Listen to Anne Ricart read Chapter 19 Or click above to watch the video
If you don't see the Media player above, click here to play in a separate window (or right-click and download) 19 Dr. Berger had been carefully balancing the amount of love he doled out to “Randy” and his lot with the amount he doled out to Margaret and the other one. Now he was ready to wield that emotional juggernaut in an enormous power play of infinitesimal magnitude. His eyes lit up like the Energizer Bunny.
-¡Dad! -Margaret screamed, cracking Charlie over the head with a cracker-. ¡Your eyes! ¡They look like that Energizer Bunny dude’s’s!
-¿What the fuck are you saying? -A Dr. Berger replied.
-¡That’s not our “dad”! -Charlie exclaimed-. ¡I told you: this motherfucker’s an indentured dad!
-¡That is our “dad”! -Margaret insisted-. ¡I told you: this motherfucker’s a dentured dad!
She looked at her dad who was looking for a way out of this “¿Who’s on first?” comedy bit.
But all the searching in the world wasn’t going to do anything but add to the mayhem that the narrative (lunch) was (roast beef) unraveling (¡girk!) into. It was freaking confusing and now hundreds of centipede feet were walking in like tiny Clare Booth Luce’s.
-¡Dad! ¿What the fuck? -Margaret existentialized-. ¿What the fuck?
Before Dr. Berger was able to reprimand his young squire for repetition, they all stopped and listened to the sound of the escalator engaging and creaking towards the bathroom.
Everyone turned to see: ¡another Dr. Berger appear!
-¿¡How many of these fuck sticks are there?! -Charlie asked.
This new Dr. Berger seemed alarmed. “He” seemed like a gorilla had taken his head and shook it until his eyes looked like X’s, and his ears like stitches.
-¿What the hell do we have here? -The new Herr Berger cried out-. I can’t leave the house for three fucking seconds... Look, here’s your mum. ¿Don’t you recognize your own...
-¡No! -Mrs. Berger screamed, looking at the amassed Dr. Bergers. But then she started thinking about all of those hands, their fingers probing her naughty regions...-: ¡No! -She screamed again, this time panic stricken. She turned to the new Dr. Berger and slapped him across the face.
-To quote your daughter -Dr. Berger said, stunned by the public bitch-slapping-: “¿What the fuck?”
And he looked angrily at Margaret and Charlie.
-¿What have you two motherfuckers done? ¿Hmmm? ¿Do you think you can get away with anything in this god-forsaken dump?
-Now that’s our dad -Margaret decided with a voice that trailed off and then roboted-: This - has - been - a - recording.
-¡I am your father! -Another Dr. Berger screamed, taking an umbrella and slamming it against the bathroom door-. ¡No I’m not! ¡Oh, yes I am! ¡No I’m not! ¡It’s my pleasure to serve you! ¡Take this cash money please! ¡I’m a plant! ¡I’m a plant! ¡No sleep me!
Margaret and Charlie looked at each other in horror.
-¡You’re all plants! -Yet another Dr. Berger chimed in with, and lifted a hatchet-. And now... ¡I’m going to vivisect you all like common Cheddar Monsters!
-¡Holy fuck! -Another Dr. Berger Dr. Berger’d-. ¿How did I get in this plant suit?
Trapped in the middle of this bull crap, Margaret and Charlie contemplated both suicide and patricide.
¿Why was their sense of reality being so fucked with?
-- on to chapter 20 or back to the Bathroom --