really beginning to stink -He thought-. It stinks and I have got to take a dump.”

Mr. Madero’s furiosity inadvertently closed the kitchen door and two armed and angry kids turned their own inward furiosity outward toward him. Their furiosity and creepiness caromed inarticulately off the armoire and in the direction of outer space.

In response, Kris hermetically sealed the kitchen door.

And with a heart full of latent fury, Kris started meting out camel justice and he started with the cobras. He wasn’t much for spitting, so he tried singing to the cobras. He sang creepy songs and the cobras followed.

Kris led the cobras to his dad’s car in the garage and, as he started it up, they all closed their eyes.

This was to be the beginning of their long sleep, when suddenly a voice cried out:

-¡Get over here, sailor boy! ¡Get over here, Yankee dog! -The voice groused. It was a voice that no dentist would drill and it was coming from the armoire.