The Schedule

I marched right up to the piece of trash and said, “Put your money where your mouth is.” He stuffed a bunch of coins in his mouth and laughed. I shook my head. “You don’t do that! That’s not your call!” I looked around for the police. Nowhere to be found. I still couldn’t believe he just did that. Obviously I meant it literally, but the unmitigated gall of that man…

Around a mouth full of copper, nickel, and zinc, he said, “Put that in your pipe and smoke it!” I took the idea of his chewing on coins in my hand, poured it into my corn cob pipe, tamped it down with my thumb, raised the pipe to my lips, and lit it while inhaling. The jerk’s jaw dropped, causing half-chewed coins to clink to the ground and scatter. The idea had a full, rich flavor with a hint of cedar and a musk of ferret. I laughed around my pipe. “How do you like THEM apples?” I replied. The prick took another bite from one of the apples he had in his hands and made a sour face. “These taste like rotten shrimp breaded in sawdust.” He continued eating them, tears welling in his eyes. “But I can’t stop eating!” His cheeks bulged suddenly and he ran to a trashcan. With his back to me, I could only hear the sounds of his retching. I giggled like a field mouse wearing a cape.

To this day people ask me all about the origins of that incident, and I tell them I have to take a shit.

So I’ve been doing a whole lot of walking and taking full advantage of my body ever since I got out last week. Man, it feels good to stretch out my legs and kick children under the table at restaurants so their parents can’t see. The kids usually start crying or accuse me, but I’m always on my best behavior, so what parent in their right mind would trust their own shithead child over me, the “cream of the crop”? Especially when she’s a single mom and I lead her on so I can get free dinner and a chance to kick her kid. The other night I went out with this fairly young mother, and I convinced her that I had just given all the money I had to a hobo that was shivering on the street. She thought it was incredibly sweet, and obviously she had no problem paying for my meal. In reality, I really just spent all the cash I had in my wallet on hiring a bear to shred Charles’ bedsheets to pieces. You should have seen his face when he saw the state of his bed when he came home early. Priceless! The bear and I exchanged high fives, and the three of us found single moms to go on dates with that night via the Internet since I spent the grocery money on that awesome prank. They make it so easy these days to get free dinner.

That was completely off-topic. Anyway, yesterday I was walking along, taking HUGE strides to show off my legs. I guess I was also walking a lot faster because of this, because I ended up clear in the next county in front of a vacuum factory. I’m not big on fate, but I was there and I was hungry, and I knew that vacuums sometimes sucked up little pieces of food, and I knew that they tested the vacuums they produced before they were sold, so I concluded that I could probably find something to eat in a used vacuum bag. I pulled open the front door, walked inside and asked at the front desk for the testing department. The secretary gave me directions to the department, and he asked who I was. Without a word I opened my titanium business card case and slid one across the desk to him.

Let me tell you a little something about my business cards. I have a lot of them. By a lot I mean a lot of different kinds. None of them are real. I got the idea to fabricate them from watching a slice of cheese melt on a frying pan. I always carry a different kind with me every day just for the hell of it. Sometimes it comes in handy, sometimes not. Sometimes I don’t even use them. At another time, I tried to convince the manager of a fast food place to give me a free shake with my food. I pulled out the business card case and slid him a card that said I was a cigarette salesman. It didn’t work, not because it was unrelated, but because he deliberately killed his wife with second-hand smoke and made it look like an accident, and he thought I was a cop.

I glance at the card as the secretary picks it up. It says I’m from the Better Business Bureau. I’m in business. I thank him for his help and make my way back to the delicious food that awaits me.

I got pretty lost on my way to the department. I guess I took a left when I shouldn’t have, and I ended up outside at the loading dock. I asked one of the smelly guys how to get back to the testing department, and he spit on my shoe from six feet away. “Big mistake,” I uttered. From that distance I managed to stretch my leg far enough to kick him in the junk, wiping off my shoe on his crotch in the process. The guy moaned in pain and fell to the ground. He had a bagged lunch nearby, so I took it and ate it while I walked home. He sure had a lot of laxatives. They were the best part.

Finally discharged from the hospital.  Feels good.  Now I can piss myself and not worry about someone cleaning it up.  Sometimes I just need to stew in my own urine, y’know?

So I typed out this story before, but my browser crashed and I lost it all.  Basically, I pissed myself in Charles’ car on the way home.  All over his new upholstery. He kicked me out of the car, but then I was picked up by a monster truck.  We went over all of the traffic, and I beat Charles home.  I laughed in his face when he came in.  He socked me in the junk.  Then I watched the Hot Dog Channel pretty much for the rest of the day.

Oh, the River.  That’s this place that I always imagine I’m swimming with the fish and the umbrellas, which usually leads me to pissing myself.

I never thought he could do it. I never thought he would do it. But he did it.

I have been in a hospital bed for almost a month now. The only comfort I’ve felt was when the fat nurse brushed her swollen chest against the outside of my thigh a week ago when she changed my catheter bag. They took me off the painkillers after the first day because I kept insisting I was the Messiah and successfully converted two of the heathen janitors, who left my room stomping and clapping in elation to some syncopated rhythm.

Charles brought me my laptop last Tuesday, but today is the first day that I’ve had the dexterity to use it and give an update. I’ve been too weak even to eat the pizzas I’ve been prank-calling to the desk outside the ICU. Too weak to eat, too weak to drink. Too immobile to run a marathon and stand at the finish line smoking a cigarette, waiting for the Kenyans to catch up.

I guess I should probably tell you what happened now.

It started off as a standard Saturday. I had just placed the pudding on that asshole’s front steps, and I decided that I may as well treat myself to an ice cream cone for once. Charles was busy watching some robot play soccer and fall down stairs, so I went to Ice Cream Shack alone. I continue to kick myself for this decision. I order a small chocolate soft-serve in a wafer cone because I like to crunch obnoxiously in other patrons’ ears. The ice cream was so delicious – reminded me of the pudding, but colder and less vengeful.

Then all of a sudden it hit me. The front end of the mail truck. It came crashing through the wall at a high rate of speed and knocked me back into the counter. A child screamed – I’ll never forget that. I forced myself to my feet through the haze that had formed in my head and shook it off. The door to the truck was kicked open, and out jumped the Postman. He threw his hat to the ground and stormed at me, grabbing the collar of my shirt and wailing on my face. Sputtering blood, I tried to form a proper sentence. As soon as I got the words in my mouth, he broke my jaw three places, effectively silencing me, sans the screams of pain. “You didn’t think I’d find you, huh, you piece of shit? Well here I am, in the flesh!” With that last word, he dug his fist into my xiphoid process, splintering the end off and puncturing my right lung. The blow knocked the wind out of me, and I gasped for air. I was bewildered, panicked, and just plain afraid for my life. He turned on his heel and stormed back to the truck. What did I do to deserve this? I thought, heart racing.

Then I remembered. I had been stealing his mail for close to a year now. First it was just from his mailbox at home. I figured it was ironic in some way. He caught on, so he got a P.O. box, thinking himself the victor. However, I have an in at the post office, so I was able to get a copy of his key and take his mail there. I always returned it a week later, but sometimes he missed bills and stuff, so I could see why he’d be mad about it. One time he got the J.C. Penney catalog. I kept it. Finally I got caught in the act: I was leafing through the mail before I even closed the box, and he jumped out from around the corner. “AHA!” he screamed in my face. Frightened like a teenage girl during a jumpy scene in a scary movie, I tossed the mail in the air and ran all the way home.

He reached into his truck and pulled out a metal baseball bat – a light one for Little League, but it was still a metal fucking bat. He kicked the door to his truck closed as dust and grime still floated in the air from the demolished wall. The rays of sunlight shining through the floating debris lit up my badly bruised and bloodied face. I put my right hand up to say “stop,” but with excellent form he swung through my hand, shattering my wrist and hand bones. I screamed again. The Postman said, “I never forgot your face. It was burned in my mind. You wanna know why? It was you that made me miss my credit card payments – I’m in the hole fifty grand because of you! On top of that, my electricity and water got shut off, and I couldn’t shower for days! I was lucky they let me keep my job! But I smelled so bad that all the women I had prospects of dating won’t have anything to do with me anymore. I’m getting too old to start over now! For weeks I tried tracking you down, and finally I found out your name and address. But no, I wasn’t about to come to your house! Oh no, I would wait until the perfect moment to strike. And now I am giving you what you truly deserve!”

He hit me in the shins over ten times, and I could feel them lose their shape as the pieces of bone got smaller and more disintegrated. I was moaning in the fetal position, trying anything to guard myself. He thrust his boot into my throat, telling me to “SHUT THE FUCK UP!” He crushed my trachea, and shut up I did. He kicked me in the gut again for good measure. I felt something tear, and I later found out it was the lining of my stomach, causing the acid to ooze throughout my system. “And now,” he said, “this is it.” He raised the bat over his head, and I tightened all the muscles that functioned as I prepared for death.

I heard a barrage of bangs and some loud screaming. I blacked out.

I dreamt that I was in the park holding hands with that asshole dog from next door. We were dancing in a circle and having a bliss-filled time doing it. I sang, the dog barked. I gave it a fresh bone that I got from the butcher, and the dog laughed. And I laughed. And laughed.

I woke up with a tube down my throat, my jaw wired shut, and my eyes barely able to open. I was able to open them enough to see a doctor standing there, telling me to keep my eyes closed to get the swelling down. He explained that if the S.W.A.T. team hadn’t shown up at that very moment, I would have been in one of those neat roll-out freezers in the morgue. I kind of wished I were there. Both because being dead would be better than the pain I was enduring, and because I always wanted to play in one of those.

Being pretty much immobilized, I had a lot of time to think. How did Mr. Postman find me? He said he knew my name, my address… What else did he know? He hadn’t been following me, I would have noticed. But he knew exactly where I was…

And then it hit me. It hit me like that fucking mail truck. The Schedule. He had been reading The Schedule. He knew where I was at all times, who I was with, what I was doing. Even better, he knew what I was going to do in advance. HE KNEW BECAUSE I FUCKING TOLD HIM. I TOLD HIM WHERE TO FIND ME AT ANY POINT IN TIME, AND HE FOUND ME. I screamed in anger at myself, at my pain, at anything in that room that would listen. The fuckin’ fatass nurse heard me, but she kept eating her two Hungry Man dinners. I saw her glance over, then look back at the food and stuff her fat fucking face.

So from this point on, there will be no “schedule,” persay. Sure, I will still do things as soon as I heal, but I will not schedule them. At least, I won’t let the whole world see what my plans are – you will hear about things as soon as they happen, don’t worry. It may not be every day, maybe not even every other day, but updates will be fairly regular. Please, everyone, learn from my follies: if you’re going to steal someone’s mail, DON’T GET CAUGHT.

Anyway, Charles’ burns healed up real nicely (see last post) – he took the dead skin that had peeled off and made a stock out of it.

I got a box of pins in the mail today. I don’t even know who they were from or why I got them. They said all sorts of things. “GO FOR IT” or “I like my meat rare.” or “Vote YES on 4!” or “Celebrity of the Week”. Lots of stupid sayings and slogans that are supposed to make you seem awesome. Pins went out with the Pet Rock. Fuck pins. And fuck the people that plaster them everywhere. I saw this chick the other night, and her purse was covered with pins. COVERED. Later, when I chewed her out about it, she told me that her purse was in fact made of pins. I stared at her for a second. Then I calmly reached into my pocket for a new white cotton glove. I worked it onto my right hand until it fit snugly around my digits. Then I reached into my left front pocket and pulled out my travel jar of baby powder. I opened it and sprinkled it liberally onto my open, gloved palm. Then I slapped that ignoramus of a woman across her left cheek. She gasped in surprise, and I smirked in victory. I turned around and walked straight out the swinging doors of the saloon and stepped off the stoop into the street, my boots crunching in the sandy dirt.

Charles came home from work today and was ambushed by me, stabbing him in the chest with a particularly dull pin. I wondered right then why my life revolved around so much violence. I contemplated that perhaps my violence was the unconscious desire of someone connected to me in some way. I dumped the pot of boiling water I had prepared on Charles’ hands and arms. He screamed in pain and bit me in the crotch, severing my vas deferens. It hurt a lot. Of course at the time I had no idea that was what he had done, but man it hurt. When I went to the doctor after our altercation I had to have emergency surgery. And guess what. They gave me a fucking pin. “I Survived Dick Surgery”. Yeah, that’s a good fucking pin. A better pin would be one with a Rasta smiley-face on it saying, “No Problem Mon!” I had always thought my doctor was real scum, and I guess this just seals the deal.

Charles doesn’t know why I did what I did. I don’t know either. I think pins enrage me.

“HEY GUESS WHAT EVERYONE, I’M HERE! HEY BILLY, WHY DON’T YOU ASK YOUR DAD FOR SOMETHING? HEY JEFFY, WHY DON’T YOU SAY SOMETHING RETARDED, EVEN FOR A YOUNG BOY? AND THAT SISTER OF YOURS, IS SHE A CORPSE OR SOMETHING?! HEY MOMMY, WHY DON’T YOU TALK? YOU AUTISTIC BITCH!”

Of course, I had gotten mixed up. I had not gone to the comic strip, as I intended. I was actually in the middle of The Family Circus, a toy store of sorts. It was then that I heard all of the children around me crying in fright, and some of their mothers were giving me looks as they herded their precious little ones away from the ‘bad man.’ Well, I was there, so I figured, might as well make the most of it.

The first thing I did was run full-speed from the front of the door to the front of the first aisle I came upon. It was the Barbie aisle. When I reached the aisle, I threw my body down and slid feet-first down the aisle. I knocked over quite a few kids. Funny stuff. I got up, brushed off my pants, and had a Nerf fight with some kid who thought he was hot shit. I showed him though – while he was busy reloading, I PEED ON HIM. He didn’t notice until it was too late. His mom thought he did it himself, slapped him, and dragged him out of the store. The whole time the kid was insisting it wasn’t him. Obviously Mommy wasn’t paying attention, because I had pissed all over his back.

This was when the people working started to notice that something was amiss. They didn’t know what yet, but they were working on it. I don’t know how none of them caught my outburst when I first entered, but that wasn’t really important right then. I knew I had a limited amount of time from that point on, so I had to make the most of it. Of course I blew it though – what else is new? While I was trying to break every single V-Tech computer they had by breaking them with an aluminum baseball bat I borrowed, the store manager came over and asked me to leave. “Just a second,” I said, smashing another ‘computer.’ Seriously, why do they even make the things? They’re just pieces of trash- kids don’t even like using them! Anyway, after that, I ended up whipping the bat down the aisle. Kenny Rogers stepped out from the end, and it hit him in the face. He fell. Then he sat up and said, “I’m fine.” This distracted the fat female manager long enough for me to make a break for the GI Joes. By the time she had waddled over to find me, I was waging a war between the Joes and the Cobra! It was unbelievable! The Cobra were going to win it all and take back the world! The manager didn’t share my excitement. She had recruited an associate to assist her in reiterating that they wanted me gone. I continued my private war. I set off Cobra’s a-bomb and used the flash to distract them. As they stood blinded, I skateboarded four feet, fell off, got back to my feet, and ran to the board games. I dove head first into the shelf, knocking off a ton of games. I was able to stack the rest in front of me so I was hidden.

I heard footsteps. Quiet footsteps. The kind one makes when one’s trying not to frighten anything out of place- the kind one makes when stalking prey. I knew they were looking for me, so I set up a trap. And it worked! The manager got pulled into a game of checkers with her associate hunter. I dashed to the front of the store, drop-kicked the register off the counter, stole a candy bar, and ran away.

Later on, the story was on the news. They did a piece on the boy who had urine coming out of the pores on his back. He still denied it on-camera, and the reporter slapped him.

I know this guy I work with named Joel. I don’t say he’s my friend because he’s not. Let me be clear: he’s not my friend. So I figured I’d have a little fun with him. I told him to come to my house. He came. I made him pork tenderloin. He ate it. I told him that I was Santa Claus on a Monday night. He didn’t really get it. I insisted that I was Santa Claus on a Tuesday night. He was confused because I changed the night. I told him that the pork was pork. He freaked out. He said he was allergic to meat. I laughed. I told him to calm down. He didn’t. I made him a vegetable pot pie. He ate it. Then I told him it had vegetables in it. He had an anxiety attack. He said he was allergic to vegetables. I told him I was just kidding. He calmed down. I took out my Shabbas Broomstick and broke it over his head. He slumped forward into the empty pot pie dish. I smiled maniacally and stared at Joel. Charles wandered in. He got a glass of water and left.

When I planned this event, Peter Boyle was still alive, being tormented by his wife on reruns of that Raymond show. But I wasn’t going to let a thing like death stand in my way.

I went down to the cemetery early this morning before the sun was out and dug him up. This was a really good idea. He was still partially preserved! “Pete! Old buddy! How are you doing?” He didn’t respond. “Are you still mad about that Taxi Driver joke?”

Nothing.

“Y’know what Petey? I’m sorry. But because of my callous remark, I am indebted to you. Let me take you out today, show you I really mean it.” I took his silence as approval.

With no further ado, I swept him away on a playdate he’d never forget.  And it worked out in my favor too! I took him to the movies, and when we showed up at the box office to pay for our tickets, the woman inside said, “No charge for Mr. Boyle or his friends.”

“Didja hear that Pete? Free!”  We scrambled into the theater and saw a hilarious romp with some asshole doing shit.

From there we walked in the park.  I bought him a hot dog from the vendor.  He made me feed it to him.  It was my pleasure after making fun of a movie he was in.  Then we rode the swanboats.  I screamed like a little girl, but my friend was calm and collected.  I admired his courage.  Following this, we rented one of those bikes that seat two people.  He could barely stay on! “Been a long time since you’ve ridden?” I mused.  He didn’t even pedal.  I was getting tired fast, both from all of the pumping my legs were doing and from his silent treatment. “Peter, say something to me.  PLEASE.  Why have you been ignoring me all day?”  Silence.  I was really fed up with him.  So, I figured I’d drop him off.  I started pedaling really hard, using much of my energy.  When I reached a speed I thought suitable, I turned halfway around and pushed him off.  He fell sideways, nailed his head on the hard pavement, then toppled ended over ended into a sandy ditch a couple yards below the road.  “Don’t ever call me again!”  I forced out amidst my tears.  I hopped off the swiftly-moving bike, which proceeded to ghost-ride very well.  The bike went off a jump, turned slightly, and exploded mid-air.  I walked home.

For some reason, I really wanted to eat my dinner early this evening. It may have been the lack of food I had today or yesterday, or maybe it’s a parasite. Probably the former. The only parasite I know I have is Charles. That belt-making son of a bitch never pays for anything, even though his job pays a lot more than mine does. A lot more. He easily pulls in 5 figures a month, sometimes 6 when he stops at the toy store on the way home and buys a new He-Man guy or something. I make a pittance at my job. If Charles and I were married, I’d totally divorce him so that I could get a slice of his money pie. He makes a damn good money pie.

In fact, I think that was what set me off. I was really jonesin’ for a good money pie. I asked Charles to pleeeease make it, but he ignored me. He was sitting at his computer, and he looked like he was doing something important. I wrapped my body around him and put all my weight on him, and I spoke loudly in his ear that I wanted money pie. He shoved me off onto the hardwood floor, and I landed deadweight with a very satisfying thud. As I hit the ground, he said, “Okay, what the FUCK is money pie? You keep talking about it, you keep asking me to make it. I DON’T KNOW WHAT IT IS. I CAN’T MAKE IT. OKAY? You have got to stop this. You need to stop this right now. I really can’t take much more of this money pie business. I have a lot of work to do, so you’re going to have to fend for yourself for once in your life.”

“But I really want money pie.”

“That’s enough. I’ve had enough. Get out.”

“YOU AND YOUR BELTS!”

“Yeah, me and my belts.”

“I have like two belts.”

“That’s great.”

“I–”

I cut myself off and left the room. I was about to tell him that I was wearing both right then, but I figured it didn’t really matter to him, even though it was awesome.

So, on that note, I left and went to the only place I knew that’d serve me a decent dinner at that time: Pastaville.

Don’t let the name fool you. All they make is porridge. It’s just a way to get people in the door. Once they find out that the menu only has one item, it’s usually too late. Most people just stay because it’s in the middle of nowhere, and if they leave there will be no meals available anywhere else. Personally though, I love the place. It has a very nice atmosphere.

So I go to Pastaville, and when I arrive, I walk directly through the front glass door, shattering it everywhere. A couple waiting in the lobby looked at me in horror, but I just walked by them grinning like a bear who just found a biscuit in his glove compartment. I walked up to the maitre d’ and he immediately welcomed me by shaking my hand excitedly. What can I say? I’m a regular. We quickly caught up with each other, telling one another about what we had been doing with ourselves and the like. He then showed me to my usual table, which is two big tables pushed together. He had to pull some chairs out from under people and violently shove some people to the floor to make the tables available (it was packed). Then he grabbed two corners of the tablecloth on table one and lifted, causing all the plates to fall to the floor. Surprisingly, none of them broke, but porridge ended up everywhere, including on one man, searing his flesh. The maitre d’ then did the same thing to the next table, and on this run, one plate broke. “A small loss,” he said, “to seat our favorite customer.” I nodded my approval as he scrambled to push the two long tables together. As soon as he was done, he snapped his fingers, and out came three men, each carrying something for the table. They feverishly set the tablecloth, my place, and the candle. As soon as the candle was in place in front of my plate, the maitre d’ pulled out a flint and steel and lit the candle with one swipe. He never ceased to amaze me. Then he pulled out my chair and bade me sit down with a wave of his hand. I sat as he pushed the chair in under my ripe buttocks. He disappeared to the kitchen and returned with a steaming hot bowl of porridge. “My favorite!” I exclaimed. Then I ate it and left without paying.

I don’t even know what to say about this trip, other than this one word: Parches!

Let me lay this all out on the table in an orderly fashion, like a patchwork quilt missing quite a few patches (I went on a yeast bender – I don’t remember anything after the first rising). Lake Parches is my yearly vacation grounds – has been since I was a young child. I can remember those days so vividly… the beautiful sunrises that illuminate the water in ways that can’t be explained through language… the shrieks of terror I would make when my father would emerge from the woods covered in deer blood, running at me with a bloody ax, yelling like the devil’s fugitive… the leopard-print ironing board my sister used as a surf board on the stagnant pond but one time, for that day we all realized too late that ironing boards are not buoyant, and my sister sunk to the depths of the murky water while my father pointed and laughed and my mother tried in vain to shove whole lemons into our boat’s gas tank, thinking it was juicer of some sort. That was the last time we ever saw her. I think her name was Bryan or something. Man, those were some fantastic times!

Of course, nowadays I don’t go with my parents – I am a grown man, after all (though that asshole dog next door might fight me on this one – too bad it doesn’t know that burger I fed to it yesterday had heartworms in it). My folks don’t even go there at all anymore – they moved to the midwest for some odd reason, something about corn and wheat. I guess it’s not important.

Charles and I set out early on Friday for the cabin that I’ve rented for the past eight years. On the way we got pulled over for speeding. Though Charles was driving, I’ll take the heat for that one. I was screaming at him to go faster and faster so that we could get there sooner. My voice reached a pitched that is usually reserved for seagulls that are screeching at their drivers to drive faster so they can get to their cabin on the lake as soon as possible. When the cop walked up to the car, I said, “Charles, let me do the talking.” For some reason, he didn’t fight this. He rolled down his window and sat back. Before the cop could get a word out, I apologized to him for making Charles drive really fast. I told him the whole story about my history at Lake Parches, and as my story advanced, I noticed tears welling in the officer’s eyes. He interrupted told us to be on our way. I said “Thanks,” and the cop went back to his car. I snuck out of the car and slashed the cop’s right front tire, and he didn’t notice. He was bawling in the driver’s seat, his face in his hands. The K-9 unit in the back was taking a dump, an unmistakable look on shame on its face. I shrugged, hopped back into our car, and we were on our way.

When we arrived, I jumped out of the car, which Charles has excitedly driven directly through the front of the cabin. I pumped my fists in the air and shouted something that I can’t remember. I just asked Charles, and he said that I shouted, “I am the king of the coffee maker and I call the guest cot!” He says he remembers because just that morning he did a really good job making his coffee, thinking himself the king of the coffee maker, and he decided right then and there, in his air of confidence, to call the guest cot. What a weird dude. I heard he eats plant food on a regular basis.

So that night, I had my usual first-night barbecue, inviting all the other tenants of the cabins. We laugh, we eat grilled food, we swim a little, we play some frisbee. Sometimes other things happen – like last year, we had a leaf-blowing contest. Contestants have to blow a leaf from one side of my roof to the other without falling off. The winner is awarded a medal. Naturally, I just took part so I could shove people off my roof and get away with it. It’s one of my lifelong dreams, roof-shoving is. I didn’t win, but it’s okay because when the champion was celebrating his victory, I shoved him off the roof and paralyzed him from the waist down. Needless to day, he no longer comes back to Parches. Because he’s dead.

So after the party, the yeast bender began. I don’t really remember any of it – I woke up Sunday morning in hardware store, covered in mousetraps. The owner was poking me with an exceptionally long pepperoni stick. I awoke angrily and tore into the pepperoni like a hungry raccoon. The owner ran away like a little girl. Come to think of it, she was a little girl. No matter. I was really far from Lake Parches – I needed to get back! I used the pay phone outside to call the cabin. Luckily, Charles picked up. I said I needed to get picked up. He said he was going to go get some bagels, but after he picked them up he’d be there to get me.

I waited outside for two hours. TWO HOURS. Finally, the car I recognized pulled up, and I hopped in. I had been saving my spit in my mouth for the entire time I waited, so I spat it on Charles’ chest and lap immediately. He swore at me, slapped me in the face, and I laughed. I called him “Mark Spitz” for the rest of the day. He didn’t even change his clothes! What a piece of shit.

That evening, after we had gorged on bagels, we did some nighttime water-skiing. Not much to tell there. Actually, I think we may have sliced open a guy. Not really sure.

The next day, our final day, started with me waking up Charles by loudly playing the piano with my crank. I was getting to the closing of “Flight of the Bumblebee” when Charles stormed in, bleary-eyed, and slammed the top down on my prick. Okay, that didn’t happen. I was actually just jamming it down on random keys. It sounded pretty good to me, at least. He didn’t have to close the keys on me.

We ended up sitting at the water, reading and talking about everything. It was pretty good. Real relaxing. We were discussing the nature of the war in Iraq (Charles is against it, I like big guns) when all of a sudden I noticed that there was a frog sitting at the edge of the water, staring at me. I ignored it, and we continued talking. An hour later, that damn frog was still staring at me. It was freaking me out. I put a sand bucket over it. A ripple from a motorboat on which a local opera singer stood on the bow and belted out his latest tune approached the edge of the lake and splashed the bucket off of the frog. I stared at it, it stared at me. Finally, after 3 hours of this bullshit, I just started screaming. I lost it. Charles was confused. I demanded that the frog stop, that it go catch some flies or something. It smiled at me. IT FUCKING SMILED AT ME. I said, “That’s IT!” I stormed into the cabin and got the driver from the included set of golf clubs (the owners of Lake Parches are trying to popularize aqua-golf, but they’re seriously a bunch of assholes). I hustled outside, lined up in front of the frog, getting my stance right. Charles watched silently, a perplexed look on his face, his jaw open. I took my backswing, and then I connected with the amphibian. It sailed. But it didn’t get very far. At that very moment, the same speedboat from earlier happened to be speeding by. The frog, line-driving, managed to shoot directly into the opera singer’s mouth as he was holding an indefinite fermata at the finale of his opus. It hit the back of his throat, causing him to vomit uncontrollably. Naturally, it all hit the driver in the face. He started screaming in disgust. Then the boat hit a ramp in the middle of the lake, a ramp the driver could not avoid because he was blinded by barf. The boat took the jump, turned slightly, and exploded mid-air.

Charles and I just stared at each other in disbelief.

Parches, people, Parches.