I was sitting out on the balcony, watching puffs of smoke dance between me and a moon half gone from full.  It was cold, sometime in mid-March.  They call it jacket weather because you'd have to be insane to be outside in it without a jacket.  Sanity, I always say, is like the weather: it's just a matter of degrees.  And there I sat enjoying the cold steel pinch of freshly falling snow on my awesomely chiseled and generously wooly Alec Baldwin he-chest when I thought of her again.

     Veronica Winslow.  She had me wrapped around her finger like a cheap piece of carnival jewelry.  She was just too classy to be seen wearing me, and I was likely to leave a rash wherever I made skin contact.  Veronica Wislow.  That one in a million gal that stepped into the limelight of my world.

     I took the memory of that first intoxicating breath of her perfume and let my hands dance all over it, shaping and molding it into something in this moment and bringing her into fantasies that I had long promised myself I would try to avoid indulging in.  I promised to make some kind of amends with the universe for the horrible, horrible things my imagination was doing to her.  I'd plant a tree.  Adopt a puppy.  Carbon credits.  Anything.

     It took me half an hour and a fifth of Jameson after she walked out of my house before I jumped onto Craigslist and put up my ad:

Do You Like Alec Baldwin? Then You're In Luck, Weirdo! - 44 (Colorado Springs, CO)

I'm a disturbingly handsome surgeon in Colorado Springs with a sudden need to indulge in a disturbing sexual fantasy that just might require a hospital stay on my part. Keyword: Disturbing.

Not to worry... this is considered perfectly legal between two consenting adults in most of the western world, however it would be beneficial if you could provide some form of recent MRI and/or blood work as proof of your eligibility to partake in this festival of throbs and fluids. You may also be required to sign a legal release form.

So whatta ya say, freak? Wanna test the boundaries of human endurance with a man whose chiseled good looks, fluffy and abundant chest hair, and seductive eyes may just bring you to the first of many, many heights of ecstasy all by themselves? Then drop me a line, and make peace with the God of your parent's choosing, because things just won't be the same after this!

Oh yeah! No uggo's!

     Evangeline answered the ad within ten minutes.  She was a short young college co-ed with a tribal tramp stamp that I found myself snorting lines of crushed Provigil off of.  Her face was a tackle-box variety of piercings sweetly resting beneathe hair that was like the paint isle at Home Depot came under shotgun attack.  She was on her fifth DUI so she caught a ride from her dumpy little bleach-blonde roommate Bethany that cried quietly in the dark corner and watched as I acted out my foul, foul fantasy.  Somehow the seething jealousy of Bethany only added to the new depths of personal depravity I was exploring.  I found myself fascinated at the seemingly limitless depths which I was able to imagine, verbalize and ultimately act out and I would occasionaly throw Bethany a wink of appreciation.

     After the act was completed and Bethany and Evangeline robbed me of pretty much every piece of electronic equipment in this quadrant of the Compound, I found my way back out onto the balcony to soothe the rapidly blistering friction burns on my exposed flesh in the cool glaze of snow.  I watched the two roommates from the balcony as they loaded up their truck with my personal possessions, but found no will, energy, or desire to chase after them despite their also being at a disadvantage due to Evangeline's new bowlegged swagger and Bethany being the proportions of a tick about to pop.  Evangeline had earned what she was stealing from me, and anything she can sell it for could help pay for any delayed unintended "consequences".  Rights ain't rights unless you exercise them once in a while.  Something in how absolutely calm and poised Evangeline was upon discovering the subterranean salt mines of my sexual requests tells me that she was to the "right to choose" what Charlton Heston was to the second amendment.  This night with the Doc was just another night at the firing range for her, and time would tell if I hit a bullseye.

     I had just about drifted to sleep when there was another knock at the door.  I was just starting to fly through the clouds, cushioned miles above and looking down on cityscapes lit up into mosaics of the Brothers Baldwin.  Stephen winking from below, Daniel gently licking his lips, William with that smile, and Alec.  Sweet Alec.  A million lights from a million homes twinkling into something a million times more beautiful than the sum of its parts.  The eyes were too beautiful for me to look into directly, and they fired up at me like beams of light and then... then came the knock.

     It was the knock of a cop.  You can tell it's them knocking.  They knock like they want to punish the door.  They're tired, they're pissed, maybe they've got a little bit of a drinking problem and it's just about time for that mid-shift nip.  Any which way you cut it, when a cop is knocking on your door they're not there to make friends.  And I wasn't too excited to be the thing standing between whoever this flatfoot was and his Gentleman Jack with a Budweiser back.

     "I'm naked."  I shouted, casually strolling into the entry hall with a can of air freshener.  Even though the Boddicker Compound is technically and legally an Iraqi embassy due to a few paperwork glitches a few years back, I didn't feel like getting hassled by some cops for a little weed stink.

     "Open the door!"  A deep, rough voice bellowed.

     "Are you here to respond to my Craigslist ad?  Can you come back in an hour or so?  I gotta drink a protein shake and some raw eggs to get another round in the chamber."

     I walked over to the security monitor and saw two plainclothes cops standing there in the soft flurries of snow.  I recognized these two.  Detective Hubley and Detective Nauls.  Hubley was the fat one.  You'd think he swallowed a third partner in the group and Nauls was just too chickenshit to say something about it.  Not that Nauls could do much about it anyway.  He was one of those little guys with a big chip on his shoulder.  He was bald on top with a band of wispy red hair circling the back of his head and strangely joining under his lip in one of the most accomplished mutton-chop moustache configurations ever witnessed in recorded history.  He liked to think he was a bad-ass when he hauled his Harley Davidson to bike rallies on a trailer behind his compact Fiat on the weekends.  Most of the time the bikers would smell Narc all over him and stomp him within an inch of organ failure but for the most part he enjoyed the human contact.

     I could barely register my complete disappointment at seeing those two thugs when the door suddenly burst in, throwing splinters and clanging door hinges across the opulent marble entry-way.  Hubley had kicked the door in with one swoop of his mighty hind paw.  Nauls was a big man when he had Hubley around.  You could see him grow a full foot taller when he was with his rotund behemoth partner.   Hubley, however, was only good for tasks which involved leveraging gravity to one's advantage.  Nauls walked in behind the giant orb of Hubley and shook his head, preparing to speak in that dumb hick speak he was known for.  I promised myself that I would smoke one joint for every "Y'all" he dropped during his ramblings.

     "Well shit my britches, y'all," he twanged out.  Score one J for Doc.

     "What the fuck do you want, Nauls?"  I yawned and motioned for them to follow me into the living room which was freshly without it's antique vases and flat-screen television with 100 disk DVD changer loaded to the gills with Baldwin movies and porn.  I dropped to the couch, wincing at the chafing.  Lanolin would need to be applied liberally once I 86'ed these yahoos.

     "Looks like you got fuck-burn."  Nauls dropped himself onto the recliner and proceeded to much on a nearby open bag of Doritos.

     "That's very observant of you, Nauls.  You may just make detective yet."

     "I am a detective, y'all.  See?"  He pulled out his badge and showed it proudly in front of my face.  "I know you're tryin' to make fun of me, y'all.  I ain't no idiot.  I know what the fuck two plus two equals."

     "Yellow?"

     "You think you're cute.  Is that it?  Well tell me, mister enjoyer-of-things-that-appear-to-be-cute.  Tell me what you think of this."  He tossed a business card across the coffee table, landing it in a bowl of fresh salsa that was only slightly befouled in this evening's events.  I picked it up, flicking away a stray piece of onion from the corner, and noticed a particularly foul odor emanating from it.  It was one of my cards, with the address clear as day, and the supple lips of Alec Baldwin slightly obscured by a small speck of Habanero pepper.

     "This card smells like ass."

     "That's 'cause we found it up the ass of a dead guy."

     "I see."  I gently laid the card down and made my way to the kitchen to retrieve tongs, a plastic bag, a lighter, and hand sanitizer.  "Go on."  I offered as I proceeded to run my fingertips over open flame, sanitize, flame, sanitize, rinse, dry, weep, and repeat and then place the card in the zip-lock bag.

     "Well, technically it was half an ass we found it up.  One of the ass cheeks was sanded off.  I mean clean off.  Face too.  Hands were lopped off.  And a big hole was cut out of the lower back.  It was sick, y'all."

     "You don't say?" Rinse, flame, dry, weep.  "Say... I don't want to tell you guys how to do your job or anything.  And I know that you've probably given this a whole bunch of thought already which is why you felt comfortable in approaching the way you did with the card and all... but shouldn't you have put this card in an evidence bag?  You know... instead of flicking it into my salsa.  I really was enjoying this bowl of salsa.  And I kind of feel like you ruined it.  Even if I could section off the spot where the card landed to try and isolate the area and perhaps salvage some of the salsa, there will be always be that underlying doubt in my head.   You know?  It's a thick, chunky salsa, I will grant you that.  But it does have some liquidity to it.  So anything that might have washed off of the card... you know... little flakes of dead-guy ass and all that that entails... that could very well be roaming free within the salsa that I thought I salvaged."

     "What's your point?"

     "Well, my point is, Detective Nauls, that I feel this could have all been avoided if you had followed some elementary evidence gathering procedures and placed this card in a bag.  It kind of seems like an important clue to your little murder mystery."

     "Woah, woah, woah, y'all!"  He snatched the bagged card out of my hand.  "Now who the hell said anything about a murder? "

     "You're right.  My mistake.  But you will grant me that I'm a little bit right for being suspicious, even if I didn't kill him?"

     "So did you kill him?"

     "I'm gonna go ahead and lock into a story right now.  No.  Chances are I was gettin' the good ol' egg treatment when your guy checked out.  You know?  Laid and then fried."

     "I like eggs."  Hubley burped.

     "Then y'all got any idea as to why we found this card in his posterior when every other method of identification removed so deliberately?"

     "Maybe to frame me?"

     "Really?  Well somethin' like that would take a little bit more evidence.  I don't suppose you'd let me have a look around this place?"  He started flipping through some magazines, showing me that he was just getting warmed up.  I figured I'd let him get half way through the really hard-core porn stack before I raised my objection.

     "Look... usually when I kill someone I like to toss the murder weapon and all that evidence into the river.  Oh shit..."  I shrugged.  "Well, I can tell you with a fairly moderate to acceptable degree of certainty that I didn't kill your guy."

     "Y'all keep makin' with your funny jokes, you fuckin' quack.  One day that smart mouth is gonna get y'all into a predicament."

     "I usually just pay cash for my predicaments."  I stood up and waved to the door.  Nauls took the hint and stood up but Hubley was a little slower on the uptake.  "Hey, Kong.  Make with the walk-walk and get the fuck out of here with this Clint-Howard-with-a-mutton-stache partner of yours."

     Nauls and Hubley got to the door after Hubley indulged in a few helpings of chips and salsa.  I could only look over to Nauls and register an expression somewhere between "I'm terrified right now" and "I blame you for this".  Nauls simply looked at me, blinked and then prodded his lumbering partner along, warning him of the probability of e-coli.

     "We'll be in touch."  Nauls said as he walked out into the night.

     "You owe me a new fuckin' door."  I shouted out to them.  It was too late, and a moment later they were simply two distant taillights driving into an icy cold night.

     I had time to take a look at the card through the plastic bag before Nauls returned to collect it (and receive a further warning of my intent to pursue a replacement door).  On the back, smeared words written in felt-tip pen appeared to spell out "Groovy Loads", but through the running of the ink and the dark, thick salsa it was hard to make out.

     I quit counting the number of "y'alls" after six, so I rounded up the number of joints I'd smoke to ten just to be safe and baked myself into a nice foggy nap.  It had been an interesting day, and I was anxious to find out what the morning had in store.  My chafing friction burns tingled as the cold air of the broken front door danced gently over them and I fell asleep to thoughts of Veronica Winslow.  Morning couldn't come soon enough.

     I sat at the kitchen counter, counting the puffs I was able to get out of each cigarette.  In the moonlight the smoke curled and swirled a metal-blue, and I wondered why it tended to stain everything death yellow.  A few more puffs and I had finished off the pack.  After the last crackles of the dying embers of the cigarette faded, I sat in near silence.  The drip-drip-drip from the faucet in the sink was noticeable, but not enough to annoy me into doing something about it.  Besides… doing something about it used to be Eldon’s job.
     I’m not the kind of guy to put a lot of stock into self-reliance.  The world is full of people who just want to help, and I’m usually happy to let them.  If I could have found the strength to shamble out of the Compound and into town I’m sure I would be swarmed with do-gooders eager to get their ticket to Heaven punched.  With my week-long growth of beard and sunk-in eyes, I’m sure I looked like just the puppy they’ve been longing to save.  But I couldn’t muster the energy, and I had more or less accepted that I was alone.
     She knocked on the main door of the Compound.  It was the kind of knock that said a lot about a gal.  Thump… Thump… Th-Thump.  She wanted my attention, but she wasn’t desperate.  Desperation was a game played by other chicks.  She was patient after the first knock, and I watched her close.  All black and white and painted in scan-lines on the security monitor.  On the screen her lips looked black as oil, but I knew that up close they’d be the kind of deep cherry red that they name candies after.  So cool, I thought.  So cool.
     She knocked again.  Th-Thump, Thump, Thump.  Still cool, and her head tilted up slightly so the corner of her eye caught the camera.  Those lips bent into a slight smile.  She knew I was watching.  And maybe that’s what made her smile.  For once she wasn’t the one doing the watching.  She liked being scattered puzzle pieces, and I was starting to look for the corners.
     As I opened the door I felt a puff of cold spring air that carried her perfume.  It was the scent of Jasmine and vanilla that made me think of ice cream.  She stood there; with lips as cherry red as I had hoped and piercing eyes that I had not anticipated from watching her on the monitor.  Her long black hair framed her soft face and occasionally rode the breeze like ocean waves.  Her black dress hugged her curves, melting down her frame before wrapping around a pair of legs that had a million-and-one uses, the least of which was standing.  She was propping herself up against the door with one arm, the other hand was holding onto a half-smoked cigarette.  I found myself mentally begging God to somehow transform me into the filter of that cigarette for one merciful moment.
     “Can I come in?”  She whispered, and I must have nodded ‘yes’ because she let herself in.  She walked past me with a strut that could sharpen knives.  I closed the door and waited a moment before turning around, wondering if she would really be there when I did.  Maybe I was hoping, just a little bit, that she wasn’t real.  A dame like this ain’t easy, and I wasn’t sure I was up for a challenge.  I took a deep breath and spun around, once again floored by how striking she was.
     “Hi.”  I smiled, confident that my innate handsomeness was shining through my disheveled appearance.
     “My name is Veronica,” she licked her lips, smiling, “Veronica Winslow.”
     “I’m Dr. Clive Boddicker.  But I suppose you already knew that.”
     “I’ll get to the point, Dr. Boddicker.”
     “Please, call me Clive.”  I motioned to the living room, and we sat across from each other separated by my coffee table that was piled high with weed.  I proceeded to roll a joint, offering her one with a slight motion that she dismissed with an equally slight motion.
     “Do you have a drug problem?”  She arched an eyebrow as I lit up.
     “Problem?  No.”
     “I’m to understand that you’re quite an accomplished surgeon.”
     “I am.”  I smiled.  “And I fuck on the first date.”
     “Excuse me?”  She was disappointingly shocked.  She would not be easy.  Not by a long shot.
     “Oh, sorry.  I thought we were getting right to the point.”
     “So we are.  Walter Winslow.  My husband.  He was a patient of yours.  Do you recall?”
     “I have lots of patients, honey.  You’ll have to be more specific.”
     “Portly gentleman.  Forty-six years of age.”
     “Nope.  Not ringing any bells.”
     “A birthmark that looks like a profile of Alfred Hitchcock on his right buttock?”
     “That narrows it down.”
     “He had a prehensile tail.”  She stared at me a moment and I shrugged.  “Seriously?  How many forty-something fat men with Hitchcock birthmarks and tails do you get coming through here?”
     “It’s rare, I’ll grant you that.”
     “In any case.  You had performed one of your… Baldwin-ilations on him…”
     “Baldwinization.”
     “Yes.  That.  You had done that to my husband.  You performed what I believe is known as the Stephen.”
     “Sounds about right.”
     “I want you to undo it.”
     I sat for a moment in stunned silence.  The words hung in the air like crisp firecracker echoes.   This gal was all lips and legs and eyes that sunk into my gut like hot lead, but she must have been missing a few slices from her brain-loaf if she wanted a Baldwinization undone.
     “Who said what to who?”  I stammered.
     “Undo it, Dr. Boddicker.  I want my old Walter back.”
     “Wait. Let me get this straight.  You want me to take the supple, pouting lips of Stephen Baldwin and change that into the dumpy mutant you described?  I’m sorry, sweet cheeks, but there’s no takesie-backsies  in the Baldwinization game.  I’m not so sure your husband would be willing to give up the penetrating, tender, kissable lips and blank, vacant Christ-loving stare of Stephen so easily.  He’s somebody now, Mrs. Winslow.  He matters. “
     “I can pay you.”
     “I’m listening.”
     She handed me a card with an address written on the back and asked me to meet her there in the morning.  There, she explained, I would be expected to help her talk her husband into a reversal of the procedure.  An intervention of ugly.  It went against my nature, but then again, so did turning down money.  There would always be other Baldwinization candidates.  There would be more Stephens.  More Daniels.  More Williams.  More Alecs.  But Mrs. Winslow’s cash was one of a kind: Not Mine.  And I wanted it.
     I swallowed hoarsely, trying to get past my own disgust at agreeing to such action, even with the promise of large cash.  To help mitigate my suffering, I suggested that she let me perform sex-like actions to her person.  This suggestion was promptly rejected.  I offered up several variations, each with a descriptive title and short explanation.  Despite a few brief pauses in which it seemed she was considering the option presented to her, she ultimately declined each of the two dozen or so requests.
     She slinked off of the couch, and I lamented having not once been presented with an opportunity to look up her dress.  After she refused to make me a roast beef sandwich with some horseradish and maybe some Doritos, I tossed her a slight wave and slurred “later, y’all” as she showed herself out.  As much as it pained me to see such a seductive woman leave without having made intimate acquaintance with her no-no parts, it was not an altogether displeasing sight as she did her siren walk toward the door.  So few in this life possess an ass as hard as an anvil yet round as a regulation beach volleyball, but she had it all.
     Before disappearing into the night beyond the flood lights of the Compound she gave me one last glance, and I knew that, much like the front door she had thoughtlessly left open, the door was also still open, ever so slightly, for a future sexual rendezvous.  And I was quite sure that once I convinced this loser husband of hers to forfeit his beauty she would find him so physically repugnant that she would see past what she commented were my glaringly obvious personality defects.    Defective personality or not, I am clearly handsome and my lovemaking has been described as worthy of being the last experience one would happily have before their plane collided with a mountain.
     By bright moonlight, I stood in front of the bathroom mirror and dragged a razor across my gorgeous face, ever careful so as to not damage the soft, luscious skin beneath the slight growth of beard.  I felt reborn, given fresh purpose and a desire to once again be in the company of others.  As each strip of flesh was newly exposed from behind its veil of facial hair, it was as if I was shedding a cocoon that had been forming around me for so long.  It was a cocoon that had begun long before Eldon’s departure, long before the recent events which had forever changed the trajectory of my life.  I had always been lonely, but it took being alone to realize it.
     I spent the rest of the evening on the couch, freshly shaven and with a hand-mirror nearby so I could periodically check out my reflection.  I had even managed to make myself a sandwich, and as accomplished as I felt in doing so I still cursed Eldon for not being there to get my grub.  All was forgotten as I flipped the television over to “30 Rock”, and basked in the glory of Alec Baldwin.  Not even the news break where they mentioned the discovery of a headless and handless body in a ditch outside of Denver broke my high spirits.
     “Clive, you handsome bastard,” I addressed myself in the mirror, “you’re back, baby.  And it only gets better from here.”
     Indeed.
     It only gets better.

     At first, I didn’t know how to answer the State Trooper’s question.  I pondered it, tilted my head, and tried to avoid puking from the rancid smell of chili dogs and salsa breath wafting from him.  I could still see the remnants of his late night carbo-loading globbed together with a glue of queso and milkshake in his handlebar moustache and spackled to his warbling jowls, and to be honest, it was freaking me out.
     There were five of us in the Hummer I had stolen from “Pastor” Unger , and while it was not as spacious as my customized Hummer, it still seated us comfortably.  Of course, we were all sporting the Alec look, which provides an aura of level-headed cool no matter how unpleasant one’s surroundings.  That taken into consideration, we were still pretty satisfied with our general comfort level.  I was driving, and a Goon named Hector was riding shotgun.  Three other Goons whose names I did not even bother to learn were in the back.
     “So are you all brothers?”  The Trooper asked.  And that was indeed a head scratcher.  Sure, Alec is brother to William, Stephen, and Daniel.  But what would a Hummer full of Alec’s be considered?  Besides a force of concentrated sexiness that could implode the hull of an oil tanker with its gravity of gorgeous, that is.
     “Yeah.  We’re brothers.”  I finally answered, not wanting to explain the real situation.  The Trooper’s flashlight, an aggressive beam of white, danced throughout the car, shining on face after handsome face.  Hector was chewing on a damp cigar, and the three Goons in the back were jamming drive-thru cheeseburgers into their skulls, trying to avoid eye contact with the Trooper.  We were all handsome.  The sweet face of Alec Baldwin multiplied by five.
     “Is that marijuana smoke I smell?”  The Trooper poked his nose in the car slightly.  It was a fair question, considering that he was, in fact, smelling marijuana smoke.  A fully packed bong was smoldering somewhere in the back seat, and I’m pretty sure I was holding a joint, but I was too baked to do anything but keep my hand out of sight. 
     The over-jowled officer was beginning to bother me.  I had places to be.   I held up a hundred dollar bill, and he was on his way.  In my experience, the heavily-jowled are easy to pay off.  They didn’t achieve maximum corpulence through discipline and character.  This fine officer would most likely blow his bribe on a large deep-dish pizza combo meal and a dry hump from a toothless lap dancer with a wicked meth jones that he impresses with a sweaty wad of grease-stained singles.  To each his own, I say.
     “That was a close one.”  I said to my passengers.  The three in the back spoke no English.  Hector did, but  he could only shrug and ask me to pass the joint that I had re-ignited during the Trooper’s departure.  I liked Hector.
     Earlier that day I had decided that it would not be the wisest idea to proceed on to California alone.   I had Baldwinized Hector just before leaving for Kansas with Gravy, and now that Gravy was sans face, I needed some travelling companionship.   Getting supremely impaired and rattling off conspiracy theories and declarations of one’s own omnipotence is so much more fun with company.
     While I was away, Hector had called upon some of his fellow Cartel Goons who had become disenchanted with the leadership that Caesar had been providing.  I couldn’t exactly blame them.  Caesar had gotten lazy once he had achieved Baldwinian sexiness.  He used to command fear and respect through vicious acts of violence towards dissenters and enemies.   Now, he delegated most of the heavy work to his Goons.   It seemed counter-intuitive for them to pledge allegiance to Caesar’s power when the true measure of his power came from within their own ranks.  A breakdown of his organization was inevitable, and the near-mythic status of the Baldwin-Faced warrior who defied death, Eldon Nugent, was the push needed to collapse his fragile empire.
     We travelled on through the night, making the familiar trip to California.  If not for the pressing need to rescue my pride and joy, my son Clive Jr., I would have liked to have made the trip a more leisurely outing.  Sometimes I enjoy a good cross country trip strictly for the rest stop encounters.  You can meet some pretty interesting and depraved people in rest stop bathrooms.  It’s all fairly well documented in the annual “Rest Stop Dating Review” pamphlet that you can find in truck stops up and down any major interstate.  If it doesn’t have its own dispenser, chances are you can find it jammed into the box of toilet seat covers.  If you’ve got reliable transportation, an assortment of loose change, a roll of Saran Wrap, and adhere to “Rest Stop Dating Review” as if it were the bible, you can enjoy a long, fulfilling life of anonymous and disease free sex.  If you’re not so disciplined, you can still have a pretty good time provided you have a low co-pay on prescription antibiotics and some measure of identity-theft protection.
     We arrived in Los Angeles and checked into a seedy Motel called “The Wayside”.  I got my Goons their own room, as I am nothing if not a generous employer of hired muscle.  I paid for a slightly upgraded private suite for myself which featured unlimited pornography and a coin operated vibrating bed that shook so violently yet precisely that I was brought to heights of ecstasy with two quarters, a diet Shasta, and five minutes of an interesting 80’s porno called “Fisticuffs”.  After achieving my objectives, I proceeded to doze off to the rest of the film, finding little to engross me in the plot.
     Somehow, I knew it was the Hideous One calling my cell.  I had not set a special ring tone, nor did I look at the caller ID, but a death chill did the Lambada up my spine as it rang, and I knew what was to follow would annoy the living shit out of me.  My hand hesitated, then flipped open the phone and pressed it to my ear, only my quivering breath dreading unfathomable annoyance answering the call.  As sure as God made green apples, it was Evelyn, AKA Granny Abs. 
     “Clive!”  She shouted in her shrill voice that is as impotence-inducing as a vasectomy performed with a broken wine bottle.  I could almost hear the ugly through the phone as I wiped the sleep from my eyes and tried to focus, but I was already off kilter with a creeping sobriety that I was aching to avoid.  I licked my lips, astounded by how sandpaper dry my mouth was, and croaked out a response.
     “Hey there gorilla-face.”
     “Cinnamon’s missing!”
     “Who?”
     “Cinnamon!”
     “You mean the Meat Sack?”
     “Yes, Clive.  The Meat Sack.  Eldon porked him last night and then he disappeared this morning.”
     “Eldon’s with you?”  I could feel my stomach tying in knots.  There, distant from me yet in close proximity to the mouthpiece of the phone was the walking dead, Eldon Nugent.  I had been made devastatingly aware of Eldon’s rise from the grave some time ago, but it had not sunk in until I was this close to once again being near him.  I cursed Eldon for putting me through this, and I despised him for continuing to run from me.  But most of all, I was confused at the strange sensations that he had caused to stir in me.  Sensations which I believe roughly work out to being considered “loss” and “grief” and “mourning”.   These sensations had long been alien to me, but it was in his trickery that I was made to feel them.  And in that Eldon’s demise had been so false I felt even more confused.
     “Tell that mincing, prancing little Nancy that I’m going to punch him square in the stomach if I see him.”  I snapped into the phone.
     “Hey Eldon,” Granny Abs yapped into the background, “Clive said he’s going to punch you in the stomach.”
     And slightly muffled, in the background, I heard the sweet sound of Eldon’s voice declaring “Oh Fuck Him!” and my heart took on tides of emotion that I felt would knock me over.  It was good to hear his voice.
     Before long, I found myself once again staring at Eldon.  We were at a local diner across from the gas station where “the Meet” was to happen in about an hour.  Eldon, Evelyn, and I shared a booth while the Goons dined on endless stacks of pancakes at the counter.  Eldon was slurping his coffee in that way that had always annoyed me, yet I couldn’t help but feel grateful to him for once again being in my life with such an imposition.   He was a little worse for the wear, his head wounds were healing nicely, but somehow there was emptiness in how he would address me.  I assume that in the turbulence of the time since he was declared dead that he had been living under less than ideal means.  While I spent my days in climate controlled and chemically altered euphoria, he was trekking his way across America on foot, only to reach his destination and find it unwelcomingly swarming with a Colombian hit squad.
     “So how have you been?”  He finally asked me after reaching a non-dairy creamer/Splenda equilibrium in the cup of toilet water that this diner called coffee.  I opened my mouth to speak, but only a blubbering string of obscenities and declarations of love for Eldon poured out of me.   I managed to crawl across the table and wrap my arms around Eldon’s neck, vowing to “never ever ever ever ever ever ever let you go again little buddy!  Never ever ever!”
     It took two of the Goons to physically pry me from Eldon, and the shrill cackle of Granny Abs to break my mental state and realize exactly to what degree I was making an assface of myself.  After pulling myself together I began to shovel a heaping plate of pancakes into my face hole, and I realized that I was not nearly intoxicated enough to deal with this situation.  Not today.
     “I gotta go get baked.”  I said, signaling to the waitress for another plate of pancakes as I began to roll a joint.
     “Christ, Clive.  Our son!”  Evelyn yelped.  I flashed her a stare that, under normal circumstances, should have infused her with a potent sexual desire mixed with fear that I would take pleasure in leaving unfulfilled in her.  Instead, she simply scoffed at my attempt.  This caused me to break down even further.
     “Can’t we get him tomorrow?”  I whined.  “I want to spend more time with Eldon.   Oh Eldon!”
     Once again I was climbing across the table, flinging my arms around Eldon and sobbing.  And once again I felt myself being dragged away by the massive hands of hired Goons.
     There was something different, however.  I saw my four Goons in my line of sight, yet I’ll be damned if those weren’t the meaty paws of hired thugs grasping my ankles and dragging me off of the table, finally letting me plow Handsome-face first into the floor.  I spun around and got a good look at a crew of six Colombians that had entered the diner.  Just then it occurred to me that the wide, clear windows of this diner did not seem like ample cover for us to have taken to eat breakfast and stage our rescue.
     Their guns were drawn on My Goons, rendering them gorgeous yet helpless.  Finally, the door flung open with a jingle-jingle and quick whoosh of the outside traffic noise, and in walked Caesar, pushing in front of him Young Clive Jr.  Caesar looked somewhat disheveled and walked with a minor limp.  As Clive Jr. moved away from him, I could see that Caesar was holding an ice-pack to his crotch.
     “Okay,” Caesar gasped weakly, “lemme see the cash.  Then me and the doctor bitch and his baby bitch buddy are gonna go for a ride.”
     “Come here!”  Evelyn shouted to Clive Jr., and he ran to her, engulfed in her arms with her face pressed against his.  All I could think was “poor son of a bitch.”
     “What happened to your balls there, Caesar?”  I asked, motioning to how sorely he protected his yams. 
     He shook his head, wiping sweat away, and said “your boy… he kept punching me in the huevos… it was like a god damned greatest hits episode of Americas Funniest Home Videos.”
     “That’s my boy.”  I beamed with pride.
     “Let’s get on with it then.   I brought this little monster back.  Time to get me my cash and let me shoot you and the little bitch Eldon.”   Caesar steadied himself, wincing at the pain of his obviously traumatized testicles.
     “This is just pathetic.”  Hector stood up, brushing aside a shotgun pointed at his chest.  He approached Caesar and snatched the silenced pistol from his hand.  Caesar flinched, anticipating further assault on his gonads.  Hector laughed and waved his hand dismissively.
     “Who the fuck are you?”  Caesar squinted, trying to make out the face.  He hadn’t seen Hector since I had Baldwinized him, and his jealousy at the fact that Hector had received a much more preferable Baldwinization was evident.  “Holy shit, is that you Hector?”
     “I am,” Hector smiled, “and everyone here can see, once and for all, side by side, that you lost your edge, Caesar.”
     “You kiddin’ me?”  Caesar leaned back and let out a sharp laugh that caused him to immediately double over in pain.   His laugh muscles must have been directly connected to his swollen, battered man-cranberries.
     “Doc, Eldon, Junior, Ugly Lady,” Hector motioned to us, the non-combatants, “you go now.  We’ll deal with Caesar.”
     I looked around and saw that Caesar’s crew had lowered their weapons.  Caesar looked to me, shaking.
     “They’ll kill me.”  He whimpered.  And while I was pleased to be spared certain death and the inconvenience of turning over a large amount of cash, it did hurt my heart to see the sweet face of Daniel Baldwin, made flesh of Caesar’s flesh, so sad and vulnerable.
     “I have a compromise.”  I offered, stepping up to Hector.  I smiled a handsome smile, and Hector was intrigued.
     Outside the Wayside Motel, the sound of the vibrating bed was plainly audible.  As was the sound of “Fisticuffs 2: To the Wrist” playing on the television.  And above that were the howls and yelps of intense fornication and battery operated gadgetry.  It was a profane cacophony that rattled windows and set off car alarms.
     It did not take much convincing, or Mad Dog 20/20, to get Evelyn to find it within herself to seduce Caesar.  It did, however, take copious amounts of opium and single-malt scotch for Caesar to give in to Evelyn’s clumsy advances and accept this as his fate.  The screams we heard could very well have been of pleasure, revulsion, or the physical pain of Caesar’s bruised McNuggets being put into active duty for Evelyn’s sick, twisted desires.
     This fate proved sufficient punishment for Caesar in the eyes of the Cartel, now fronted by Hector, the most handsome Goon engaged in the bloody drug war.  Caesar understood this as well, and he took his lumps, so to speak, and agreed to enter into a bond of sexual servitude to Granny Abs until such time as the Meat Sack was to re-enter her life.  Until such time, Caesar would also find himself needing to adjust his temperament towards my son lest he find the boy’s size 9’s meeting his clackers once more.
     I found myself sitting on the steps of the Wayside Motor Lodge, sharing a monster-sized joint with Eldon.  Every once in a while my hyperactive son Clive Jr. would scamper by and ask for a hit, and I explained to him that it was not for him until he was sixteen or had knocked up a cheerleader, whichever came first.  He’d just reply with an “aww man!” and proceed to bounce around the parking lot, fueled by Mars bars and a Jolt Cola.
     “Why did you leave?”  I finally asked Eldon.  He just shook his head.
     “If you have to ask, you’ll never know.”  He simply laughed, puffing on the joint.
     "Oh, I wasn't so bad."
     “Are you serious?  You’ve never taken my feelings into consideration!  Ever!  You’ve tortured me!”
     “Torture?  When the fuck have I ever tortured you?”
     “Oh, let me see… how about strapping me to that god damned chair and forcing me to watch the Alec Baldwin Film Loop at top volume for days on end?”
     “That you consider torture?”
     “Even my face!  Look at it!”
     I gazed long at Eldon’s face, and it became abundantly clear to me what I had done.   Eldon had been the very first live Baldwinization.  Until I applied my scalpel to him, it had only been test corpses that he and I would “come across” through various means that received the sweet kiss of eternal Baldwin Beauty.  While the front of Eldon’s face, meaning his nose, eyes, and mouth, were very Alec Baldwinesque, the rest of his head had not quite taken to the procedure.  A certain amount of Tupperware was employed when trying to adjust the underlying structure, and frankly, after the first time he was shot in the head I kind of gave up trying.
     Understanding now that his departure had been my fault, and only my fault, I once again collapsed into a blubbering mess of sobs, wrapping my arms around him and squeezing as if trying to extract a nougat of forgiveness from deep within his torso.  He finally pushed away and looked at me in disgust.
     “My Christ, what have I done to you?”  He gasped.
     “What?” I sniffled, wiping tears from my eyes.
     “You used to be so cold and callous.   So selfish.  Almost evil.  Now look at you.  You… you actually… care?  You care about me?”
     “Of course I care.”  I had to take a moment to search for some kind of surface to handle the massive amount of snot that was clown-carring out of my nose.
     “I don’t know what I find worse,” he laughed, “you with or without feelings.”
     “I never didn’t care.  I just thought we were on the same wavelength.  I likes what I likes, Eldon.  Consequences be damned.  I never thought I would push you away the way I did.”
     “Well you did.  You pushed me pretty far.  The demands.  The legal quagmires.  The endless days in stupors.”
     “But look at you now.”  I stood up and motioned to him in his full-on badass outfit, fully equipped with pistols, knives, and a few grenades.  “Before you met me, would you have had the balls to hold up your gun-dealer pastor?  Hmm?  You managed to escape being killed by Wendel.  I may have been hard on you, Eldon, but I definitely hardened you.  And not in a way nearly as funny as that sounds.  I made a man out of you.  I was your Marine Corps boot camp.  I made you…”
     “…a killer?”  He interrupted.
     “No.  You didn’t ‘kill’ Wendel.  You stood up to him.  I made you a victor instead of a victim.”
     Eldon pondered this a moment, then took a drag on the joint.  He smiled.
     “I think I may be able to patch things up back home.”  He said softly, and then passed me the joint.
     “Just so you know,” I took a drag, “I nailed your mom.”
     Eldon let out a little chuckle, then became deathly serious as he realized I was not kidding.  Finally, he just let out a huff, defeated.
     “Yeah,” he said, “that sounds about right.”
     “The WASP” was on the car stereo, and Jim Morrison sang “out here in the perimeter, there are no stars… out here, we is stoned, immaculate.”  And it seemed that the drive back to Colorado Springs was spent in dark, starless night, dancing along the invisible boundary between solidifying a new understanding with my friend and leaving each other forever.  We traded between villain and victim, accuser and accused.  We laughed and we cried.  And somehow we made it back as friends.
     So it was with hope that I waved to Eldon as he drove away from the gates of the compound.  Hope that I would see my friend again.  Hope that he would find whatever healing he needed to find in Kansas.  And hope that in the end he would find his way back home to me.
     As much as my heart sank as Eldon drove away, weighed down by the uncertainty of the future and regret for what I had done to bring us to this point, it felt good to be out here in the perimeter, where there were no stars, where it felt good to be stoned.  Alone and Immaculate.

     I believe we are all the walking wounded.
     Whether we are the victor or the vanquished, we bear the scars of a lifetime of battle.  By the time we are able to engage our war-worn wisdom, we are but broken vessels, ferrying within us an aching and a longing for peace.  It is only in acceptance of and submission to our filthy wretchedness that we find our warrior spirit quelled.  And this is where true life begins.
     For me, true life did not begin until I was twenty-five.  I was still known as Seth McIntyre, as my stage name “Cinnamon” would be adopted sometime later.  This is when I met Mickey Pennington, the world famous body builder, fitness enthusiast, and innovator of the “Un-Juiceable” system.   Before he was known for his incredibly skin-tight workout attire and shiny black pompadour hairdo, Mickey had gained notoriety for his street demonstrations of the Un-Juiceable system in New York during the sixties and early seventies.  After a chance meeting with multi-level marketing guru Gary Unger, Mickey was soon employed as a highly paid spokesman for a variety of health-centric products.
     A little known fact about Mickey Pennington is that he was originally known as Vladimir Tukhachevsky and hailed from the Soviet Union.  As a child he watched his parents disappear to a Gulag during a campaign of the Great Purge in 1937.  He was raised in an orphanage, and found himself working in the science division of Stalin’s secret army during the 1946 famine.  The “Un-Juiceable” system was designed as a way to extract nutrients from dirt, which was plentiful and scarcely radioactive in the pre-Chernobyl days.   The system failed to provide meaningful sustenance, creating a paste that was about as nutritious as a mouthful of shavings from a pencil sharpener but not nearly as succulent.  Due to his failure to achieve this crucial goal of the “Five Year Plan”, Vladimir Tukhachevsky escaped the Soviet Union to America, bringing with him crude blueprints he was able to smuggle inside his body. 
     Within a decade, he had more or less turned the infernal steel-and-glass contraption born of old school Soviet ingenuity into a slickly marketed, all-American health enhancement product by simply adding a small amount of vegetable oil and nutmeg.  It was Gary Unger who suggested he adopt the name Mickey Pennington.  He further made his sales pitch by showcasing his rock-hard bodybuilder physique, toned and chiseled from brief excursions to the Gulag to atone for crimes against the Party.
     Mickey would become my inspiration from the moment I met him.  Up to this point, I had indulged in a variety of anonymous sexual encounters in public restrooms and consumed any number of illegal drugs.  My own parents had abandoned me, in their own way, by pawning my upbringing off on a variety of ultra-religious housekeepers.   Because of this, I had been raised to believe in the cleansing power of God’s hatred for His children.  With the full belief that God Was Watching, and a fervent desire to disappoint and humiliate God for how He had failed me, I decided that I would debase myself in any manner possible.
     The year was 1988, and as “Pump Up the Volume” pounded on the club speakers, I went into convulsions on the dance floor.  A number of substances were coursing through my blood and I had been sexually active with about a half dozen men and women that day alone.  This put the cherry on the sundae of a prolonged detour into debauchery that had also seen me pay for an abortion for my seventeen year old girlfriend with money won from dogfights.  As the club spun around me, I was certain that I had finally pushed God to the edge of His Limitless love, and I simply held up my middle finger in defiance as blood and barf foamed out of my face.  God returned the “fuck you” by sending me a nasty brain-bleed.
     I had been involuntarily incarcerated at the local mental institution for a month when Mickey arrived.  He had been contracted to teach a fitness class to the patients in exchange for the hospital signing a contract to purchase several Un-Juiceables  for the cafeteria.  Unfortunately, the hospital found the Un-Juiceable to be un-usable, but the contract still stood, and Mickey was paid for his services.  Participation in the program was mandatory for the patients, but after the first session I had no problem adapting to the rigorous fitness regimen that was laid out by Mickey.  I found the intense burning of my muscles and knife-like cramps it caused to be a fitting substitute for the intense self-administered punishment I was being prevented from indulging in.
     For the remainder of my court-ordered stay at the Our Lady of Perpetual Suffering Sanitarium, Mickey Pennington helped me adjust my entire existence, both in body and spirit, into the toned, sexy man I am today.  As my time at the facility ended, I pledged to stay in touch with Mickey, and I had on occasion run into him at certain weightlifting expos.  Unfortunately, as so often happens, life would get in the way and Mickey and I would lose touch over time.
     While I was able to continue on without the chemical enhancement of drugs, I could not help but find sexual conquest to be tenfold easier now that I had such a finely sculpted body.  I decided that it was with the grace of God that I was given such a physique, and the fruits of my labor in this life would be the sexual engagement of others for profit, and nothing but profit.  I would abstain from sexual intimacy for my own emotional benefit, and through this I deduced that my soul would remain intact.  It also didn’t hurt that man-whoring pays well, as the ultimate goal of all of this cash-for-body-fluid-exchange was to fund my musical ambitions.
     Mickey died from a rare parasite he ingested during a test-run of a new kind of “Un-Juiceable” that was designed to extract nutrients from lava rock and cigarette butts.  I had read the news of his passing the morning that Evelyn Snog approached me to escort her to some formal function she had been invited to.  Evelyn had banished me from her life at the insistence of her ex, Dr. Boddicker, some time ago and I had no problem re-establishing my career in fitness training and male companionship. 
     While I felt that to re-introduce myself to a sexual relationship with this woman would do a vast amount of damage to my psyche, I knew that it was in this suffering that I would be brought closer to the Broken Body of Christ.   As much as the stretching and snapping of sinew on the weight bench pulls me in the direction of God as if I am being crucified on nautilus equipment, so, too, would the waving ass-flaps and frightening hamster-face of Evelyn Snog bestow upon me a divine grace through unfathomable suffering.  Besides… Mickey’s funeral would be held in two days in New York and I needed money for the trip.
     We were accosted by Eldon Nugent that night.  Eldon and I had been physically intimate in the past, yet it was only out of sheer weakness that I had fallen to my desires.  Now, here he was dressed in camouflage and guns were strapped to his belt, his vest, even tucked into his boot.  We piled into a minivan that was loaded with empty Red Bull cans and extinguished marijuana cigarettes.
     “The Colombians know I was turning rat.”  He said as he drove.   “They kidnapped your son to draw Dr. Boddicker out, but I know they won’t stop until we’re all dead.”
     “Oh bullshit.”  Evelyn burped.  She was tipsy from several drinks, the last of which she was still holding and sipping from generously.
     “My dad always said that my problem was getting too close to the clusterfuck.”  He snorted a laugh.  “I never thought it’d come to this... that I'd believe he was right.”
     “Could you just let me out at the next light?”  I interrupted.  Evelyn swatted at me playfully.
     “Oh stop, you!”  She laughed, getting a little sloppy with her drink.  “You’re mine tonight!  Bought, sold, and paid for!”  She held up a finger to buy a moment for herself, then puked out the window.
     “Seriously.”  I added.  “Next light would be great.  I’ll get a cab.”
     “We’re all in this together.”  Eldon said solemnly.
     “Why is that?”
     “The Colombians tend to not leave behind many witnesses.”
     “Do you mean all Colombians or just these Colombians in particular?  It sounds like it’s getting a little racial, is the only reason I’m asking.”
     “Well, seeing as how these are the only Colombians I’ve ever met, in my experience, it’s all Colombians.”
     We arrived at a motel and unloaded the now passed-out Evelyn onto a bed.  Eldon was quite striking in the camouflage outfit, giving off an 80’s movie action hero vibe that I believed was testing my resolve.  I deduced that this must somehow be a sign from God.  I also knew that we were in imminent danger of execution, and this rush of danger stirred within me feelings of recklessness.
     I approached Eldon and gently pushed his hand down, lowering the pistol he had been holding, and proceeded to draw him to the bed where Evelyn was unconscious and snoring.  I gently pushed her from the bed, and she clunked to the floor with a dead-thud and, quite possibly, a cracked hip.  On that bed, near a puddle of drool-and-vomit left by Evelyn,  I allowed myself to once again reinforce God’s hatred for me and engaged Eldon Nugent sexually for nothing more than the satiating of my own carnal lusts.
     After an awkward array of grunts and heaves of breathlessness that constituted a marginally satisfying sexual congress, I told Eldon of the loss of Mickey Pennington, and how it was through his application of holy doctrine and physical punishment that I was able to achieve a level of self-discipline that allowed me to escape the cycle of destruction I had been mired in my whole life.  Perhaps, I told Eldon, he, too, could benefit from this philosophy.  Perhaps the destructive situations that Eldon would frequently find himself in close proximity to were a sign from God that, while His hatred for mankind is unending and burns with the fire of a thousand suns, He does occasionally present us with an opportunity to mitigate His wrath.  I offered to put Eldon on an exercise and nutrition regimen that would harden his body and direct the crushing power of physical pain and repressed sexual dementia into a strengthening bolt to the soul.
     Eldon told me to go fuck myself, more or less, and proceeded to get dressed.  He explained to me, quite plainly, that he is in the situation he is in because he was born a loser.  He further proceeded to explain to me that I, too, was a loser and I had simply replaced a vicious cocaine and mescaline habit with a vicious physical fitness regimen.  On top of that, he explained, I had reduced the sanctity and purity of sexual congress with a cheap, disgusting act of mercenary fornication for profit, and I was delusional if I believed that making my sex life less about intimacy and more about moral degradation and self-loathing was doing the Lord’s work.
     When confronted with someone who talks crazy-talk, the way Eldon was doing, I resort to doing chin-ups in the nearest convenient doorway.  As I worked my triceps and upper back for the next several hours, I had time to contemplate what Eldon had said.  And I had time to contemplate the lessons I had learned from a lifetime of degrading, self-destructive relationships.
     The sun was peeking through the heavy curtain of the window, and I had begun to do a series of squat thrusts when it suddenly came crashing down upon me that my life, up to this point, had been a sham.  My muscles ached and burned, but where I once found solace in the belief that God was burning the gay out of me with that sensation, I now felt a cold absence.  I was no longer wrapped in the warming cloak of Christ as muscle cramps radiated within me.  I simply felt alone and afraid, and a desperate sadness for having come so close to touching Eldon’s heart yet shielding myself from his intimacy.
     As Eldon slept, and Evelyn remained in a near-coma state, I left the motel room to begin an intense jog which would hopefully push my muscles to a snapping point.  I prayed to Jesus that he would forgive my transgressions with Eldon the night before and perhaps tear a hamstring or experience an acute cardiac arrest that would punish me, and thus cleanse me of my sin.  I was longing to feel enveloped in His intensely burning hatred for my wickedness once more.
     I was in the fifth mile of my jog when my left calf muscle suddenly exploded.   It was not a spasm or a cramp, but an actual explosion of muscle and skin and blood that sent steaming globs of deep maroon gore splashing against the pavement.    I toppled forward, slamming my head against the curb, knocking out two teeth and possibly cracking my jaw.  I looked down at the quivering mass of jelly that was my left leg and I smiled to myself, thinking “that’s more like it”.
     The concrete next to my head suddenly popped and sprayed small bits of rock, some of which peppered my face and scratched my eye.  Followed by another.   Soon, I realized that I was being shot at.  Another bullet zinged past my ear and punctured a hole in a nearby utility pole.  Another bullet nicked my shoulder.  I tried to get to my knees, bringing myself to a prayer posture, fighting through the insanely throbbing pain of my destroyed leg.  Finally, as I was nearly stable, a large Colombian man stood before me with a silenced smoking gun aimed right between my eyes, the barrel so close to my eyebrows that I could feel the heat.
     “Where’s your friends, pretty boy?”  The man said in a thick accent.
     “I am washed in the cleansing blood of the lamb of God…” I whispered, leaning forward so my head rested against the barrel.
     “Oh man, it’s bad luck to shoot a dude as loco as you.”  The man pulled his gun away in revulsion, wiping the barrel clean.
     A loud screech filled the morning air, and I heard the howl of sirens.  Some voices shouted, and the sound of gunfire hammered and echoed in my head.  I could only look up at the blue morning sky and bask in my own physical agony as chaos erupted around me.  And when the sound ceased and only the firecracker smell of gunfire hung heavy in the morning mist, the Colombian had fallen next to me, a bullet hole  square in the middle of his forehead.
     The police tried to question me as I was loaded into the ambulance, yet I could only murmur thanks to Jesus for causing me so much pain.  Thanks to Jesus for the officers arriving and shooting my assailant.  Thanks to Jesus for putting me back on a righteous path.  My faith is strengthened as my flesh is weakened.  The challenge now was to ensure that my faith would not falter as my physical wounds healed.
     I owe so much to Mickey Pennington.   I once again owe him my redemption and my salvation.  I was saddened that I would miss out on Mickey’s funeral, but as I awoke from surgery and gently floated on the cloud of morphine, I understood the lesson of Mickey’s death.  He died as he tried to extract something meaningful from cold, hard rock.  Since God had hardened my heart against embracing the open love of Eldon Nugent, I almost died as I tried to extract something meaningful from it.  Thanks to Jesus for allowing me to see the light. 
     If I play my cards right, I will fully recover from these wounds and live a long, healthy life of suffering and abject misery, as He intended, with an Un-Juiceable heart and all of my wants and desires remaining unfulfilled until I die miserable and alone and in excruciating physical pain.  All praises be unto Him.

     I am no stranger to gore.  I'm a doctor, of course.  The Baldwinization procedure, which I am the inventor and patent-holder of, requires that I see the ungodly under-mush that rests just beneath that fragile surface.  So I was comfortable with the degree to which Gravy's face had been vaporized before my eyes.  What had truly shaken me was my own unfortunate injury.  Resting just under the hairline on the left side of my forehead was a half-inch slice.   It was an area of my head that can technically qualify as my face. There was no escaping it.  My face had been "de-perfected".
     The paramedic took a quick look at my ghastly injury and told me to "stop being such a pussy".  I suppose that Gravy did have it worse off than I did, so I was able to see the man's point.  Still, I could not stop myself from feeling the pain, and I just needed two minutes with my glove compartment to make it all better.  Unfortunately, the police had placed "crime-scene" tape all around my beloved Hummer, and every time I approached it I would get a "Hey! Back off, motherfucker!" from one of the flat-top haircut and mirrored shade wearing Kansas State Police.
     So there I was, standing on the side of a Kansas highway as the ambulance drove off with Gravy.  Franz Pinkerton, the best god damned lawyer in the world (as it says on his business card), is talking to the cops on my behalf.  I have complete faith in Franz.  He's a man who deftly wields the scalpel of the law like a coked out surgeon with a God complex.  As he finished up sprinkling his pixie dust on the State Troopers, they simply give me a respectful wave and a wink from eyes that gaze upon me in adoring fascination.
     The state patrol cars are driving away, their lights spinning like tilt-a-whirls, and I just can't take it anymore.  I want to throw open the door of the Hummer, dive into the glove compartment, and swim in a sea of assorted pills and smokeables, if for no other reason than to remove it from the vehicle before it gets logged into evidence.  Thankfully, I get my opportunity when Franz informs me that I'm being given ten minutes to remove any of my "valuables" from the Hummer before the detectives arrive.  My money is well spent with Franz Pinkerton and the law firm of Pinkerton, Duff and Graves.
     After removing anything incriminating from the Hummer, we drive off in Franz's car.  Franz held the wheel of the Cadillac with his knees as he tapped out some kind of powder onto the web of his left hand and snorts it.  He offers me some, and I pass.  I'm not so foolhardy as to think I can possibly withstand the impact from a bump off of Franz's personal stash. 
     Once he's able to hold the steering wheel with his hands again, he explained to me that there was a little goof-up in the message that was trying to be delivered.  He had come here with Caesar's goons to work out a settlement to our beef.
     With the shotgun accidentally going off and taking Gravy’s face with it, things had gotten complicated and Caesar resorted to Plan B: Kidnapping and Ransom.  I confirmed this with a phone call to the "mother" of my child, and came to the conclusion that a head-on approach was in order.  First, I wanted to talk to Eldon's parents to see if they had anything useful to contribute.
     We pulled into the driveway of the Nugent’s.  Eldon's dad, Eugene, was standing there in an open bathrobe flapping in the breeze as his old-man torso assaulted my vision beneath the thin fabric of worn undergarments that hung off of him like mummy-wrap.  He was chewing on a cigar, and every few seconds he would extract the tree-branch-like smoldering stub from his mouth between his index and middle finger and proceed to spit a grayish-brown blast of tobacco-plasm into a brass spittoon.
     "Oh for fuck's sake." Eugene greeted me as I stepped out of the car.  He tossed the cigar into the spittoon, and I felt a cold chill of near vomit rise within me as I heard the splash and sizzle of hundreds of brown wads of spit suffocating the discarded stogie.
     "Sweet Jesus."  I shuttered to myself, entering the Nugent House.
     Eldon's mom jumped up from her chair and ran over as she saw me, tossing her arms around my neck and planting a big kiss on my cheek.  I took a moment to calculate the possibility, and ramifications, of putting the moves on Mrs. Nugent, as I rarely make physical contact with a woman without it resulting in a mutually agreeable sexual encounter.  I decided against, for the moment, seeing as how her almost motherly interest in me would result in a chain reaction of Oedipal anxiety were I to succeed in this quest.   The Oedipal complex was easy to sidestep, as I exceed in denial.  However, I was privy to Mr. Nugent being a shotgun enthusiast, and I didn’t need an ass full of buckshot.  There had been enough gunplay for one day.
     "I just wanted to drop in and see how you guys were." I said, making some severe eye contact with Eldon's mom that led to my unwittingly leaning in for a full-on face-sucking.  She politely jammed her had in my face and pushed me away before offering Franz and I some coffee.
     "Well, when those Mexicans came in looking for Eldon, my jaw just about hit the floor."  She said, pouring some Sanka.
     "They're Colombians."  Franz corrected her.
     "Have you seen Eldon?"  I took a sip of the coffee and my bowels tightened like an anaconda on a kangaroo.  I had to be polite, though, so I took another sip.
     "Nope.  But, seeing as how I found out he's alive and all, I'd sure like to."  Mrs. Nugent calmly sipped her coffee, and I could tell from the look on her face that even she couldn't stomach the nasty brew.
     "That boy needs Jesus."  Eugene piped up.  He had one finger dug into an ear and was twisting away, and the other finger was obscenely probing his belly button.  Interesting sounds and smells were emanating from him.
     "Jesus, huh?"  I chuckled.  "You think that'll do it?"
     "We got Pastor Unger coming over."  Mrs. Nugent said softly.  "He said some words at the service when we thought Eldon had... you know..."  I looked over at her, and once again found myself contemplating a carnal rendezvous with her on Eldon's bed as poster of Zack from "Saved by the Bell" looked on in bitter resentment.
     "Well he didn't... you know..." I assured her, and placed my hand sensually on her thigh before she rested the hot cup of coffee on it.  I pulled my hand away, but made a solemn vow to myself that I would Have This Woman.
     There was a sudden knock at the door, and before anyone could stand up to answer, the door flew open, revealing a large-framed man standing there in a flowing black overcoat and wide-brimmed hat.  He had an eye patch over one eye and walked with a metal-tipped cane.  He stepped inside, and I could strangely hear the cries of the damned as the door closed behind him, as if on cue, and he made his way to the center of the room.
     "I am..." He spoke in a very bouncy, thick hick accent before iduldging in a long pause, "... Pastor Horatio Unger.  Nadine, my lovely.  How are you?"
     Pastor Unger took Mrs. Nugent, whose name is apparently Nadine, by the hand placed a gentlemanly kiss on it.  She blushed and offered him some coffee, which he declined in favor of a small silver flask in his jacket.
     "I was just telling this homo that my boy needs Jesus."  Eugene motioned over to me.  Pastor Unger cast his gaze upon me, and his head tilted as he took in the vision.
     "Good Lord!" Pastor Unger gasped.  "You are one handsome man!"
     "It's only natural to feel that way.  Don’t worry, you won’t be condemned to hell as a sodomite."  I assured the Pastor.
     Pastor Unger proceeded to offer words of encouragement and sympathy to the Nugent family.  How much they had endured, he said, would surely reward them in the afterlife.
     "So let me get this straight."  I butted in.  "Their son fakes his suicide, and the pain this has caused them is like currency they get to spend when they die?  So, if I were stab myself in the balls right now, what would that get me in heaven?  A Ferrari?"
     "My child," Unger said in a rather condescending way that made me clench my fists, "the Good Lord prepares you in this life with faith, and rewards the faithful with eternal grace in his presence in the afterlife."
     "You said 'his presence'.  So God is a man?"
     "Well, I..."
     "So, he has a penis?  Is it huge?  I mean... if God is huge then of course his penis would be huge.  But I'm talking proportional to his height?"
     Mrs. Nugent blushed and placed her hand over her mouth, flustered, and I flashed her a wink and a nod.
     "My son, let's not get silly with semantics.  I am here to bring the healing power of the lord God almighty, who’s only begotten son Jesus had suffered for all of our sins.  Remember that.  What Jesus endured that incredible day was to take all of this pain from those who believe in him.  So Eugene, Nadine, I want you both to just rest comfortably knowing that there is no pain for you to feel.  Jesus has already taken on that burden."
     "So, is it just emotional pain?"  I interrupted.  "Or does Jesus also take on financial obligations?  I mean, according to you, these people shouldn't feel any pain at all because their pain was already 'pre-felt' by Jesus when Mel Gibson stapled him up on that telephone pole, or whatever.  So, can I transfer some of my debt over to the tab-of-suffering that J.C. opened up at the Anguish Bar?  Or is it more of a nebulous concept that can’t be accounted for?”
     "You know," Unger leaned forward, preparing to make some profound point, "it's doesn't surprise me that you're here to challenge me.  Do you know what a Coelacanth is?"
     "Was that a song on Led Zeppelin III?"
     "No, my son.  It's a fish.  For many years people thought it was gone.  Extinct.  Then, lo and behold, one day it's just there.  Unchanged after all this time.  And that's what evil does.  It goes into hiding, and you think it's gone.  But when it returns, you see that it's the same as it ever was.  You may have that handsome face, but just as with Eldon, a new face can't hide the evil inside forever.  And when it's exposed to the world, it's just the same old evil that it ever was.  You're not special, Mr. Boddicker.  And unlike the Coelacanth, when you get caught up in the cleansing net of Jesus, you won't get tossed back into the ocean because there is no endangered species act that protects the works of Satan.  You will be cleansed by the blood of the lamb and cast back into the fires of Hell from whence you came."
     "How the hell do you know about Eldon's new face?"
     Pastor Unger looked at me with that one good eye and scowled.  He stood up and approached the kitchen, his long jacket flowing like Darth Vader's cape.  He pointed at me and motioned for me to follow him, and I did as requested, flashing another seductive smile at Mrs. Nugent as I walked by.  She Would Be Mine.
     As we entered the kitchen, Unger made sure we were out of earshot, and then proceeded to pour himself a tall Jack and Coke.  He sized me up a moment, and then took a sip of his drink.
     "Look," Unger finally said, "I don't know what kind of game you're running on these folks, but go run your grift elsewhere.  I got a good thing going on with these rubes."
     "What the fuck are you talking about?"  I asked, half interested as I rifled through the Nugents' refrigerator.  I came across a jar of maraschino cherries and proceeded to pop them into my mouth one at a time.
     "Come see me tonight, eight o'clock, at this address."  He handed me a card for Diamond Doug's Classy Ladies Gentlemen's Club, then closed with the news:  "I saw Eldon."  Unger chugged the rest of his drink and then plastered on the Holy Smile once more before going back into the living room.
     Franz and I spent a few more minutes at the Nugent's before excusing ourselves, and as we departed I gave a seductive smile and passionate hug to Eldon's mom.  I told her she smelled so good, like Coconuts and Glade air freshener, and she told me that she would stab me in the scrotum if I did not release her from my embrace.  I knew I was making progress.
     We arrived at Diamond Doug's at eight o'clock, and I was delighted to find that it was about as skanky a strip club as one could find in the deadlands of Middle America.  The thick odor of ammonia and sadness hung in the air as sagging strippers with track marks and c-section scars twirled on smudged poles to the sound of 80’s hair band music.  As the song ended, a familiar voice piped in over the loudspeakers.
     “Alright guys, let’s give it up for the lovely Samanthaaaaaaa!” The announcer rapped quickly.  “Right now comin’ up on stage number one we got the beautiful Bunny and on stage two we’ve got you covered with a two-fer, with the scorching hot Veronica and her sexy playmate Raven!  Remember to tip your waitress, and all beers on tap are half off until ten.  And don’t forget, we’ve got the Velvet Room in the back where you can get a little one-on-one time with any of these sexy ladies.”
     A new, horrifying song came blaring over the loudspeakers.  It was the kind of anthem crap-rock that a band twenty years past its prime insists on playing off of their new album at a concert instead of the two or three well known ones the poor schmos who actually go to their concerts paid to hear.  The unfortunate strippers began their clumsy fumbles.  The announcer emerged from this booth, passing off the duties to a stick-thin meth freak.   It took me a moment to realize it, but the announcer, who possessed two perfectly functional eyeballs, was actually Pastor Unger, sans eye patch.  He approached Franz and me with a self-satisfied expression on his face as if we were marveling at the revelation that he was not the fire-and-brimstone holy man he had tried to portray.
     “Gentlemen.”  Unger said with an oily grin.  “Come into my office.”
     We followed him to a back room behind lock and key.  On his desk were several lines of coke chopped out and a few assorted weapons.  I looked over to Franz, and he simply shrugged and helped himself to a few rails.
     “That little queer bait, Eldon, came to visit me.”  Pastor Unger said as he helped himself to a line.
     “What did he want?”  I asked, using Franz’s crack lighter to spark up a joint.
     “He read in the paper about the eulogy I gave at his memorial service.  He wanted me to be the one to break the news to his parents that he was alive.  Unfortunately, he followed me here and figured out what I was about.”
     “What exactly are you about?”  Franz asked, rubbing some residue into his gums before offering a complimenting nod for the free drugs, which Unger reciprocated with his own “you’re welcome” nod.
     “I’m a man of God.”  Unger said so plainly that you’d almost swear he believed it.  “I do what I need to do to provide for my flock.”
     “Your flock?”  I laughed.  “So, does that include the used up skank-towels you got working the poles or the degenerate weirdoes that are crunching folded up stained singles in their g-strings?”
     “I’m like a train, son.  I’m the joy train.  And the joy I give, whether it’s in the salvation of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, or the sweet clapping ass cheeks of a nubile young lady up on that stage, is a kind of joy that carries my flock for a thousand miles.”
     “Now that’s a train of joy I can get on board with.”  I winked. 
     “Scoff if you like, but all of this work I do will fund the largest mega-church Kansas has ever seen.  Is it so terrible that I use money taken from the wicked to pay for a structure so righteous? ”  Unger pulled out a large artist’s conception of a crystal Palace Of Prayer and displayed it for us with a coked-out twinkle of pride in his eye.  “When the lord sees fit, I will tear down the walls of this house of sin and rebuild with the money it has brought me. “
     “So what’s with the eye patch and the Pastor routine?”
     “There needs to be a separation between the man you see before you here and the poor suffering souls who need the salvation I am trying to provide.  It is a deception, I will grant you that.   But the deception is mine, and I am not putting the souls of my flock in jeopardy whatsoever.”
     “But Eldon caught you.”
     “He did.”
     “What did he do then?”
     “He asked me to get him guns.   Lots of guns.   And a car that would get him to California.”
     “And you helped him?”
     “It was either that or risk being exposed.  Or kill him.”  Unger laughed.  We didn’t.  “That was a joke.”
     “What kind of car did you get him?”
     “I had a Chevy Astrovan.   He left yesterday morning.”
     Unger sat back and smiled that shitty, shitty smile that made me want to rear back with all my might and swing around with a righteous bitch slap.   I looked around the office, taking in the vast wallpapering of nude models and religious artwork.  Several highly illegal assault rifles were lined up against the wall, along with many sealed crates containing God-Knows-What.
     “All that shit about the coelacanth,” I finally said, “you just pulled that out of your ass, didn’t you?”
     “I saw it on Discovery Channel a while ago.”  He answered, tapping on his nose to loosen up any crystal stragglers.
     “I tell you what.  You steer real clear of Eldon’s family.  You got me?  Because you can rest assured that I will be out there, and you may think I’m gone, but if I need to show myself again, the horrible shit I want to do to you will remain unchanged.  Like the Coelacanth.  Unchanged after however long it takes.   And still as potent.”
     “My son…” he began to say, but he was met with that righteous bitch-slap I had been saving, and despite the harsh sting the impact to his face caused on the backside of my hand, it felt so very good.
     “I’m not your son.”  I forced Unger’s freshly slapped face onto the desk, mashing it into the pile of coke, which upset Franz as he was going in for another round.  “I’m going to take a few things.  And you’re going to let me.”
     “You do what you feel you need to do,” Unger choked, taking deep breaths that were frosted with puffs of powder, “but you cannot hide from the lord and his judgment.”
     “He knows where to find me.”  I said, releasing him.  I threw open a small cash-box on the desk and removed all of the bills, then helped myself to a few handguns.   I noticed a set of Hummer keys on the desk and picked them up, jingling them in my hand and admiring the Hummer logo.   “Yours?”  I smiled, and he nodded.  I shook my head “no” and assured him: “Mine.”
     Franz was heading back to Denver to take care of some business at the law firm after he dealt with the Kansas State Patrol regarding the incident that afternoon, and I intended to take Unger’s Hummer all the way back to California.  Before I left Kansas, however, there was some business I needed to take care of.
     I made sweet, forbidden love to Mrs. Nugent on Eldon’s bed that night as Eugene sat passed out in his lounge chair downstairs, a warm can of Schlitz resting on his belly and a remote control in his hand.  Not even my carnal cries of passion awoke Eugene from sleep, nor did the yelps of ecstasy Mrs. Nugent let out stir him, despite eliciting a chorus of prairie animals to howl along in harmony.
     We sat on Eldon’s bed, basking in the moonlight and afterglow, and shared a cigar-sized joint that I had managed to remove from Gravy’s jacket before he was carted off in the ambulance.  Mrs. Nugent had a moment of weakness where she wept into her hand, asking what she had done, and if her soul was condemned to hell.
     “It’s been a while since Eugene made you yap like a show dog from the good lovin’, eh?”  I warmly whispered to her, stroking her hair, trying to keep ash from the giant joint away as it floated gently in the breeze.  She nodded in agreement, and we stayed embraced until the sun began to peak up over the horizon and cast deep yellow light over Eldon’s room.
     As I drove off the next day, I was consumed with a feeling of hope.  Despite everything, I was once again loaded with cash and contraband in a nice big Hummer.  While Unger’s Hummer was not as pimped out as my own unfortunate Hummer was, it would do.  I would be travelling to California in a chemical stupor and in style.  And thinking about the deeply disturbing yet satisfying sexual scenarios I had been able to find myself entangled in with Mrs. Nugent, I could not help but forget all of my woes and tell myself that Life Was Good. 
     And that’s the kind of joy would carry me for a thousand miles.
 

Holy Shit.

That’s about all you have time to think when you see that flash from the muzzle of a shotgun.

‘Wow’ would be quicker.  But this is one of those situations that called for an all encompassing thought that defines the moment in spirit and in song, and nothing sings to the soul quite like ‘Holy Shit’.

It’s some time just after the searing wave of buckshot and plasma-like splash of white hot flame rips my face apart that I really try to take stock of my life and figure out exactly what the hell brought me to this stage.  Even as I knew that this experience, should I survive it, would be one of the lower points in my autobiography, I strangely welcomed the chance at serenity that a good old down-and-dirty self-analysis could bring.  And I’ll be damned if the hour and a half I spent wallowing in shreds of my face as Dr. Boddicker tried to give directions to an ambulance wasn’t the most peaceful time I had ever spent in my life.

Some things you learn about yourself only too late.  And it’s generally not a good thing when you can connect the dots from your current situation to some trauma from years ago.  The shape it makes out is usually some kind of loss.  And in my situation, it made the face Larissa Kelso.

Ahh, Larissa Kelso.  Since high school she had represented all that can break within me.  Peeling back the bandage on that wound made for bittersweet relief from my head trauma as I was forced to turn further inward to confront the ghosts that haunted me.  As I no longer had eyelids or a heavy duty narcotic to combat the agonizing pain I was most certainly enduring, my discomfort was best handled through a vicious dose of denial, regret and doubt, and massive, massive shifting of blame from myself to that skank.

Larissa Kelso wasn’t always a “skank” to me.  At one point she was the center of my universe.   It was back before I was known as “Gravy”.  When I was just Angelo Gohnner.  I was a young man, lacking anything closely resembling ambition or dreams, and thoroughly convinced that my true path to happiness was in becoming the love of Larissa’s life.  Just seeing her walk into the room would fill me with a potent mixture of fear and desire that made me lose myself in a pheromone cloud.

I had known her since grade school, and even then she did not seem to know I existed.  She was the bar by which beauty was judged in our school, and I would bitterly and anonymously covet her from the back of the class, or on the bus, or sometimes even at the mall as we grew older and I would find myself steadily skulking twenty steps behind her without her knowing.  All eyes were always upon her, but none burned tragic holes of need into her the way mine did.  With her long, flowing brown hair and eyes like jewels, and lips like cherry ice cream that stretched into a smile that sent daggers into my heart… Larissa Kelso had claimed ownership of my youth, and I was hers, totally and completely.  Yet she never knew the depths of my heart which she had unwittingly staked claim to.

It was always my intention to express to her my feelings, if only the timing would work out right.  From seventh grade until our junior year of high school, our paths would cross from time to time, and I would see opportunities every now and then, but I never worked up the nerve to approach her.  Then, one blessed summer night as I found myself lurking outside the house of Calvin Dupree where a party attended by most of my classmates was in full swing, I came upon Larissa in the bushes, vomiting her guts up.

There, in a revealing outfit that showed every muscle of her abdomen flexing as she heaved wave after wave of Cinnamon Schnaaps into the shrubbery, I admired her, both in body and soul.  So vulnerable, I thought, as she lost control over every major bodily function, teetering on the edge of alcohol poisoning.  I approached and helped move her hair back from her face, counting on the generous amount of puke already soaked in her honey-brown mane to help plaster it back, away from the continuing onslaught of chips, dip, and liquor.  She looked up at me, a tear in her eye that welled over and trickled down her cheek, and said “Thanks,  Andy”, to which I politely, lovingly reminded her my name was Angelo.

After a few more minutes of vomiting, and a short crying spell as she drunkenly expressed to me the difficulties that people as beautiful as her go through, she finally invited me into the party, explaining that she wanted another couple of beers, and maybe some more Schnaaps to wash the “pukey” taste from her mouth.  After a short protest in which the party-goers were asked to vote on whether to allow me in to the party or not, I was granted entry by a slim margin.  And for the rest of the night I was by Larissa’s side.  She would lean on my shoulder, and if not for the dead weight of her drunken body clinging to me for dear life I may have very well floated away on a cloud of deep, timeless love and shots of Petron followed by insane hits on a Turkish skull-bong.

While I would never again achieve anywhere close to this level of acceptance with my high school peers, I did consider this night to be the best night of my life.  As I imbibed shot after shot and smoked bowl after bowl, I achieved a level of intoxication that was on par with the lovely Larissa, and shortly before dawn, after the police had raided the party and placed several of our classmates under arrest, Larissa and I found ourselves hiding in the neighbor’s garage, still reeling from intoxication.  We further vomited on the hood of the red Corvette parked in the garage and proceeded to consummate this deep passion with a grunting lovemaking session on the floor next to a half full gas can.

I had given my virginity to Larissa Kelso.  And despite the bubbling sickness within my gut and the spinning of the garage, I found myself consumed with a love that I could not contain any further.  Through this spiritual and primal bonding, I found the courage to tell Larissa everything I had wanted to say to her for almost a decade.  And I let loose with it.

“Larissa,” I said strongly, “I need to tell you that I adore you.  I find that I can’t go through a single day without your face burning behind my eyes.  When I need warmth, I do not look to the sun.  I look only to your memory.  When I need joy, I think of your smile.  When I dream, I can dream of only this moment that I am spending with you, holding you in my arms, our bodies entwined until they are indistinguishable from each other and we share a single space and time.  Larissa.  Tonight you’ve given me a purpose and a path.  You’ve expanded the space within me where my heart can grow, and that space is already almost overflowing with gratitude and love and passion for you.  You have been the best years of my life.  The best day.  The best night.  You have been the best beat of my heart.  And now I am hooked.  I will forever be trying to chase this high with you.  I want to explore existence with you and only you.  Forever and ever.  Until the end of time.”

My body shivered as I had realized the words I had spoken which had been trying to escape me for so long.  And I wept quietly to myself, tears of joy, at the prospect of having finally secured my place in Larissa’s heart.

“You’re a sweet guy, Doug.”  She replied.

“It’s Angelo.”

Larissa spent the rest of the school year dating Harold Brundermeir, a jock with a reputation for impregnating his classmates, resulting in hush-hush abortions paid for by his parents who were just ever-so-pleased their boy was so popular.  And I suppose Larissa could still be considered special, despite my quickly soured opinion of her, for the fact that she did actually give birth to Harold’s child.  The timing of the birth was disturbing in that it was possible I could be the father, but once the child was born it plainly had Harold’s vacant stare and oddly shaped skull.  A DNA test, insisted upon by Harold’s family, further proved paternity.

It wasn’t until Dr. Boddicker and I were on our way to Kansas that I would once again bump into Larissa.  We were just outside the Colorado/Kansas border when the Doc decided he needed a bathroom break and we pulled over to a small, out of the way gas station.  I had needed to urinate for about an hour, but the Doc told me to hold it as it would “put hair on your chest” to do so.  Of course when nature calls, if there isn’t a facility nearby, the Doc would just pull over to the side of the road and pee gently into the breeze.  He can be a selfish, selfish man.

The gas station was rustic, constructed mostly of wood and spackle and seemingly held together with broken dreams.  The pumps were the old rotary-dial kind.  A stuffed pig’s head was mounted over the main doorway.  However, there was clearly a Mountain Dew machine inside, and I thirsted for something more than Don Julio Tequila and Red Bull, so I ventured in.

As the Doc came sauntering from the rest room, a satisfied grin on his face, I had already chugged down the can of lukewarm Mountain Dew Code Red, which tasted oddly stale.  After taking care of my own restroom needs, I began to browse the limited selection of locally produced dried pork products and "regional" energy drinks that offered an amphetamine-like kick and tolerable fruit-like flavor.  Suddenly, a little fellow, all of the age of ten came scampering from the back mechanic’s bay, covered in grease.  I watched as he shuffled around the counter and into the arms of the woman at the cash register.  She was an unpleasant sight to behold, he hair thinning and wispy, an eye patch over one eye, and most teeth gone.  She looked at me with her one good peeper and there was that sudden flash of recognition.

“Oh my gawd!”  She barked.  “Eddie Gonad, is that you?”

“You mean Angelo Gohnner?” I reflexively asked.  Part of me prepared to ask this woman who she was, but something inside me told me.   It was Larissa.  She must have recognized me by the army jacket I was wearing, which I had since high school, with the words "Free Mustache Rides" Written in fading Sharpie down the sleeve.  My face had become a bit more Baldwinesque since I had last seen her.

“Angelo?”  Dr. Boddicker chuckled.  “This man’s name is Gravy.   Get it right, okay sweet cheeks?”

“Larissa Kelso.”  I smiled.  “Well holy shit.  How have you been?”

“I ain’t gonna lie.  It’s been rough.”  She popped an unfiltered cigarette in her mouth and lit it, followed by a gravelly series of coughs and gasps, after which she was required to spit a thick, horrific abomination into a spittoon.

Larissa proceeded to explain that in the years since our lovemaking encounter she had gone through some radical life changes.  She had married Harold and moved out to the fringes of Colorado where she supported him in his quest to become an Ultimate Fighting Champion by working several jobs.  After Harold’s first match with local legend Francis “The Disemboweler” Grivaldi ended in Harold’s near total paralysis and successful lawsuit against the local UFC chapter (negotiated by the law firm of Pinkerton, Duff and Graves), Larissa had divorced Harold and had taken him for every penny.  He is now fed through a straw at a private facility paid for by his parents, who were just oh-so-pleased that their boy was so popular.

Larissa’s newfound wealth (by rural Colorado standards) and still smokin’ hot body led her to a party lifestyle that burned out so quickly and completely that she was left in the broken and defeated form that I now saw her in.  Years of drug abuse, drunken car crashes, and knife fights with other club skanks who thought she was “lookin’ at my man” resulted in the loss of an eye and accumulation of pounds of scar tissue.  She had finally settled down in this small Colorado outpost and had taken up residence with the owner of this run down gas station.  She put her young hell-child to work as a mechanic because, as she explained, child labor laws are meaningless in her income bracket.

I left the gas station with a great swell of petty happiness in my heart.  As poisonous as such an emotion may be, I couldn’t help but feel that I was at least owed some kind of satisfaction for having so completely given myself to Larissa.  Who knows what life would have looked like for her had she remembered my name, was not repulsed by me, and decided to become my high-school sweetheart.   And as that gas station got smaller in the rearview mirror, I felt it once again… that feeling of contentment and glory.  But not born of justice.  Instead, born of bitterness and vengeance, but satisfying just the same.

I explained the story to Dr. Boddicker the rest of the trip, and he and I laughed and consumed vast quantities of pot and Red Bull the whole way.  As we pulled up outside the home of Eldon Nugent’s parents, I noticed a large SUV parked alongside the house.

“That’s weird.”  Dr. Boddicker began to say, but was interrupted by a loud, hard *PING* of something hitting the side of the Hummer.  The back window suddenly shattered, and I could hear the *PFFFFFT!* of a bullet whizzing by my head.

“I think someone’s shooting at us.”  I said through a hazy high.

“I’d say you’re right.”  Dr. Boddicker shrugged.  “So… what do we do?  Split?”

“Umm… yeah?”  I laughed.

A hole suddenly appeared in the windshield, and another, all erupting in little fountains of powdered glass and spider web cracks.  It became clear, albeit a little too late, we were under attack, and Dr. Boddicker hit the gas and peeled out.

As Dr. Boddicker lit another joint, I paid special attention to the SUV that was following us.  It soon pulled alongside us, as Dr. Boddicker asked me to hold the wheel while he cracked a Red Bull.  Just then, a large Columbian man leaned out the window of the SUV, holding a shotgun leveled straight at my face, and…

So now I’m recovering in a hospital bed.  While conventional medicine was able to put my face back together in a Frankenstein stitch nightmare configuration, Dr. Boddicker assures me that a fresh Alec Baldwin face awaits me.  And all things considered, even beyond the pain of the gunshot, and the years spent wandering an emotional wilderness following the worst rejection of my life, I can’t help but feel just a little bit relieved.  I may not have dodged the shotgun blast, but I definitely dodged a bullet when I was rejected by that Party Mess.  And that fills me up so much that all I can do is say to myself “Holy Shit.”

     My invitation had arrived in the mail.  It had elegant raised lettering that must have cost a fortune to print.  I ran my fingers over the words: Evelyn Snog, You Are Cordially Invited.

     Far be it from me to turn down an invitation.  Especially a cordial one.  So I RSVP'ed.  Evelyn Plus One.  Now, all I'd need is Plus One.

     I flirted with the idea, ever so briefly, of calling Clive.  However, despite his unexpected generosity, I can't help but remember what he had whispered into my ear as he hugged me goodbye when last we parted: "I hate you on every conceivable level, from the bottom of my soul to the tippity top of the highest peaks in all the known universe.  Evelyn, Mother of My Child.  You repulse me."  Still, I had to restrain myself as my fingers danced across the numbers on my cell phone, tapping out the first few digits of his phone number.

     It was not merely a wistful indulgence that I found myself wanting Clive to join me at this event.  It was the fifteenth annual Western United States Holistic Lifestyle , Complementary and Alternative Medicine Awards Ceremony.  Clive and I had previously won "Most Unconventional Use of Chamomile In a Pressurized Lower Colon Cleansing Solution".  Being past winners of this prestigious award, Clive and I were guaranteed invitations for life.  As I chastised myself for almost giving in to the desire to call him, I felt a flash of terror that he might very well have received the same invitation and would be arriving with some plastic skank barely out of high school.  I put my fears to rest, somewhat, as I also remembered him saying that this particular award ceremony was "a waste of time that I would rather spend dragging my sack across an ocean of razor blades than attend".

     Oh, how I miss Clive.

     Of course, I did not have the option of bringing young Alec (or Clive Jr. as I sometimes take to calling him when he raises my anger).  Due to the disproportionate number of convicted sex offenders who also counted themselves among the members of this institution, there was a strict "No Children Under 18" rule in place.  It was especially enforced this year, as the Eastern division of the academy found last years convention degenerating into a white slavery market that was, thankfully, stopped by an abundant undercover police presence at the event.

     So with limited options for an escort to the ceremony, I set about the task of locating Cinnamon to once again put him to use as Arm Candy.  I caught him up at the Busted Whistle, a low-key bar/nightclub that was suited to small acoustic acts and stand-up comedians.  He was trying to parlay his musical career into a spoken word-jazz routine that he hoped would eventually lead to a one-man Broadway show titled "Burning at Both Ends: The Candle of My Innocence".  His act was essentially ripped off from various blogs and punctuated with electric guitar riffs that were played with as clumsy a hand as he had used during any one of the many marginally satisfying lovemaking bouts we had engaged in during our courtship.  I sat through the entire show, enduring it with the assistance of several neat shots of Johnny Walker Black and crushed Vivarin tablets rubbed into my gums.  I find the Vivarin helps numb my excessively soft teeth which pulsate in pain as I chomp on pretzel mix.

     "Hey you."  I said to Cinnamon as he left the stage to a smattering of applause and a few hisses.  He looked over at me, his whole body flexing with the movement, his biceps rippling the like gut of a fat man hit with a cannonball, his stare as blank as his moral center.  It took him a moment, but he finally registered some level of recognition.

     "Oh, hey," he smiled, showing off those supernaturally white capped teeth, "Elizabeth, right?"

     "Evelyn." I corrected him, then plopped myself against the wall with my right elbow as my hand twirled in my hair, a technique I refer to as my "High School Crush" pose.  While my name may have escaped his limited memory storage capacity, surely he would retain muscle memory of someone he had been so intimate with.  I tugged up my already revealing half-shirt to expose a further few inches of my oft-glorified midsection.  The porcelain-white shine of my sunlight deprived midsection cast an ice-blue glow on his face, and the sparkle in his eye told me that he remembered.

     "Oh no."  He mummbled.  I placed my index finger on his lips, telling him "shhhh shhhh shhhh" and with my other hand, grasped within my talon-like manicure, was a wad of money.  New Money.   The kind of money that puts a guy like him into the recording studio of his choice to seek fortune and fame as a Rock God until he realizes that his true calling in life is that of a personal trainer/man-whore.

     "I need your services."  I smirked, crinkling the bills in my hand.  He gently removed my hand from his face, and my body quivered as the strength and stoniness of his rock-hard grip reminded me of what the touch of a real man was like.  He had so much more passion within him than any of the gigolo masseuses I had found myself twisted into carnal knots with these past few months, and I moaned at his touch.

     "I won't do any of those... things... you like."  He said flatly.

     "You'll do what I pay you to do."  I reminded him, waving the wad of cash in his face.  He paused a moment, his eyebrows performing a spastic ritual as synapses fired off in his head.  He parsed his options, and then he gave in, his body slumping the way it did after the few times he had been able to achieve full ecstasy during our bouts of intercourse when he would be drunk enough to believe I was actually Ben Kingsley in a wig.

     "Fine."  He swatted the cash from my hand, quickly flicking through the bills, pretending to count if only he knew how.  After faking an understanding of the full amount of cash he held in his hand (for the record, $67 in fives and ones that I recovered from the "Swear Jar" that young Alec has taken to funding as of late) he crooked his arm into a loop, and we walked out of the club together.

     No man wears a suit quite like Clive Boddicker does.  But Cinnamon gave him a run for his money when he came sauntering down the stairs of my new palatial estate, dressed in an outfit that subtly hid yet strangely accentuated his manly frame.  He commented that he felt pretty good in the outfit, and as comfortable as it was actually made him hate himself a little bit less for once again becoming my beck and call.  I was dressed in a pink Bedazzled tube-top shirt with ruffled fringes across and the words "Hot Stuff" etched out in alternate colored sequins, a low-cut Bedazzled miniskirt, and spike-heeled Pleather boots, also Bedazzled.  My mid-section was fully exposed and the unfortunate excess skin that still remains as a depressing reminder of my tragic attempt at physical "perfectioning" was strategically pinned and taped underneath the tube top forming an abnormal ridge to bulge out the back as if my spinal column was protruding.  My miniskirt was short enough to allow the lower caps of my sagging "AssFlaps" to peek out ever so slightly.  My hair was force-blown-and-hairsprayed to a crispy wireframe helmet.  

     I was feeling a relative level of confidence that I would be displaying my body in the exhibitionist manner to which I had become known in the circles I had travelled in my life.  I was there to let them all know that I had made it, and no amount of civil litigation that may have stemmed from my foray into the realm of Alternative Medicine was going to keep me from declaring loud and proud that I was not a has-been in their cultish sub-culture, but a sophisticated woman of means and influence in the larger sense.  And while it did feel somewhat petty of me to flaunt my good fortunes in front of people whom I regarded as little more than carnie trash and snake-oil salesmen with whom I had once found myself mired in shady dealings with, I reminded myself that I was deprived the typical high-school experience.   The only group of people whom I secretly despised and wished nothing but the illest of will upon while to their face pretending that "it's been too long" and "we should keep in touch" was this community of grifters, and even though most of them did not even know of my existence, it sure felt nice to have enough money to take a dump of smugness on each and every one of them.

     When we arrived at the pre-awards reception, Cinnamon was escorting me, most gentlemanly, by the arm as we stepped through the front doors of the high school gymnasium which was hosting the event.   I decided that enough eyes were upon me, and I insisted that Cinnamon twirl and dip me to achieve the maximum effect of grace and good breeding.  Unfortunately, Cinnamon is as clumsy a gentleman as he is a guitar player and lover, and his hand raked across the carefully pinned mount of excess flesh on my back, causing it to come undone and break free into a leathery white garbage-bag nightmare oozing out from under the still-too-tight-tube-top.

     "You fuckin' clutz." I snapped, then pulled the loose flesh off to one side and bound it with a twist-tie.

     Cinnamon made a bee-line for the bar and I set about mingling the room, playfully bumping into people as they discussed aspects of their trade and product.  I find that I am an incredible conversationalist, especially when it comes to pointing out the cultural shortcomings of people I consider to be less enlightened than myself.  People seem to deeply appreciate when I insert myself into their conversations, so I do it often.

     I had made it from one end of the gymnasium to the other and felt that I had left a good impression throughout.   Cinnamon was on his sixth Cosmo and eyeballing the elderly janitor who had been called upon to sawdust a puddle of puke left by last year's winner of the "Best Achievement in Non-Colon Related Wellness Product" award, Saul Beggins.   Saul was passed out on a folding chair, and I found myself faced with an existential crisis over whether I should pick his pockets or not.  Saul was quite wealthy from the sales of his all natural Bamboo tongue scraper line.  And he was a raving anti-Semite who believed that all banks fed your money to Israel via an underground pneumatic tube system that spanned the globe, so he carried a lot of cash.  I was making my move towards him when I felt a hand on my shoulder.  I didn't need to even look.  I knew that hand.

     "Evelyn Snog."  The silky smooth voice dripped.  "I'd know that thousand yard stare anywhere."

     Behind me stood BrownTown, all six-foot-four of pure Nubian God.  He smiled at me; his teeth looking like a shotgun loaded with diamond buckshot blasted a wall of white gold.  He was in his purple suit with fur-lined collar and cuffs, and a plush top-hat with a diamond encrusted dollar sign wobbled on his head as he spoke.  That was BrownTown, all right.  He hadn't changed a bit.

     BrownTown and I were "business associates" at one time as I was passing through Texas following a disappointing attempt at a career in the Tijuana erotic arts industry.  We had parted on good terms after he told me he realized that I was "one bitch that can't be tamed".  I had heard recently that he was involved in some investments related to the CAM industry.  He had purchased a stake in a small energy drink concern in Sacramento and the product was up for the "Best Management of Harmful Chemical Levels in a Regional Energy Drink Product" award.

     I leaned in and gave BrownTown a hug.  I could feel he was still sporting one hell of a Bitch Arm.  It was toned and rippled from a regimen of "keepin' the hizzies in check", as he put it.  He gave me a squeeze with that arm, and I instinctively flinched, but the awkwardness passed and I found myself genuinely feeling accepted by BrownTown.  Accepted as an equal.

     We talked for a while, and he explained to me how the "game has changed" and he was now branching into "old white people money investments".    Indeed, the game had changed.  Where I was once lost in a wilderness, I now found myself a successful single mother with a flourishing and unique sex life. 

     BrownTown touched my face to look at him directly.  His eyes were piercing my brain with his intentions, and he said "the game may have changed, and Christ knows so have you… but we're still playas", and he licked his lips for a good thirty seconds as he worked up the will to kiss me deeply, and kiss me he did.  He pulled back as soon as the gumminess of our mutual dry-mouth loosened, and he apologized.  I asked him if he'd like to crawl under the folding table holding the spiked punch to have a go at it for old time's sake, but he declined because he was there with one of his babymama.  I told him I wanted to leave him with a little going-away present, and I thrust my hand into the front of his pants.

     The crackling of my arthritic wrist from within the purple pants tent was loud enough to overpower the Muzak Bosa Nova being piped over the school's intercom system and people were beginning to stare.  Suddenly, as BrownTown was nearing the finish-line, the event was disrupted by the chiming of my cell phone.  I immediately withdrew from the proceedings and looked at the Caller ID.  BrownTown, having been almost to a transitional stage in the scenario yet denied so abruptly, grabbed his groin and screamed something about "Oh shit!  Backfire!  Ow o wowwowowow!" and hobbled from the gym.

     Due to the dramatic nature of BrownTown's departure, I didn't quite comprehend what I was seeing on the Caller ID.  I had to blink, but indeed it did say "Clive Boddicker".  I flipped open the phone and sat quietly for a moment, trying not to breathe.

     "Hey!"  He shouted, and my heart bolted with that silver adrenaline.  "Evelyn!  Where's Clive Jr.?"

     "What?  How about a hello?  And his name is Alec.  He's only Clive Jr. when he's been a little brat."  I playfully said back.

     "Where is he?"

     "With the nanny, why?"

     "Who's the nanny?"

     "This Columbian woman I found on Craigslist.  Consuela."

     "Awwwww fuck."

     "What's wrong?"  I was panicking, and a little thirsty.  I waved Cinnamon to bring me a Cosmo.

     "Gravy's been shot.  And Evelyn.  I don't want you to panic, but I got hit too.  I think a bullet nicked my face.  But don't worry.  It's repairable.  I'm still handsome."

     "Well, some girls like a man with scars."

     "Then Gravy's gonna be riding the boobie train all the way to Gettin'-Laids-ville because that boy's missing his face.  In fact, I don't even think it was a bullet that nicked me… I think it was a piece of Gravy's skull."

     "Holy crap!  Is he gonna live?"

     "Him?  Oh yeah, he'll be fine.  I'll slap a new coat of Baldwin on that face-salad and he'll be right as rain.  But I think I might need stitches on my forehead.  This is just a fuckin' tragedy to be honest."

     "Clive?"  I took a sip of the Cosmo Cinnamon brought to me, "what's this got to do with Clive Jr.?"

     "Oh, yeah.  Duh.  He's probably being held for ransom.  These goons that shot Gravy said they were going after my kid.  They're from a Colombian cartel, so they tend not to make idle threats."

     I froze in terror.

     Consuela had impeccable references.  Of course, I found it odd that most of her previous clients had been members of organized crime, but I figured that rich was rich.  Far be it from me to judge how someone earns a buck.

     "Gotta go."  I flipped the phone shut then flipped it back open and dialed Consuela.

     "We got the boy."  A heavily accented man's voice said on the other end.

     "What the hell do you want?" I shouted.

     "Bring me the pretty man… the doc.  We'll call you back, tell you where.  You bring him, and you bring five million dollars in cash.  And your boy will be alright.  No cops."

     "Let me speak to him!  Let me know he's alright!"

     There was a rustling, then the man said "say somethin' to your mom", and then I heard the sweet, angelic voice of Young Alec saying "Mom!  These fuck faces only have a Playstation Two!  What kind of Mickey Mouse shit is this!?"

     "That's a five-spot in the swear-jar Sweetheart!"  I cried out, feeling my body shaking with guilt and fear and regret, and a little tipsy from the second Cosmo I had Cinnamon bring to me.  "Don't you hurt my boy!" I shouted.

     "He'll be fine… as long as he SHUTS THE HELL UP!" Another rustling sound and some kind of squeak-toy was tossed, and then Young Alec shouted "fuck you too, bud!"

      I looked to Cinnamon, and he stared back at me with that emotionless gaze and shrugged.

     "They have my boy!  They kidnapped my boy! We have to bring Clive to them!"

     "Oh, fuck that."  Cinnamon threw his hands up.  "I hate that asshole."

     "That makes two of us."  A voice boomed from behind me.  I turned as I recognized the voice.  And before me stood Eldon Nugent, and he looked like he was ready to go to war.

     "Follow me."  He said, then stormed out of the gym.   Cinnamon and I drunkenly stumbled after, leaving behind a crowd of people who now knew that I was important enough to have my child kidnapped. 

     You can't buy that kind of envy.

     The first thing I notice about the entrance to the club is the presence of six-foot dreadnought body guards on each side of the doorway.  It's like they manufacture them somewhere and this club bought a matching set.  All tall and round and shaved heads and goatees.  The one on the left is wearing suspenders, and I suspect a gun holster as well.  The one on the right might be packing one on the ankle.  They're wearing nice suits, tailored to allow lots of room to breathe on their ample frames.  The guns hide nicely.
     I'm decked out in glow sticks and a flowing black jacket with outer space designs that glow in the blacklight.  A strange over-sized beret provided by Gravy is flopped on my head, hopefully not mussing my gorgeous hair.  It's dark, but I'm wearing some awesome shades, so I can't see a god damned thing unless I drop them to the tip of my nose.  They seem to be designed for that, as the arms of the glasses reach just that length.  I give the Goon on the right, the one with the possible ankle-holster, a wink and a nod, and I could see the beginnings of a smile coming over his face as I march past.   He knows I'm handsome.  No need to belabor the point.
     I'm bouncing along to the -boom-boom-boom- of the drumbeats, and I take a moment to gauge if I'll be able to stand this music or not.  I've got to pause, Gravy's getting hassled at the door, so I lean against a wall and listen.  And bop.  That's what the young'n's do.  They bee-bop.  They just don't call it that.
     This music will do just fine.  So I break a goofball under my nose and snort in deep.  I promise myself that if they haven't let Gravy in by the end of the song I'll go looking for him.  I'm too busy wrapped up in the moment and building a quick-reference ass-tattoo mental catalogue from the crack-and-below clothing choices in this throbbing Meat Market that Gravy will just have to live on his wits for a few more minutes.
     Finally Gravy comes in, twenty bucks lighter and a little roughed up, but I'm sure things got more manageable for him once he told them he was with me.  Gravy is sporting a Stephen Baldwinized face, and as such is prone to be the target of the pent up aggression of many.   True, Stephen Baldwin is handsome, but without me by his side to temper the situation, Gravy is a pretty easy mark.  So it doesn't surprise me he was shaken down by the doorman.  He looks a little frazzled, so I tell him I'll buy him a drink.
     I scope out the bar.  It's across the dance floor, a good hundred feet away.  Bathed in blue gel light, it's the altar of the converted Catholic Church, and such sacrilege gives me a pant leg of granite.  The original stained glass of Our Lord and savior looking down, telling me I'm oh-so-wrong.  But that Red Bull and Vodka will make me feel oh-so-right.  I mime to Gravy that we're to hit the bar, and then I begin my dance-march through the humid sea of scantily clad party girls and their dim-bulb companion boyfriends.  It's all Axe Body Spray and armpit stink.  I push pass a girl that smells distinctly of vomit, and I swear that I used to date her.
     I'm throwing down, dancing wise.  I'm doing the running man.  I'm rocking the cabbage patch.  My dance floor skills clear a path for me to the bar, with Gravy trailing behind, and every few feet a perfectly choreographed dance number breaks out for a few seconds with a dozen or so others before I continue my way to the bar.   I'm Tony Manero… and you can tell by the way I use my walk that I'm a woman's man, no time to talk….
     The bartender is an incredibly fine young BlondeThing.  She compliments me on the incredible performance I had put on as I traversed the dance floor.  As a child I was well versed in the finest forms of ballroom dance, of the tango, and even some tap.  But it wasn't until I discovered the dance stylings of one Mr. Frederick 'ReRun' Berry that I would find the 'voice' of my dance.  And when I seek to engage a crowd with my movement I always fall back on this entrancing dance style.
     I order up my Red Bull and Vodka, and Gravy plays it safe with a Top Shelf Margarita.  I spin around, leap up ReRun-Style, and drop a wad of bills on the bar to pay BlondeThing, and then I groove and shift down the dance floor, smoooooooth as silk and sleek as a cat, with Gravy bopping behind me.  The kids do love to bee bop.
     Halfway down the dance floor the song changes, and since it has lyrics I determine that I'm not nearly high enough to tolerate this pretentious shit.  I tap one of Gravy's cigar-sized joints from my pocket and light it up.  I spend a good thirty seconds inhaling it in until the cherry burns brighter than the nearby strobes.  I can see a Dreadnought bouncer taking exception to my usage and beginning to walk toward me, so I just pass the joint off to a nearby dancer who does a very well disciplined puff-puff-pass.  And so the joint makes its way around the club, and in thirty seconds  exists only as long ago stepped-on ash and smoke that has bound to the bursts of the fog machine and dissipated into the open air of the club.  The perfect crime. And I'm high enough to move on.
     Gravy and I arrive at 'The Back Room'.  I can tell because it's an unmarked door, and there's another Mound of Bouncer standing in front of it.  I remain in front of him a moment, completing the rather complicated ReRun dance move that had made up the final ten steps of my movement toward him.  As I stick the landing, I throw in a little 'jazz hands' to close it out.  He's unimpressed.  So be it.  I tell him I'm here for the meeting.
     'Don't know nothin' about a meeting.' He mumbles.
     He's a well trained guard-monkey.  I'll give him that.
     I look up at the security camera peering down upon us and I wink, and it's either a coincidence, or the sheer force of my Baldwin one-eye Wink is able to carry out my will through the electronics, but the door buzzed open before my eye even opened from the resplendent hiccup of lid flutter.  And with that, Gravy and I entered.
     Down the long corridor, the sound of the club becomes more and more muffled with each step.  Gravy mentions that he's getting a little nervous.  He's seen way to many movies.   The backroom dens of druglords aren't nearly as scary as they're made out to be in the movies.  There's one Jamaican posse that I love to do business with because of the elegant fruit and cheese plates they put out for each meeting.  Good catering is underrated in the criminal underworld.
      At the end of the hall we're met with another T-Rex of a guard.  I lean in close to him and whisper 'The Password Is 'We Are Not Carrying Out Any Illegal Activities In The Back Of This Club''.  I snap my fingers, and again, as if the motion itself had achieved the reaction, the door buzzes and pops open.
     Inside is a very nice lounge with couches in a circle, a circular table in the middle that spins around, delivering any of the various narcotics, hallucinogens, and liquors from the four corners of this map of sins.  Each wall has a huge flat screen television, each playing a different porn flick.  I plop on one of the couches and blaze up another cigar-sized joint and focus in on a fairly tame seven-way group grope.  As my own sexual adventures had achieved a far more disturbing plateau of depravity, this particular selection of HD smut has about the same effect on me as the financial report on CNN. 
     Already on the couch opposite me is Franz Pinkerton.  He's pulling hard on a freebase pipe, and when he tries to pass it to me I tell him no thanks.  I've been on kind of a drug-diet as of late, sticking to weed, LSD, mushrooms, poppers, uppers, downers, and goofballs.  Franz likes to push the envelope, though.  Freebasing like a funk-band drummer is how he maintains his slender figure.  When it comes to Franz's vices, it's either that or the Little Debbies.
     To Franz's right is Caesar Escobar, a previous client whom I had delivered a flawless Daniel Baldwinization to a while ago.  Caesar and I went into business and, despite a rocky start, had maintained a decent relationship of mutually exchanged goods, services and cash.  He looks over to Gravy, and I realize I hadn't made the introductions yet.
     Caesar, Franz, this is Gravy.  Gravy grows that bud I've been delivering to you guys for the past couple months.
     For some reason, a couple of gruff looking goons begin milling around the room.  Caesar was not inclined to introduce us to the hired muscle, which was rarely a good sign.
     'How do we know this piece of shit ain't a cop?'  Caesar points to Gravy with a knife he's using the slice an apple.  He cuts off a wedge and munches it, then looks to me.  I can feel the fear radiating off of Gravy.  Unfortunately, I had spent the ride to the club explaining to him exactly why the chainsaw scene in 'Scarface' was so awesome and it had kind of set the bar in his mind for worst-case-scenario.  Caesar's big-bad-Colombian-Badass schtick isn't helping.
     'Caesar, baby,' I laugh, puffing on my joint, 'I've gotten so high with this little feller that if he were a cop, anything he'd say would be inadmissible because it would be from one of the most pot-addled minds in this hemisphere.'
     'Well you trusted that other little baby bitch, didn't you?'  Caesar is munching on that apple all the while he's grilling me.  The effect is annoying.
     'What little baby bitch might that be?'  I arch an eyebrow and sigh as I speak, trying to convey my complete indifference to his bullying.
     'You know... the one with the rock head... the cracker bunny... Eldon...'
     'It appears we've got some good news and some bad news.'  Franz speaks up.  He takes another knock off of the freebase pipe and continues.  'We had that little legal snafu last year when you were briefly detained in Miami.'
     'You lost me.'  I shake my head.
     'Last year, on a flight back to Denver you were briefly detained in Miami after some drugs were found in your...'
     '…my ass.  Yeah.  I remember that vaguely.  What's your point?'
     'Well, we were able to get you out of jail in under twenty-four hours.  Which, considering the charges, was a bit of a blessing.'
     'That's why I pay you the big bucks.'
     'Well, it appears that there may have been more to it than that.  You see... Eldon-'
     '- he was a lowlife fuckin' snitch.'  Caesar interrupts, again thrusting that knife in my direction.  I bristle as he emphasizes each word with a jab in my direction with that knife.  I don't take kindly to implied violence towards my person.  He sees my reaction and he feels cool suddenly.  In control.  He simply says 'what have you got to say about that?' then pops the last slice of apple in his mouth.
     'My turn?'  I look around the room.  Caesar motions in my direction as if he's giving me permission.   'Well, first off.  If you point that knife in my direction one more time I'll jam it up your ass handle-first so your little minions will slice their hands open inside your ass trying to pull it out before one of them smarts up and thinks to get some pliers.  Second, I trust Eldon with my life.  Well, I did.  Until he abandoned me.  But anyway.  There's no way he'd rat me out.'
     The Goons move towards me, but Caesar is amused and motions for them to stop.  He looks over to Franz and waves his hand as if to say 'Proceed.'  This prick likes to think he owns the room.
     'I've received word today that the charges against you in the case were dropped.'  Franz says solemnly.  'Their main witness, Eldon, is missing.   They know that the body at the hospital was not his, and they assume he is on the run or you've killed him.'
     'So wait... I'm off the hook?  Thank Christ I don't have to go back to Florida.'
     'You don't get it, do you baby bitch?'  Caesar stands up and approaches me, again waving that knife in my face.  'He was gonna give us all up.'
     'But he didn't.  And please.  The knife.  I warned you.'
     'Oh you did?'  He runs the knife gently over my face.  Not enough to break skin, but I Get The Point.  I keep my stare fixed on him, but for some reason he interprets this as weakness.  And as he turns to his Goons to gloat, I make good on my promise and extract the knife from his hand, bend him over the table, and jam it deep into the seat of his pants, handle-side-first.  The key is to have grabbed a handful of shirt to hold the blade by and slicing open the ass of the pants in one swoop.  It goes in like a hot knife through warm butter.
     I notice that none of the Goons make any extra effort to stop me as Caesar runs yelping from the room.  I turn to Franz and ask him what the hell this was all about.
     'He wants to kill Eldon.'  Franz simply says.  'He wants to track him down and kill him.'
     'Well good luck with that.'  I had been paying private investigators for two months to find Eldon.  None of them were any closer than I had gotten that fateful day I had watched Eldon get into that green van and disappear down the highway.
     'They know he was in Los Angeles recently.'
     'How do they know that?'
     'It seems Eldon had shown up on a foot fetishist web site.'  Franz holds up his iPhone and shows me an image of Eldon dressed in some really Fab-U-Lous shoes.
     'Nice to see he's got taste.'
     'The fellow who runs the site works for the same group of... *ahem*... associates that Mr. Escobar works for.  It's used in the massaging, if you will, of their cash flow.'
     'Fascinating.'  I begin picking through the potpourri-like bowl of assorted dried magic mushrooms.  I find one that looks particularly outrageous and pop it in my mouth.  It tastes like day old cheese left on a counter and occasionally licked by a cat with some sort of mouth fungus.  So I know I'm in for a wild ride.
     'The fellow who runs this site mentioned that Eldon was heading home.  To Kansas.'
     My ears perk up a little bit.  Kansas.
     That's right.   Eldon's parents live there.  Nice people.
     ...and...
     ...I have to sit and chew and swallow, and swirl the remaining bit of mushroom from my mouth with a gulp of hundred year old scotch...
     ...and then I have to think...
     ...and...
     ...Oh Right... I get it... Caesar's Goons are probably waiting outside Eldon's parents house for him to arrive.
     Well that's just inconvenient.
     'Look,' I smile and wink at Franz, 'get Caesar to call off the dogs.  I'll make this thing right with Eldon.'
     'Would that it were that easy.  These guys are serious.  You know what they do to the families of people even suspected of being a snitch?  You know what they call them?  The closest English-equivalent word for their nickname is 'The Orphan-izers'. '
     'Then why haven't these lugs put a slug in me yet?' I motion to the Goons.  They're still standing around, almost lifeless except for the heaving of their breath.
     'Well, that's where the opportunity comes in.  And Mr. Escobar is not aware of this slight... wrinkle... yet.  But Eldon is somewhat of a symbol for some of the...less educated...' Franz tries to stealthily point to the Goons, and despite his failure-of-stealth they still don't seem to notice.  'There's a legend going among some of the hired muscle about a surgical procedure that makes one bullet-proof.'
     'Come again?'
     'Well, word gets around.  Eldon was shot at point-blank range in the back of the head with a magnum.  And he survived.'
     'That has less to do with his Baldwinization and more to do with the fact that the idiot doing the shooting was a lousy shot.'
     'Still.  Many of them have been saving their money to get the procedure done.  And they kind of look up to Eldon.  They may not feel so inclined to take orders from Caesar if they felt they were bulletproof.  They may even feel indebted to  you.'
     'So suppose I give a few pro-bono Baldwinizations out to some of Escobar's guys and they overthrow him.  What happens to him?'
     'What do you think?'
     'Well, I'm assuming he doesn't get shipped to a farm up state where he can run freely through the meadows for the rest of his life.'
     'Probably it will be a little more stabby and shooty than that.'
     'Damn. You see... can't we just come to a happy medium?  I'm not entirely comfortable with being the reason someone gets got.'
     'If you think about it, there are a couple layers in between you doing the surgery for his guys and Escobar ending up sold as sausage.'
     'But the result is the same.'  I shake my head and stand up.  'Look, I don't mind giving out the surgeries.  I'll take these two meatheads home tonight and slap a coat of Alec on 'em.  But let's not have any violence.  At least, no irreversible violence.'
     Franz turns to one of Goons and spells out the terms in Spanish.  I don't understand a word of it except for the occasional 'el Baldwin' or 'el Alec' The Goons seem to nod in agreement, and just like that I have once again successfully avoided a possibly unpleasant...
     ...my pride in myself doesn't last long, as Caesar emerges from the bathroom, two other Goons with freshly bandaged fingers behind him, and he's pointing a gun at me.  I try to say 'it's cool' and tell him to lower his weapon, but him firing off the first shot muffles out my voice.  The shot busts open a hole in the couch next to me about the size of a baseball, and the size of a softball coming out the other side.  Stuffing kind of bursts into fluffy floating debris in the air around me.  I startle, and remind him that That Could Have Hit ME!  He fires again, and the bullet whizzes past my ear and hits the wall.
     Gravy jumps over the couch and scurries to the door.  He flings it open and he and Franz run out.  Another bullet zings past them and through the door leading out to the dance floor.  It parts the hair of a young Goth with an over-moussed-do and busts through a stained glass window.  The crowd screams in terror, or excitement, but uniformly as a flock of birds they make their way to the exits, getting no resistance from the Dreadnoughts at the door.
     One of the Goons in the back room subdues Escobar, and the other Goon and I make our way out of the back room and to the dance floor, which has mostly cleared.  I look to the bar and see the BlondeThing, and I run up to her and grab her hand.  I stop in the middle of the dance floor to dip her low and plant a big, prolonged movie-kiss on her and then we head out the door.  I send the Goon along with Franz and Gravy, and I tell BlondeThing that I will walk her to her car.
     BlondeThing and I make it almost all the way to the parking lot where her car is parked when we decide, quite mutually, that I am far too attractive and also too good a dancer to not make love at the nearest convenient surface.  It so happens that the hood of an '89 IROC is about as comfortable a surface to make swift, efficient love on as you will find while walking down an alley.  As I crossed my intended finish-line, I paid special attention to the many raccoons and foxes who had gathered to watch, and gave each of them a smile, and wondered why they only come to watch me copulate when I am full of Magic Mushrooms.
     I wake up the next morning covered in alleyway gravel and marked with the scent of what I'm assuming is rabid urban wildlife, and a freshly Alec Baldwinized Goon is sleeping on my couch.  Satisfied in most senses of the word, I decide to start my trek towards Kansas.  I offer BlondeThing the Shotgun spot in the Hummer, but she informs me that she isn't so keen on the idea of going on a road trip with a man who does not even know her name.  I suppose that can be counted as some measure of virtue, and I am not above accepting the rationalizations of those whom I've been as intimate with as BlondeThing.   I drop her off at a bus stop and write her an I.O.U. for the bus fare.  Gravy still sleeping in the back seat, and a case of chilled Red Bull by my side; I point the Hummer towards Kansas.
     I crack a Goofball  under my nose and rev the engine.  I light a joint and take a few puffs.
     I have no plan.  I don't know what to expect.  I'm not exactly prepared.  And I'm kind of baked.
     I throw it in drive. 
     Go.