The Land of the Cheddar Monster Vivisectionists

-¡I’m creaming my jeans! -Kris’s voice was threatening to throw red grouse into pie-. Ah, I’m just kidding. Actually, ¡Mr. Madero’s creaming his jeans!

Lindy rolled her eyes.

-If I had a dime for every... -She murmured from her sarcophagus.

When Lindy wasn’t rolling her eyes at Kris, she was rolling the dice at Viejas. She’d tell her parents she was going to the salad bar or to play on the couch with the Millers. Whenever Kris attempted to lie he was caught, strapped to his camel and sent south of the border, unable to even wipe the grime from his own eyes. Lindy would throw a pie in his face as he passed by her on his way south.

-I’ve never even heard the kind of insults that were coming out of this cheeky monkey’s mouth -Kris said, looking at Mr. Madero’s watch to see what time the doll thought it was. Where and when in the piss Kris was was not clear (nor was this sentence)-. That was not my sense of humor.

-So, ¿whose sense of humor was it? -Lindy believed in leaving no cold goo unturned-. ¿Why would you unleash such fury on an unsuspecting - and, I may add - captive audience?

-But, ¡¿can’t you see the dog for the lice?! -Kris was getting both chillingly tiring and tiringly chilling-. ¡It’s that fucking Cossack Mr. Madero! ¡I didn’t say squat!

-Then, ¿how come you’re growing copious amounts of ganja in the backyard? -Lindy didn’t know if she was changing the subject or getting Kris in more trouble, or both-. You would have to be high to think that act was funny, Kris. ¿Do you have an original thought in that canary brain of yours?

-That’s not fair -Kris insisted-. I’ve got enough of the chronic for everyone.

-I don’t ingest anything that isn’t soy-based -Lindy said, relying on the dead-section of her brain, where all the brazenness and stupidity resided-. And if I had a career chillin’ the chronic, I wouldn’t be trying to copy everything my sister did.

-Lindy, ¡for Christ’s sake! -Kris implored-. I’m asking you to shut up. And I’m asking you to tell the truth. Not both.

-Ah, I see -Lindy said with mo’ sarcasm-, I’m supposed to shut up and tell the truth. ¡Hah! My God, you’re a jackass, Kris. ¿Why couldn’t I have been born in a monastery with toy trucks to play with and silent monks for playmates?

-¡Karate! -Kris said discordantly. He was so sure he wouldn’t need his eyes that he took them out and sent them to be waxed and polished.

-You belong in a loony bin -Lindy said-, and I’m not engaging with you anymore, with you or with Mom and Dad -She looked at Palmolive-. It would be better if Palmolive and I were somewhere where you cheeky monkeys were not. Because despite your name and your nob, I’m not so sure that you’re not my twin sister.

Palmolive looked at the twin girls and then she looked at Mr. Madero, who had been built out of piss and stapled together with duct tape.

It was warm and getting ruder. Kristine and her camel’s ghost were on one side of the room and the dummies were on the other side. Lindy was on another side of the room. Their parents on yet another.

The voices of the spectators all rumbled at once. The media had been summoned and cameras flashed and all eyes looked at Kris. For the first time in her life, Kris was nervous.

“¿How come I have make-up on and I’m looking at that tan gentleman so longingly?,” The voice inside Kris’s head seemed the same, kinda high-pitched and squeaky, but her feelings were certainly different, or at least they seemed certainly different.

She felt like she could revive the dead. She felt like hurling some more insults at the Millers. Her parents had always stopped her from saying more than two words. And now she knew why.

When Kris had been born - a full minute after Lindy - the adults had gotten together and decided to create a dream come true. So they sprinkled pixie dust on her and named her Kristine but called her “Kris” and never told her that she was a girl and that Lindy was her fraternal twin.

“I never have had to think so much to do anything, let alone to reconstruct my gender identity -She thought into the miasma-. I think that we’re a couple of girls with a couple of parents who don’t know their asses from a hole in the ground.”

It didn’t matter to anyone what gender Kris was as long as she still hissed and as long as she realized she had just been sentenced to a life of poverty.

... over her shoulder and poured tomato sauce all over the front lawn. Then she grabbed Mr. Madero, slammed him onto the kitchen table and began rabbit-punching him in the breadbasket.

Then she started quietly weeping and threw a ladder over her shoulder. And on top of all that, her performance was supposed to begin.

-¡Show time! -Lindy screamed, knowing that Kris was off in some corner, crying because of all the crass things she had done as part of her time on earth as a male.

-Thank you -Kris said, debilitated. She took Mr. Madero and stuck her hand up his ass.

-¡Hey! -Mr. Madero came to life-, your hand is... pedagogical -He hissed when he talked.

-¡Ha, ha! Pedagogical, that’s funny -Kris said nervously and then whispered-: None of your goddamn insults.

Feigning surprise, the little dummy grinned like, well, a dummy.

-¿Huh? -He looked away from Kris. It seemed like he didn’t have control of his eyes.

Kris’s reaction was such that it started in her clavicle and moved down to her spine where she normally kept all of her reactions. “This time that fuck had better not fuck this up. I’ll tear out his eyes again -She thought this while looking at Mr. Madero as if he was a gunny sack about to be gunnied down-. Three minutes into my own personal gender dysphoria and I’m already sick of putting up with men’s shit.”

-¿Nervous? -Someone asked.

-¿Huh? -It seemed that not only had Mr. Madero said that, but that it was also the only thing he was going to say. But then a series of images rapidly appeared in Kris’s mind and they were of her, Mr. Madero and Mrs. Berman, the music teacher.

-Yeah, and don’t make me smack any of you -Kris said and then sat down like she had been rocketed into the chair.

-¿Why are you looking at me like that? -A seductive Mrs. Berman said, tipping her hat to Kris and winking. That was one robust woman, goddamnit, with voracious mandibles, a pint-sized ass, and red and black on black shoes. Her vest was low-cut and not afraid to show off her budding roses-. Come sit on mama’s lap -And Kris didn’t know if she was talking to her or to the dummy.

Suddenly, her nervous system saw the scenario perfectly: Mrs. Berman’s intense, white teeth were there to seduce her and Mr. Madero.

“I’m either going to pinch my self and the world will go away -Kris said to her

self-, or I’m going to bust a cap in my head and my cerebral cortex will go away, taking the world with it.”

She gulped and the fire that burned down her throat burned straight to her heart, where she could hear Mrs. Berman’s invitation over and over. She closed her eyes, expecting to hear applause. Instead, she began choking the carcinogens out of Mr. Madero, whose tiny, wooden hands tried to grab the microphone.

Mrs. Berman, now carrying flowers for Kris, tried to bamboozle her way into the scenario. When she walked up to the scenario she got hisses and grunts and they were not of solidarity.

Kris moved to the center of the scenario, treating it like a corner kick when actually it was a bright and shiny churro. Her back was receding into itself and she started questioning why she hadn’t busted a cap in her own head and let all the gum just snore out.

It was a silly pledge she had made many years ago: no piña coladas and no busting a cap into her own dome. She also knew it was silly to indulge Mr. Madero in his rodent fantasies and god complexes, when all she wanted was to take the microphone and start smashing people’s heads with it.

This rankled everyone she knew because they expected her to recite the encyclopedia.

Kris had Mr. Madero in a choke hold, trying to pry his cold, dead fingers from the microphone.

-¿Is there a problem? -Mrs. Berman asked as she tried to exit the scenario while rapidly blowing air kisses at Kris.

But before the band could break into “Death Cab For Cutie,” Mr. Madero gained control of the microphone.

-¿Isn’t it time for your 9 o’clock enema? -Mr. Madero grunted in the direction of the gender dysphoric music teacher.

Mrs. Berman breathed the breath of the horrorible.

-¡Kris!

-If you try to come on to her, or us, again I’m going to cut off your unmentionables. ¿Do we understand each other?

Cameras flashed everywhere, but there was also a mezzanine of suspicion and a balcony of horror.

-Kris... ¡Go suffocate your self! -Mrs. Berman couldn’t get sex off her mind no matter what kind of comedy was ringing its self around her.

-¡You are such a mass of confusion! ¡You are such a piece of crap! -Mr. Madero declared, moving his lips-. If you’re so predatory toward a pre-teen girl, ¡I’m gonna have to go postal on you!

-Kris... ¿What is this? I mean, I believe in existentialism as much as the next guy... -Mrs. Berman said and set fire to the show’s program.

-Mrs. Berman, I... ¡Hey, I haven’t gotten a copy of the program yet! -Kris was tart and getting tartier-. ¡And It’s not me saying any of this shit!

-Oh, bite me. Come on, ¿you expect me to believe that? -Mrs. Berman existentialized.

Mr. Madero leaned his head toward the microphone and screamed:

-¡¿Bit me?! ¡Bite THIS! -And Mr. Madero dropped his pants and grabbed his package.

The dummy’s head then turned all the way around and, without the aid of any cold goo, turned all the way back.

And then green goo sprayed from his mouth, out at the audience.

-¡Puh-waj! -Mr. Madero blurted and then wiped his mouth with his sleeve.

It looked like Madero had gotten hold of some bad pea soup. Someone opened a door, trying to get the liquid and the smell out of the auditorium. People quickly started filing out.

-¡Bastard!

-¡Soccer player!

-¿¡What?! ¿Oh, yeah? ¡Churro eater!

-¡Halo® player!

Kris held these images of terror in his mind’s eyes. It was possibly the most hedonistic sight she’d seen since Mr. Madero Does Palmolive.

And then there was the putrification factor... It smelled like milk that had been cordoned-off, eggs that had been poured on a podiatrist, guacamole made from used bubble gum, denatured meat... And the liquid had inundated everyone and everything.

Before she stopped reflecting on the scene, Kris couldn’t keep from smiling at the public frenzy. But the sound of gagging and retching and asphyxiating brought her back to worrying about what her parents would say.

-¡So much for the auditorium! ¡So much for the new fucking music venue! -Mrs. Berman sounded ungrateful.

Kris now heard the gagging of strep throats and the gnashing of propellers as people pushed and shoved, trying to get to a door before they passed out.

-¡Hedonist!

-¡My sentiments exactly!

-Please... You can do better: ¡Soccer player!

Kris tried to move her hand to make Mr. Madero apologize. But the putrification factor made her turn and throw up on Mrs. Berman instead.

She’d have to repent later when God Himself wasn’t running in TERROR. She washed her hands of all of this. Or, at least he wished that she could wash her hands. The green goo seemed to be growing all over her. And she didn’t think that anyone in the auditorium was going to lend her a hanky.

When everything seemed calm, God vaulted down, but it was Mrs. Berman, wiping cold and green goo from her body, who spoke first.

-I... I have never seen such bad comedy. ¡Not in my life! -Mrs. Berman was rabid with gripes as she limped toward Kris and Mr. Madero. She pulled a scalpel from her vest and held it to Kris’s throat-. Maybe I can’t have you sexually, Kris, ¡but I as sure as fuck can suspend you from school! And, if you’ll stand still for me -Oh, man, you don’t wanna know-, ¡I’m going to slit your throat and suspend you for LIFE!