Forty

Being yanked up out of a dead sleep following a four-day bout of Drunkosis ain’t no fun a’tall. ‘Specially when it’s bein’ done by the horrid, nerve-scrapin’, nails-on-chalkboard screech-ring of one of those sissy-ass Princess Gawdamn phones the ol’ lady’s so friggin’ fond of. That is, she was – right up until I’d come home a few days early from a toy run out Arizona way . . . to catch her cheatin’ ass knockin’ boots with some geek mechanic from that sleazy garage down the road aways. Looks like the ol’ lady’s cage ain’t the only thing that’s been gettin’ services around here, if ya catch my meaning: “Want me to, like, check under yer ‘hood, ma’am?” Nope, not in my rack, thank you!

Anyway, the newly-ex soon followed her belongings out the door, and the geek, who was sorta out cold on the bedroom floor by then, soon followed his clothes . . . out of the bedroom window. And wouldn’tcha know it, seems like some as yet unspecified somebody kinda sorta forgot to open it up, first (Oops! Silly me!).

Not that I have it in for geek-types, ya understand, just the ones I catch red-handed (or would that be “pink cheeked”?) doin’ my ol’ lady. In my bed. Hell, by the time I’d actually started to get pissed at him for smashin’ up my bedroom window as he’d flown through it all willy-nilly like that, the ex had already come ‘round to that side of the house to see what the loud crashy-tinkly sound was; seeing her geek laid out amidst the wreckage of the shattered glass and framework of the window got her started cussin’ at me something fierce and foul.

Grabbing one spindly geek leg, she started dragging his scrawny, nekkid ass around to the front, leaving a trail of darkness through the dewy grass. He was face-down (grass-cuts on yer crank? YEOWCH), too, but she managed to get him into her beater of a car, climbed behind the wheel and tore outta there with a squeal of tires and slung gravel almost loud enough to drown out all the vile cussing she was still doin’. Then … sweet, blessed silence. I was free. Free. And that’s when I started drinking.

Oh, I wasn’t bummed over losing the wench or whatever, far from it. Hell, I was partyin’! No more of that annoying voice whining about grease and oil stains on the carpet from me parking my Harley in the living room (what, she thought maybe I should leave it parked outside or sumthin’? In the rain!?). No more of that nasty-ass pink bubble-gum-flavored lip gloss she likes so much smearing up all my favourite cups and mugs, making me a laughingstock among my bros, and (best of all, I gotta tell ya) no more of those sissy-ass pink Princess Gawddamn phones!

RINGRINGRING!

Which sorta brings us back to the beginning of this sad woeful tale.

RINGRINGRING!

Judging from the horrid pinkness invading my tightly-squinched eyelids, either it was daytime outside, or I’d left the bedroom light on (I could tell I was in the bedroom from the soft but steady breeze blowin’ in through the window wreckage).

Head pounding, eyes still shut tight against the hurtful light, and I wasn’t about to add to the pain and discomfort by doing something as silly as opening them up just so’s I could see what the hell I was doing. I reached out a trembling hand in a vague, half-hearted quest for the phone, sleep-numbed fingers scrabbling over tangled sheets, blankets, soiled clothing, and other nameless what-nots until I found something.

Ah-hah! I thought, pleased with my success, and answered the phone.

“Whatdafuck?” I rasped politely. Hey, us biker-types can be polite when we wanna be, ya know! Besides, I needed whoever was on the other end to identify himself or herself so’s I’d know who to get back at for causing me so much grief. See? Sometimes it pays to be polite.

RINGRINGRING!

Okay, it mighta took me a second RINGRINGRING! or three to figure maybe something wasn’t quite right, there, but when I did, I remember wondering just what the hell it was that I was holding snuggled all cozy-like against my face. I took a deep breath in preparation to begin swearin’.

That’s when the putrid, vile stench ripped its way into my poor, defenseless nose, stomped all over my unsuspectin’ sinuses with hobnailed boots, before finally clawing a bloody path into the back of whatever the hell I was using for a brain, those days, because it seems I’d answered one of my old but still ripe sneakers, damn it!

“Ack!” I chocked, throwing it violently away from me, out the window, I think; my stomach, never very steady even on the best of days, lurched sickeningly. Ohhh, Gawd, I wondered, my feet smell like … like … that? RINGRINGRING!

I took another deep (but this time steadying) breath, trying to gather up my courage as I pushed out another hand, trembling fingers skittering nervously over and through the contents of an over-full ashtray before finding a larger, heavier something; by this time, I had enough wits about me to take a few precautions against a possible repeat of that last near disaster, so I gave the item a squeeze or two. Hmmm, hard, like the handset of phone should be, cool to the touch (so far, so good), and seemed to be the right shape, as well: cylindrical, like a Princess should be.

HAH! I crowd in my still somewhat-sleep-befuddled mind and certain I’d finally found the phone; I lifted the receiver to answer it.

“Fuckyawant?” I growled, still faking politeness (I’m a big softy, what can I say?). Things were starting to look up, I was sure.

Until I felt the warm, stale beer burblin’ down over my face, neck, and chest. So, I did the only thing any bro would have done, to regain some of the self-respect I’d lost since bein’ dragged kicking’ and screamin’ (or should that be “twitchin’ and whimperin’?) From what I was pretty sure had been pleasant dreams, I drank what was left in the bottle I’d just answered.

Spitting out the soggy cigarette butt (always a nice flavor) I had almost swallowed was more or less automatic by then. But my stomach gave a violent lurch of protest, twitching nervously for a few moments before finally settling down.

RINGRINGRING! the princess screeched with taunting, maniacal laughter.

I curled up into a nice, safe fetal position, wondering vaguely but pretty much uncaring by that point what terrible instrument of torture I’d find myself answering next: Bowie knife? Straight Razor? A handgun with a nice, touchy hair-trigger, maybe? That’d be nice, I nodded hopefully, because then it’d be me or the Princess, and what with the way things had been going so far, I was pretty sure what the outcome of that one would be.

RINGRINGRING!

I’d started nodding off to sweet visions of eating a nine-milli(meter)gram headache pill, pushed out the hand whose thumb I wasn’t sucking in one last, half-hearted, half-asleep effort to find that elusive damned phone. I shoulda quit while I was behind, I guess, because all I managed to accomplish was to push myself off the bed, but at least it was accomplished with a helpless little squawk, right?

Well, I landed on my left side, hitting the barely (and very poorly) carpeted hardwood floor with a jarring thump and whoosh of all the air in my lungs being forcefully expelled by the impact. My noggin, however, landed on some kind of hard, blunt object with a bright explosion of stars, a sharp burst of pain, and a loud, memorable but easily identifiable “ka-CHINNNNGARRRINNNNG!”

That was fun! Of course, so are root canals. And broken bones. Great, now I’m wondering if I’ve gone and busted my fool head open, I thought, beginning to twitch and spasm.

“Mr. Voorling?” the pixie asked. Well, no shit, Dancer Voorling, that’s me.

“Eep?” I mighta squeaked. But I’m pretty certain I squeaked it forcefully (sniff).

“Good morning, sir!” piped the demon brightly through the ringing in my ears. Or was that ringing the princess?

“Urk?” Where the hell is that Nine, anyway? I wondered.

“Mr. Voor—Can I call you Dancer?” asked the gnome.

“Ulp?” Huh, do I even own a handgun? I couldn’t seem to remember.

“Great,” said the imp officiously. “I’m calling on behalf of your wife, Kristin—lovely woman, by the way, sir—who recently explained to us here at Phantasee Phones that you’d soon be wanting to replace your current model of Princess, Pink, with another. “

“Snerklefrippin’ Princess . . .” Maybe if I looked under the bed?

“—so, it behooves us to get right on it and contact you to see if there are any other needs you may have, such as, do you want the . . .“

I peeped an eye open to try and find that elusive Nine, only to find myself staring the Princess right in her pink receiver. Hel-lo! So, I wasn’t hearing voices after all! That’s a relief, lemme tell ya! (Phwew!)

“—think that, in all my seven-point-nine years working this job, I have never seen let alone processed an order this large for a home-use situation, sir. I want you to know that I am so very proud to be the one who—“

Wait, wait just one single Gawddamned minute here! Order? What order?

“—they told to charge the order to your—“

Oh, Gawd, please, not my ten-thousand-dollar limit

“—Visa Emerald card, why, I knew right off that—“

That’s when my wonderfully reliable (as in, I could always rely on it to do the exact wrong thing at the worst possible moment) stomach twitched, lurched, heaved, and then spewed. Erupted, really, since I was by that time lying face-up, so up it went, all that vomit, an explosive eruption shooting skywards as active volcanoes are wont to do. And what goes up, as the saying goes, must come down, and down it came, those projectile-vomited stomach contents, in a huge, noxious splatter of flat, stale beer, diluted tequila, partially digested nachos and chill cheese dogs, pizza and whatever else I’d scarfed down over those two or three days of partyin’. Come to think of it, I coulda swore I saw two mescal worms sword-fighting with cocktail toothpick while wrangling pepperoni slices!

But even with all of that going on in both my head and the real world, I’d heard every word that perky little shit of a salesman said: “Available options,” he’d piped sunnily. “Installment fees,” he’d added brightly. “Easily affordable accessories,” he’d tacked on greedily, smugly, certain of a sale, certain he’d be laying his money-grubbing mitts on my money, was he? My teeth started to scritch as I began grinding them together, and I think my blood pressure took a serious hit that day, because I had also started seeing red.

“—also wanted to congratulate you on earning me the coveted Employee of the Month Award, and als—“

I rolled over in the mush (sword-fighting worms be damned), found and grabbed ahold of the phone’s receiver, started strangling it for all I was worth, a’slippin’ and a’slidin’ and a’rollin’ around in my own foul-smelling vomit until I was pretty much coated heat-to-toe in carpet lint, dust-bunnies, stench, the spilled contents of the aforementioned over-full ashtray I’d somehow managed to clutch onto and drag with me as I’d slipped over the edge of the bed, and Gawd alone knows what the hell else had been ground into that carpeting over the years.
But that guy just wouldn’t . . . stop . . .squawkin’, no matter how hard I choked that horrible phone! My hands got so damn tired after a while, I had to stop and rest, gathering my fast-fading strength for another go-round; it was during that brief respite that it happened, I heard it, plain as day (and has anybody seen that damned Nine I can’t seem to locate?):

“—e informed us of your preferred color-scheme, not to mention the classic style and model, why, I just felt the need to thank you for helping me move so many of that not-so-popular old model. You have impeccable taste, sir! I tip my hat to you! I think that you are quite the discerning customer, Mr. Voorling, and that your choice of color is a fine one: “Hot Neon Pinkeroo” is a totally happening hue whose time has come! And when you put it with the classic style of gold-accented Princess base and handset, why, there’s nothin’ . . . Sir? Dancer? Mr. Voorling, are you okay, Sir? Sir? Are you o—“

That’s when some bozo started screaming and crying at the same time, just incoherent gibberish, really, and everything just sorta went a disgustingly horrifying shade of pink.