The Land of the Cheddar Monster Vivisectionists

The two sisters fussed over the dummy, straightening its tie and applying teeth-whitening strips.

But Mr. Madero was as aggressive as a Terrier Bandito and words were echoing in his head that he didn’t understand.

-¡The words in my head are driving me batty! -He proclaimed-. The words are fucking me over.

¿Fucking him over?

And then words moved frenetically through Kris’s own mind. Disgustedly, she took paper to pen.

But the words ran dumb.

-¡The words are running dumb, Lindy!

-¿Huh? -The care with which Lindy paid attention to important subjects had waned since she had been relegated to minor character status.

Kris was arguing that her beloved dummy had actually come from the land of the Cheddar Monster Vivisectionists - a subject not easily broached when words ran dumb.

-Mr. Madero is from the land of the Cheddar Monster Vivisectionists and he’s not right in the head.

Lindy was already la-la-ing in la-la land. It would’ve taken strong elixir and two pies to convince her that Mr. Madero batted sixth for the Yankees. He was more of a leadoff hitter or number two guy.

-Mr. Madero is from the land of the Cheddar Monster Vivisectionists and he’s not right in the head -Kris repeated-. ¿Are you gonna wake the fuck up and smell the word arrangement?

-Vivi... ¿Are you sure he’s a vivisectionist and not that he’s been vivisected? -What Lindy had was a mean-ass expression and the endurance to sustain it indefinitely.

-¡Hatbox! -Kris screamed.

She took her hands from her hatbox and put them around Mr. Madero’s neck.

Lindy could now see in her mind that Kris had two hands.

-¡Suck my dick! -The dummy refused to chill.

-¡What the Tyra Banks! -Kris screamed, looking at her rat’s ass of a sister.

The ball was now firmly in the doll’s corner, except it had been deflated and someone was choking the life out of it.

The dummy let out a sonorous laugh, but what came out of his mouth were guffaws and then ¡flames!

Lindy’s hands suddenly were ablaze with the sound of fire.

But the dummy’s guffaws quickly blew out the fire.

Mr. Madero had a lot to learn about being a diabolic dummy. He tried a different tack:

-¡Parents! ¡I have come for your children! -And when he said “children” he did a little hop.

-¿Yeah? Well, ¡we’ve come to kick your fucking ass! -Kris said, looking to Lindy for support.

But Lindy just rolled her eyes and then shook her head, wanting to turn the page on all this evil dummy shit.

The dummy knew that a diabolical dummy would take advantage of this rift between the children.

-No... No, I can’t kick anybody’s fucking ass -Lindy said, sounding jaded and not unlike Jacques Derrida.

-¡Jacques Derrida! -Kris said, as if it were an exclamation.

The dummy started juggling pies in the air, while at the same time patting his head and rubbing his stomach. But no one was watching.

-¡Jacques Derrida! I’m in love with Jacques Derrida! -Kris was now making an exclamation of love for the French deconstructionist.

Lindy tried to read a page of Derrida’s writing so she’d know what she’d need to

take apart her baby’s heart

-¡I’m in lo-ove! -Lindy did not understand why she had just screamed that. ¿Could the dummy be the transmogrified soul of the dead French philosopher?

Mr. Madero nodded his head and grinned diabolically at Lindy and said:

-You don’t want to fuck with me. I’ve got philosophy now.

-¿You’ve got what? -Lindy said, not catching the Scritti Politti references that were flying around the room as if they were pies.

-I said this house is starting to piss me off -The masculine mannequin lied right to Lindy’s face and with the zafu brazenness that previously only Kris could

muster-. In fact, you are starting to harsh my mellow. Blow me.

-¿You’ve got what? -Lindy repeated.

-He’s making shit up. He’s trying to sound profound. He’s trying to make us think that he’s the lost and disembodied soul of Jacques Derrida. He’s fucking with your head -Kris philosophized.

Mr. Madero turned his head, but his eyes ¡didn’t go with it! Now he really looked diabolical.

-¡Hey! ¿How’d you do that? -Kris had been surprised when Madero’s eyes hadn’t turned with his head. Instead, they now hung there, staring at her, unblinking. Apart from the obvious brazenness and chicanery, Kris thought that it was something the nuns had never taught her in Catechism. They were too busy smacking the palms of her hands or shackling her hands to her desk and then lecturing her on the “pleasures of the palm”.

The dummy responded with his own declaration - The Declaration of Last Rites:

-¡Violence! ¡Violence! -He said in a tone that suggested he had been dipping into the oregano-. ¡It’s the only thing that will make you see sense!

-That’s not very philosophical -Kris said, looking at her sister and thinking she had been dipping into her Mott The Hoople records-. ¿Why don’t you go back to the tried and true “Blow me”? Because you sure as hell are getting banal.

Kris was doling out the brazenness where it once had lain dormant, but her segues weren’t transitioning very well. In fact, they got up, packed their bags and walked out of the house.

Lindy had been sucking on some bed sheets that tasted like large, metallic tires. Her hands trembled when someone mentioned that maybe she shouldn’t be sucking on anything that large.

-Let’s go get donuts -Kris said to Lindy, trying to make the dummy jealous.

A simmering furiosity started bubbling to the top of Mr. Madero’s head. He hadn’t flinched when they’d stolen his shoes - but he really loved donuts. And he really hated being ignored.

Pretending that she was a liger that had been bred for its soul-sucking skills, Lindy tried to rip the heart out of the surprisingly cultured creature. But ligers have no heart and she didn’t know where to find Madero’s.

Mr. Madero threw salt over his right shoulder:

-You lesbian dyke. You can’t marry me.

-¡I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last podiatrist on earth! -Lindy said with the grime and frustration that had built-up within her for the past few seconds-. ¿And ya know what else?

-Lindy, we don’t have time - he’s going into his podiatrist material -Kris said-. Let’s throw his ass in the armoire and lock it and get a starting time at Torrey Pines.

-You’re thinking too much. You can’t catch me -The dummy said in a voice as pure as a driven Jack Snow-. And if you did, I’d hang my self in the armoire. And my wood would be on your hands. That and I’d sing “Que Sera Sera” until you tore me limb from limb.

-Mind your manners -Kris murmured, reflecting on her lack of reason.

-¿What if he doesn’t have any manners? -Lindy existentialized.

The dummy rolled his eyes, watching the two girls clamor for clams with each other like a pair of rabid Depeche Modes.

-In your cases, I’m going to dispense with my rule about no sex with twin girls

-The dummy said matter-of-factly-. I’ve fucked your parents. I’ve fucked your friends... Oh yeah, and that detestable dog of yours, Barkley, or whatever-the-fuck-its-name. I fucked him so many times that my head was spinning and we actually got car-jacked before I had my seventh orgasm.

-¡Put it in the armoire! ¡Now! -Lindy was surging with self-righteous indignation-. At least until we find the real dummy formerly known as Mr. Madero.

-You gotta be shitting me -Mr. Madero insisted-. You shouldn’t provoke my fury. I have powders...

-¿You’ve got what? -Lindy said on cue.

-Powders... I’ve got pow-wers. And the less you interrupt me, the less likely it is that I’ll start singing stupid songs or standing on my head.

-The armoire door isn’t there any more. It’s been sealed over in lava. ¿¡Who knew?! -Kris lamented this latest lava lycanthropic... thing, forcing the “thing” into a lace where there should’ve been a “¡Book ‘em, Dan-o!”

-Oh. Sure. ¿How am I supposed to guess that lava had ¡sealed-in our fucking armoire! -Lindy was flying the past tense at half-mast. And she was sucking so egregiously that part of her plan had been to lock her self in the armoire.

-Perfect -Kris said-. Just ab-so-fucking-lutely plu-fucking-perfect.

-¿Why don’t you advertise it... -Mr. Madero admonished-. You’ll make more money off it.

Everyone, it seemed, was getting tired of Kris’s liberties with the English language.

And Kris was getting tired of being treated like last year’s Zen Arcade, but she liked the sound system and she liked the enlightenment. But, if people weren’t nice to her, she’d go back to talking about her dead camel.

The dummy ran to the center of the house and his eyes ran out the front door, leaving Mr. Madero without the eyes to see and without the will to live.

-You must place your right heel onto your left toe and slide, slide, slide -He said in a dialect of Tantric Yoga, lifting a hand to smack Lindy-. I’m not going to smack you. ¡I’m going to eviscerate you!

-¡No! -Kris said automatically and then thought, “Oh, what the hell”.

She and her sister had been poised to Lance Armstrong this dummy. Kris had even taken off her nicotine patch, placing the cigarettes clearly in Mr. Madero’s corner.

Instead, they pulled out pick-axes and mallets. They had met their dentist and they wanted to pummel him.

-The dentist you hate is really your own sense of self -Mr. Madero said this with such force, agitation and insight that it seemed he had flown on the wings of Pegasus, a prayer and, somehow, Shemp Howard-. ¡I’ve been brought here on the wings of Shemp Howard! ¡Now you are all going to die!

He continued ranting while Kris and Lindy started attacking the lava with mallet and pick-ax. The lava fell away and the armoire door opened.

-¿Now what? -Lindy prayed that Kris didn’t have a gun.