New story in the works

[Da_Yog]

*WARNING*

Some of the material in this will feature some very graphic language. Think "Pulp Fiction" and you'll have a good idea. If that kind of thing offends you then please read no further. To the rest this should be quite humorous and satirical. My main problem is I have some ideas going but haven't developed much of the plot. I have a good idea of the voice I want to write it in, a time frame (modern, possibly with some fantasy elements), and a good idea of one or two of the main characters.

 

The writings will appear scattered and incomplete at first until I get some ideas going and then I'll start compiling the sections I wish to use in the fial story and hopefully it should come together. Some of the postings will just be writing exercises to get ideas out.

 

What I have so far is as follows:

 

“Wha-cha! ga-cha bitch-ass!” This strange utterance was spoken by an equally strange man in an equally strange situation.

…

It all started two days earlier in the home of a normal man, on a normal Saturday, trying to sleep away his normal life.

He was lying with the right side of his face firmly planted in a not-so-soft pillow, on a mattress that should have been replaced a decade ago. His legs were spread in a V and half his body was covered in a once-upon-a-time white sheet when the phone rang. It was an old phone. It was a phone that probably should have been thrown away in the 80s but somehow tragically wasn’t and now it was ringing somewhere in the year 2007. It was the kind of ring that was only a ring if you had lived with this particular phone for twenty-seven years too long. To anyone else it sounded more like a gurgling cry for help from a long-forgotten electronic device, but to Mr. Normal it was a phone ring.

 

The phone gurgled a second time. This time the black plastic cord connecting the receiver to the base vibrated a bit. It was the kind of vibration that seemed to cause the cord to twist upon itself until it wasn’t possible to pick up the receiver without picking up the phone with it. At least that’s what Mr. Normal always blamed it on. Yes, it was definitely the vibration. Merely walking around with the receiver in your hand, pacing back and forth while talking on the phone, and twisting this way and that would never cause a phone cord to become a tangled mess. No, this was clearly either the work of gremlins or the accursed vibration.

 

Again the phone rang. This time the left eye of Mr. Normal opened revealing a cris-cross of red arteries snaking around the white of his eye. When the light bathing into the room struck his now-opened eye, the eyelid shut of its own accord and he let out a gurgling-grimace of his own. It was a gurgle that blended well with the phone ringing for a fourth time. He pushed down with his hands, rose up slightly, and rotated his head to the right before his strength gave out and he dropped back into the somewhat inviting and not-so-soft pillow. His right eye strained to open revealing its own red-artery roadmap. His pupil began to contract as the phone rang a fifth time. He could just make out the dread vibration in the black cord as it rattled against the wallpaper his ex-wife had him put up eight years ago—just before she left him.

 

It was the kind of wallpaper that says, “Honey,” or more likely, “Jackass, I’m leaving you.” It said this like only a Snapdragon print from a magnificently depressed, attention-starved, passive-aggressive, woman trapped in a colossal screw-up of a relationship could. It was a Snapdragon print in the bedroom of a man who loved nothing quite so much as beer, sleeping, and Sunday afternoon football. It was a print that screamed for attention. All it got was screaming.

 

Mr. Normal began to wonder as he looked at a particularly vicious yellow snapdragon that seemed to be staring back at him. He wondered if perhaps he could have handled that last relationship a bit better. He wondered if he really was from Mars. Mostly he wondered why this damn phone wouldn’t stop screaming at him. On cue it gurgled for a sixth time and the cord seemed to twist ever so slightly in its peculiar gremlin-induced manner. Finding his left hand trapped beneath his body he used it to push up and reached for the phone receiver with his right hand. Just as the index finger of his right hand tickled the receiver his left arm gave out. The downward momentum combined with the pivot motion of his left arm caused his head to crash into the headboard. At the same time his right index finger flipped the phone off the receiver leaving it dangling in a corded heap just at the edge of his nightstand.

 

He screamed, “Fuck!” Then when the sound of his own over-loud voice slammed into his ears he screamed again, this time not nearly so loud, “Jesus fuck, I hate me.”

 

His left hand found the top of his head as he involuntarily sat up in bed as his right hand tried to cover both ears but only succeeded in covering his right. Strange how pain can sometimes give a man strength he didn’t know he had. From the end of the dangling receiver he heard a voice. It was a man’s voice. A man he knew he would have recognized if circumstances had been different. “Dude. Dude, are you there?”

 

All Mr. Normal could do was to nod at the phone and groan out an, “unnnnh”.

 

Again from the phone, this time a bit more insistent, “Dude, is that you?”

 

Mr. Normal planted his feet firmly on the carpet and crinkled up his toes. He was greeted by the feeling of grit upon the underside of his toes and feet. The carpet was a short-fiber burgundy carpet and was well-worn from years of use. There was a dark stain near the nightstand that the phone rested on. It was a stain that really show-cased the man who made it, cared for it, and nurtured it all these years.

 

“Dude?”

 

He pushed himself up, reached out and slammed the curtains together blocking out that accursed light.

 

“Dude, quit fucking around and answer the damn phone!”

 

Mr. Normal’s bloodshot eyes rolled up into his head before coming to rest on the black receiver. He scowled at the accursed device. It was a scowl that only he could muster. A scowl directed at the man on the other end. With one motion, one mean-spirited motion, he snatched up the receiver with his left hand and managed to bitch into the phone, “WHAT?”

 

That was all he managed to utter before the tangled mass of cord yanked the base of the phone off the nightstand. The base, finding itself suddenly free of the support of the nightstand, began to apply weight on the cord that the tangled mass could not support. With premeditated gremlin-like precision the cord began to unravel itself as the base traveled at an alarming rate towards Mr. Normal’s bare left foot. Mr. Normal in his barely awake, bloodshot, and head-banged state barely had time to register what was about to happen before the base unceremoniously dumped itself onto the top of the big toe on his exposed left foot. The cord vibrated its approval as the base of the phone made a little gurgling-ding sound.

 

This time his utterance came at maximum volume and with maximum bellicosity, “FUCK!” He was rewarded with a searing pain that seemed to shoot from one ear to the other and then back into the middle of his brain somewhere. Once there it seemed to curl up, get comfortable, and throw a party with the pain in his foot. Oh yes, this was brewing up to be just a wonderful day.

 

“Dude, chill out.”

[Da_Yog]

It was a short fiber carpet, burgundy in color and well worn from years of use. There was a dark stain near the nightstand that the phone rested on. It was a stain that spoke of lifestyle. At one time it had been a pile of bile and alcohol mixed in dubious proportions with a little food. Mr. Normal couldn’t remember what he had to eat that night. He couldn’t remember who he had been out with. He couldn’t remember what he did after he got to the club. He did remember that he was particularly proud of himself for managing to puke on the floor and not his bed. But that happened years ago. Now, he drank much more heavily and ate less.

 

When he finally woke up the next morning he was greeted with the most obnoxious smell imaginable. Perhaps not so strangely, it smelled of bile, lots of alcohol, and something else he couldn’t identify. He fought with his stomach trying to keep from vomiting again. The brain cells that he still had working that morning told him that this was a loosing battle and he better do something quick. Unfortunately his body wasn’t cooperating as he struggled to flop around on the bed like a fish struggling to get back in the water. Just as the pain in his abdomen became unbearable he managed to half crawl out of bed, though a pile of something sticky, and get his head over the waste-basket he kept on the other side of the nightstand. This particular spot, more than any other, was the place in his house he came to think of as home.

 

He stayed there several minutes; mouth positioned over the waste basket, his head crushing against a particularly angry purple snapdragon, his body heaving for all it was worth, and a long strand of saliva trailing down from his mouth to the black abyss of the waste basket.

[Da_Yog]

Character Portrait: Norman Normal

Exercise: Monologue

 

*Again language warning*

 

Look nigger, my name is Norman Normal. I know what you are thinking. What kind of mother names her son, Norman Normal? Well, my mother died when in child birth so my prick of a useless father did the naming. Deal with it, bitch-ass. The drunken bastard had a thing for alliteration even though his dumb nigger punk-ass didn't know the word for it. He always called it, "'lit'ration" whatever the hell that was supposed to be. Along with the fucked up name he also gave me his genetic predisposition for alcoholism.

 

Oh that first time was magical! Much better than my other first time when some teen-aged bitch yelled rape because she changed her mind half way into it. No, this was like an all-nighter of hellish sex in the Seven Mounting Heavens of Celestia. Then, the morning after, just hell! Been chasing Heaven ever since. Been finding nothing but demons. Their smiling, leering, jeering, faces lruking at the bottom of every bottle. Still, in ever glass, every bottle, every pint, lurks the potential of heavenly bliss—that's what the demons say.

 

Eventually I gave up on Heaven—mostly—the demons are pursuasive. Instead, I drink to forget: forget the demons, forget heaven, forget the ex-wife, forget the lousy job, forget this God-damned fucking evil wallpaper, and mostly to forget about my fucking shitty life!

 

My boss is a prick—a good guy—but a prick. He's always got these "special" little projects for me to do—these annoying little projects—but at least he gives me hours. On occasion, when I'm low on cash—struggling to make bills—he gives me some overtime breadcrumbs. I just wish his honkey-prick ass would stop saying dude all the time. It's like he's some stupid punk-ass skater-dude from the 70's who never grew up. Jesus fucking Christ, I hate that!

[Wyvern]

I like the picture you've painted of Norman Normal's personal hell thus far, Yog. :-) Some of the details you use to give backstory on his life were very cool, like the venerable telephone and the psycho ex-wife wallpaper. It's funny how a simple thing like a wake-up phone call can cause so much stress and chaos to a hung-over, bitter, short-tempered alcoholic like Norm. It's nice that you've chosen to include your writing exercises for character development as well, as I really liked reading the monologue from Mr. Normal. I'm interested to see how you choose to continue this, and think that it might be a good idea to introduce a central conflict to the story soon, so that all the every day conflicts of this Norman's life are drawn into a new context.

 

A cool start, I'll be checking for any continuations. :-)

[Da_Yog]

Thanks for the comments. And yes I do plan to get things underway rather quickly. Either during the phone call or very shortly thereafter. I have been in a poetry mood the last week or so but should be back to prose either this or next week. I can't leave the story alone too long or my mental trail to it will grow cold. heehee

[Da_Yog]

Marking section for deletion from the final story.

 

As he stepped from the apartment, a chill gust of wind blew the edges of his worn gray overcoat like a shirll voice whistles through your ears. Norman wrapped the coat tight about him in an effort to ward off memories most pleasingly kept buried away from a warm beating heart.

 

Why not forget? He no longer noticed the cracked mortar or broken bricks that lined his home. he didn't notice the litter in the streets. He definitely ignored the boarded windows and broken homes that composed his community. He knew better than to pay attention. So with his head down he walked to the bus stop.

 

Norman walked past dirty children playing dejectedly on smal patches of grass amid patchwork fields of dirt, concrete, and asphalt. He tried to fixate on the tast at hand but the chill wind kept blowing unpleasant memories back to his mind.

 

If anyone had known what was in his head then Norman's reaction to what came next would have been no surprise. A black Lexus, with equally black windows, of the newest model year, and sporting a freshly detailed exterior, came thumping down the street. It was the kind of care everyone in this kind of neighborhood pretended not to notice. It was the kind of car that personified greed, gluttony, envy, murder, deception, and lost childhoods. The kind of car that raged against everything sucking it into the black interior before destroying it utterly. It was the kind of car Norman should have paid better attention to, but he was far too obsessed with fighting the pounding memories in his brain.

Edited April 11, 2008 by Da_Yog

[Da_Yog]

Also marking this section for deletion from final story

 

*LANGUAGE WARNING FOR THIS SECTION*

 

This first paragraph, should I decide to use it, will come just before the previous post. The rest will probably run concurrently.

 

A light rain was falling. It was the kind of rain that ordinarily, on a summer day, would be pleasing and cool to the touch. This was not a hot summer day. This was a cold, blustery, winter day. This was the kind of day when the rain droplets against your skin feel like freezing needles stabbing down to bone.

...

The thumping from the Lexus gradually moved up the street: each jarring blast of bass shook and rattled what few windows were left on the street. Thump! Thump! Thump! Norman's teeth rattled in his jaw. Thump! Thump! Thump! His hands shook. Thump! Thump! Thump! He lost his grip on the edges of his overcoat. Thump! Thump! Thump! His coat opened up; the cold wind washed over him. Thump! Thump! Thump! The noise jarringly infuriated every brain cell he had left available to him. Splash! Shards of dirty freezing water mixed with tiny crystals of ice slammed into Norman. Before he could even think, the middle finger of his left hand rose prominently in the air and he yelled, "Mother-fucking, cock-sucking asshole!"

 

Suddenly, in that moment, it seemed that all the world ceased movement and Norman's consciousness took a step outside his struggling brain for a brief moment of clarity. Unfortunately for Norman, it was one moment too late.

 

What his consciousness saw was terrifying. It saw a man soaked in gray freezing water. It saw a face with dark sunken eyes suddenly forced open under furrowed brows. It saw a mouth wide open in an angry yell just under a nose flaring in a wide snarl. But what it saw that frightened it most was that single, angry, middle-finger thrust high in the air and it thought, "shit Norman, what have we done!"

Edited April 11, 2008 by Da_Yog

[Da_Yog]

Usual language warning. A continuation of part 1. I'm leaning towards deleting the previously posted section. I don't really know if I'll keep it at this point or not though.

................................................................................

"Dude, chill out!" The caller was greeted only by heavy, labored breathing.

 

"Dude ... is that you? Tell me it's you."

 

At long last an answer came. It was the kind of answer one might expect knowing the situation but seem utterly strange if one did not. It was an answer in a cracking voice. It was a pained voice full of controlled calm that seemed to conceal a seething rage. It was Norman's normal voice. "Yeah man, I'm here. What the hell do you want!"

 

"Hey dude, are you allright? You sound like you just fucked up your whole room."

 

"Chad, what the hell do you want?"

 

"We're doing a record signing for a local band—The Flaming Turdmongers—and I need someone to mind the store while I run the promo. You've got an hour so hurry up and get your butt down here."

 

"Hold up, it's fucking Saturday. Where's Nikki? I thought she was scheduled for today."

 

"Yeah, but she called in sick so get your ass in gear."

 

"I feel like shit."

 

"It's effing time-and-a-half and you're always griping about needing more hours so get moving. This is your effing chance."

 

All Norman could do was mumble "fuck" to himself and drop the receiver to the ground.

 

From the other end of the line he could barely make out, "One hour Norm, I'll see you in one hour." Then the phone went dead and a minute later he heard that aweful beeping noise. He made a mad scramble for the receiver and the phone before the dreaded next stage: "... If you would like to make a call please hang up and try again." He couldn't let that happen. No if he heard that damn woman's voice at this point he'd likely put the damn phone through the fucking wall. No, he'd hold onto the phone a little while longer.

Edited April 11, 2008 by Da_Yog

[Da_Yog]

I decided on a few parts to this story today. All of this is temporary of course. For now the parts will contain the following parts: The Phone Call, The Kid, The Flaming Turdmongers, The Record Store, The Effing End.

 

What follows is the beginning of:

 

The Kid

 

It was a snowy day, the kind of snowy day that was just plain miserable. The world about was encased in a pristine whiteness rapidly degenerating into a pleasantly wonderful gray morass. Children, sitting impatiently in their school-desks, glanced in a dreadfully anxious manner at the clock—ticking ever so slowly—above the window.

 

It was the kind of clock specifically manufactured to torment children. It came with an evil second-hand that counted off the briefest moments in separate, distinct, differentiated, and discrete units of agonizing pain. To make matters worse, sometime in the distant past before the advent of children, the clock had fallen from the wall. Ordinarily this wouldn't be so bad, but on this occassion, the second-hand—only the second hand—became bent in the collision. It was the kind of bend that prevented many of the poor heartless little hellions—who could barely tell time anyway—from knowing when to properly unleash all manner of wickedness.

 

Every tick, every cursed tick of the children-hating clock, caused the land to grow a little darker. With each new shade of gray imparted to the landscape the children grew a little more depressed. WIth every new slight increase in depression the children grew a little more hopeful, a little more excited that the dreaded moment would arrive. The moment Mr. Normal would be assaulted by a screaming horde of unleashed barbarity. Mr. Normal was never a child. He was born in that time long ago before the invention of children.

 

In this class, on this particularly dreadful day of snowbound cheer, there sat a child. He was a child—a kid really—who was like all the other children. He was staring intently at the clock of hatefulness with an intensity that only a truly determined child can muster. It was as if he believed he could change the course of history by merely staring at the dread-clock and wishing for the second hand to move. No, he was convinced of it, because merely by staring at that clock he seemed to be able to muster the magical power to move the second-hand each and every second. Slowly, oh so slowly, it was moving towards the twelve at the top. This would be the minute; he was sure of it.

[Da_Yog]

With every tick that brought the second-hand closer to the twelve the kid’s mind moved a little closer to the door, and his body prepared to do the same. First, his left foot appeared from under the desk where it had been successfully hiding all class. It was the kind of desk common to so many classrooms: the kind of desk that had absolutely nothing to say about the child sitting in it despite multiple attempts. On the bottom were many colored blobs of varying degrees of sugary-hardness. They had been deposited there over the years and now formed a strangely obscene mass that could only have been formed by the collective output of hundreds of little mouths. Upon the desktops, carved in the wood-grained plastic, were various phrases to obscene to be repeated in this fucking story.

 

When his left foot was out from under the desk it slid backwards and locked in a young sprinter’s position. Next, he began to slide his posterior inch by painfully discrete inch to the left, to the open side of the desk, to freedom. After that his torso began twisting towards the opening in the desk, his hands slid into his jacket sleeves, and his right foot found the other sprint position. His wild little eyes—full of a longing for freedom—flitted about the room until they were captured and held by his teacher’s gaze. She smiled at him. It was the smile of someone who remembered what it was like to be a child in school on the first full day of snow. It was the smile of someone born after the invention of children.

 

At this mutual exchange of pleading, knowledge, and empathy, the kid’s shoulder’s relaxed and then flipped his jacket up over them. It was a move he had performed dozens of times but never practiced once. It was a move that only a child could properly develop. If it was not learned in childhood it was sure to appear awkward, forced, and completely strange.

 

The kid’s eyes flitted back to the clock. His eyes went wide, the corners of his mouth dropped followed quickly by the corners of his eyes. The clock-gremlins were obviously at work, because the cursed second-hand was well past the celebrated twelve and was now rapidly making its way towards the three. He couldn’t believe it. Outside the snow was now an abhorrent shade of gray. Inside the room was deathly quiet.

 

He felt a hand upon his right shoulder. It was a calming hand, full of confidence, resolution, and the ability to affect the very fabric of time. The hand came with a voice attached, it was the voice of a generation past, a voice of experience, a voice of understanding; it was his teacher’s voice.

 

“Write down your homework assignment. It’s on the board, there.” She pointed with her free hand and he felt his eyes compelled to follow the invisible line from her index finger to the assignment on the board.

 

“I’m sure by the time you are done the bell will ring.” Again she smiled at him with that confident, calming smile and he knew he had to do what was asked. It was as if he didn’t have a choice in the matter at all.

 

He scribbled as fast as he could with his pencil, and when he got the last word done he heard the sound of freedom.

[Da_Yog]

*Language warning for this section*

 

The Flaming Turdmongers

 

The sun smiled down upon the land. It was the blisteringly sweet smile of a fed-up lover walking out the door for the last time. It was a smile that said, “I hope you burn in hell.” On a day like this you might believe that wish had come true.

Scott, AKA “Dr. Jones,” sat in his parent’s garage with sweat oozing from every pore. Hardly anyone could remember how he got his nickname. It was the kind of name that spoke of swashbuckling archaeologists fighting Nazis for priceless treasures in the 1930's. Scott was not of this; he secretly wished he was, but he wasn’t. Scott’s last name wasn’t even Jones, and no one in the family had ever gone by that name. Scott wasn’t even a doctor. Hell, he didn’t even have a degree of any kind. Mind you it wasn’t for a lack of trying. He’d been “trying” for seven years; all he’d figured out was that he wasn’t a mathematician, a chemist, a historian, a biologist, a philosopher, or an archaeologist.

 

What Scott did know was that he didn’t want to be sitting in his parent’s garage, wasting away a Saturday afternoon, waiting for his asshole friends who were supposed to have been there a freaking half hour ago! I mean Jesus freaking Christ, how freaking hard is it to be somewhere when you say you will? The anger just seemed to make him hotter and he baked a little more in the heat all the while his face grew redder and redder. Just to make matters worse he checked his watch. It was the kind of watch that said, “I can’t afford anything expensive,” or more appropriately, “my dad won’t buy me anything expensive anymore.” It was the kind of watch that could speak of “old money” if such a thing existed, but only to those who knew what they were looking for. To those educated in exorbitantly expensive extravagance it said, “Rolex knockoff, how droll.” At any rate it was a good watch. It told time when it needed to, it did so accurately, and was powered by the motions of the body, so as long as he wore it he never needed to worry about it running down. So what if the leather band was worn and frayed. It was supple and fit well and he liked it damnit. Screw those rich punks, in their rich cars, with their rich girls, he didn’t need that anyway. What he freaking needed was his friends to be here when they said they would.

 

For a brief time he contemplated going inside and waiting for them, but almost as quick as the idea popped into his head he banished it. Why should he let them think he had enjoyed his stay by idly watching TV in the air conditioning while munching chips and sipping soda as if nothing at all was amiss? Oh no, he was pissed and wanted to hold onto it. A day like this could do with nothing less.

 

Scott sat in the stale garage air, the oppressive heat, the sticky evaporations of his own sweat, and stewed in the afternoon heat. His eyes went blank and then narrowed to slits as he gazed at the mirage waves of heat rising up off the pavement just beyond the garage door. He wondered if the friends gremlin was playing a cruel prank on him, and his knuckles whitened against the aluminum arm of his lawn chair. It was the kind of lawn chair that said, “used and comfy” the same way your favorite pair of worn tennis shoes does.

 

This was not a comfy day. It was not a warm and huggely, spend time with your friends kind of day. This was a bring it to a boil and let simmer kind of day. By the time his friends arrived Scott had been at full simmer for over an hour.

He watched the old beat-up brown van pull into the driveway like some apparition of transportation come to give the Scott-stew another stir. His eyes narrowed further in anticipation, his knuckles grew whiter, and his face reddened. He rose slowly from his lawn chair of comfyness, and thrust his hands downward to force the chair off his ass when it tried in vain to stick to his backside. Oh no, he would have none of that! The chair made a very unseemly clattering noise as it bounced off the oil-stained concrete floor. It was the kind of noise that said, “Fuck you Scott. After all we’ve been through you’re just going to dump me on the floor? Well, I’ll just leave then. Oh fuck, I’m a chair; I can’t leave. Well fine, I’ll just lay here on the floor and pout.”

 

For the briefest of moments Scott grimaced at the sound. It was his comfy lawn chair after all. But then he remembered why he acting so pissed and resumed his most Scottly scowl.

 

“Where the fuck have you turdmongers been?”

[Da_Yog]

*Language warning as usual*

 

The driver stumbled then fell out of the van as he opened the door. It was the kind of fall that only a stoned man could execute with this amazing degree of precision. On his way down he managed to grab hold of the door through the open window. As he pulled himself up, the door began to swing a little on its hinges. This created a slight imbalance, and that was all that was needed for him to fall on his ass.

 

The man sitting shotgun was laughing so hard he only managed to remain standing by the good graces of God and a mad effort to drape himself through the open window. Scott stood with his hands clenched in as tight a fist as he could possibly muster. Not yet could he let his furious exterior crack. Oh no, not yet.

 

“Hey, Jonesy,” spoke the man draped through the van window, “did you see Lankster bust his ass, man? Dat was da bomb!”

 

A single middle finger rose above the door on the driver’s side and presented itself rather magnanimously to both Scott and the passenger. Words rose with the finger, “Fluck you both. Dudes my asses hurts!”

 

“Lankster-man, you said Fluck.” The passenger continued to laugh and each laugh bounced him up and down on the swinging car door.

 

Scott took half a step forward with his head down as if he was pushing through a great desert wind-storm. “Where the hell have you guys been?”

 

“Hey,dude-man,” said Lankster, “did you hear the Doc say turdmongers?”

 

“No way man, what’s a turd-monger?” answered Dude-man.

 

“Duuuude, I don’t know. Ask Jonesey.”

 

“Hey Jonessey, what’s a turd-monger?”

 

“Where the fuck have you guys been?”

 

“Turd-mongers,” replied Lankster.

 

“Turd-mongers,” said Dude-man.

 

Then they both together began chanting, “turdmongers, turdmongers, turdmongers.”

 

Every time Dude-man said turd he bounced up, and he landed with his gut on the window-frame each time he said mongers. On the third repetition he realized he didn’t feel so good and so he said, “Mans, I don’t feel sos good.”

 

“Dude-mans,” said Lankster, “you don’t look so good.”

 

“Man, I don’t feels sos good.”

 

“Where … the fuck … have you guys … been!”

 

“Turdmongers,” said Lankster.

 

Dude-man tried to say it but his eyes widened with sudden realization. It was like he had his one moment of clarity for the day and it was wasted on what was about to happen. He had just enough time to lean a little further over the window-frame before a stew of fermented beverages, potato chips, hot dogs, bile, and Twinkies came spewing forth from his stomach.

 

“You fucking turdmonger! I am not cleaning that shit up.”

 

“Duuude,” said Lankster, “I think dat came out da wrong hole ta be shit.”

 

“Fuck you. Fuck you both! It’s fucking 1100 fucking degrees out here, and I’ve been waiting on your drugged out, drunken, fucking stupid-ass fucking selves for two fucking hours. I’m fucking pissed. I’m fucking hot. I’m fucking hot and pissed. Fuck, fuck, fuck! It must be fucking flaming turdmonger day!”

 

Lankster reached up and grabbed the window, but the door still proved to be wobbly. After a few seconds of him failing to right himself he decided to just crawl out from behind the van-door.

 

Dude-man kept heaving but was relieved to see nothing more coming out.

 

Scott was still just standing there with his fists clenched and his face growing redder and redder. A few beads of sweat formed on Scott’s brow and ran together and formed one large bead of sweat near the bridge of his nose. From there, the jumbo sweat-bead rolled down to the tip of his nose where it briefly contemplated its existence before jumping off and plunging to its death.

 

Lankster looked up and said, “Duuude-man, we’re flaming turdmongers.”

 

Dude-man only nodded.

 

Scott turned around to sit back down, saw his comfy chair sitting upside down, kicked it out of his way and stormed out of the garage into the house.

 

Lankster crawled to the front of the van, saw Dude-man admiring his days work, and smiled. “Dude-man, we’re the flaming turdmongers.”

 

Dude-man smiled his approval.