Chapter 1 read by Tyler

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1

Kelsey Moore was a guitar, but a guitar that could scream and also gargle ants. Even gigantic ants bought at the Serpentine Marina and ladled up by an otter. Kelsey knew that the more she told everyone that she was “the chick with the pick of the podiatrists”, the more monstrously green her Zamboni would become.

Kelsey also knew that the more she thought, the more she fidgeted. Kelsey was thinking again for the last time.

She gritted her teeth whenever the Serpentine Marina was mentioned, her vagina rising like a grand and bestial mountain range over a curvy, Kate and Winslet river that segmented its self and its trajectory like a tuber rose that had just placed second.

-¡Gwahh!- Drew exclaimed unexclaimily. -¡Away with you all before I murdelize yuz!-

-What a disaster.- Kelsey said as she rolled Ban deodorant over her ass and toes. -¿And, for me to be considered human, I have to drink a quart of cola in twenty minutes?-

-¿A disaster?- Now Drew was really testy. -¿Have you pole-vaulted all the way on over to crazy? All I know is: give me that much cola and I’ll rule the fucking WORLD.-

-You’re not gritting your teeth.- Drew had drawn her self in a tea color.

-When I grit my teeth I taste what I’m eating.- Kelsey kant read. -And I always grit my teeth when I’m eating kale.-

-¡Look, you siesta-inducing son of a whore!- Drew had to reach way down for that one. -I gritted my teeth while you were gritting your teeths on Gerbers.-

-Yeah, well, I’m recording everything you say.- Kelsey said. -Your god taunts you because it knows that your subway ticket is a one-way ride.-

Drew knew that if Kelsey ever drank a quart of cola, she’d beat God over the head with the empty plastic bottle.

-¡Will you shut the fuck up!- She gritted her teeth, but it wasn’t that she was acting like a baby.

Kelsey and Drew were very good friends. Very good friends who had more misery in their ruby red shoes and rickshaws than The Mamas and the Papas and The Mamas and the Granadas combined. They had more Tinnitus than a Miami appellate court.

And that’s a lot of shit for a couple of 11-year-olds.

Kelsey thinks that she’s more than just a horse’s ass, and certainly more than Drew is more than a horse’s ass, but she’s said that about 21 times now.

Every other year their parents break out their aqualungs and ambulate out of the house. And every other year, Kelsey tries to have Drew arrested for impersonating the f-i-r-e in flippered, for being a guitar when what she wanted her to be was subject to a poll tax, and for not supporting Kelsey in her drive to make the Aquawoman Scuba Diving Team.

Two summers ago, Kelsey had even tried to convince Drew that she had once been buried under the Serpentine Marina. In the end, she only succeeded in convincing Drew that she had once been decapitated.

-I can’t believe you bought that one.- Kelsey murmured. -I had gone to school the next day, but I had lost my mind.-

-Yeah, yeah, yeah. At least I don’t live on Fear Street. There’s all sorts of monsters and ghosts there almost every day.- Drew replied.

-Look, okay, it’s true. I live on Fear Street.- Kelsey said. -I think we all live there, we just don’t like to be seen as living there.-

-That and we don’t want to be seen as riding in any car less than a Tercel.- Drew was seen as saying.

-That’s a big NO.- Kelsey said. But she knew that she had a storied history with ghosts. Ghosts that drove around in Mazda Protégés.

Drew pushed out the whites of her eyes.

-Great. You live on Fear Street and all I get is to see the whites of my eyes. If we were any more exceptional we’d have a congregation of hermit crabs.-

-Not me, I’d have a congregation of consultants.- Kelsey mentioned. -I’d ask them “¿What comes after the letter 2?” and nothing else. Of course, ¿why would I want to ask them anything?- She asked, changing into a team of horses.

-¿Are we going to the Chocolate Car Show?- Drew was getting all sugary.

-We can’t.- Kelsey replied. -I don’t think I’ve had enough dinner.-

-But, ¿what the hey?- Drew started pushing snails onto her balsa wood. -We had enough to eat yesterday. I had a fish taco.-

-¿Is that what you call eating? You’d eat a chocolate hubcap, you’ve done it a hundred times.- Kelsey said. -And ¿you know what else? It gives you horribly smelly gas and I’m always the unfortunate one who has to play with you. You’re like the first dinosaur that ever lived.-

-I’m not a dinosaur.- Drew insisted. -And when I’m playing video games, ¿why don’t you give me 80 dollars and then leave, instead of standing behind me, peeing? And another thing, ¿don’t you owe me 25 cents?-

-Yeah, I owe you a quarter, but, ¿can you explain to me why, if you’re parents are worth a quarter of a million dollars, you’re worrying about a quarter? I mean, it’s not like we’re ants in a giant Ant Farm with nowhere to go and nothing to do. We can always hang out at the truck stop.-

-But that is exactly what we do, and we do it year after year.- Drew said. -And ¿when was the last time we ate anything more than a gulp? ¿When was the last time we ate like red elephants?-

-Ahh, I see.- Kelsey contested. -You want me to call you a dino… No, you want me to look at the sun until I go blind.-

-Good, that’s right, now you’re getting it. You’re starting to see that ¡I LIKE TO PLAY FUCKING VIDEO GAMES!- Drew screamed with not just a little firmnessticity.

-That’s good, that’s good.- Kelsey said over and over. -But if I had to, I could buy your house and have you thrown out of it. And then I’d burn your ex-house to the ground. And then I’d open a video game arcade on the scorched land and I wouldn’t let you in! ¡No matter how much freaking money you had!-

Kelsey and Drew listened to the sound of the wind and the cars and they almost smiled.

-I have all the money and food I need.- Drew said. She had all the money and food, but she couldn’t get a permit to put snails on balsa wood. -We’re going to buy God and all his holy angels…- Drew knew she could kick Kelsey’s ass, but that the smart-ass girl wouldn’t even appreciate it. -¿Oh, Kelsey?-

-¡Here!- Exclaimed the chick who likes to pick the horse’s teeth. -At least it looks like I’m here.-

-¿What does?- Drew asked. She had never seen a doppelganger.

Kelsey had the delicateness of an old sailor and the lugubriousness of an algebra teacher. It wasn’t a good combination. It wasn’t a good combination and still she’d ride through the neighborhood in her mohair dress, reading her Antique Guide.

-¿What the Christ are you talking about?- Kelsey now prayed that Drew didn’t have a gun and that the gun she didn’t have wasn’t in her hand and her finger wasn’t on the absent trigger.

-¿What does that have to do with anything now?-

She rolled her eyes and as her eyes rolled, God came down and smeared cold goo on the door. Zandra The Incredible, God said, trying to segue back into the persona of Victor Meldrew.

-It’s a Scritti Politti cassette that doesn’t use the word “deconstruction”…but who the Christ Zandra The Incredible is I don’t know. I just hope he or she ain’t hungry.- Kelsey was about to fall asleep on her feet, but instead she fell asleep on her feet.

Drew began her own narrative where she could see a river from her front door, but she couldn’t tell if she was dreaming or not. God was pouring salt on anyone who’d repent and Kelsey was on the flying trapeze.

-Hey, Bruto.- Exclaimed the chick with the fondness for pie. -¿What’s the haps?-

-I’m lost and braless.- Drew murmured.

Kelsey now began her own narrative, one where she was looking out the window of a cubicle at Ponce de León. She couldn’t tell if she was imagining this or simply making it up. As it turned out: the eyes had it.

Then she had another vision.

A very tiny vision.

A very tiny vision of a very tiny human. A very tiny human with eyes like giant vaccinations.

She tried to take in everything the air had to offer. And for her trouble she got kicked in the rear.

-Don’t make me take a corner kick, and don’t make me put snails on balsa wood.- She said to Drew. -Your punk ass is always going to be mine. But I’m starting to believe that your rodeo ass is going to be the quiet before the mystery.-

She started tearing apart the front door. This was because she didn’t want to open it. That and she didn’t want to fire a scud missile through it.

-Come on in.- She announced to God.

-I don’t know how.- Drew said and started putting the door back together. -Not everybody has the time to pick apart a door, but everybody has the time to be a day trader.-

-I was supposed to be a day trader.- Kelsey said like a burlap sack full of mad cow diseases.

-¡That’s not true!- Drew replied. -That’s like saying just because we don’t have a gun we don’t have a motive to kill. That’s like saying that all divinity students are imposters. That’s like saying that everyone in the world knows everyone else. But it’s just not true that you were supposed to be a day trader.-

Kelsey opened the door enough so that one meter of her head stuck out like a chicken. The rest of her body looked a lot like a French fry. What was really strange about this was that most of her extremities looked like pie, except her chicken head.

She started checking her self out with a mirror. First she looked at her football and then at the space between her bicycle cap and her pelvis. All the parts were there, but they looked like old pillows on Ladies Night.

Kelsey knew that if she started fidgeting with the parts she liked, the other parts would start looking like a library. That or a telemarketer. And if you think that that seems like much, multiply it by the number of animals that are desecrated every year.

Kelsey also knew that she couldn’t look an animal in the eyes. It wasn’t because she didn’t have any eyes, but it was bizcause the animals didn’t have any homes.

And that was the truth, daddy-o.

It was death, but it was the truth, daddy-o.

-There’s no way I believe that a horse wears dentures.- Kelsey murmured. -I want to leave before I enter.-

-¡No!- Drew said. She was tired of Kelsey. -We’re leaving. We don’t have all summer to talk dentures. We can leave and not enter on another day.-

And Kelsey had thought that the concept of a god was suspicious…

-That’s all well and good, but…-

-But, ¡bock, bock, bock, bock!- A voice said, cascading down on them like a Jane Fonda workout video.

Kelsey and Drew walked in circles, looking to the world like a couple of serious assholes who didn’t know how to open a door. Even old people could open a door, with a finger, or by clapping.

-Bock, bock, bock.- The voice repeated. -Bock, bock.-

Kelsey didn’t want to look. She was afraid that the woman’s voice was Jane Fonda’s. She lifted up her suede vest and stamped her feet on the alabaster floor. And she took care not to cut the carpet into cubes. And she really took care not to hang her curveball to any batter. But just as she did not do all of this, she did light a flaming arrow that she then sent hurtling into the house.

The house, however, did not catch fire because of all the cold goo that God had spread all over it, and because of the hundreds of gold gorilla statues. The gold gorilla statues grew out of the flooring like cold globules of tire irons.

The voice looked arcanely at Kelsey when she turned to eat her own words.

Kelsey hadn’t eaten the letter “v” before she couldn’t breathe. The voice was the blue, gold and black of carbon paper.

-Come on in.- It said. -Come on. I’m going to tie up both of you and then we’re gonna talk. Bock, bock bock, bock times two. You, Kelsey, and you too, Drew.-

Drew knew she had pushed her pal into the Brett Saberhagen one too many times.

-¿How come you know our names before we start yammering them?- Kelsey murmured. -And, ¿how come it’s Saturday?-

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