Another Chapter

You may have seen this before... or maybe not. In any case, I want it to be illustrated frame style. After "somebody" reads through it and scales for feasibility, the assignment will be further explained.


I was reminded on the bike ride down the hill for the apparent last time of my trials at the old plant. The smell of hot asphalt drifted into my brain. Chemicals were prevalent in these parts, I realized. Emissions from the fertilizer facility as well as the Twin Rock “Apple Bird” Coal facility fell silently upon the prairie grasses near me. “Classical Gas” played softly at a nearby picnic. The newspaper informed me recently that the mercury emissions from the coal plant were ineffective to me, as I was immune to them from birth. Back when I was born, in ’61 they had a vaccine for mercury they say. It was called leadenvile. I am not poisoned. Just how much mercury is dangerous anyway? Fuck. I was well on my way through the mercury pasture anyway now, my ten-speed rolling well on a slightly bent rim. The wind was blowing through my hair at an even rate now, cleaning any particulates out as usual. My elbows were in the speed position. I approached the abandoned rail spur at the bottom of the hill at an astounding speed. I was hungry as ever, so I pedaled a bit, not more than a bit either, right up until the point that my upper torso was dealt a crushing blow. A crushing blow that I hours later determined to be a large towing rope. I had not seen it through my glasses that were brown rope tinted. I was crushed backwards and my bike left me stranded 6 feet in the air without a helmet. I was twisted and creased and thrown onto the hot pavement while my head was forced into the rail with alarming force. The alarm sounded in my head as it hit the track. I was hurt bad. I was unconscious for some time I believe, but awoke to the sound of a bird shrill. I looked to find the rope around me, tied to a tree on one side and a utility pole on the other. Two children were involved in this prank I figured. That, or there just may be somebody out there to get me as a second possibility. In either case, I was lucky enough to have been carrying 30 cents in nickels and a hard-boiled egg. These items, I thought, could later be used to my advantage. My head was clearly fucked up. I found my bike in one piece, the rim bent slightly more than before the crash. I lay by it and took a rest in a pool of my own blood.

After brief recovery I found myself (apparently the following day) driving down Highway 34 listening to the Car’s “Just What I Needed.” It was pure coincidence that I truly enjoyed the synth solo in this tune, as it was very original in its time. Unfortunately, I noticed that I was not enjoying it as usual due to a swollen face and a distorted nose. The warm, sweet taste of blood in my throat still, along with the cool feeling of past urination in my pants left me in severe discomfort in one way, while at the same time allowing me to size up my opponents in anger. I had not yet cleaned up after the accident, but instead opted to stumble to the Mexicana Restaurante where I was to meet my pal for a quesadilla meal with my favorite soda drink. I had then proceeded to sleep in his car for the afternoon and night. Gil’s response to my dilemma was, and I quote, “Rock n’ Jesus! You sure tasted the chrome!” He smiled with joy as he took off his sweatpants to sweep up the blood mask I wore. This morning we woke up and Gil had put the gears into motion. As I slept off my head injury, Gil dreamed up different strategies to investigate all the debauchery that’s gone on. I shook Ryan’s hand, after all, we had become good friends only weeks earlier. He was in the back seat. He had a bandana of burlap on and gloves of leather. He appeared to be prepared to do heavy work. I then proceeded to raise my hand (as high as I could in Gil’s old Caprice), in order to ask a question. Gil called on me to my enjoyment, just like Mrs. Lurpman didn’t do back in third grade. I had nothing to say after all. Gil handed me a note. It explained important details to our upcoming journey. First and foremost, we were heading to Harnack Marsh. That was all. Oh, and that Ryan was doing heavy fence work on the ranch earlier with Grandpa H. My frustrations were building as I realized I had still not eaten or taken my daily dose of strong narcotics. I don’t specify a certain narcotic, because any will do. Don’t bother sending me any, because I get them from my doctor friend who lives out of town, and state. Seriously, I don’t need your help in feeding my addiction… for sweet, sweet laughter. “I wouldn’t mind getting a Mustard Cat or a David Dog.” I really was hoping we could stop at Crillerson’s Ditch- the eatery that reminded me of the dark man from my childhood. I will explain later. The food was good, as were the memories of the evil bastard that took me there every Tuesday and Friday when I was 11. “Ah, nope.” Gil said while he scraped his ears clean with a cotton swab dabbed with motor oil. I was bored now, and hungry. Ryan gave me his last Kudos chocolate covered granola treat and his personal memoirs to take a look at. They were quite interesting. Ryan worked as a demon hunter for a holistic healer out on the coast. Before he got into that, he was an electrician fucking the dog for the man. He once wired a dual circuit in 3 minutes. I don’t know what a dual circuit is. A demon hunter is more ridiculous, and it requires you to carry two rolls of coinage and a ratchet packed with Top Shelf Ramen seasoning. If you have a 1” socket, it gets to be a decent amount of seasoning. Some say enough for a whole case of Ramen dinners. I became increasingly hungrier at the thought of a heaping spoonful of sodium rich yellow chicken powder melting in my mouth. According to Ryan’s memoirs, he only hunted demons twice in a two-year period, each time ending in failure. You see, the powder concealed in the ratchet is used in a dust form to repel demonic forces. According to the papers, the dirty old papers, the powder had soaked up a bit of moisture. Hence, the dust form was deactivated leading to Ryan’s release from the team. Whatever. A lame story in my mind. The coin rolls, by the way, provided a solid roller-type system for causing accidents at the supermarket. This made sense to me. Do I only deserve one episode of Macgyver per week? Would I continue to surprise the locals in Taste of Asia with empty promises, apologies, and friendly gestures of compassion? I’ve been reduced to rubble as a human being. My previous aspirations of assisting and demoralizing the people of TOA (see above) were on the ropes. My mind had been liquefied by the previous accident. All of my questions needed answering. These questions, however, would not be answered at this time, as two horses trotted up from an approach ahead, and a motorcycle pulled up beside us. It was a Kawasaki mini-bike with a sidecar. I glanced over to appreciate the wondrous looks of the vintage machine. The rims were of freshly shined chrome, and the man in the sidecar was eating a freshly shined apple. In the other hand it appeared he had a nice piece of Spanish chorizo sausage. A phallic symbol on most days, nonetheless, I yearned for its pleasures through eating. Sabbath, bloody Sabbath… nothing more to tell. Dark clouds began to drift through my psyche. Doomful music. It was the Virelic boys in that sidecar, together. The smaller had been dwarfed by his snack-eating, 400 pound brother. They wore matching sweaters- red stripes with cows- supposedly made by grandma Virelic. The driver appeared to be Chiang Han the computer genius. Ahead on the horses appeared Melcko and his partner A.C. Slater, none other than. At least that is what I saw, giving myself plenty of slack for the gaseous fumes that swirled in my head. “Gaahah!!” Gil yelled through his respirator mask he’d been wearing to defend himself from his car’s lack of a viable exhaust system. He hit that fuckin’ gas like his prosthetic leg had life. I slapped Ryan’s stupid looking ketchup-encrusted face and woke him up. The fat Virelic blob smiled at us with chorizo in his newly grown mustache. The mustache was fittingly patchy and thin. I wondered briefly how sausage could get trapped in there. “Any plans?” I wept to my pals. Ryan then took two baseballs, a pack of gum, and a dick out of his pockets. It was enough for me to know that he was no demon hunter, maybe just a pedophile. I vowed to sue him at a later date. We were sure in a bind now, no time for telling him to put his dick away. Instantaneously, as Ryan was opening his mouth to reveal his plan involving his items, he was dealt a crushing blow via a cinder block about the skull. Gil screamed in delightful horror (if such a thing exists), and pushed the turbo button on the left dash. Nothing happened. The turbo button was clearly fabricated by Gil. Ryan cried in the back while glass covered his penis pathetically and blood flowed like the evil from the corners of my mind out of 30 or so new orifices. One knows that a frozen burrito is not good if it is referred to on the back of the package as a unit. It may in fact be delicious, but in a mechanical kind of way. Was this analogous to the current situation of old Ryan’s face being withered away by a brick? I don’t know right now. I’ll come back to that later, with the other things I promised to return to. Our speed was increasing; reaching its peak. I put in a tape: classic Loverboy it would be. The tape deck clearly said "put attack sequence codes here." Again, Gil's fabrication had gotten the better of us. It just happened to be right in the middle of “Turn me Loose.” I took this as a message, punched Gil in the neck to say goodbye, and rolled out the door. I would incur more injury, I knew this. Apparently nothing compared to what would happen if Slater got a hold of a preppy like me. The dance of death was upon my friends and I at last. Ryan was a piece of shit anyway.