“Dick, you’re gonna have to hide your Ruger collection until dad’s suicidal tendencies go away,” I told my roommate.
Nicky Wallz was recently released from the psych ward. To help get him back on his feet, I agreed to let him stay with Dick and me.
“Aye lad are you sure Nicky’s yer da and wasn’t just trying to get out of paying you $15?” Dick asked.
“I’ve never known Nicky to lie.”
There was a knock on the door. Nicky waddled in completely disheveled and reeking of skid row.
“It’s swell of you guys to take me in. I sure do appreciate it. I’ll try not to be a burden,” Nicky said.
“You just let us know if you need anything.”
Dick called for me into the kitchen. “Aye mate, how long is he gonna be stayin’ with us? The man’s still walkin aroond in his shittee underwear,” he said.
I turned around and Nicky was pissing into an air vent.
“No no dad, the bathroom’s over here.”
Dick was right. I had to find another option.
So I went back to work at the toilet factory and in walked Dale, fresh out of the hospital after taking a sniper round to the leg during a hostage situation weeks earlier.
“Dale how’ve you been you lunatic bastard! Long time, no see,” I tell him.
He was all smiles.
“Boy I tell ya,” Dale said. “This new medication is working out great! I have absolutely no urge to walk in here with my Mossberg 12 Gauge and shoot the place up. Life’s been great!”
“I’m happy for you Dale. But how are you doing living out in the woods all by yourself?Without your family? Without friends?Completely ostracized from society? Not permitted to be within 500 yards of any school or church due to your shameful, shameful deeds?”
“Come to think of it, it is quite lonely out there,” Dale said.
“Well shit Dale, why didn’t you say something?! My father is looking for a place to stay. You two would get along great!”
I’m always happy to play matchmaker.
So I had that problem solved. Now I just had to take my dad out to Riverside County 😕
“I’m gonna slap those chilli fries right out your mouth,” Jenny, my mother, said.
“Jenny, I’m just asking you if Nicky Wallz is my father,” I replied.
“I don’t know who da fuck dis Nicky is, but he can suck my lef nut,” she said. My mother never explained how she got a Brooklyn accent.
“Ma, did you ever take in a homeless kid 30 some years ago?”
“It was da 80s, everybody was doin wacky shit then,” Jenny replied as she took a drag off her cigarette through her stoma.
I couldn’t stand to be around her when she was like this. I started to walk away.
“Where are you goin?” she asked.
“I gotta take a shit Ma!”
Later I was browsing the porno mags in Safeway when a strange woman bumped her cart into me.
“Watch it lady!” I yelled.
It was Anthrax. I haven’t seen her since I escaped from that exploding warehouse.
“Hello James,” she said.
“Anthrax”
“I just thought I should tell you that I am three months sober. I am attending AA and I am currently seeking to make amends to those I have harmed. Therefore, I apologize for drugging and kidnapping you, and putting objects up your rectum.”
I was shocked.
“Well, you are forgiven. And I am sorry for squeezing your tit and pistol whipping you unconscious,” I replied.
“I forgive you as well,” she said.
We both stood there in awkward silence. Finally I spoke up.
“Say, can I get you a cup of coffee?”
“Yes. I would like that,” Anthrax replied stoically.
We didn’t have much to say at the coffee shop. I was still hyped up on the MDMA I took earlier, so I just drank water.
“So what happened to Honda after that deadly explosion that nearly destroyed West Hollywood? Is she okay?” I asked.
“Her face was ripped off and her arms and legs were mangled beyond repair. She survived though, whisked off by the black shirt men to an undisclosed location,” Anthrax replied.
“Well that sucks. Weren’t you two close?”
“Yes. We were sisters in the crime syndicate known as TOILET: Terrorism Or the International League that Engages in Terrorism. Honda rescued me as a small child off the streets of Stockholm and trained me in the ways thievery, extortion, and deception. I owe her my life. I would do anything to find her.”
“But how did you survive that explosion?” I asked.
“I have my ways”
Anthrax continued to sip on her coffee. I took one last gulp of my water.
I shot up on some ‘roids to help with my low T when I got pissed off.
“That mother fucker,” I though. “He borrowed $15 from me ten years ago and never paid me back.”
I was of course thinking of Nicky Wallz, a bouncer at a strip club I once frequented. I lost touch with him after the joint got shot up in a disastrous FBI raid.
“I’m gonna beat his ass,” I thought. But I didn’t know where to find him.
Dick was sitting there, cutting away a slice of deer meat with his sawtooth Bowie, when I asked him: “I need you to find me a Nicky Wallz.”
“Aye mate,” he replied. “The price es steep though lad. Ya donnae have a penny to yur name. I just a might be callin n a favour from ya.”
“Just find him.”
Weeks went by. In my restlessness, I began bulking and sculpting. I fought every shit heel in the bar that wanted some, smashing glass and busting heads…all in preparation for my showdown with Nicky Wallz. But Dick was dragging his ass.
“Hey Dick!” I yelled. “What’s the word on Nicky? I told you to find him seven weeks ago. You better not be cruising the the rest stops again.”
“Oy mate, I see ya lookin’ fit lad. But donnae talk to me like tha again. Or else I’ll stab ya in the scrote,” he replied.
“Oh you want some of this?”
“Aye I do.”
We both removed our shirts, displaying our perfectly sculpted abs and chest. Before we fought, we rubbed each other in oil…down our arms, down our legs…before removing our underwear, where I used the oil to rub his magnificent c—…..
Anyways, after venting my frustrations, Dick asked me, “Aye mate, why you bein such a snoot lately? What is it with this Nicky fella?”
I didn’t know how to answer.
“Perhaps I just haven’t noticed how the time has passed,” I said. “I’m getting older. I’m losing friends, acquaintances. Maybe they’ve moved on and I haven’t. I just feel like I’ve learned nothing. Nothing of importance. Nothing about myself.”
We sat in silence for a few moments.
Dick spoke up. “Well lad, I found him weeks ago but didnae wanna tell ya. Maybe let sleepin’ dogs lie yeah?”
Maybe he was right. Nevertheless…
“Where is he?” I asked.
Dick and I went down to the Los Angeles County Hospital, Psych Ward B. The doctor warned us to handle Nicky with utmost care. The nurses were handing out meals to the patients when I walked up to Nicky and slapped the trey out of his hands.
“Recognize me asshole!” I said.
Amazed, Nicky said, “James, you’re alive old friend?”
“Still?! Old friend?!” I said. “Where’s my $15 you piece of shit?”
“Is that what this is about? Money? Nothing else?” he replied.
“What do you mean?”
“James, when I was 15, I was homeless and sleeping under a car. An older woman found me and took me in. She fed me. Clothed me. And gave me an education. We were close. Too close. We began a forbidden love affair. It was wrong, we both knew that. We tried to hide it, but the authorities found out. They took her away but not before we sired a child. That woman was Jenny, your mother.”
“Horseshit,” I said.
“Not horseshit. My only regret is never having the heart to tell you. After that strip club got shot up to absolute shreds, I never recovered. That’s why I’m here, because I just can’t bear the guilt of knowing who I am.”
Dick and me left the hospital in quiet contemplation. Could it be true? How could my mother have hid this from me?
We wandered back to the car then I pulled out a cigarette. I said to Dick:
I was hopping up and down to the sounds of 80s pop phenom Human League when there was a pound on the door.
“Open up! It’s LAPD!”
It was Randy. I wasn’t fooled.
“What can I do for you Randy?” I asked.
“Can you believe they let me out on bail?! I mean, seven vehicular manslaughter charges!! That’s crazy!” Randy said.
He was flanked by his two female henchmen, Anthrax and Honda. As Randy hoot and hollered, the ladies just stood there, arms crossed.
“So Jimmy, wanna do some drugs? I gotta speedball here,” he asked.
“Gee, I don’t know Randy. Isn’t that dangerous?”
“Not at all! Everyone’s doing it.”
He didn’t have to tell me twice.
Eventually I found myself in a daze sitting in the backseat of Randy’s Pontiac between Anthrax and Honda. Randy was driving like a maniac down the streets of West Hollywood when he looked to the backseat. “You see! I told you everything will be alright!” he said.
I didn’t think anything was suspicious.
Finally Anthrax and Honda carried me out of the car and into the back of an abandoned warehouse. I recognized the place. I survived a stabbing there a month earlier. They laid me down in a tub of ice and an overweight German doctor wearing a lab coat and nipple piercings tried to load me up with barbiturates.
However the joke was on them. I was always loaded up on barbiturates.
But then it occurred to me.
“Fuck, they’re gonna harvest my organs.” I thought.
Now, like most people, I’ve had to talk my way out of an organ harvesting attempt before. But this one was different.
It was going to take some skill.
“You know, there’s other ways of making a quick buck,” I said to Anthrax. “You can humiliate yourself in front of complete strangers on the internet like I do.”
But she stood there motionless. So I tried a different tactic: the art of seduction.
“It’s a shame I’m about to die. I wish we’ve gotten to know one another more. But, I guess I should count myself lucky. At least the last thing I’ll ever see is your beautiful face,” I said.
Finally Anthrax uncrossed her arms and adjusted her posture. Clearly she was responding to what I was saying.
“I have a confession to make. That time when you and Randy cornered me behind Dick’s Sporting Goods, pulled down my pants and shoved golf balls up my ass, I thought: ‘I could spend the rest of my life with this woman.’ Well it appears I’ll get that chance,” I told her.
Finally she removed her black Gargoyle sunglasses so I could see her eyes.
“I believe it’s customary to grant a dying man his last request,” I said.
“What’s that?” Anthrax replied. “A kiss? How lame.”
“No. I just want to cop a feel.”
She stood there and thought for a second. Finally she moved in closer, removed the handcuffs from my left wrist and placed my hand down her low cut tank. I then grasped as hard as I could on to her tit.
“Ow my titty!” Anthrax screamed.
I then leapt out of the bathtub and kicked Honda in the coot as she moved in closer. I grabbed her nickel plated .45 and pistol whipped Anthrax unconscious. With both henchwomen neutralized, I moved over to the doctor.
“Nein nein nein!” the man screamed. “Ich spreche kein Englisch. Ich weiß nicht wo ich bin!”
“I don’t want to hear that shit!” I yelled while he stared down my .45. “Where’s Randy?!”
I took the doctor by gunpoint into Randy’s lair. There were computer monitors everywhere with live feeds from CCTV cameras all over the world. Mostly in women’s bathrooms.
There were also scientists everywhere and a shit ton of beakers.
“Well well well,” Randy said menacingly. “It appears that you foiled my plan.”
“This ends now, Randy.”
“No, you can’t stop me. The LAPD can’t stop me. INTERPOL can’t stop me. Not even unadulterated black tar heroin can stop me! You will never catch me Jimmy, so help me GOD!”
At that moment, men in black shirts began pouring out of every dark corner, firing their AK-47s indiscriminately at me. I used the doctor as a shield while I fired back.
In the mayhem, Randy disappeared while a timer began a countdown to 0 before 200 tons of dynamite exploded. As the clock ticked down, I jumped through the glass window, falling 14 stories into a dumpster while the warehouse exploded into a magnificent fireball, lighting up the Los Angeles skyline.
When the police and fire department arrived, I chastised the New York police officer with the LAPD for releasing Randy on bail.
“We didn’t let Randy out on bail. Dat man is dangerous! He escaped weeks ago!” the officer said while shoveling a hot dog into his mouth.
Then a junior officer came running out of the wreckage, claiming they didn’t find the bodies of Randy or anyone else.
“Say, are you sure that you were kidnapped and held against your will and did not just blow up 16 square blocks of West Hollywood because you were high on methamphetamine?” the New York officer asked.
I knew it.
Randy escaped.
We faced off once. But I knew that he’d come back for vengeance.
“Weaver’s my name. Dick Weaver,” the tall burly Scotsman told me. “I was a whaler fer 13 year. Been a private eye fer 15.”
The man was covered in hair from head to toe. He wore only plaid. And denim.
His jeans were tight.
I put out an add for a roommate to help with rent. Dick was the only one who responded.
Dick sat down, pulled a cracker out of his toboggan, then started munching.
“Listen here young lad, let’s set some ground rules. Me bein a private dick, I do ne wanchya snoopin around me business. If I catch ya, I’ll kill ya. If I see ya sippin on me Irn-bru, I’ll kill ya. If I catch ya eatin me powsowdie, I’ll eat yur cock for breakfast,” he told me.
“Fair enough,” I said.
After I showed him his bedroom, he grunted for a bit and then slammed the door. I went to bed.
The next morning, Dick was hanging up clandestinely taken pictures of naked women on the wall.
“You said you were a private eye, right?” I asked.
“Aye”
“Is this a special case you’re working on?” I inquired.
“What business is that of yurs? Eh boy? Ask again an I’ll crack open ye noggin!” Dick angerly retorted.
“I was just asking. Jesus!”
That night, I was lying in bed when I heard some stomping around then considerable hootin’ n hollerin’ outside. It was none of my business. Hours later, Dick came stumbling into my room drunk as all get-out.
“Aye boy, I got to bein pissed at the pub an met a nice ol hen behin tha bar. Aye brought er here but she got to slippin digits n me hole. Aye it was a’right first but then I shat me britches,” he said.
“So you were smashing ass and then you shit the bed?”
“Aye. I cannae sleep because the sheets are covered in shite.”
“Well climb on in.”
Dick got under the covers. We shared a shot of whisky and a few tales of his time at sea before falling fast asleep.
The next morning, I awoke to find Dick wide awake and his hair-swirled chest in full view. I was fully clothed.“Top of the mornin’ to ya,” he said.
He climbed out of bed and his buttcheeks were beaten blood red.
“Aye boy,” Dick said. “I s’pose I should be congratulatin ya. You rammed me a new one!”
So Dale took me hostage at gunpoint in the breakroom. The boss walked in and saw me in a chokehold with a Smith & Wesson to my head and called the police. The cops subsequently called in a hostage negotiator.
I was in no mood to put up with this shit.
“Just shoot me already, Dale. Let’s get this over with,” I said.
The cops had the building surrounded with their weapons drawn and ready to shoot. The negotiator came out over his loud speaker:
“Dale, my name is Philip, we’re all here to help you. Tell us, what can we do for you?”
“Listen you mother fuckers!,” Dale said. “I just want to talk to my wife and kids again, a little respect, and a plane ticket to Columbia!”
“Okay okay. We can get you the plane ticket, but we need you to drop your weapon,” the negotiator replied.
“No! If I don’t get what I want I will blow this dipshit’s brains out! Tell him, James!” Dale declared.
“He will!” I said. “But don’t worry about it. I’m ready to die.”
Then a sniper round went through Dale’s leg, severing a major artery, and spraying blood everywhere. Dale screamed in agonizing pain, begging for death.
I was okay
But facing my own mortality made me ask some difficult questions: should I pay my mother’s nursing home expenses or should I pay my gambling debts?
I visited Dale in the hospital and he appeared to be in better spirits.
“Great news Jim,” he said. “It appears my violent tendencies lately have been due to a bad interaction with my medications! So now I’m on Xanax!”
“Oh that’s good to hear! What about your wife and kids?” I asked.
“Oh don’t worry about that. I’m sure my wife will lift that restraining order eventually.”
“What about your assault charges?,” I asked.
“Welp, I took a plea deal so now it’s 14,000 hours of community service and I have to register as a sex offender. But no jail time 😎”
So I decided to not press charges against Dale for threatening my life and putting others in danger.
So I was dropping acid at a Hoobastank concert when I got punched in the face.
“What the hell man!” I yelled.
“Oh, sorry sir, I thought you were my wife.”
Unfortunately it was at that moment when the acid kicked in. By the time band played “Naked Jock Man”, I was on an intergalactic journey with Carl Sagan.
I woke up in the ICU and the lady doctor told me that I had a “concussion and picked up an STD.” After I was discharged, I went up to the doctor and asked:
“Hey, wanna get a drink?”
“I don’t date patients,” she replied.
“Who said that this was a date? It’s just two people getting together over drinks.“
“Sir, you have hepatitis A, B, and C. You’re on the verge of both kidney and liver failure. You obviously have a massive pill addiction. AND you have crippling diabetes. If you don’t change your lifestyle right now, you will be dead in four years,” she told me.
So I was watching porn on my work computer when I heard the sounds of death blasting from my co-worker’s phone.
I said, “Dale, what are you watching?”
He said, “It’s a documentary about the Battle of Tannenberg during World War I. It was a nightmarish time in global affairs. Men were senselessly butchered for the sake of gaining a few yards on the battlefield. How callous were such leaders? To permit the deaths of so, so many people? Is human life that meaningless to those in power? How could god permit such suffering? Have we been forsaken?”
“We’ll keep it down over there,” I replied.
So I went back to minding my own business when I heard Dale loading his Colt Cobra.
I said, “Dale, so help me god, if you don’t quiet down I will grab that gun and use it myself.”
“Sorry,” he replied “I’m just a little suicidal from my multiple bankruptcy filings and sexual assault charges.”
“Don’t worry about it.” I said
Finally when there was a little peace and quiet, Dale comes around the corner pointing his gun at me and crying profusely.
“I’m sorry Jim”, he says. “Everyone has abandoned me. My wife left. And my kids won’t talk to me.”
“So what do you want from me, Dale?” I replied. “My wallet? The keys to my car?”
“I want someone to listen to me for once in my life! I had a very lonely childhood. My parents never listened to me, I had no friends. I suffered from dyslexia and all my teachers thought I was stupid. Just absolutely stupid! I’m not a bad person. I’m just misunderstood and have been my entire life. Just for once, I want someone to understand me! That’s all I’ve ever wanted!”
Out of frustration, Dale fired his Colt directly into my computer. We stared at each other for what felt like an eternity, not knowing what would happen next. As I looked into Dale’s eyes in terror, I knew that he didn’t have the heart to shoot me. He was just a broken man and out of options.
Finally, he laid the gun down and sat down then buried his head in his hands. We both sat in silence for a few moments.
“Well,” I said. “How about I just give you my wallet.”